One of my more vivid memories of public transportation, courtesy of the Chicago El a few years ago, involved stepping into a car filled with the sickly sour scent of puke. I remember brushing off the odor, plunking down in a seat, and then, as the train lurched forward, watching rivulets of vomit rush into view, corralled into straight lines by the ridges on the floor.
The stream came from a disheveled woman in the back of the car who was hunched over, the last few strands detaching from her lips. Nobody rose to help her–she didn’t appear to be distressed, anyway–and, surprisingly enough, few people left. It was a twisted, tacit agreement, and the selfish takeaway was to follow my nose for future trips on the train, even though “future trips” at the time meant never again.
But this is a different place–a different future, as it were–and the shiny new light rail has yet to be coated in years and expectorate. It strikes me as an absolutely important conduit of stuff to do, an escape hatch from the hypnotic rhythm of the suburbs, and I’m curious to see where it leads me the next few weekends. After scanning the events listings, though, I implore you: if I ever partake in jazzercise or gush over a crafts show, promise you’ll put me under the train.
We’ll be back on Tuesday, June 03.
As a seasoned practitioner of Quit-Jitsu, perhaps the easiest martial art on earth, I subscribe to one tenet and one tenet only: give up and escape. You’ll imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered Krav Maga reiterates most of this philosophy, deviating only in replacing the quitting part with the very best violence. The question, at this particular juncture, is one of commitment.
My track record is terrible. I remember trying Taekwondo for two or three lessons, and then not trying it for every subsequent lesson. Ju-jutsu fared slightly better, successfully shaking me down for a membership fee and wrapping my person in a ghi, but the crows came home to roost when I realized I would have to wash the time-honored uniform, perhaps repeatedly. The siren song of practicality, which had been so heavily advertised by the group, cast a strange pall on the ancient study of grappling, and upon learning that certain throws required clutching the lapels of these ridiculous costumes, I had to grapple with this question: when exactly would I be attacked in a ghi secured by a color-coded belt?
Shortly before or after class, was the bitter answer, or maybe if I were robbing a ghi factory. I’m two lessons into Krav now, a discipline that seems to favor actual human clothes over Halloween apparel, and a choice looms nigh–walk away, or shell out the $125 to $150 a month for a half- to full-year contract. The workout isn’t in question, nor is the technique. I believe I’ve done more push-ups in a single hour than in a lifetime, and I never could’ve imagined getting so physically tired from beating the shit out of stuff. The introductory lesson alone explored gun, knife, and choke defense, techniques essential to any middle to upper-middle class suburban lifestyle.
But we’re in a recession now, where macroeconomic conditions threaten to kick your assets midway through Sunday afternoon, and Quit-Jitsu seems like the wiser choice. Run away. Hide. Hunker down. Tighten the belt, rather than learn how to kill a man with one. The dollar clearly hasn’t been a viable benchmark lately, and to this end I’ve begun thinking about prices in terms of Chipotle burritos. $125 translates into roughly 20.3 burritos. And that’s a lot of burritos.