After giving years of my life to this paper and reaching the point of my career where people have to listen to me, I’m returning to the marsh I crawled out of, Chicago. Have I lost my mind?
I’m writing to you from the road. In the last 30 hours, I have bruised my entire body hauling my most prized possessions down the stairs, gifted my less-than-prized possessions to a curb in Capitol Hill, woke up in a state where it is illegal for me to pee, and spent exorbitantly on gas thanks to Trump’s idiot war in Iran. I am on US Route 212 East, where I am on deer watch. Deer undermine what should be our shared mission of keeping them alive by running stupidly at death. Oh, another dead one. Congrats to her; this was her Jellicle Ball.
I am not insane. I am moving home for a job at our sister publication, the Chicago Reader. The box merchant at UPS did not agree that moving to Chicago is sane. He thought all the neighborhoods were very scary. Incorrect. Only some of them are very scary, like River North. It sucks there. Part of moving back is trading tech bros for just bros. I can accept this. My coworkers cannot accept this, and I take their displeasure as a sign of unyielding love and admiration. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s mutual.
I spent five years and two months of my life in Seattle, three years and five months of them at The Stranger. It defined my life here, mostly because working at The Stranger leaves a person with very little extra time. All the near deer strikes have given me the space to consider two things: which of my prized possessions would embed itself in my skull if we crashed into a deer right now, and what it means to be a Stranger writer.
I only have 400 words, so I’ll keep this brief, using examples from this very issue: Stranger writers must be funny (pg. 24), hungry and/or thirsty (pg. 47), emotionally intelligent (pg. 35), emotionally unintelligent (pg. 8), aware of what makes this city special (pg. 43), and sick of what makes this city fucking suck sometimes (pg. 12). Lastly, a Stranger writer often works when they aren’t supposed to, like when they’re the designated deer spotter at 10 p.m. on a cross-country road trip.
Perhaps this is all too much crawling into my own ass. In my defense, it is very warm, and Chicago is very cold. I am finishing this in South Dakota, where the only gender is biker. My girlfriend is setting up our new electric account. Wall Drug awaits. I wrote 48 words over.
Thanks, Seattle,
Vivian
This Issue Brought to You By
Sacrificing a hot dog pin to the Bikini Kill mosh pit
Stage Girl by Eli
Workplace mercenaries
Wearing a dress covered in sequins and spinning around and around and around in it until you almost fall over at the Genius Awards in front of everyone you know
Comptooters
Not All Men™ but certainly most of them at this point!
New tattoo as a little treat
Spilling a whole sample of Troye Sivan’s perfume on myself
Girl bossing
Eating all the playdog
OTTOGI Otoki Cheesy Ramen made with frozen peas and the cheese powder packet’s “cheese pro” level
Robitussin
Move it Sis!
Tongue kissing your dog after he ate peanuts
Press-on nails
[Barely] Surviving your in-laws
Prophesizing a car crash, and then becoming a car crash victim
Gabby Pentin
A 4.2 earthquake
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
Chicago
My big Russian history phase
Gnarly insomnia
1 milligram sleepy weed gummies
Cloud tops on coffee (yeah I didn’t see this phase coming either)
Nail-biting relapse
Suicidal deer or plaintive bison
Cover art: Adrain Chesser & Timothy White Eagle
