Hometown Redux

Holy crow, fellas. It turns out that working on a dissertation, a stack of on-campus responsibilities, and pursuing an active and three-dimensional social life in Boston all adds up to an extreme lack of time to tap out updates on your dumdum blog. WHO KNEW!

But tonight, while keeping one eye on the debate (with a Manhattan in hand), I finally got around to cutting together a li'l video commemorating my long weekend in Chicago a couple of weeks back. This was a swell time. Video, photos, etc. after the jump!

Having only had a couple of days to slingshot through Chicago when last I was in town, I was happy to have a long weekend to catch up more thoroughly with old friends and make plans with some new ones. Typically when I'm in Chicago I arrange what I call a sitzpub - basically a night where I camp out at a bar in my old neighborhood and make merry with anybody who stops by. It's usually a lovely time and reminds me how many excellent people I've been lucky to find in life.

This time, I decided to skip that and instead make more deliberate one-on-one or small-group plans. This was great, and also led to a totally manic weekend in the best possible way. I came back to Boston exhausted and happy and only slightly bloated and not quite broke. It was a great trip. Hit a few of my favorite food spots and a new joint or two (The Northman, Lincoln Square/North Center's new cider bar, was a nice stop on the way), got some excellent thrifting in, and generally was delighted to be surrounded by people I love who've known me for what suddenly strikes me as an incredibly long time.

With my pal Schmadz at The Northman! GET THE CIDER THAT HAS GINGER AND FIR TIPS IN IT

The video reflects the trip in some ways - I did a better job capturing at least some of the people I spent time with on camera - and not at all in others. (I could do a whole series of posts on places in Chicago for any number of things - film, music, books, food, theatre, artisanal soaps, anything, but this ain't that.) Suffice to say, I love that town for many reasons that are clearer after a summer on the road, and although I'm not getting back as often as once I did, it feels awful good when I do.

I'm back now, albeit only briefly - this weekend I'm off for another trip, this time to see my pal Dan get married in Atlanta (hooray!). In the time that I've been back, I went through the Konmari process on my place - a really radical, sort-of-froofy, bracing and self-confronting process of basically dealing with every individual item you own and reckoning with its place in your life. I shed a lot of stuff that I didn't need and emerged with a clearer sense of my taste and enthusiasms- again, a nice chapter on this year of rediscovering my self after having gotten knocked around a bit.

The Publican, probably still my favorite spot in Chicago, with some of my favorite humans - teachers, directors, colleagues, pals. I'm a lucky dude, you folk.

Basically, if there's a way to summarize the fall of 2016, it's something along the lines of "total exhaustion balanced out by a sense of gratitude for the people in my life, joy at the rediscovery of who I like to be, and a li'l sense of wonder at the Adventures To Come."

Okay! Atlanta calls. More in the future, kittens!

EVERYBODY ENJOYS FRIENDSHIP WITH THE POSSIBLE EXCEPTION OF JOHN