There’s a line in “The Devil Wears Prada” (movie) that I just love to steal when someone is sick. I refer to that person as “an incubus of viral plague” and it sounds so haughty-funny and people always laugh. I’m no Meryl Streep, but I used it on E when he had the flu and he even thought it was funny.

But it’s hard to laugh when you yourself are said incubus and your throat is ablaze with a raging inferno of fiery germs that no amount of cepacol or pectin can extinguish. Happy New Year’s Eve, indeed.

I’m feeling better this evening though. Tomorrow I’m off to Chicago (woo!) for a day or two and then to the Great White North of Holland, Michigan for the annual rounds to see E’s family and friends. I kind of love that even though we did break up for awhile this summer, E and I are repeating things now so I can call it our “annual” whatever. Now we’ve had 2 Thanksgivings and 2 Christmases and 2 New Year’s Eves (neither of which we got to spend together) and this will be our second family-visiting Michigan trip. Awwwww…

To Do in Chicago:

Buy a Bears shirt (or a Bears something)

Shopping with Jenn

Dinner with blog friends*

Work my mad skills as Wordpress web designer for a friend’s blog

Buy some sort of suck-up present for E’s mom

To NOT Do in Chicago:

Get smashed

Pick up boys

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* Chicago blogger friends, if I forgot to add you to my watch-out-I’m-back-in-town email list due to my NyQuil-induced haze, I’m sorrreee! Please email me if you want to hang out.

Every Who down in Who-ville liked Christmas a lot, but I can’t think of more than a handful of people that I know in my age group who really looked forward to it this year.

A lot of us don’t like the annoyance and hassle of traveling, the pain of having to shop for ANYTHING between Thanksgiving and New Year’s (not just presents – even things like tampons and cheese can get you trampled by crazies in jingle-bell sweaters), and the stress of spending much more time than usual with family. Yay Baby Jesus and all, but Christmas has, in a lot of ways, become a pain in the ass.

Christmas has turned into Valentine’s Day, that great celebration of love and togetherness that makes even those of us with our schmoopy true loves want to vomit sometimes. My theory is that the pressure to be happy just kills it. You’re supposed to show the Holiday Spirit and Goodwill Toward All. It’s the rule in the same way that there’s a rule that you’re supposed to express your love in some exaggerated fashion on Valentine’s Day. And if you don’t do these things? Then you’re a mean one, Mister Grinch. You’re a nasty-wasty skunk. Your heart is full of unwashed socks, your soul is full of gunk, Mister Gri-INCH!

Sorry. Got carried away with The Holiday Spirit.

Seriously, I think the reason that I feel like crap on Christmas is because I’m supposed to feel good.

Example:

E and I had an argument last night that I swear we wouldn’t have had if it had been March 24th instead of December 24th. He got off work at 11:30, was all stressed, and wanted to go have a beer or three and play a video game with his buddy, instead of coming over and staying with me as originally discussed. He invited me along but I was tired and wanted to stay home. Whatever, I told him, go chill with the friend and blow off some steam, no big deal, I’ll see you tomorrow morning for Christmas.

But when I hung up the phone, I began to rage. Wait a minute, I thought, I have to be alone on Christmas Eve so he can play Golden Tee? Nooo! It’s freaking Christmas Eve! I’m supposed to be with the person I love and sharing some sort of deep connection as the magic of Christmas washes over us!

I called him back, annoyed, and he didn’t understand why since I’d told him just moments before that I didn’t mind. And my dumb ass went on and on about how it’s Christmas and we should be together and crappity-crap-crap and I bet his eyebrows just went up into his hair. I had NO reason to give him shit like that because on any other day, I swear it wouldn’t have mattered.

But the Things We Are Supposed to Do get ingrained in our heads and when we don’t do them, we feel guilty. Angry. Sad. I’ve been without a boyfriend for many, many days in my life, and the days that I really wanted one were inevitably Christmas and Valentine’s Day – the days when you just know you SHOULD have someone to be with. You may not care on December 23rd or 26th, or on February 13th or 15th, but damn those days in between. Even when you DO have a significant other, you are supposed to do Something Special with that person and if you don’t, you’re a foul one, Mister Grinch. Your heart’s an empty hole. Your brain is full of spiders, you’ve got garlic in your soul, Mister Gri-INCH!

Again, sorry.

I was raised in a church and I remember being told that we should celebrate Jesus every day of the year, not just on his birthday. I asked then why we celebrated Jesus’ birthday on just one day, and was told that it was to bring people together in fellowship and love that day. Then they said we should have fellowship and love all year too.

All year? That explanation didn’t make much sense to me – if anything, it reinforced the secular meaning of Christmas because hello? SANTA only comes one day a year! THAT is what makes Christmas a special day!

E and I took a walk on the shore of Lake Michigan at Macatawa Bay last year on Christmas Day. Truly, the only thing that made that walk on the lake shore any different from any other day’s walk on the lake shore was the fact that he had a furry Santa hat on the whole time. We had a lovely day that happened to be December 25th.

Have I completely killed The Holiday Spirit by thinking we really should focus on Santa at Christmas, and not the love-and-fellowship message of Jesus?

Oh well. Call me a Grinch if you want to. I know the whole song.

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Photos from a walk that just happened to take place on Christmas Day

Conference, schmonference. The only thing of note during conference time on Friday was that it was freaking FREEZING in there. During the morning inbrief, a nice man saw me shivering and let me borrow his blazer. I got a cup of coffee just to warm my hands, and I didn’t take a sip. I was wearing a button-down shirt and a linen skirt, not a bikini. But brr!

So I did what any reasonable girl on Michigan Avenue would do. I skipped out of the fifteen-minute break/networking session and trotted across the street to the North Face store in the Hancock Building. I bought this:

It looked nice over my white button-down, although with the patch on the sleeve and the skirt I was wearing, I felt a bit like I was ditching class from my private school. Maybe I should have gotten this one instead.

It might have been even more appropriate. That and ski pants.

But I escaped without losing any digits to frostbite, and headed out into the fierce Chicago sunshine to go get ready to meet more of the blog posse.

I will pause here for a moment and explain the title of this post. I have a coworker who refers to my blogger pals as my “imaginary friends” since all I do is type and Twitter to you guys and have never met any of you face to face before this trip. NS, look! You’re finally being mentioned in a post! EAT THAT!

“Jess said she’d be wearing a blue shirt,” I said. “I think I know what she looks like, but not the others.”

“Yeah I saw the pictures she posted from BlogHer,” Jenn added as we scanned the plaza. “But why was she wearing a cheeseburger bag on her head?”

Even without her distinctive headwear, we found Jess. Three more lovely lady bloggers joined us – it should have been four, but noooo, Jamie just HAD to go to Lollapalooza and send eleventy-three Tweets that had us all checking our phones and envying her. I was the newbie in the group and I hadn’t read everyone and everyone hadn’t read me, but it took about three and a half minutes for me to feel like I was catching up with old friends that I hadn’t seen in awhile, rather than meeting new people that I’d be afraid wouldn’t like me.

This does go back to my theory of the Six Degrees of Blogroll. In the same way that we’ve always chosen our friends, we choose what we read. As we’ve all grown and gotten out of high school and college cliques, sororities, and organized extracurriculars, the friend-market becomes almost as tricky as the mate-market. I have no idea how to “make friends” with a girl, really. My only new female friends post-college have been from work. You can’t just go pick up friends at a bar.

But when you read a blog and you recognize some sort of friend material in that blogger, you read again. And then you click on that person’s blogroll and find someone who the blogger you like likes, because that person exudes the friend vibe to the blogger you like, and it’s the same vibe you get from that first one. So you read another blog. And click another link, and read another blog, and realize that one or two of them have been reading you and added you to a blogroll. The Six Degrees of Blogroll becomes a circle of friends who have met and friends to be made, and when you meet, you hug.

Among the six of us we didn’t finish one deep-dish at Giordano’s, and we took our takeaway bags down the street to a pub called Elephant & Castle* for a few beverages. Conversation ranged from jobs and politics to relationships and the relative size of one’s ass. At one point late in the evening it was down to three of us and a tableful of empty glasses, earnestly discussing the problems of age-centered blog ad networks, the hostile takeover by the mommy-bloggers, and certain people having crushes on other certain people. It was bliss.

So in conclusion, without sounding like a lesbian, may I ask: WHERE ARE ALL THE SINGLE GIRLS IN ST. LOUIS?!?!

And Chicago? Labor Day, bitches. I will see you then.

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*Giordano’s also does not serve Bud Select.

**Which also does not serve Bud Select.

Day Two, Lessons Learned:

• There are TWO Hiltons on Michigan Avenue.
• Remember to pack your crazy meds before you leave the hotel in the morning.
• Conferences are good because everyone is checking email on their phones, and therefore do not notice that you are Twittering or on AOL.
• Toyota won’t talk to you.

Day Two technically started at 4 am when I remembered that hideous conversation I blogged yesterday. I washed down two Excedrin with a swig of lukewarm Diet Pepsi and slept fitfully for two and a half more hours.

I was actually quite excited to get up and going on Thursday morning. It was my first conference ever, and I put on my lovely black Audrey Hepburn Breakfast-at-Tiffany’s dress with a soft little cardi and round-toe kitten heels. I was professional and fabulous.

Until I got to the lobby and realized my poster was upstairs in my room.

And had the cab take me to the wrong Hilton, sixteen blocks from where I needed to be.

And found out that the foundation that bestowed my conference grant had not paid the invoice for my registration fee.

And discovered I had no business cards in my work bag.

And realized that I was so distracted by my Hepburn fabulousness that I forgot to pack my anti-epiliptics in my little pill box before I left the hotel.

And noted that the complimentary breakfast buffet (at the correct Hilton) included neither sugar nor soda.

I made a mad dash down to the lobby and grabbed a Diet Pepsi and two Krispy Kremes from the coffee bar. Thus fortified, I went back upstairs, claimed a seat in the main conference room, and went out into the lounge to put up my poster: “Using Lean 6-3 to Work Smarter: Massive Transfusion Protocol” (you’re on the edge of your seat, I know). Mine was the biggest and shiniest poster in the room, and with a sinking feeling in my stomach I realized that meant it would probably attract the most attention.

The nervous stomach feeling was compounded by the jitters I get when I don’t have my medicine on time. The donuts and soda helped a bit, but I was sending rapid Twitters and texts to friends. I think my thumbs were shaking. Alone representing Dunder-Mifflin Hospital at the conference, I had to be the one speaking to the people who came to see my poster, and the list of attendees began to terrify me. Executives from Toyota – they invented the Lean processes I wrote about on my poster. Big names from Ford, Ritz-Carlton. Top brass from ThedaCare, Virginia Mason Medical Center, Mt. Sinai Hospital. The President Emeritus of the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. The president of the Baldridge Association.

Crap.

The tension eased as the day progressed (thank you all for the reassuring Tweets and texts!) and I actually had a small moment of brilliance when one of the Toyota execs started asking about how we were using Lean to improve clinical outcomes, not just operational processes. That was ALL ME. He came and looked at my poster during the break and I talked about the revolutionary new ways we were using Lean processes to improve patient outcomes (in this case, providing product to alleviate massive hemorrhages where people need their whole blood volume replaced in about 5 minutes, yummy stuff). He nodded and mumbled with a very thick Japanese accent, something that sounded like “very good” (I’m optimistic), then took out his little digital camera and started clicking away at every section of my poster.

I guess that was good. Toyota invented this stuff, and since he didn’t interrogate me or rip my poster up, I’m okay with that.

I won’t bore you with any more conference details aside from the fact that the chicken served at lunch gave me a most uncomfortable stomach, and I left before the last session of the day.

It was beautiful outside, warm but not disgustingly so, and I opted to skip the taxi and walk back to my hotel via the Magnificent Mile. I paused in front of Tiffany’s in my Audrey dress and wished I had another donut. I crossed the bridge and looked at the cars on the lower road and said in my best Elwood voice: “Yep, this is definitely Lower Wacker Drive!” My kitten heels were aching along with my stomach by the time I made it back to my hotel, but no matter. I gulped my medicine down greedily and set about preparing to meet a blog friend for the first time.

That’s right, I had never met a reader before.

Jenn happened to be in town before leaving for Spain, and we’d made plans to meet up for dinner. I’d never met the chick before and when we saw each other we hugged like friends. Reading each other’s personal blogs meant we weren’t strangers – hell, I was just glad she wasn’t some psycho stalker who hacked the real Jenn’s email and was all set up to kill me and toss me in the river. Call it a pleasant surprise. We walked in no particular direction, looking for food and winding up at the House of Blues (which, for the record, does not have Bud Select either), chatting so long before even looking at the menus that I think the waiter got a bit tired of checking on us.

She and I knew the surface of a lot of each other’s stories already and laughed and screeched “Oh my God!” every time more details spilled out. We talked about boys like girls at a sleepover, about exes and crushes and the ones who were mistakes.

“I just pretended to pass out,” I said.

“What?”

“I think he wanted to – you know – and I didn’t, so I pretended that I’d just had too much to drink and passed out.”

“That’s a good way to get out of it.”

I’m glad SOMEBODY approves of me.

And so I made a friend who exists in the real world, without posts and tweets and texts. We were getting geared up for the Chicago Blogger Meet-Up the following night, where we’d both be meeting more people we’d never seen outside our monitors.

Day Two wrapped up in much the same fashion as Day One, in a happy tipsy haze, minus the middle-of-the-night what-have-I-done freakout. (This time it was more of a Jenn-is-great-but-the-rest-of-these-people-COULD-be-psychos freakout.) But really, psychos or not, the blogger ladies give me something to look forward to during the next day of the conference. They promised me pizza.

I’ll start at the end with lessons learned on Wednesday, Day 1 of my Chicago adventure.

• Dora the Explorer will ruin a perfectly good train ride. She incites mayhem in toddlers and will cause them to revolt, a la Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt.”
• Four-dollar train beers are worth every penny.
• The hotel lobby is not always on the main level of the hotel.
• The shower curtain liner is not always tucked into the tub as it should be.
• Remember to pack pantyhose when packing skirts for a business trip.
• Your favorite beer might not follow you on your travels.
• Your URL might be just as dangerous as your phone number.

As it is every morning, Amtrak was late on Wednesday. This caused me to arrive at my beautiful, beautiful hotel half an hour too late to enjoy the free evening wine reception. I swear, I’m going to sue. But I shook it off, and after unpacking and learning lesson number 5, I set out to explore The Loop for someplace that would sell me pantyhose.

CVS fit the bill, and with that matter well in hand, I went in search of a cheeseburger. I do love good cheeseburgers, the thick ones you can only get at bars with sports on every television, beer that comes in buckets, and at least one video trivia game on the counter. “Stocks and Blondes” fit the bill, and the video trivia was open, much to my delight. I smooshed myself into the corner barstool and began feeding dollar bills into the machine.

The bartender approached me. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Yeah, can I get a Bud Select and a menu, please?”

Crickets.

“A what?”

I turned around. A neon Bud Light sign glowed in the window, and I raised an eyebrow. “The one lighter than Bud Light,” I explained.

“No, no I know what it is,” he said, shaking his head. “But man, no one’s asked me for that for like, six months. We don’t have it.” He raised an eyebrow back at me as if to ask what planet I am from.

I read the eyebrow. “I’m from Saint Louis.”

“Aw, man, whaddya think about that whole Anheuser-Busch buyout thing?” he asked, leaning on the bar. “Aren’t you people pretty pissed? I mean, that’s gotta SUCK for you guys.” He had a big, snarky grin on his face.

“Yes, thank you for pointing that out. I’d like a Bud Light and a menu, please,” I say drily. The guy was cute, but come on. Salt in the wound, pal.

I turn and start in on the video machine, playing the games while ordering a cheeseburger, medium, no onions, out of the corner of my mouth. Unusually for me, I was sucking at WordBuilder so I turned to a trivia game and started kicking ass. Every time I got on the top score list (not to brag, but this was quite often), I signed as “Rebekah STL” in a silent protest against the bartender’s mockery of my beloved AB.

After finishing my cheeseburger and freeing up both hands, I switched to Taipei. This tile-matching game can start to get a little funny after two pints – so of course, I ordered a third. I played two games and got to level 2 on each, signed the winners’ board, and started another. Just when I got to level 3 (finally!) I heard a voice behind me.

“Wow, you’re really good at that.”

I turned around for a split second and saw a guy in a yellow button-down, kicking back on the barstool next to me. “Thanks,” I say quickly, turning back. “It’s timing me.” My fingers flew across the screen and I squinted to see the pairs, using both hands to tap them and run out of time just before the end of the level. Second place on the winners’ board – not too bad! And as I signed my name…

“Sorry I interrupted you before.” He’s still there… and rather cute, so we do introductions. On telling me his last name, he immediately says “No, it’s not Dutch.”

“I didn’t ask. It doesn’t sound Dutch.”

“It’s German.”

“Um, okay.”

So Not-Dutch and I sit, drinking beer and talking of nothing much. His friend joins us and introduces himself as Tim. Maybe it was three pints of beer talking, maybe it was repressed rage, maybe I just thought I was funnier than I actually am, but I loudly proclaimed that there are too many Tims in the world already, and no one should be called that anymore. He laughs and Not-Dutch looks at me funny (Have you noticed a theme here? People looking at me funny? Welcome to my life.) while Tim explains to me that he had a roommate in college with the same name and blar blar blar.

There was much flirting and witty banter going on, the three of us laughing and tossing out the one-liners and comebacks like Shriners toss candy from those little bikes in parades. Not-Dutch flirts with me and I flirt back. An older man around the corner of the bar from us caught us in a brief moment of silence and said:

“You guys should be recording this. This is some funny shit.”

I’m sure it was. We were all laughing and smiling and in just enough of a buzzy frame of mind that none of our zingers were insulting. Everything was funny. I wish I could share it with you, but I have a slight problem… I cannot remember what on earth we were talking about. Zero. Zip. Nada. And I would have remembered, I think, if I hadn’t had four pints of Bud Light. But if I hadn’t been four pints in, would that conversation have been such “funny shit?” Pause for a second and ponder that.

We went on. Another Guinness, another Black and Tan, another Bud Light. By this point I had forgiven the bartender for his indiscretions and was ready to hug him for being such a delightful and ready source of alcohol. But steam was running low and I vaguely recalled that I had to get up early for a conference in the morning, so I decided to go back to home sweet hotel, a few blocks away.

Not-Dutch walked with me. Well, he walked, I may have been just slightly on the staggering side. But no matter. Fun times, new city, it was all good and the evening ended in a happy haze.

At about 4 am I sat straight up in bed, head pounding, and remembered part of the conversation from the bar.

“What are you doing tomorrow night?” Not-Dutch asked me.

“I’m meeting a friend for dinner.”

“Oh, that’s cool you know people to hang out with while you’re up here for work.”

“Well, I haven’t actually met her yet, she’s one of my blog friends.” (I know, I know. Why did I bring this up?)

“You have a blog?” I nodded. “What do you write about?”

“Boys.” (It just fell out of my mouth. I think the alcohol dissolved my filter.)

“So are you going to write about me?”

“Probably.” (Crap!)

Not-Dutch laughs. “Can I read it?”

AND I GAVE HIM MY URL. IN THE STUPIDEST POSSIBLE FASHION. I TEXTED IT TO HIM.

That was Day One in Chicago.

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(Not-Dutch, if you’re reading this… hi there, what’s up, had a great time Wednesday, and sorry about those drunk texts on Friday night when I was out with the girls.)