lip smackin

I have been away for longer than I thought I was. That's what happens when you go on vacation. If you don't use a computer daily and miss all the feeds, it takes you 2x as long to get back in the groove. 3 days in the blogging world is like a week in the real world. By the time I made my way consistently in front of a computer, caught up on all the feeds, came up with some material, and overcame laziness; it took like...... a whole bunch of days to make a post. So lets play catch up.

New Years Eve? zilch, zero, nada. Got no call back on my hopeful date, so I sat on my couch, did some laundry, watched a Dashboard Confessional concert on the "Best of Madison Square Garden", and was in bed by 11:30. Happy new year indeed. All I needed was some eye shadow, an eating disorder, and some cigarettes and I would have been a hit emo song. Good thing NYE has never been my thing anyway. I prefer Arbor Day!

Trip to Chicago? Ooooo, I could go on and on, but I will try to keep it short and sweet.

Travel: The flight in over Lake Michigan was really cool. Seeing the ice sheets get thicker and thicker as they reached the shore was a highlight of the trip. It was also a less than 2 hour flight, so that's awesome too. O'Hare is a big airport, so the Chicago subway goes out to it, which is nice. The subway ticket machine nearly lost its life via my foot for being faulty, but the ticket prices are on par with NYC. The trains go FAST, are pretty clean, and have less homeless people on them then the Big Apple

Sidenote: The hotel was next to the biggest McDonalds I have ever seen. It was 2 floors, had escalators, flat screen TV's, an entire 1960 Corvette, and 2 drive thru lanes. It also had leather couches, a time capsule, gelato, cappuccino, and pastries.

City layout? Really good and is designed in almost a strict grid. (NYC'ers love this) The subway layout could use a little more work, but its efficient and logical enough. They have plenty of space to work with and have used it to accommodate big sidewalks, big streets, big parks, and big alley ways. There is a lack of non-franchise stores/restaurants, so just about every store is a chain. It's makes it feel a little bit like a giant mall, but its got everything so it's acceptable for S.Vincent.

Culture? I don't think I stayed long enough to get a feel for the true culture. I'm not sure it has much, and like I mentioned, there are a lot of chain stores and it makes it feel a little "un-unique?" The most signature Chicago thing I saw was Lake Michigan, Soldier Field, and the Bean. I don't know what separates a chicago-in, ite, er? from other major city residents, but I can say that everyone I talked to was super friendly and super helpful. Which is.....pretty cool to see in a big city.

Weather? Surprise! It's fuckin COLD in January. I hate using chapstick, (the muse for the title) and thankfully have never had to use it in the humid northeast in the winter, but Chicago is windy COLD, and DRY. So if you love using chapstick, this city is your "Graceland".

Food? Well, its not quite New York, but what is? The lack of specialty restaurants makes it easy to go to most of the signature places in one weekend. Alinea was awesome, but as the number 1 restaurant in Chicago, it ought to be, right? Portillo's hot dog? delicious, I wish NYC had these and I never thought of using lettuce and tomato on a hot dog. Didn't get a chance to go to The Weiner's Circle, but that looked really cool. Giordano's deep dish pizza? Overrated, but not a waste of time. I wish it had more sauce. I think if I spent another 2 days I could have gone to all the good places in Chicago. This is great if you are a visitor, but if I lived there, I would be upset.

Attractions? The Sears tower is really cool. Nice sky deck educational material and since no one was there it took 10 mins to get from ground floor to top floor. Aquarium: due to renovations there was no dolphins, no seals, no penguins, and therefore; no S.Vincent. Planetarium: as cool as any other planetarium, but I get as excited about planets as I get about botany so Zzzzzzz. Art Museum: is a very good one, and is featured in the movie "Ferris Buellers Day Off". I wish I spent more time in there because it has a ton of great peices. Second City: This was even better than I expected and I had a really good time there. The ticket price was only 20 bucks and was totally worth it. I highly suggest making it a stop if you go to Chicago.

I think that about covers my trip to Chicago. Did I mention it was really fucking COLD? I also noticed that every single building had apartments/condos for rent or sale. I could definitely see myself living there, but it doesn't have any rowing.....so it's "no go" for S.Vincent. On the bright side, you would totally get to taunt people from Milwaukee!

Random Travel Observation: I don't think it was just Blue Car syndrome, but there seemed to be a lot of young females on the move. The airport was full of old people, and young girls. So, if you're looking for a place to pick up girls, live next to a major airport, and dabble in skeevyness; dust off your suitcase and head to the Delta terminal.

New widget for Witnesses. Right now I only have one (much love to the VA), so I am the opposite of LeBron James, but I always thought putridity was better than mediocrity.