Day 9 - Last Night in Chicago

Today in Chicago amounted to brunch, a trip to the North Avenue Beach, several hours of napping, two hours of 30 Rock, the sketch show Bodyslam!, some last-minute barhopping and a pleasant meeting with a young man at Dunkin Donuts.

I'm tired and slightly out of it, so here's the rundown.

Brunch at Uncommon Ground with Rachel and her roommate Julia's friend Dave. Dave's a fiscal conservative. Who knew? Me, after lunch. Nice guy, though. It's refreshing to meet Republicans who have the same political goals as me, who just believe in different solutions to the same problems. If you ever go to Uncommon Ground, don't get the Huevos; the corn and black bean cake is lame. Do get the Prosciutto and Chinese Broccoli Benedict or the roast beef sandwich. Also, the Left Hand Brewery milk stout I had there was incredible. Almost worth $7 a pint.

Then the North Avenue beach. I can't figure out why lake beaches smell like salt water. Maybe the smell I attribute to salt water is something else? Maybe the smell is actually dirty sweaty humans in the sun? I don't know. But I do know that the beach made me thirsty, and that $3.25 water was not OK. Especially when ice cream cost $3.

Next was napping. I napped from 4-ish to 6-ish. It was incredible. I've napped more on this leg of my trip than in the whole last year. No complaints.

After, I ordered Thai food with Julia and Dave (Rachel had rehearsal and then work). I like Bangkok Thai in New Orleans WAY better than the place here. I like their pad Thai with curry. Otherwise, Thai food is kind of just funny smelling Chinese food for me. Maybe ignorant sounding, but hey. I'd never eaten Thai food until last summer, so shoot me. We watched 30 Rock on DVD while we ate. I'd never seen it before, but I LOVE it. Especially the relationships between Liz Lemon and Jack and Liz and Tracy Jordan. I also like that Tracy Morgan dropped a "pumpkin" reference in on episode one. I'll hve to watch that from now on.

Then I caught a bus.train combo to Annoyance, a bar/improv place on North Broadway. The show was weird, a spoof of small time professional wrestling with two songs and sporadic (?) crowd participation. I enjoyed the first half, but the second half moved into serial killers and a long, drawn out, scene in the ring that was only funny for the ridiculous wrestling personas.

Afterwards, Rachel and I met up with her friends Howie and Scott at Redmond's. The bouncer at Redmond's grew up in suburban Maryland, went to high school in Wilmington, NC and has family in NOLA that owns Mimi's in the Marigny. Michael Canale and I are obviously soul mates. Cheers.

Unlike NOLA, bars everywhere else close around two. So after Redmond's closed, we went to the late bar, Baby Atlas, and stayed until closing. Which was surely made easy by their incredible late 1980s soundtrack. Let's hear it for the boy. No, really. The music was great.

Rach and I closed out that bar and went home. After tucking her in, I walked the half block to the Dunkin Donuts for a breakfast sandwich and tomorrow's donuts. I met a lovely young man named Jaime working the register. We talked for a brief bit about school and New Orleans before his manager wigged out. I look forward to hearing from him again in the future. What a smart kid. Really nice, too.

That's it for today. Tomorrow during the day, I meet up with Steve, his roommate Pete and Pete's ladyfriend Connecticut Rachel. We're headed out west via St. Paul (where I've got family). Steve has a laptop, so keep out for more updates, plus his video response to Jerry's rants.

All my love to all my readers. If you happened to give me advice today, I love you more. Y'all know who you are (Mom, call me back about David).