Spent the weekend in Chicago for a wedding and mini-vacation. I’d only been there once before, when I missed a one-flight-a-day connection and had 24 hours to explore Chicago with impractical shoes and no coat or toothbrush. This time, the Windy City had done some kind of spa day/makeover/Tim Gunn thing in advance of my arrival. We had breezy shirt-sleeve weather all weekend, with the leaves going yellow and the buildings acting all glossy in the sun.

I saw a few people from college who have been MIA for eight or ten years, including the groom, who took the photos at our wedding back in the day. One of my key memories of him is,at his suggestion,picking pieces of hollow grass from the side of the road and smoking them in a reenactment of a childhood misconception. I mentioned this to him at the reception. One of his key memories is his walking into a sapling on the streets of Portland. I thought it might have been me who ran into the sapling. In any party of two or more, I’d vote myself most likely to smash into something.

Dr. G and I went on an architectural boat tour with another friend, with whom he use to have cutthroat Boggle battles. They seemed to be in a competition to run out the batteries in their digital cameras. Dr. G. won.

More college nostalgia at the Art Institute, where I saw up close and personal the actual paintings I used to tack up in my various dorm rooms and apartments as posters. My favorite was Old Guitarist. I like that guy. I used to hang it sideways so he looked less sad.

oldgit