The Great Snow of 2007-2037

It's snowing to beat the band outside. It started at 12:00 noon, and it's expected to stop sometime in 2037. Just kidding (I hope). I think it's actually supposed to stop tomorrow night. The expected accumulation is 6 inches but they never tell the truth about these things. I always throw a few inches on top just to be sure. But the wind tomorrow is supposed to be worse: 20-30 mph with 40 mph gusts. [Insert any old "Windy City" joke here.]

My first day back at work in two weeks was...a let down. Sort of. I expected a few problems to be resolved and some improvements made but I have always attached too much importance to the outcome of my expectations. It's a fault of mine. Thanks to a relatively low call count, I was able to put some sort of semblance of order into our e-mail system and handle some back issues. Maybe I'm taking the job too seriously but I'm trying to do a better job of presenting a friendly and responsive Baha'i Distribution Service.

After work, I went down to the House of Worship (HoW) as I'd promised someone I would do. By that time the snow was getting a little out of hand so I decided to drive lest I turn into a snowman on the walk down and back. I was able to pray in peace and silence for a while before it was time for the evening devotional sponsored by the staff of the HoW. They're typically your standard devotional service but occasionally there's something especially nice, like this evening there was a lady who sang so beautifully that it brought me to tears. She sang one of the Hidden Words in Spanish and English: "O My Servant! Free thyself from the fetters of this world, and loose thy soul from the prison of self. Seize thy chance, for it will come to thee no more." It was clear that she had sung in the Temple before because she knew how to work the acoustics very well, drawing out a note here or adjusting her tone there so that it rose as high as the Greatest Name at the apex of the Temple's dome.

Since I'm off for work tomorrow for New Year's, I went to the store and bought a nice pork roast to cook in the slow cooker so I'll have something decent to eat tomorrow. There's no better time than a holiday to take a break from the Raman noodles and eat something...well...edible. Of course the last time I tried to cook some real food the oven practically burst into flames, so let's hope this doesn't turn into the same type of culinary abortion.

Yesterday I made a foray into the world of Chicagoland shopping. I went to Westfield's Old Orchard Mall in Skokie, which is pretty much the biggest monument to free market capitalism that I've ever seen. The anchor stores are Macy's, Nordstrom's, Lord & Taylor and Bloomingdales, and then just throw in probably 200 other stores, including a Loew's Movie Theater and a Barnes & Noble. It took me literally 15-20 minutes to find a parking spot. I could only bring myself to visit Macy's, Nordstrom's and Lord & Taylor. I was after a pair of gloves, a scarf and some new socks. I got most of that at Macy's, and I just wanted to swing by Nordstrom's to see if there was actually anything on sale. I quickly determined I could never afford anything in that store and moved on to Lord & Taylor.

In Macy's, I panicked because I forgot which door I came in. I could see myself wandering the mall complex aimlessly like a man in the desert. All in all I think I braved the storm pretty well, although I was acting like a bit of a slack-jawed yokel by gawking at all the stores and all the pretty things I'll never have. But to be honest, it's kind of nice to know what you want and know what your limit is and go into the store and get exactly what you want without spending more than you intended. In comparison to people who go thousands of dollars in debt chasing the latest fashions and trends, it's not really all that bad.

I have had this quote from Baha'u'llah in my head (mostly because there's a song made of the "Ye are the stars..." portion), so I guess I'll close with that:

"O friends! Be not careless of the virtues with which ye have been endowed, neither be neglectful of your high destiny. Suffer not your labors to be wasted through the vain imaginations which certain hearts have devised. Ye are the stars of the heaven of understanding, the breeze that stirreth at the break of day, the soft-flowing waters upon which must depend the very life of all men, the letters inscribed upon His sacred scroll."

- Baha'u'llah

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Stranger in a Foreign Land

I wish I had the energy at the end of the day to do a better job of blogging but by the time I get home and cook something for dinner I'm so tired that all I want to do is eat, watch some TV and go to sleep. It's an incredibly pathetic routine for someone my age, even considering how much of a natural home body I am. However, I do have a new found respect for homemakers!

I have to admit that life here so far has been incredibly lonely. I don't know anyone except my co-workers and only a handful of those. I have no family here and no friends in the city. For the past few weeks I have been sort of moping around. Of course I've been back and forth between here and Atlanta so much that I've hardly been allowed a grand amount of social time. Thankfully things have turned around a little bit in the past few days.

Friday was a very difficult day for me. Our trainer was heading back to Atlanta at mid-day and my co-worker was taking a half-day. This left only me and one other person in Atlanta handling calls and things. There were so many issues coming up that I wasn't trained on how to handle, coupled with our copious technical difficulties, that I was feeling a little overwhelmed and ill-prepared. In addition to that, I was instructed over lunch by the two people up from Atlanta that I'm going to find myself having to take the reins and such because apparently I am increasingly becoming more of a coordinator in addition to just ordinary customer service responsibilities (even though the coordination extends only to myself and my co-worker).

The boss came by my cubicle during one of my more despondent moods and gave me a little pep-talk for no particular reason. He is a really sincere man, so my spirits improved. I know there are too few people doing too much work for not enough pay and that has made a lot of people here very bitter, and while I don't always agree with some of the methods that are employed (already) the work we're all doing is important. It's not some mundane job in some faceless corporation.

Later, one of my co-workers came by and invited me to the movies with some other Baha'i youth. My first reaction was to decline. I told myself I would decline because I have a lot of things to get done. I haven't unpacked a lot of things and I need to go grocery shopping, change my license to Illinois, get a library card, change my voter registration, pay bills, do the laundry, etc. but I think the real reason was anxiety and fear. That is sad to admit, but it's true. I have gone so long without interacting with people my own age that I think I may have forgotten how. I've become so accustomed to interacting with people 20 years older than me that sometimes people my own age make me nervous. And then again it could be that I'm too jaded and serious minded to loosen up.

It didn't take much persistence for me to give in. We went to see the movie "Juno" which was outstanding, much to my surprise. I enjoyed myself, and I enjoyed the movie. It's unfortunate I have to force myself to do these kinds of things, especially since it's rarely disastrous.

After the movie, I came back to Wilmette for the Nineteen Day Feast, which was postponed to this weekend because of the weather during the week. Mind you it's been snowing all day so we've probably received may 3-4 inches. I walked around the corner in the snow to the Baha'i Home for the Aged, which has sort of been converted into the Baha'i Center for Wilmette. The turnout was small because of the weather (maybe 15-20 people) but it was a nice enough Feast. It really made me miss the Baha'i community back in Little Rock, namely because I know everyone there. It seemed a little awkward to be in the new community attending an event for the first time and being met with stares of curiosity. I introduced myself and I got to socialize with a few people after the consultative portion.

One of the youth (I say "youth" but it's a loose term - I should say "people in their 20's" instead) invited me to come with a group of them to The Cheesecake Factory. I intended to decline but I couldn't turn down an opportunity to get to know people in my own community. We had such a diverse group! There were two Baha'is visiting from Switzerland and New Zealand and another here on a term of service from France, in addition to maybe 8 or so other local "people in their 20's." It was a true joy to get to know some of them better, and I'm glad I went. I feel myself slowly becoming better integrated into the community and some of the loneliness and longing for community life is slipping away.

Tomorrow I'm planning on going to the Baha'i Home for the Sunday shindig they have around here - a Baha'i "school" for children, classes for junior youth, study circles and a study class for adults. Hopefully I'll get to meet some more Baha'is there. I'm even mulling around in my mind teaching children's classes with one of the other youth in one of the suburbs. After you're engaged in Baha'i community life and you're away from it for a time, it feels like something is missing in your life.

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