Chicago kicked my ass.

Draaaaaagging so hard from this weekend. Left Friday afternoon to catch flight up to Chi-town. Much to the bemusement of my coworkers, I left at noon to catch a 3pm plane. Ha ha very funny I almost missed my plane. Traffic/parking/security, all of it hellish and life-force-sucking. Would have, in fact, been close if AirTran were not such a shit airline and delayed the flight. I was briefly reminded of my reasoning for the four-year long boycott of the airline after a particularly dreadful experience over the Labour Day weekend of 1999. To be fair, however, we were only delayed by a half-hour and things were pretty good from then on out.

Arrive in Chicago, literally only have time to put stuff down in C's apt and then we RACE to a train station to get out to Ravinia--we have tickets to the Ben Folds and Rufus Wainwright show. So nice, great evening, sat with hundreds of other people in a park, drank wine, listened to the music, etc. Great way to wind down the week. Really dug Rufus' shizz.

Saturday we meet up with C's boyfriend-not-really's dad and stepmum (you know, if people would just stay together it would make things much easier for me thanks). Ate at this fairly fancy bistro off Mich Ave. I had the skate, it was delicioso. Then shopping shopping shopping for sassy dresses for a birthday party that night. Found a fabulous salmon number from BCBG with complementary pancho it ROCKED. Went to dinner at some tapas place, then to Navy Pier for fireworks at which I smoked and chattered my tits off because it was EFFING COLD. Then to a Latin salsa club, at which I drank a lot of raspberry vodka and danced with short men who kept grabbing my ass. Nice.

Sunday we arose and dragged ass to Flat Top, where we feasted on two courses of DIY stir-fry. Blood sugar raging, I got really hyper and a) laughed so hard I cried twice (plus it was my SIGNATURE CACKLE, so I'm sure the rest of the patrons appreciated that) and b) found a tremendous amount of comfort in flinging my torso flat against the seat of the booth when something was SO FUNNY that I just couldn't take it anymore (I did this approximately 38 times) and c) determined that I may be a closet Phil Collins fan after I ran down the top five PC songs of all time (In the Air Tonight, Against All Odds, Separate Lives, I Wish it Would Rain Down on Me, Easy Lover).* Afterwards, we went to the beach, laid out for a couple of hours, all the while being serenaded by the world's worst U2 cover band. At one point, they came back for a break, and the singer said in between screeches--I am not making this up--"That chicken sandwich did something to me." Got a little burned, mostly on the shoulder tops. Ambled down to the SALON and got a pedicure (C got a mani). Then back to the house, packed up and had sushi delivered YUM it was really good.

Had trouble sleeping b/c worried about missing 5:30am flight. Also had hard time figuring out why the eff I thought a 5:30am flight would be a good idea. Tossed and turned for 4 hours and LO it was time to get up. 3:30am. Too tired to even feel tired. Cabbie showed up right on time, I got in and he says, "You might want to move to the other side, someone threw up on that one." Great. Come to find out it was a little old lady in her 70s who had one too many cosmopolitans. I'm actually pleased to hear that versus typical college kid, but vomit is vomit and every once in a while I would get a faint whiff. Needless to say, I spent the entire ride with my upper body hanging out the window. Got to airport in RECORD TIME, slept on plane, came straight to work, and voila. Big, busy day and um why am I still here? Oh yeah, to blog it all to you.

I just hope you appreciate what I do for you.



*Has just occurred to me that not only do I own his greatest hits album on CD, I also purchased the cassingle of Another Day in Paradise circa 1990. Interesting.