Welcome Back, Me or My Kind of Town

Oh. Hello again.

It has been a long time hasn't it?

No, you look great!

Oh, stop!

Thanks for noticing, I am using a new shampoo. Its quite volumizing.

It is too a word!

Well, I love what you've done with the place. Still with the polka dots and all.

Yes, there is something to be said for consistency.

What have I been up to? Oh, you know, this and that. Yourself?

Really?

Uh huh.

With bison, huh? Well, I guess you've got me there.

No, I'm in Chicago now.

Chicago. Chi-ca-go. Its in Illinois. In the middle of the country.

The part that's not New York.

Its actually the third largest city in the US. You've never --

You know, Chicago...

Fine. Well its a great city. The best part about Chicago is that its a city that recognizes all the complexities of life and tries to make living simple. Take, for example, finding a place to live. Moving is difficult and Chicago recognizes that. So they've come up with an easy way to figure out where each person should live:


This way, you don't have to look throughout the entire city for an apartment, you can just look in your specific region.

What's that?

If you don't fit into one of those categories? I don't understand.

Well, I'm sure you could ask the city and they'll tell you where you belong.

Anyway, Chicago is also a pioneer in weather simplification. A lot of places have as many as four different seasons, each with their intricate weather patterns. Chicago has realized that you really only need two. So they've made it easy. From September through May, its really-fucking-cold-and-snowing season. And if its June, July or August it must be ridiculously-hot-and-humid season! So much less complicated - you don't have to worry about trying to figure out how many layers to wear or whether you'll need boots. Just look at the calendar!

Some things, however, they haven't mastered quite yet. Food, for example. I thought they had figured out a way to make all the food in the city weigh you down for three days - there's pizza stuffed with four cows of cheese, greasy Thai food, giant cheeseburgers - but that was before last night. I was at dinner celebrating my friend Carissa's birthday (and her return from the Czech Republic). She wanted to go to a sushi place because apparently you can't get good unagi in Prague and in the process we found my new favorite sushi ever - the Po Boy roll at Coast. So delicious. And, I expected, ridiculously heavy. But, as it turned out, I still had enough room for several beers, some sake and a couple bites of the flourless chocolate cake they brought her for dessert. C'mon Chicago, get your shit together.

Nevertheless, I guess Chicago is still pretty great. Stevie Wonder even stopped by on Saturday to say hi. He was accompanied by what looked to be everyone in North America. Which was nice to see, but one piece of advice, Chicago. Before your next guests arrive, do a little better job of vetting. Stevie's music was making a little black girl and a little white girl do somersaults together. Chicagoans were starting to get confused so I had to step in and explain to the girls that we keep things simple in Chicago and that sort of thing has no place here. Thankfully, situation diffused. But let's make sure it doesn't happen again, eh Chicago?