goodbye illinois!

Music: FENNESZ: Black Sea (2008)

I'm lounging at O'Hare in Chicago waiting for a late afternoon flight back to my home in Austin. I've had a lovely "tour of the Midwest" to compliment last Spring's "tour of the Northeast," visiting libraries and friends in Minnesota and Illinois. It has been two years since I've enjoyed the Midwest and its friendly people, and it is so nice to be back. I got snow; I got sub-zero temps; I got sunshine and the budding of spring, too! Last night, as I was about to lay down for sleep, I got to thinking about how this place is no longer "home," how that feeling has shifted to Texas (and how remarkable it is that I call Texas home---I would have never predicted that), but how many of my "peeps" are still here, in the Midwest. As a Georgia boy, having this scattered identity---having these roots in so many disparate places---is just a teensy bit confusing. It is a difficult feeling to describe. As facebook has become the equivalent of a high school and grade-school reunion, I get a sense from my "old friends" of the Great Teenage that Georgia feels like "home," that the roots are deep and anchored, and so forth. I don't have that feeling about any place I've lived, really. Austin is becoming that, and I suppose if I'm promoted the roots will start to sink and maybe, one day, I'll have that "this is it feeling." Austin is unquestionably home (I mean, I keep thinking about seeing the dog), but I still seem to get my "recharge" in different places.

I suppose I might try to express my feelings today a different way: only by traveling does one become convicted in the geography of a "home." Only by being away from Austin for some time does it have the gravity. And I think spending time in the hospital there---you know, being scared shitless---makes Austin a deeper furrow.

But, enough of the contemplative navel gazing of traveling romanticism. I left Urbana for Chicago on Wednesday, and then hopped a bus to Evanston where I hooked up with Harold. I then got to see the headquarters of Northwestern's College and Department of Communication, which surprisingly I have never seen before. Ok, that's not true: I remember the college when it was in a different building in the 1990s. This was the first time I've seen the new "relocated" school and department in the "Death Star," the craziest new-agey building you've ever seen. The layout of this building is pretty wacky, and you get lost easily. Harold toured me the building, and then we met-up with Angela in the newly relocated rhetoric and public culture program into the remodeled Annie May Swift Building, which is beautiful.

We retired to Skokie for conversation, pizza, and dog love! Monty and Abby showed me their dinnertime tricks (Abby is particularly hilarious, who twirls in place until she gets dizzy at dinner time).

Thursday Angela and I drove to Humboldt Park for lunch at "Bite," a very tasty, very artsy eatery. We hooked up there with Johanna, who then carried me back to DeKalb. Zack and Johanna were the most marvelous hosts (and man, can these two cook!). They pried me with bourbon and put me to bed. I awoke the next day for fun time at Northern Illinois University. I sat in on Johanna's "free speech" class. A group of students did a presentation on commercial "sex," a commercial about sperm and then one PETA commercial in which women are licking pumpkins and fondling broccoli stems.

I did a little sharing to the department, and then we went to HAPPY HOUR! I love me some happy hour. I got to spend some time with my old "grad buddy" Rob Brookey, whom I hadn't seen in a while (Rob was just as funny as he ever was, always laughing). The Communication folks at DeKalb seemed a tight-nit and collegial bunch, and I really enjoyed meeting them. I'm also so happy for Johanna for ending up in a department like this, a department that understands her awesomeness and celebrates it.

After a fantastic meal prepared by Zack last night (and a film, something called Nick and Nora's Endless Mix-CD or something like that; it was cute) I crashed fast. This morning, however, I awoke to a full-blown awesome breakfast of champions and Johanna reading a Swedish cookbook! Awesome.

And so here I sit; my flight departs in about an hour. My laptop battery rapidly depletes. And I muse. This has been a fabulous, love-filled trip. I return with research materials and a bag of books that I didn't start out with. But more importantly, I return with memories of friends whom I expect to have the rest of my life. Yeah, call it "nostalgia" if you want, but it's my birthday and I'll be nostalgic if I want to. So bite me.

Oh, yeah: full gallery of my visit in Chicago here; full gallery of my visit with Zack and E! in DeKalb/Naperville is here.