E in Chicago

Elizabeth and Winn came for a visit over the weekend, and it was so cool having them here. They both look different from the last time I saw them in summer 2004. Winn has grown a beard. It looks good on him. Elizabeth has grown a smile. It looks good on her too. I mean, well, E has always been able to laugh, no matter how many things are going wrong... but now, she's... well, happy. It's really neat. And I realized that I hadn't seen her and Winn together, because they are so couple-y. I feel like I just witnessed the "After" portion of them getting together. It was nice to watch.

I feel like I went on vacation too. They took us all over Chicago, doing and seeing and eating things that have been well outside of my experience of Chicago since we've been here. Almost two years, and I hadn't seen the Art Institute, hadn't been on a Mafia tour, hadn't eaten at the oldest Italian restaurant in Chicago, hadn't been to the Oriental Museum, hadn't seen the Egyptian exhibit in the Field museum, hadn't eaten at Valois. And they took us to all these things, making us guests, which was weird since they were visiting us, but makes sense when you consider who Winn and Elizabeth are. Chicago for me and Michael has been shoe-string budgets, peace demonstrations, and gang banger youth groups. But E and Winn see Chicago as the great cultural epicenter of museums and fine dining, and they took us along for the ride.

And we played games and talked about past, present and future. They caught me up on all the gossip from back home, and damn have I missed a lot. We talked about jobs and the state of the world, and I'm fairly sure I offended Winn on more than one occassion. I keep realizing over and over that my experience of the world deviates from that of the cultural norm in America. I find some things true, and other things funny that many people find neither. But it was a great visit, and it was so, so, so good to see them.