i’m endeavoring to leave the party at the right moment. you know when it’s suddenly 2am, and you’re still at the party, and now the train isn’t running so you’ll have to take the night bus and you’re a little drunk and tired and wish that you’d left an hour earlier and that you were just home already? i hate that feeling, so much so that i try to manage the preemptive party exit whenever possible. but the timing is tricky – leave too early and you miss out on all the fun. stay too late and you have to see the party end.
chicago’s like that. and now, well, right now i’m having the best possible time – music is rockin and all my friends are here and i’ve had just enough alcohol to be extra charming. i don’t want to leave, but it’s better to go now, on a high note, than wait till i’ve stayed too long. other people are leaving. lives are changing, moving ahead. people are going to grad school, or finishing grad school, having babies, getting married, moving away, taking new jobs. at the metaphorical party, other people are coordinating rides home. i didn’t want to be left behind, so it was time to figure out where i’m going next, too.
but that’s not to say that the party isn’t totally kicking ass just now. spring just returned to chicago after a long long long cold winter. leaves are on the trees, al fresco dining has returned, it’s all commuting to work by bike and cool nights drinking beer on the porch. but the goodbyes have begun. i’m making the rounds at the party, gathering my coat, kissing everyone on the cheek. i have mixed feelings of excitement and apprehension, but regardless, Project Exit Chicago is in full swing.
i’ll try to spare the slithy tove too many self-indulgent posts about to-do lists and the trauma of itemizing and packing my home and fights with the utility companies. we’ve all moved, it sucks. so Project Exit Chicago is more of a best-of chicago review: things that either i needed to do one more time, or stuff i’ve always meant to do and haven’t gotten around to it quite yet.
+ volunteer for a race
today my alarm went off at 4:15am. by the first light of dawn, i was on my bike and head down the lake front path to Soldier Field, where met my pal adan and we volunteered on the grounds crew for the Soldier Field 10 Mile race (checking off a 101 task in the process). i
+ watched the sun rise over lake Michigan as i biked in, a fiery red disk nestled in a bank of clouds over the horizon, the water glassy in the still air, shining white where the lightening sky passed over it, the reflection moving with me as i sped along the lake.
+ commute around chicago by bike on a beautiful sunny day
post-race, adam and i biked north past the aquarium, the water sparkling in the sunshine, white sailboats bobbing against the blue water. we went up michigan ave past the tourists and the new modern wing of the art institute, then crossed the loop and up past the chocolate factory in the west loop whose emissions give downtown that curiously wonderful cocoa smell on days when the wind blows just right. then we turned up milwaukee, rode past all the hipsters in their annoying wicker park en route to
+ Hot Doug’s to eat duck fat fries. they were good, i have to admit. two-hours of line good? not at all. but two hours of waiting in line while hanging out with my pal adam in order to sample a chicago institution was certainly a good way to spend my afternoon. then home to finish assembling my apple pie*, quick stop to feed a friend’s cat, and on to the
+ Keenans’ place for a memorial day BBQ**.
other Exit Chicago tasks completed in the past few weeks:
+ running a half marathon in under 1:50
+ passing my 4th kyu test in aikido
+ grabbing a (veggie) burger at the excellent heavy metal-themed Kuma’s Corner with my pal aaron, who was also working on his own Exit Chicago list. (i ordered a burger that came topped with, among other things, anger).
+ going away party for departing staff at work (i am one of five leaving this spring), held in the backyard of a board member’s beautiful historic hyde park home, exactly the gracious sort of lawn party one could imagine a hyde park home is good for: beautifully laid out gardens that flow into one another gracefully (no need to fence out the neighbors when the garden so nicely), big shady trees, cold white wine on the first hot day, sundresses and gifts of signed/framed posters of past shows and little plates of summer fruit and cheese.
+ the annual fundraising gala for the theatre company that gave me my first job in chicago, a chance to say thanks to then-artistic director: someone who took a HUGE chance on me, hired me over the phone for an entry-level production management position before i’d even arrived in chicago, mentored me into that role, and set me on the career path that, 6 years later, has become a viable, actual career that i think i just might be really good at. while at the gala i posed for a photo with three other stage managers at that company (past and present) and i realized that at one time or another, i had hired all of them. for just a moment, i preened like a mother hen.
+ dinner at Hama Matsu, my neighbornhoody Japanese/Korean place, with my friend Jacqueline
+ dinner at (the excellent vegetarian/vegan-friendly***) Chicago Diner with Becky, one of the very first friends i met when i moved to chicago six years ago.
*my pursuit of perfect pastry crust is going well, though i still haven’t finished tweaking the apple filling to be the way i wanted it. i was convinced that ginger (first candied, then fresh) was the secret, but i’ve decided tha it makes the filling sharp when i’d prefer it to be mellow.
**where said apple pie was baked and consumed, ala mode.
***this place changed my mind entirely about vegan baking and desserts.