Chi-Town

By the time I landed in Chicago, I was pissed. I had just been raped of all my beauty products, and I was seriously annoyed. I sat waiting for Willy to pick me up, fuming in front of the doors leading to the cold-ass street, realizing that I hadn't even remotely brought warm enough clothes with me. Damn you, Chicago winters. Damn you all to hell. All of my annoyance completely evaporated as I climbed into Willy's car and was greeted to several sloppy, passionate kisses from . . . my dog, Sigmund--the greatest Beagle on the planet. I was only gone for four days, but God I missed him. We made out for about fifteen minutes in the front seat before he quieted down and headed to the back to sleep on top of Willy's jacket.

After we checked into our hotel, I was starving. Why don't they feed you on planes anymore? Cheap bastards. Not that plane food is so tasty or anything, but still. We decided to go to our favorite place in all of Chicago for soul food --Army and Lou's on the South Side. I LOVE Army and Lou's. Its the kind of place with white tablecloths and red banquettes, where, if you're lucky enoug to go on a sunday for brunch, you'll see hordes of older black ladies dressed to the nines--complete with big pudding-bowl shaped hats, ordering copious qunatities of fried chicken and wings, gossiping after church. They have the best fried chicken I have EVER eaten--anywhere, and the waitresses are awesome. We ate an amount hat could be called prodigious--willy had catfish, and I had the aformentioned fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, and coleslaw. I was seriously thinking about getting a side of macaroni and cheese when the waitress told me, in no uncertain terms "You don't want that." Huh? I blinked at her uncomprehendingly. But I'm still hungry, my inner glutton whined. "You don't want that," she continued, "because you won;t have any room for dessert." Everything became clear when she brought us a fucking BOAT of apple and pear cobbler, heaped with vanilla ice-cream. I'm not kidding--the fucking dish was a boat. Did we eat every last drop? Yes, sir, we certainly did. The kicker was, just as we were leaving, the Reverand Jesse Jackson walked in, sat down, and ordered chicken and collard greens. Willy and I sat there with our mouths open. Awesome. Fucking awesome.

The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping in Target, browsing in Wicker Park where I bought my poor Siggy a doggie T-shirt in American Apparel (he was shivering), and lounging around back at the hotel. I was so exhausted from traveling that we passed out pretty early. The next morning we met my friend Susie for brunch at a place called Deeleece on the North side. We got SERIOUSLY lost and were a whopping 45 minutes late. Since I hadn't seen Susie in about 2 years, I felt like a major asshole. She was really sweet about it though, and we had a great time catching up, while stuffing ourselves with eggs and bread pudding. Yum. We bummed around a bit before the reading at Myopic Books, and I had a glass of wine at Bin Cafe and Wine Bar--which is conveniently located right across the street from the bookstore. The turnout was quite good for a sunday night, and it was really comfortable and intimate--I felt like I was reading in someone's living room--but in a really good way. We met Adam Levin, who runs the reading series, and his girlfriend, who were both ridiculous amounts of nice. We're going to schedule Nick Anotsca and Christina TeBordo at Myopic in the spring, as its a great venue. After the reading, Willy and I headed to this amazing mexican joint Willy had read about in the paper that day, and proceeded to have the best mexican dinner I have ever had in my life--outside of mexico. This food was so fresh, so ridiculously well-prepared, that I felt like jumping up and down while I was eating it. But I was too busy moaning about how good it was for that kind of unruly behavior.