I suck at blogging.

I'm freelancing at my sister's ad agency, and I overhead one of the new graphic designers say how it's not good to have a blog on a site that you can't keep up with. Because the worst thing is to have visitors think you're just not there. That you're absent. Whoops. 

Anyhow, I'm glad I saw Chicago. I definitely would rather move there than New York. It's a lot cleaner and more organized. But it started getting cold and stormy the last days I was there, and I was happy to come home to our Indian Summer.

An unusual thing happened. I was at a speakeasy cocktail bar called Violet Hour because both my cousin and a friend suggested it, and in walks that Erick guy who was on his way to Southeast Asia. He was saying goodbye to his old coworkers and turning in his keys. What timing. I wasn't going to say anything, but he recognized me. We reintroduced ourselves, but that was that. Even as he was hugging and saying goodbyes, it was as if he already checked out. Maybe he's always like that, who knows? But what an awful way to be. I'm starting to get what people mean by being in the moment. He definitely wasn't, and was just going through motions. Even though some of the girls hugged him as if they were really going to miss him, everyone just went back to business after he left, as if he never had been there to begin with. It was really depressing actually.

I'm lucky to have some real close friends, who I know if I had to say goodbye to for a long period of time, I would cry like a baby but try to hide it. And hopefully some of them would really miss me too in the reverse situation. But I've also made a lot of new friends who I hang out with occasionally doing fun things, but not really forming anything deeper than just the surface-level type of conversation and seeing each other often. So I wonder if this is just the new way these younger kids form friendships. It's just light and hearty, and when it's time to move on they do. And they're ok with that? Maybe they just don't know what they're missing. Their dating habits also kind of reflect this same dynamic. Maybe I'm kind of old school, but it's really unsatisfying.

Rainbo Friends

Last night I went to the John Hancock Observatory with my Korean roommate. The view was gorgeous of course and afterwards we went to the 96th floor to the Signature Lounge for some cocktails.

I learned a lot about her so I'm happy. She raised her brother (3 years younger) pretty much after her mom passed away when she was still a teenager. She's 23 or 24 now. Her brother had to enlist in the military (every teenage boy has to serve for 2 years) so she's using this opportunity to travel. She's studying architecture which is why she wanted to spend 2 weeks in Chicago. Frank Lloyd Wright, whose house and studio I saw today in Oak Park, is one of her favorite architects.

I tried to get her to go out with me later that night but she was used to going to bed really early so she passed. She was too afraid to go out at night by herself, so last night was the first time she was out past 9pm.

I gave Danny's Tavern another shot but again it was dead. Thank god for Rainbo Club. I met these 2 dudes and then a huge group of French students and we headed to Flat Iron. One of the original dudes was gorgeous with his Brad Pitt hair but he's about to move to Southeast Asia. I asked when he was coming back and he said he may not. He doesn't know. Wow, I wish I could be that dreamy.

He went home early, and the other dude was so drunk that I think he got lost trying to guide us to the next place for dancing. Where is there dancing in this town???

I got home probably sometime between 4 and 5am. I have no clue as the bar closed at 4am but we stood around for a long time talking to each other and to randoms on the street. Maybe it's good I don't live here as I would die trying to stay up this late every night.

Today I didn't get out of the hostel until 2pm. So I just took a couple trains here to Oak Park at the suggestion of my roomie. I roamed around these huge, beautiful brick homes with the crunching sounds of golden leaves underneath my boots. I saw where Hemingway was born. I hope my mom could see what I saw today. She would have loved it too.

I spent a lot of time today thinking about Erick, that guy from Rainbo Club. When I asked him why he wanted to move so far away, he said because he had always wanted to do something like that, and he's still young so he has to do it now. I thought he was 23ish but he was actually 30.

I've had those fantasies of moving off to some far away land to start fresh, and so I've been traveling to see about these places. And as beautiful, unique, and as cool as some of these places are, it just makes me appreciate home more and miss my family and friends. I wish I had 2 lives to live at the same time, because I would do both.

A Dream Within A Dream

I really took my sweet time today getting myself out of the hostel. It's an 8-bunk room but there were only 3 of us girls and I think 1 girl left this morning. The nice thing about being a night owl instead of an early bird is that I got the bathroom to myself for as long as I wanted. I even played music which I won't be able to do once more people come on the weekend.

I haven't done much except eat some tasty tacos at Big Star (the catfish taco was the best of the 3), check out Wicker Park (small and forgettable), and lounge around The Wormhole Coffee (80s memorabilia everywhere!).

There's a nagging voice inside of my head that's telling me I should be doing more and seeing more sites. That I should get up early like everyone else and go do something. But fuck that. Not only am I here for a week, which is a long time, but this is what it'd be like if I lived here. Which I thought about doing at one point in time. Why am I pressuring myself to do shit I don't really want to do? I think that's been the toughest thing so far, to tell my internal nag to shut the fuck up already. I'm on vacation.

Life does seem like a dream sometimes. I wonder how much of it I'll even remember. Will I really remember all the art I will see in the Art Institute? Or just that I saw it when I happen to come across this blog or a picture I took? I know that I will remember the interesting characters I meet on the way.