"I was in love with a place..." - Brady

I was a teensy bit afraid that, while living in Fort Wayne, I was idealizing Chicago and that when I got back here I wouldn't love it like I remembered loving it.

Not an issue. I love everything about it. I love the buildings and the skyline and the tiny gardens people have outside of their tiny houses and the El and all the cool stuff to do and especially Lake Michigan. I even love things other people hate, like the ridiculous weather and hearing my neighbors all the time (last night I fell asleep to some fratty guys yelling at each other and woke up to a mom screaming at her kid "I can't TAKE IT when you spit at me!") Sufjan Stevens has a song called "Chicago," and one of the lines is, "I was in love with a place." I know exactly how he feels.

Last night is a perfect example of why I feel so strongly about this city. After work, Kevin and I put on our jogging clothes and ran the 6 miles or so down to Millennium Park where a free concert by She & Him was going on. I said to him at one point how amazing it is that, on any given Monday night, I can run along the coastline of one of the biggest freshwater bodies of water in the world to one of the most famous parks in America to watch the sun set and see a band for free whose concerts would normally cost at least $40/ticket.

Here's an old picture of Kevin and me, maybe our senior year of college, in Chicago in a park at a concert. I expect there will be many, many future versions of this photo.