67: Your Dream, My Nightmare
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I can describe the furniture store in one word, shiny. Shiny purple leather cephas, iridescent mirror pictures of the Sphinx, King Tut, and panthers, chandeliers and ornamental elephants made of glass and mirror. Look at that, the china, this thing, these cephas I like over here I show you. Katya Perez and I stopped into the store while we were working on a radio story in between interviews. We were on 26th Street in her neighborhood, Little Village, one of Chicago's big Mexican neighborhoods. This white sofa, then there's a little table, shaped like a piano and there's glass. The piano table is all mirror, and the glass table, and glass chairs, with glass legs on the glass table. It's beautiful. Katya's 19, has done a few stories for a radio show. She's one of those teenagers who's on a perpetual plan for self-improvement, switching from job to job, trying to earn enough to keep paying her way through school, struggling. She and I walked past the shiny living rooms, through the shiny dining rooms, and into a darkened shiny bedroom, where she stopped dead and said, "Oh my God, this is what I want. This is what I'm waiting to school for." We were staring at a bed with mirrored columns that rose from the headboard and lights built in around the baseboard. There was a mirrored chandelier, a matching white and mirror bureau and side table with gold-colored handles, all of which matched each other and matched the bed. So which parts of this do you like? Everything. I like the rug, the little Chinese rug, the chest. Oh, this is so nice, I shouldn't have came in here. This is what I'm going to have, and I have myself a nice house. She tells me her family's always rented, her dream is to own a house filled with furniture like this. We walk from room to room, looking at gaudy lamps and cabinets and chairs. I find that a cardiote turned to me and asked, "Some, which do you like best?" I looked into my eyes, and I grew up in the Jewish suburbs outside of Baltimore. I am no stranger to furniture like this. I have filled the bright lime-green carpeted living rooms of a good number of the people who I grew up with and loved. I have personally had as many big moments in my life while sitting around glass top tables with shiny mirror glides as anyone you have ever met. I've had important conversations, leaning on iridescent silver pillows, my feet on super long white shag carpet. I feel at home in this setting, but, and I say this meaning no disrespect, I have not chosen this for my adult life. It is not my dream. So when cardiote asked, "Which do you like best?" I paused and I said, "I like the planer stuff." And she looked at me, did not say anything. I think that this answer did not make sense to her. My taste does not make much sense to her. She and I were in that situation. You know, the situation that two people find themselves in now and then, that situation of thinking, "Yeah, your dream.
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