I just registered for the 20-Something Bloggers meetup!

(I thought I’d point that out for those of you who can’t see the ginormous picture in the sidebar. And can’t read the post title. You know who you are.)

I very nearly went to BlogHer last year but waited too long to sign up. Registration was closed when I finally clicked over there, and I was pretty disappointed in my lazy self. Everyone came back with such squee-filled posts about days and days of blogger fun. I felt like I’d really missed out.

I’ve met a few of the lovely Chicago bloggers and am pretty stoked to see them again, but this will be my first biggish meetup. Not only do I always love a trip to the great state of Chicago,** but anytime someone gives me a t-shirt with a logo on it, I get pretty worked up. And the thought of the swag bag makes me a little warm around the edges.

Confession: This meetup actually looks a lot more fun than BlogHer. Who wants to go to lectures and speeches when you can go on a cupcake crawl and a Gold Coast night out? 40 bloggers have already signed up, and there’s plenty of room for more!

For info on the 20-Something Bloggers 2009 Meetup, go to the official blog at http://20sbmeetup.wordpress.com/ and read more. The links are there to register for the event, see the proposed schedule, get hotel deals, roommates, and so on.

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** Yes, I said that on purpose. Google Dan Quayle.

Oh, it was cold up there. Good thing I had a little Bailey’s in the hot chocolate or I might have crumpled. 36 degrees in misty rain and gusting wind for four hours – people die of hypothermina in situations milder than that.

But the Cubs didn’t! We stayed till the very end and danced to “Go Cubs Go!” and waved the big “W” flag as the Colorado Rockies fled the field with frozen heads hung in shame.

It was so different to go to a game at good old Wrigley Field again – it was my first trip there in about twenty years. I’m so used to Busch Stadium with its millions of lights and colorful ads and Jumbotron. Even before the flashy new stadium was built in 2006, we had the lights and screens and music. There’s a Build-a-Bear (a Fredbird, really) inside Busch Stadium, along with an arcade and a million other things to divert you from the game you ostensibly came to see. In weather like we had on Monday, you probably wouldn’t have seen over 40,000 people sitting outside at a game in St. Louis. They’d be in the stadium bars and restaurants and watching the TVs and Jumbotron to see what was happening on the field. It’s not that we in St. Louis are necessarily big wusses, but it’s what’s available to us and so we take advantage of those things.

At Wrigley we had no choice. Go big or go home. We went big – literally, bundled up in layers of warmth and waterproofing, giving us an excellent cover for the bootlegged booze. We watched the game as it played out on the field, not a screen, and the scoreboard behind us was the old kind where you can see the person inside pull down the numbers and replace them. There were no instant replays. No trivia for the crowd. It was kind of heartwarming.

But you know, foot-warming might have been better. I couldn’t feel my toes for about three hours after we left, but it was such a wonderful day. A wonderful weekend, really. E and I did the roadtrip with some friends, and we all stayed at a Very Nice Hotel off Michigan Avenue for free, since it’s part of the family of hotels for which he works. Dinner the first night was at Morton’s with E’s dad, and I may or may not have had one too many vodka and Diet Cokes. E kept pinching me under the table to keep me from talking, lest I say something completely retarded in front of his AA dad. Oops.

And as usual, I forgot my expensive camera at home.

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Two Updates:

1. The girl who had dinner with George Clooney did NOT get fired. He got permission from the boss to take her to dinner – how’s THAT for slick? At the Very Nice Restaurant, the customer is always right.

2. While we were up there, we talked to Archie about the Vegas deal. Everything is still kind of up in the air.

E’s buddy Archie is the executive chef at a Very Nice Restaurant in Chicago. One of the managers of the Very Nice Restaurant is going to be opening a new branch of Very Nice Restaurant in one of the Very Nice Casinos in Las Vegas, and he has asked Archie to help open it and be the executive chef there. Archie and his wife say they are about 90% sure they’re going to take the offer – the money is better and the cost of living is lower in Vegas, and they figure that they could at least try it for a year or two and build up some savings, then come back to Chicago if they don’t like it out west.

Good deal for Archie, yes?

Archie told E that he’ll need a right-hand man to do this thing, and that’s a right-hand man who would get paid half again over what E makes now. That is some niiice money. E is tempted – and he wants me to go with him.

Sometimes it seems like things are kind of drying up for us in St. Louis. My job is okay, his job is okay. We’re stable enough, really. But our best friends are all splintering off and doing different things, moving away, moving on. E’s best friend here is moving to South Carolina in the summer and taking his girlfriend – one of my good friends – with him. It feels like things are happening somewhere and we’re missing out. Friends move and circles change, and maybe we shouldn’t be standing still. As E and I approach thirty, we’ve been looking forward and back and what we’ve done, haven’t done, and want to do. We talk about getting married and probably having a kid sometime in the future, but that’s not in the immediate plan. We want to have an adventure, and maybe an opportunity like this coming at this point in our lives is what we need. Maybe we need to blow this town for a couple of years.

There are a lot of what-ifs and whatnots. Archie might not take the job after all, and the whole scenario would be moot. The guy starting the restaurant could get worried about the state of the economy and bail out on his plans. If we go, I’d have to sell my house. E would have to support us both out there till I could get a job. We’d have to give our parents “The Talk” in which we inform them that not only are we moving, we’re moving in together. That’s a baddie on both counts for both of our families, so we’re not even bringing it up until we decide. Or we might just straight up freak out and decided not to go because we are big chickens. We wouldn’t be alone – Archie and his wife would be there with us, obviously – but it’s still scary as shiz and so exciting at the same time. No income tax, no humidity, houses that look like overgrown Taco Bells, nearby mountains, good golf, cheap airfare deals every weekend. And no family, no safety net, no toasted ravioli, no Provel cheese (well, HE wouldn’t miss that), and a significant increase in the moisturizer budget.

It’s huge. It’s crazy. I soooo want to do it. Today, anyway.

The timeline is such that we wouldn’t move till late summer or early fall – I think the Very Nice Restaurant is slated to open in October – so that means won’t have to decide until July or so. Neither of us have even been to Las Vegas before, so I think that once Archie tells us his decision, we’ll make a little reconnaissance trip if he says he and his wife are going.

Then it’s up to us.

Vacation this year seemed a bit off. I was sick the entire time (and who doesn’t love that?) so a lot of it passed in a blur. However, in between Kleenex and shots of Cepacol, it looked something like this:

Friday:

Discovering the beauty of the borrowed iPass while navigating the Chicago suburbs to Jenn’s house.

Starting work on redesigning Jenn’s blog.

Golden Tee – a 91 foot putt!

Cold medicine, cold medicine…

Saturday:

Shopping with Jenn and Jess and getting a few sweet deals at Banana Republic

Meeting E’s executive chef friend at his restaurant and gorging on all sorts of food I can’t pronounce (free!) while waiting for E to arrive.

E getting to Chicago 8 hours late.

E getting us kicked out of a bar because he was drunk and kept “forgetting” that you can’t smoke in bars in Chicago. Me punching him on the sidewalk.

Cold medicine, cold medicine, cold medicine….

Sunday:

Lou Malnati’s deep-dish pizza.

Horseshoe Casino.

E loudly referring to me as his future wife and betting the craps table that he’d propose to me on the spot if he rolled a three.

E rolling a four. Me sighing in relief in between coughs.

Coldmedicinecoldmedicinecoldmedicine…

Monday:

Driving to Holland, Michigan while doped up on cold medicine.

Seeing E’s mom and hanging out with his high school friends.

Toothache begins.

Cold medicine coma.

Tuesday:

Hauling E’s butt down to the Secretary of State’s office to get some papers he needs to resolve The Legal Issue That Shall Not Be Named.

Chicago hot dogs and gyros at Mr. Kozak’s.

Spending all afternoon running iTunes backups for friend.

Toothache worsens.

Passing out on friend’s couch at 9:30 pm.

Cold medicine coma, coughing fits, near death.

Wednesday:

Driving home for 8 hours, still slightly hopped-up on cold medicine.

Toothache feels marginally better.

Checking odometer: 1,062 miles on the new car without a glitch.

Falling in own bed, coughing like cat with a hairball, passing out.

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On Thursday I came back to work, still sniffling and coughing but feeling a bit better overall. My toothache was still bugging me though, and as one of those bad, bad people who hasn’t gone to the dentist for five years, I was getting pretty concerned. I’ve had intermittent minor toothaches for years, but the pain on the left side of my face was freaking me out, so I grudgingly called the office and they agreed to see me yesterday afternoon.

And just in case you didn’t know, your teeth should NOT be in your sinuses.

See the maxillary sinuses? See how high they are in your cheeks? When they fill up with goo, that’s why your face hurts around the eyes when you have a sinus infection.

See how your teeth should end below the maxillary sinus cavity? It appears that mine don’t. The roots of my molars are actually INSIDE my sinuses, according to my x-rays. So they hurt when the sinuses fill up with goo. Even the dentist grimaced a little bit while he was explaining to me that he wouldn’t touch those roots with a ten-foot pole. The prognosis isn’t bad – it’s just painful but not actually bad for my health. If I continue to have sinus infections and the pain gets unbearable or I experience nerve problems then I guess they do something icky inside my cheek to fix it.

I did not accomplish ALL of my vacation goals (no Bears shirt – I bought myself some cute cords instead) but I did refrain from getting drunk and hitting on boys. So that was my vacation, and all was not wasted. How are you?

I had my mouse over the “Publish” button and was about to send off a post about how I hate being sick on vacation but it’s okay because my vacation is going fine anyway, blah blah, when my phone rang.

It was E.

I came up to Chicago yesterday to crash with a friend and do a little shop-shop-shopping since E had to work Friday night. The plan was for him to catch the good old MegaBus (woo!) from St. Louis at 8:30 to come up here today and I’d pick him up at Union Station at 3, from whence we would proceed to the rest of our vacation together – seeing more friends tonight, going to Michigan tomorrow, etc.

8:38 am

“Baby, you’re not gonna believe this.”

Have I heard that line before? “Are you on the bus?” I ask slowly.

It all tumbled out as one sentence. “I called the cab driver 45 minutes before the bus was supposed to leave and he was late and picked me up ten minutes before I had to be on the bus and he made two wrong turns and I missed the fucking bus and I am so sorry baby I am raging pissed right now and the noon bus is full so I can’t get another one till four o’clock and that means I won’t be there till almost ten.”

Delete happy post.

So I get to do what in the city by myself this evening? Am I supposed to keep the rendezvous with his friends that I’ve never met without him? Where do I park now? Meet friends where? I need a map! I am a planner and the plans have gone awry! What do I doooo????

Eff eff eff eff.

He’s calling the friends we were supposed to meet and stay with with and he’s going to get instructions for me. It looks like I might get to park the car in their swanky downtown building for free, so that’s nice. I’m probably going to have to meet up with these strangers and hang out with them before he gets there, which would make me a tiny bit nervous anyway but is making me much more nervous now because I am a germy ball of snot wrapped in blue Puffs tissues, and it is not a good look for me. Strangers don’t want to welcome the plague into their expensive lofty apartments to stay the night and clog up the furnace filter with ick. I’d feel much better if he were there with me, holding my grimy hand for the introductions.

But c’est la vie. They’re his lifelong friends so they have to deal with me (and I can still be charming with a red nose). And really? It’s just a few extra hours in a city I love, and I won’t complain. So I’ll go downtown today as planned, I just have a little more time to shop with money I don’t have, right?

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Chicago bloggers: whatcha doing this evening?