Chapter 26 Summary and Analysis

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Summary

Chapter 26 opens on a chilly Thursday evening in Chicago's South Loop. Julia, in her late twenties, is standing at a parking meter with no change. She is overwhelmed by a series of small, surmountable problems—a sluggish drain, soured milk, a swollen door—that together create a low-level current of despair. She is about to turn thirty and has been taking stock of her life: she works three jobs (at the Harold Washington Library, a coffee shop in the Hancock Building, and a bar on weekends), carries heavy student debt, has no real friends, and recently discovered that the man she was sleeping with had been cheating on her with their shift supervisor, Kristin. She has decided to take a