collegiate diversion

Let’s call this part one.

Flew out here because I felt like I had to, reconnect with the kinfolk and support the Midwestern Allen-clan. Uncle’s putting on a play, big honor and it sounded too fascinating in a magazine feature my mother read me over the phone to pass up.

I got in later than expected last night, crazy weather in Chicago. It’s bee pouring non-stop and I have to say I like it, especially the lightning parts.

I met my friend at the airport, it was a fantastic meeting and embrace, the best kinds that I think I’ve only experienced in watching films about “Arrival” gates - thanks friend.

On a side-note, my dad told me that he used to take his high school dates to O’Hare, so they could people-analyze and watch the people love openly in this long-lost-person sort of fashion. All at the arrivals gates. Wow Dad, you were such a cool existentialist back in the good ol’ IL days…

I spent the majority of my yesterday in the airport, cursing why these continents-onto-themselves, seriously, sterilized AIRPLANE environments and ports, charge for WIFI. It sucked.

I had planned on posting my thoughts about the whole “airport phenomenon.” 13 dollar tuna fish sandwiches and the elderly being go-karted around. The artificiality of the entire situation…

But that bitter thought in me seems to have flown away, too affected by the raw power of the city, the humanization of the urban places.

I love my friend’s apartment. 15 floors overlooking one tireless city. I feel so Woody Allen, and almost cried when we watched one of his “more dramatic” films last night, but man, don’t I see what he was talking about?

CHICAGO -

has been that place for me. The place I visited when I was a kid, like, “oh boy, the city, here we go!” I mean, Boston has always been the nostalgic family-weekend thing, but Chicago is the spot that was a BIG deal.

I told my uncle how I always dreamed of working in the city, being a journalist out here, covering crime and politics and corruption, and the city lights! But he told me those kinds of places, the Tokyos and LAs and NYCs of the world, you have to build up to getting there. To him, those places seemed like the end of the line, where and when my career will flourish, and maybe even peak

I’ve taken that advice and now I have to see for myself - I’ve wanted this to be the place I end up, the place that I work towards.

I’m attempting to figure that out during my stay here.

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