Home is where the heart is.

It's reposting, but this is a busy time of year for me and if I can't write something original, I can at least give you something appropos.

There's a quiet in the suburbs that doesn't exist in the city.

When I stepped outside onto the snowy folds of my parents' back deck last night, I noticed it.

It's remarkable, the calm. Maybe that's why I go back so often. There's a peace of mind this place gives me that nothing else can.

When my world starts getting a little fuzzy around the edges and I feel like at any moment my heels could slip off the ledge, I pack up some stuff, take to the Kennedy and go home.

My mom always scolds me every time I leave her place and say, "I'm going home." She says,

"No. You ARE home. This is your home. THAT'S your apartment."
She's right.

I am home here.

And that's something I didn't really value until my twenty-eighth year on this Earth.

Shame on me.

Yesterday night I came home to find an empty house; no one else was there. I like it this way. I imagine having my own house one day, big and open all around me, sheltering and defining. The spaces of my parents' house are intimate and familiar. Each corner my own. Each creak of the walls and moan of the stairs predictable under my feet.

And that's a safe feeling.

Because when it comes down to it, that's what we all want. To feel safe. And accepted.

Life doesn't always give us these opportunities to fit somewhere so perfectly.

I walked out onto the back deck last night and breathed in deep. The only sound for miles, my own breath.

Nice turn signal, you f-cking f-ck!

As the holiday rush begins, my road rage increases.

I know a lot of you are damn near religious about public transportation.

Not me, my friends. I LOVE traffic. I love sitting in my car for two to three hours to go eleven miles. I enjoy swerving every five and a half seconds to avoid tragically sideswiping every biker in the city who thinks he is Kevin Bacon in Quicksilver. My heart fills with joy when Kennedy on-ramp traffic backs up all the way to Wrigley Field.

And drivers in Chicago seem to be getting worse and worse with every passing year on the roads. Last night I found myself calling the driver in the car in front of me a "Fucking Ass Face" because he wasn't going 85 in a 65 like me.

There is a stretch of road where Lake Shore Drive and the Stevenson meet that makes my morning commute a particular joy. Though this patch of highway is only about .8 miles long, it is the most treacherous eighth of a mile in what I believe could be all of Illinois.

There are people going 80 mph alongside people going 20. There are trucks trying to get from the far left lane to the State Street off ramp by taking it three lanes at a time. No one uses their turn signals. It's like fucking Nascar at 8:30 a.m. The Autobahn at 8:45. Someone is ALWAYS pulled over on the shoulder with their hazards on, waving traffic to the other side of the road causing everyone in the right lane to slow down to 15 mph.

Every day moves me closer to an inevitable cardiac arrest, high blood pressure, tension headaches. I am one grandma in a Buick away from staring down from a clock tower with a sniper rifle and panty hose over my head.

I can't even keep writing about this because I am utterly disgusted.