| oh why not |
[02 Sep 2009|10:44am] |
Fill it out and make sure to do it anonymously. I'll try to guess who you are.
1. One secret
2. One compliment
3. One non-compliment
4. One love note, but it does not have to be for me
5. Lyrics to a song
6. How old you are
7. How long we've been friends
8. And a hint to who you are
|
|
|
[29 Jul 2009|04:16pm] |
They say you can never go home again, but I've done it- not once, but twice. I say twice, because after college I went "home", only to find out that Chicago didn't feel like home anymore. Even if I walked around in it like a new pair of shoes (which I did, for almost 2 years).
I should start at the start and end at the end... or at least at the present. I've always had that problem, I start in the middle of things - maybe that explains the broken hearts and massive confusion all through undergrad. But I digress. I lived in New York for college, at Mercy, just up the road from where I am now. I spent a lot of summers in Sleepy Hollow with my Busha and Grandpa. The Valley here has kinda been home for as long as I can remember- even when Chicago was home.
Ok. Back to the beginning. Hi. I'm Saskia. Saskia Irena Pashenko if you're being fancy and formal, and feel like a mouth full of words that just sound rough. I was born in Chicago, lived there until I left for college at 18. Lived in San Diego for a year while I was UCSD- which I hated. I don't quite know why. San Diego itself was just lovely- honestly. Not lovely in that oh lovely way, but just beautiful and at a pace I could appreciate. We never got along really well, me and San Diego- but that's what happens. Everything falls apart sometimes. We can only hold on to the pieces and hope that when the shit hits the fan, we can duck out of the direct stream.
So I came home. Home to Sleepy Hollow, not home to Chicago. Chicago had too much going on - my cousin was planning her wedding, my Mom and Dad were settling into life without a children in the house, so New York made sense. I went to Mercy, lived in the dorms and worked on making the friends you hear about in the movies. What they don't tell you in the movies is that everything falls apart sometimes. That friendships that were supposed to last for ever and ever, sometimes turn into friendships with occasional phone calls and cards at Christmas. And that's okay.
After I finished at Mercy, I went home. Back to Chicago home. I got a job with Leo Burnett- one of the biggest ad agencies in the country. I moved in with my cousin Violet and her crazy dog Zippers. We lived by the lake and did the things 20-something urban professionals do. Which is to say we drank lots of overpriced drinks with questionable boys. We spent most of last summer's nights laying on blankets watching movies in the park. Or drinking on the patio at Vines on Clark. Or skating on the beach as Zippers took off after squirrels. Or watching baseball.
But I didn't feel anything.
And my work showed it. I worked hard, and it was kinda... eh. Nothing had the kind of passion the stuff in my portfolio. So rather than risk the can, I left. I moved in with Busha and Grandpa and helped out around the house.
Then it all happened. My grandfather, Aleksander Pashenko, passed away in 2007. My father was an only child- so everything was left to me and Kolya, my older brother. It's with the money that he left me that I was able to open Paper Moon. It's a stationery store- it's not much, but it's mine. The walls are a bright green and the tables match the hardwood flooring. And I love it, all of it. I design business cards and stationery on the side, but most of my time is spent selling diaries and cards, invitations and announcements.
Being here is different. I feel things, working isn't so hard. It's not like its any less distracting, it's just... different. Maybe I feel more centered. It's taken twenty six years, but I have a place that feels like it's mine. I'm moving into my new townhouse this weekend, and I'm hoping people will be cool.
The world is my oyster, I'm just checking for pearls.
|
|