on Milwaukee

In August of 1998 I moved to Milwaukee right before my freshman year of high school. The city greeted me with rain- the basement window-wells overflowed and seeped into my new room. My rug was ruined, some of my books, and I was bitter and lonely and anxious about starting over.

High school was a controlled exercise in learning to speak. By senior year I was on yearbook, in clubs, had friends and all. I got a little too confident in my ability to start over, went far away for college, and immediately flamed out.

This city welcomed me back. The Oriental theatre took me to other places, grew my love of film into an obsession. I learned the pot-holes, the freeway exits, the one-way streets, the feeling in the air before the snow, the honest work of shoveling snow, the right times to avoid the lakefront smells.

Milwauke waited patiently for me to lose my way, and find it again in my friends and on comedy stages. I'll always love it, and after being uprooted twice in my earlier years, it's more than earned the right to be the response when people ask me where I'm from.

But the open road awaits, as it always did and always will. I won't miss the winter, and I won't miss the mistakes I made, all the time I spent sitting still.

I'll miss the people, the person I became. I'll miss the mild summers and the rain.

Goodbye.