Fancy That

Since I officially called in sick for work and insomnia was in the mood to reminisce I went back and read a few old blogs...


Take this excerpt from Perpetually Single on December 13, 2008

"The hotel was wonderful right smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood filled with three flats and low rise apartments/condos. I walked the block and a half to Jewel and bought overpriced food and wine, stopped to browse at available condos adds in the window of the real estate office and popped in at a bar for a pre-dinner drink.

I was in a place where my evening entertainment was a cab ride away, any store or restaurant I could ever want to go was here. I was happy, I was by myself but I was where I wanted to be.

On a sleeting Wednesday night in December I was standing on a Wrigleyville street corner hailing a cab and I knew...I knew I was home."

I forgot.

The old hotel, the squeeky staircase, the elevator with a gate, Amanda Palmer's bus driver smoking out front. The smells, the people, the cold, the excitement, the little soaps on the bamboo tray, the salad of spring mix greens with strawberries and blue cheese with raspberry vinagarette dressing. The guy in the line before the concert who just got off work and had an fadded grey canvas backpack. The hotdog stand across the street. The cute lesbian couple next to me. The front row, knowing every word, the hoarse voice. Having to pee so badly running out of the concert to the next door bar and ordering a drink and realizing I was sitting next to Zoe Keating. Chit chatting with Neil Gaiman while I hailed a cab.

I forgot about how I felt when I walked through the neighborhood. How the years being trapped where I didn't belong lifted and suddenly change seemed possible. Where things were right.

Somewhere in my memory this was lost. I googled the hotel.

My dinner last night was from that Jewel.
I live 3 blocks away.