{"id":763,"date":"2010-11-22T15:36:30","date_gmt":"2010-11-22T21:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/?p=763"},"modified":"2010-11-24T10:05:01","modified_gmt":"2010-11-24T16:05:01","slug":"my-kind-of-town-chicago-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/?p=763","title":{"rendered":"My Kind of Town (Chicago Is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

22. A photo of your town. 10\/30\/04. First view of the Chicago skyline in a year.<\/p><\/div>\n

What a moment. Returning to Chicago after a year abroad (New Jersey.) Hastily snapped photo of the skyline as I pilot the truck containing my belongings homeward. It felt amazing and surreal and humbling to come back. When I made the decision to leave, I actually uttered the words, “There’s nothing for me here.” Thoughtless words, those. There’s everything <\/em>for me here. Except for Yuengling. That’s just out east.<\/p>\n

Back up to a respectable daily count, which means I can actually share some numbers. We’re at 38,740 and climbing. That puts us at 77%. The month is 73% done. Still in the running.<\/p>\n

Of course, the writing is weird. The story has completely gone out the window, so I am going back to old scenes and adding one those funny ridiculous stories<\/a> that I love having characters tell.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I did hook up with Susan though,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I continued.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh yeah!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Paul said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d forgotten about that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Susan was a former sales assistant who had left Cola about a week after I started. We flirted at her going-away party and since I had not yet had enough time to display my complete unsuitability as a mate to everyone through my unprofessional behavior, my petulant attitude, and my bad personal grooming, Susan had considered me fresh meat, viable and available, and had allowed me to escort her home.<\/p>\n

I smiled, fondly thinking back to that night. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That was fun.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wait a second,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Paul said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what you told me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Come on, Art, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfess up. There are no secrets or lies in the Cubicle of Truth.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I thought we had stopped calling it that,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said. We had been going back and forth on the official cubicle name. Much work time had been devoted to the very important debtate. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I thought we had settled upon Plagueville.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Regardless of the name, Arthur, the fact remains. Once a Cubicle of Truth, always a Cubicle of Truth. As long as you reside here, you shall be bound by its laws.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Crap.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So, tell the audience what happened, Arthur.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Alright,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I started, already warming to the story. My people love telling stories. It is in my blood and it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter if the story shows me in a good light or not. In fact, the worse off I come across in a story, the more sympathetic (or just pathetic) I appear. Or so I thought. It was a Jewish thing. I think. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So Susan and I are hanging out at her party in the break room, and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re both pretty tipsy….\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Alcohol was normally forbidden at all company events, whether Cola-sponsored or not, but Susan was incredibly resourceful. Her brother was Cola\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s legal counsel and had found numerous loopholes in the company alcohol policy. Ever since then, as long as the event took place on an odd-numbered day, within three days of a major holiday (of any nation, creed, or culture) and was not taking place near computers or heavy machinery, we could get away with drinking booze on site. It was known as the Susan Initiative, and we thanked her for it weekly. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So I said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWould you like to come back to my cubicle?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and she said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcIs that what you packaging kids call it these days?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 And of course, I was confused by that because what else does anybody call a cubicle. I mean, a cubicle is a cubicle, right? I suppose some people call them \u00e2\u20ac\u02dccubes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really more of an abbreviation than anything else.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I could tell that I was losing my audience. Therese looked like she might fall asleep, Kate looked even less engaged than ever and even Paul, who normally listened with rapt attention to any story that I might tell seemed uninterested. He had turned back to his computer, and while I knew he was listening, I could tell from the back of his head that he was growing bored.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Anyhow. I realize you guys are all busy so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll just cut to the chase. After a bit of witty repartee, a little back and forth, we cut out of here and head over to her place. Now I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if you know this, but you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re about to: Susan has a dog.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We know,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Paul groaned. Of course they knew. We all knew. Susan talked about nothing but her dog, pretty much all day every day. I had only known her a week, but already I had been shown pictures of her dog and told stories about her dog a dozen times. I have a pretty strict \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell me about your dog unless he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on fire or he cured cancer\u00e2\u20ac\u009d policy, but, being new in town, and eager to make friends, I had listened intently.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a moment. Returning to Chicago after a year abroad (New Jersey.) Hastily snapped photo of the skyline as I pilot the truck containing my belongings homeward. It felt amazing and surreal and humbling to come back. When I made the decision to leave, I actually uttered the words, “There’s nothing for me here.” Thoughtless […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nanowrimo","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}