In other news...

Chicago Trip was FANTASTIC.
(for all who care and are bored and have time to waste and hate their lives enough to spend time on mine... otherwise, this is for my own personal records of life)

I will go in order so not to skip things overshadowed by even more fantastic things.

Thursday- Get on bus. Jenna meets me at Union.
We go to Panera Bread by Union. It was crowded & great.
Then we took some buses back to her apartment at 9th and state.
We hung out and caught up for a bit until she had to go to work. Then, cooper stopped by the apartment for a minute & we walked down state street where I met Giovanna.
Me and Giovanna got on the EL and went out to Fullerton to hang out with Christina for a little while. Then we all got on the train and started walking towards Dwight lofts at Clark and Harrison so I could meet up with Pat Bley. He seemed to just appear before me a block before we got to Dwight so that was a nice surprise! It was good seeing him. So me and Pat hung out, I met his roommate Dexter. We explored the graffiti floor of his building & I left a mark…Welcome! And something else I cannot remember! IT WAS SWEET. Then, Jenna met up with us …wait maybe we got dinner… Oh I think OHHHH. I know. Me and pat got on a train and met Jenna at Portillos on Grand! I got a red balloon for her from a trashcan at the Harrison redline stop which was let free in Portillos. OH Funny story. I always am commenting on clothing, seems to magnify when I am with Jenna…but anyhow. At the train station I saw this lady with gray tights over her skinny, skinny legs. I commented. THEN AT PORTILLOS, we saw the same lady!!! What are the chances?! After Portillos, we put our chocolate cake shake cups in Coopers bike spokes and …somewhere in there we went up to the graffiti floor to show Jenna. . . and then Pat came over Jennas apartment and we all watched the Sex and the City movie…only I think it was hell for the two of them : ( DON’T CARE. I just love that movie to bits.

And that is Thursday.
Friday…Oh Jenna had an RVA emergency! The first one!! Figures I would be visiting during it. Anyhow, I read vogue for an hour or so and then get ready for the day. I call Pat and we go to breakfast…umm somewhere. OH at Chicago Carry-out…a gem in the city + a lot of greasy yummy food! I passed by it so often last year!! And there are so many good student deals. NEXT SEMESTER MAN! So we eat there then walk down Michigan… stop in the student bookstore so I can get some dang orange juice, After we stopped in the new architecturally magnificent Spertus Institute (I was hoping they would have the OJ…instead we walked into a conference…oops). Then we decided to go check out Jack Keroac (sp*)’s scroll. I need to read that still* It was a pretty nice exhibit. After this I went and hung out at Pats apartment where we hung out with roommate Mike… then uhh Jenna got back from RVA so I went over to the apartment. I feel like I am forgetting something. After this adventure with Pat Jenna and Kiersty. Then we all went to Rilee’s for Bday celebration though the poor babe had her wallet stolen : ( We all got slightly add a verb . It was a fun time with lots of cleaning due to some redics. We took a cab home nonetheless.

Friday…wait no, It is now Saturday.

Let’s see.
I woke up early (1000) because I had foolishly made EARLY plans with Eddie. Though our day was quite splendid. Always a splendid day had with Eddie. THE PROBLEM: I STILL DID NOT GET A PICTURE OF US TOGETHER ARE YOU KIDDING ME. So anywhoey. Eddie picks me up MEETS JENNA FOR THE FIRST TIME. . . which I feel like they met ages ago so I wasn’t even polite to introduce them. We take the car and decide we need to get some food. We park on like IL or something after we see this quaint little diner called Mary’s right off of upper MI ave. I will never again order grilled cheese and forget to substitute cheddar for disgusting chemicalized American. Good lord. I cannot believe I forgot. Then we went up to Mich ave and went to the Freedom Museum. Which is definitely worth a look. Kind of an overview of year long history classes I have taken. Wish I would have just gotten credits for going to this museum. I took a picture with cardboard obama here. After this we walked down the ave randomly stopping in shoe stores, hoping to have a successful day on my everlasting quest for the perfect low heeled black boots. We then walk up to the Ralph Lauren grill and somehow got a table in these comfy smoking chairs right in front of a fireplace. It was delightful. We had calamari and duhh, key lime pie. Cant have a day go wrong if key lime pie is in it. They eddie suggests we go back to burberry for the coat and boots we saw. I don’t say much about this and we leave. When we pass burberry he suggests I just try on the coat. I do and after much discussion, I have a coat being sent to my house next week. Um. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Sometimes I cannot handle the things of life. I just need to figure out how to show Eddie how much I appreciate him. Any suggestions? While this madness is going on, Jenna calls and said WOAH the concert starts at 5 and NOT 8 like we thought! We go pick her up from Ann, luckily they let her leave early & we take off to get ready. Eddie waited for us and drove us to the “cabrini green” area of town. AKA our concert location. Steel train was utterly phenom. Just like we knew they would be. After a minor set-back freakout instigated by Jennas idea that our lead singer of the night would be a scrawny kid in a black zip up hoodie, and not psycho Jack, we danced our little selves silly and I seriously loved every second of it. Drunk Devon and Cooper and Doug and Colin and . . . I know there was someone else, showed up but because they are ill in the head, they left BEFORE the best band for the soul played. Idiots. That’s all I can say. After the concert me and Jenna found our feet taking us along Lake street all the way to a train station. We had to run, and im not lying. UPHILL TWO MILES to make that green line train. I thought I might have an asthma attack and die right then and there. But I didn’t. I overcame my lungs bad habits. We eventually got to Bacci pizza and of course it was great, not to mention take the lead (a movie) with Antonio banderez was on (when is it not on) so we watched the finale dances. After Baccis…um. . . I suppose we went back and slept. . . hmm. I am blanking out spout.

Sunday…
I again made early plans. This time with Fred, my dad. It was good seeing him and he just got back from a retreat so he was slightly bogged down by thoughts. We had some really deep interesting conversations throughout the day. Several times I thought I was going to burst into tears… and this was not even because of what we were talking about. Nothing of importance would be the topic and my mind floods with thoughts when im around dad. What the hell. Anyhow, we went to wishbone restaurant. After we walked and ended up Inside of oprah’s store. Um, hello branding. Then we stumbled upon an open house, went inside, met a realator Kathleen who I am hoping is working with dad to find us a place right now. After this we walked around the block and ended up in Dunkin donuts : ) we sat here and talked A LONG WHILE…this is where the deep conversations about my childhood happened. If it weren’t for the hot chocolate I would have been crying the entire time. Luckily I just kept sipping and burning my tongue over and over again to keep my strong face. (don’t know how that worked out but it did). Dad gave me this really nice zip up with a cool design on it and a necklace with a PIES circle (physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual). After this we drove off to the Marc by Marc Jacobs store which was fabulous. Funny guy dad says to a sales lady (a super marc Jacobs looking lady) and says, “have you met Shelby Jacobs…” yeah .about that. That’s my dad : ) … After this we went to a super affordable fresh vegetable/fruit market called stanley’s and I could not stop being in awe by the colors everywhere. I wish I would have had my film camera. Every five seconds I wanted to take a picture, and every five seconds I realized I was without old trusty filmster. After this dad drove me to Burberry so I could talk to sales associate Tash aka my roommate from last year. We made dinner plans then dad dropped me off at Rilees to meet up with Stephen. It really was great seeing dad. We talked about me coming to stay with him for December and January so I can get the Oakbrook house ready to sell! WHAT? Sell the oak brook house?! Yea, I think dad finally realized living in the city is so much more efficient for a life of happiness, not to mention I think it is hitting him his family will be in the city, so why not go where the sheep go…or whatever it is. Stephen drove me to meet up with tasha and we went to TGI Fridays. Good catching up, funny catching up. After this I hopped the 146 and went back to the apartment where me and kierce fierce lectured jenna on something very important and came up with some fabulous sentencing: IADT, IADL. Anyhow.

Monday
Me and Jenna woke up. She had class. I had a bus to catch. A MEGA bus. . . hah. hah. uhhh. hah.

She walked me to the corner of balbo and state we said our goodbyes and like magic a cab appeared. i got in and took off to union.

fabulous how that works.

Fantastic Weekend.
I have missed Jenna quite a TON. I have also learned I have a very opinionated best friend. Go figure. GO FIGURE. This is good though, she is inspiring me to want to figure out what it is I believe in and what it is I can do for the world and that my friends, is something that is becoming a big deal to me, though it is still in the very baby almost fetus stages of thought.

We shall see whats next for me I suppose.