Live from the Minneap

There are places I know.  In Kansas City, you can find my name scratched into the underside of every windowsill of the house at 8812 NW 81st Terrace.  We owned it first when the basement was unfinished, and there was no fenced-in yard, so when you sled in winter, there was every possibility of ending up in the cattails below.  I have lived the longest in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, at seven different addresses.  In college, when my sister told our roommate Brian that this was where we called home, he appropriately quipped, “That sounds like where fun goes to die.”  Not having a strong concept of home has led me to feel that I know few places well.  I then have to ask: what place knows me?  The answer can only be my most-beloved yet never-lived-in city of Minneapolis, Minnesota.  It knew me when I was a young girl, driving down Chicago Avenue past the cemetery to get to the Mall of America on opening week. It knew me as a teenager, eating Jakeeno’s Pizza and staving off the heat of the summer on my Grandmother’s sun porch. It knew me as an adult, attending Soundset and interrupting ghost hunts trying to find art shows and warehouses to climb with dangerous men.   My parents live in the suburbs now, and my Grandmother has passed.  The house she owned on Columbus Avenue South had the blue carpet torn up, and the broken locks from robberies fixed to give some young couple starting their life the feeling of safety.  I have never lived here, but the city remembers me.

Good morning.  It’s a cozy 7 AM.  We are on Nicollet and heading toward my favorite donut shop in all of North America: Glam Doll Donuts.  The year is 2013.  I am 28.  From my hilarious Twitter account, I have befriended many incredible women, including a stripper in Las Vegas and the founder of Giant Steps (a gathering for creative entrepreneurs), consultant Susan Campion. Susan has told me this donut shop is “my vibe.”  They serve donuts with names like the bombshell, the flirtie frenchie, and the starlet.  The walls are pink, the sprinkles are on full display, and local art changes with the season.

We are going to get a dozen donuts and a dirty chai.  You can do the talking; the barista is definitely a cool girl who likes art and has a cat tattoo she inked herself while reading something only really cool girls read, and my imposter syndrome might ruin the moment. It is okay if you only want one donut; I can eat eleven.  My favorite is the bombshell: Mexican hot chocolate center, bourbon-glazed pecans.  Seasonal varieties change; I will try anything new and don’t mind if my vegan ones touch the dairy icing; I’m just trying on health for the misfit; she has an orange, ginger, and cinnamon glaze. There is a photo booth; it will take my credit card.  In every continuous shot, more and more sugar lines my face.  I’ve snuck a donut into the booth.  I will eat these as if to prove I am as cool as a stranger on the internet once became convinced I was.  Every girl needs a donut shop.  Glam Doll is mine.

It is now 9 AM.  We are moving on to my favorite used bookstore.  The year is 2021, and only a bookstore can save me. I cannot go to Barnes and Noble: the end of my career still feels too fresh, even though it has been three years.  Time is a blur, and the only thing linear is lines written by someone else. I am 37.  The Book House in Dinkytown is a staple of the University community.  A poetry alcove overlooks an apartment Bob Dylan once occupied.  I’m here for Hemingway and the hopes that an F. Scott Fitzgerald scholar has passed away and his estate has sold off his tomes.  The entrance to the Bookhouse is often easy to miss.  The smell of Chinese Food hits before that of books, and you have to enter and walk up a staircase that keeps promising hidden gems with its tattered rip-and-paste job of book pages and movie posters lining the walls.  There will be a man at the desk when you get up the stairs: either young or old, but often the same one year over year.  Every visit promises an occult novel, a feminist translation of an obscure text, a good text on rhetorical criticism that will remind you of college, and, of course, a Fitzgerald.  I will go on and on about the time I found a first edition copy of The Romantic Egoists and how familiar Zelda Fitzgerald feels because she died in an insane asylum.  We will start a punch card even though in some purse or some drawer we have five to ten halfway punched.  The man at the desk does not remember you; he is here for the books.

It is now noon.  Lunchtime.  There are so many restaurants we could visit.  I think Matt’s started the Juicy Lucy, but I prefer the 5*8 club because it is one of those landmarks from my childhood drive to visit Grandma that meant we were close enough to get to pee soon.  I really love Pizza Luce, but you have to be in your twenties, drunk, or gluten-free to really get the vibes.  I’ve got something better: Lunds & Byerlys.  To my childhood mind, this grocery store chain was Erewhon before I knew what an influencer was.  Moving a lot taught me early on that not all grocery stores are created equal. The rich have the best produce, and I knew the second I saw my Aunt’s paper Lunds grocery bag (I was 7), that there was a world waiting for me outside of Food 4 Less.  To this day, going to Lunds & Byerlys is a way to pretend, for just a second, that I am a part of the haves.

We are going to daydream, together.  First, we go to the pre-packaged salads.  There are two potato salads: one is Lunds, one is Byerlys.  We are going to get the Byerlys; mustard-heavy, rich in taste.  Then we are going to the hot-bar.  The Thai food here is top-shelf pretentious.  There are real Thai restaurants leagues above this grocery-store fodder, but I’m showing you a childhood dream, not a Michelin star.  In this dream, we can eat an entire overpriced meal and not think twice.  See those blueberries: they are huge.  In fact, the fruit here doesn’t look real.  There is an American Dream inside of me dedicated solely to the affordability of fruit.  Even the grocery carts at Lund’s are special: a color green seen primarily on the West Coast, and smaller in size because this is not the land of bulk over-consumption.  We will head next to the bakery.  Grab a second cart; we need pastries.  Cannolis, tarts, cupcakes.  We might get odd looks as we take our carts to the registers before we feast.  Most of the women here would never dream of such behavior.  Don’t fret if my credit card declines; there is a bank right inside: the rich keep their money close to their mouths.  

It is 2 PM.  We are full, but don’t fret; there’s still money to spend, and we are heading to the Mall of America.  We could visit any of the hundreds of incredible local shops and learn a lot more about Minnesota Nice and the local economy, but on my perfect day I’m approaching Minneapolis with the zeal of a child that can’t quite believe a mall could house a roller coaster and a Hooters.  The MOA is not, of course, in Minneapolis, but none of that matters when there are four levels of entertainment to get to.  I have myriad memories of this place: from the Camp Snoopy dog bowl I posed in front of hundreds of times with my cousins, to the time I threw a bouncy ball from the fourth floor, not realizing the potential danger I could wreak on unsuspecting shoppers.  No one was hurt.  In a perfect childhood, there are no sad stories.  We aren’t here to shop; we are here to walk.  A good MOA trip nets an easy 10,000 steps.  For every store you have never seen, there are fifty more you can catch in any mall anywhere in the country.   The original Pepsi Coaster is a roller coaster for even the meekest thrill seeker.  It trades drops for turns and an eagle-eye view of the Mall.  Somehow, any purchase you make at the mall feels more special simply because you made it at the Mall of America.  I know all the best restrooms (Nordstroms, third floor). We forgo all the fancy restaurants (Sugar Factory!) for a quick snack at A&W. My Grandmother once harassed a teenage employee for forgetting her mustard, and I’ve been a loyal patron ever since to make up for it.  

After the mall, it is time for music.  9 PM.  I will tell you about how my Uncle Steve went to school with Prince and how “Jimmy Jam” Harris was my mother’s first kiss.  We are at First Avenue; the epicenter of music in Minneapolis.  I could tell you so many stories about my time here, but they all center on the men who got me into the show.  You see, I tried to grow up in this city, and I had that lingering childhood illusion that I belonged to it because I knew someone. My parents are suburb folks now.  Gone to me is the house where I broke my Grandmother’s clothes line, pretending it was a tightrope: 2.2 miles from where George Floyd was murdered. Alex Pretti was murdered in front of Glam Doll Donuts.  

It is nighttime, now.  I am 41.
Do you really know a place if you don't defend it?

Listen to the night.  Listen for your neighbors.  

When you are called to assist, get up: that is when you know you are in Minneapolis.