Back in the land of the living

or On missing Chicago and mothers who lived in a household with video game playing kids

Being incredibly horribly sick and stuck indoors in horrible weather (not that there was a whole lot to do anyway) for most of my "vacation" was made up for when one evening my mom bent over to pick some article of clothing off the floor and as she stood up, saying to herself, "Hadoken!" I wish I could've recorded the moment for posterity.

Not so cool? Having the same mom show you a pile of baby clothes she crocheted, "For when you have a baby."

Flying to see my family, I had to make a pit stop at O'Hare. Originally, I was
Denver-bound for the first leg of my trip, but bad weather and the general ridiculousness of LaGuardia had other plans for me.

As I looked out across the expanse of the Chicagoland area, the orange of the LPS stood out more against the snow-covered ground, I noticed it seemed to spill out into the horizon, only to end in an ominous jaundiced blazing fuzz against the night sky. As if the that was the edge of the world where all of creation was pushed into a fiery pit.

"Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice..."

From what I’ve seen that night, it ends in a sodium vapor haze of an urban sprawl.

The plane began its descent and thick white snowfall rose up to meet us and I realized more than anything I missed Chicago for its snow and it's winter-like winters. I had just started reading Pamuk's "Snow" and I found myself contemplating the silence of snow just like Ka. The nights I'd be up late working furiously, chased by deadlines, only to realize it was much to quiet. I'd draw the curtains to see that a heavy snowfall had begun. Or the times I'd wake up to a silent morning only to find the morning outside muffled by a blanket of white. No matter what the day promised to bring or whatever new assignments or worries had me up late I found myself taking a few quiet moments to stare at the falling snow or the snow on the ground.

That used to be real nice. Nowadays snow just seems like a nice treat that might happen if winter feels like it.

On the way back I found myself in O'Hare again. I had a "Chicago-style" hot dog to make up for the fact that I was merely passing through the city on a 1-2 hour basis. I tried to snag a picture of the familiar color-lighted walkway between Concourse B and C. A seeming neon apocalypse of the conflagration that begot the sodium vapor eschaton that swallowed the horizons at night.

While at night the world ended in fire, during the day it ended in ice. The daytime flight homeward found us gliding towards the blue expanse of Lake Michigan. As the lake went on the deep blue began to became part of the wall of deep purple and blue that was the sky. As the two seemed to melt together a scattering of clouds looked almost like snowcapped mountains it it seemed as if the east of Chicago was walled in by a gargantuan mountain range that exited before time and we were flying right into it.

I sighed since Chicago might as well have been The Blazing World and I was flying through over and through an icy mountain portal only available through the North Pole on my way back "home." Since I had left there, my first visit back consisted simply of layovers. It seemed even more ridiculous when I considered what I missed most were things like snow and winter and I knew it would be a while for me to ever go back considering my irrational fear of living too long in the same place. So that's just one more place for me to add to my list of places that I can call home but never will.





...Man, now this just makes me want to listen to "Out of Reach" by The Get Up Kids. That stupid proto-emoness tries to sneak in no matter how old I get. However it just seems like instead of having that "our song" about past human love interests I feel that way about geographical love interests.