Sweet Home Chicago

I'm back from Chicago and it was a well needed blast! My trip was filled with sight seeing, buildings, improv, partying, shows and even matzo.

Day 1
I was expecting a really stressful day at work but that never happened. My deadline got completely erased. I ended up having a pretty relaxed day.

By 4pm my mom came by my office to drive me to the airport. Since there was traffic, my mom decided to take a different route and accidentally made a wrong turn and brought us back to my office (also in traffic). So we started over and my mom made a second wrong turn and we got lost. It was hilarious. My brother called to wish me a good trip and he was on the speaker phone yelling at my mom to tell her which way to turn to get us back to the proper highway. What should have been 20 - 25 minutes ended up being almost an hour.

I got to the airport, hoped on the plane and 2 hours later was in Chicago! I made my way to the Subway (a.k.a. the El) and figured my way to the hotel. Due to construction (at 7:30 at night??) it took 2 hours and I got to my hotel pretty late. I was hoping to catch a show with my friend at the Second City but I missed out. I ended up calling it a night at 11:30pm

My hotel room was really nice. The bed was huge! It was a king size bed and could have easily fit 4 people in it. I then made it my goal of the trip to bring home 3 chicks.

I failed miserably.

Well... I didn't' actually try to bring home three girls ("hey want to see my huge bed??") but the thought of it was fun, haha.

Day 2

I woke up pretty early and arranged to meet my friend and fellow improviser in the city. I had time to kill so I headed to Grant park and saw a bunch of statues and this gigantic fountain. It was massive.

I walked through Millennium park where there was this gigantic metal "bean" which reflected everything. It was cool.

it turned out that the area we arranged to meet was the Theater District. Everyone had giant signs with light bulbs. The Chicago Theatre, the Oriental Theater. Even a McDonalds!

We ended up walking down State street looking for a place to eat. I was a picture taking whore and took snaps of everything. We crossed the river and I saw those famous twin buildings. While trying to take a picture two random guys stopped and asked if we'd like them to take a picture for us. Turned out they were from My City! What a coincidence!

We stopped for breakfast at the Temp Cafe. I ordered the Poor Man's Skillet. It was a layer of hash browns, a layer of melted cheeses and a layer of scrambled eggs. It was still passover, so when I was asked what kind of bread I wanted, I declined. That is until my friend opened his big mouth and admitted to the waitress I was Jewish. She then offered me matzo! I was totally shocked.

After breakfast we continued walking North until the John Hancock Observatory. It's famous for the view you see from the bar at the top on the 96th floor.

According to my tour guide, in 1981, a guy dressed in a spiderman suit climbed up the side using suction cups while the fire department was trying to get him down by hosing him down with water... It's also the same building where Chris Farley lived and overdosed.

We were getting close to our workshop time, so we hopped on the train and made our way to the comedy theater where my team was to perform. We walked around a but more and then did our workshop.

Afterwards, my friend brought me to this amazing vegetarian restaurant nearby. I ended up getting a veggie Philly cheese steak (in between matzo of course). It was quite delicious. I washed it down with a peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie dough milkshake which was surprisingly good.

At 8pm I caught an improv show. The first 2 acts were ok but nothing great. The headliners were 2 guys who were MadTV alumni. However, one of them was late because his plane got delayed. Eventually they announced he wasn't going to make it. His partner came out and said not to worry. That he would be doing a show and was going to experiment a little. He said he was going to need someone from the audience to join him on stage and do the show. I raised my hand but so did the guy in front of me and he got picked.

He was so excited.

He was an improviser from Toronto that I was talking to earlier. The Toronto guy was just about to get out of his seat, when the missing partner jumped out from backstage and took off his hat and jacket.

The Toronto guy looked so disappointed.

They started off really funny but I had to head out to the show my team was performing and ended up having to leave just after they started.

The show my team did was great. They had a lot of energy and really enjoyed being up there on stage. It was a competitive formatted game, meaning that my team was playing against the Chicago team. The Chicago team ended up winning but it was all for fun and games.

My whole team and I went looking for the official after party hosted by the festival but the bar we ended up was dead. After a quick beer and a stop to a dinner for a midnight snack, we called it a night and headed back to the hotel.

Read all about Day 3 and 4 in my next post!

Thank You

After reading what Dolce wrote as a response to my last post, I realized that a lot of the stuff I've been posting lately is about me being down. You're right, I'm such a loser...

Just kidding!

I know I have a lot of good qualities to offer and that there are people int he world with way worse problems. So, thank you Dolce and Beatrix for your comments. I think they are the quick kick to the ass I needed.

I have this tendency (like some people, I guess) that when I feel down, I just keep digging a bigger hole, and it takes me a while to get out. For example, I went to the dentist and found out it was nothing. He explained to me that it's my sinuses due to the fact I've had a blocked nose for the past 2 weeks (from a cold or something). So I was all worried for nothing.

Today already turned out to be a lot better than I thought because my insane to make deadline got cancelled. So I get to take it much easier today and not stress.

My flight is tonight and I arrive in Chicago at 8pm.

I took out a guide book from my library yesterday and have a pretty good idea of all the things I want to check out. Plus there is a party I can go to for free every night I'm there so I'll try and check them out.

I feel like this is the closest trip I'm taking to when I was in Australia in the sense that I'll be somewhere new and be around people from all over the place.

When I get off the plane, I'm just going to enjoy my time there and not worry about anything that's been bothering me here lately.

When I get back, I promise to write some fun posts about my trip (without any mention of tooth aches, being sick or being down, haha).

Have a great week everyone!

Mini Vacation

On Wednesday, I fly out to Chicago.

I'm really excited because:
a) I've never been there before
b) The festival that I'm attending is going to be great
c) I'm going to get to see a friend who moved there
d) It is where Blues Brother, my favorite movie of all time, was filmed

In essence to not keep my hopes up I'm trying not to think about the trip but I feel like there's nothing going on here right now in my life that is as excited to look forward to.

I go through strange periods. Sometimes, I can't wait to go to work and work. Sometimes, while at work I can't wait to leave because I have something planned, like a party or a trip or something. When I dated Wendy, I would end up thinking about her a lot and wonder what we could do together next (and after a while just thinking about having sex, which never happened). When we broke up I still thought about her a lot (sometimes i still do). If I met a new girl I"m interested in, I'll think of her.

A month ago, work was so crazy it was go in, work like nuts, go home and sleep. And you know what? I liked it that way. Now, work has slowed down a bit, but I still have deadlines, just lots of time, so things feel so much slower.

I also have noticed that lately I feel so blasé. i just have no drive. Once I come back from Chicago I don't know what to look forward to. And I keep thinking if I had a girlfriend it would be different, but would it? I know I'd be more busy and have time to spend with someone but I don't know if it would fill in the emptiness I've been feeling lately. Should it?

Anyways, I've also been a bit down lately because by sheer bad luck, on of my teeth decided to start hurting so I need to rush to the dentist tomorrow so it can be looked at before I leave.

I'm not expecting anything, but I will be meeting a lot of people, going to tons of parties and I have my own hotel room to myself.

The possibilities are endless.

I'll post when I get back!

The look of immaturity

I was talking to my brother Ira yesterday and he told me he's reading a book his friend lent him on how to date women. He told me there was a part in the book whee it was telling a story on how a guy walked into the offices of the the authors (they help people meet people or something) complaining how he couldn't meet anyone. They described him and as Ira was reading the description, he told me he felt like he was reading a description of me.

The guy was described as having messy curly hair, stubble/unshaven look and big sideburns. According to the book if your attitude is "oh I don't care that I look/dress differently than others" then it means you're immature.

I don't know... Would you date someone that looks like THIS?:

The end of Gloria

Got back from the date not too long ago.

I've decided that's it for me with Gloria. She's nice and everything but i just don't feel into her.

We met for food/coffee and things were going well until we had to pay. There was a mix up with the change and the waitress and everything got really weird and complicated fast.

We figured everything out and payed properly and headed to go see I Love You, Man!.

We get inside the theatre and then I got a little taste of Gloria's bossy side. She seemed pretty annoyed we had to wait in line. It turned me off right away.

The movie was hilarious.

After the movie, I walked her to her street, gave her a goodbye kiss on the cheek and we said our goodbyes and goodnights and that was it.

I deliberately did not go for a kiss and did not say anything "Let's meet again" or whatever. I feel I did enough to let her get the picture.

On the bus ride home, I swear the bus was just full of hot chicks. Again, making me wonder when I'll meet someone I'm attracted to...

Another Try

After receiving a call from Gloria on Thursday almost out of the blue (she called me once she came back into town which I wasn't really expecting), I decided to give it another try and meet her again.

The plan was to perhaps meet tonight for something. What wasn't planned was for my brother to get an infection on his face and have to be brought to the Emergency Section at the local hospital. We arrived at 8:30 pm last night and he was finally seen at 9:00am this morning.

Yes, I was in the waiting room for almost twelve hours! I slept a total of person 2 hours and managed to stay awake the rest of the day.

I called Gloria in the afternoon to see if she was still up for meeting and we had a nice little chat on the phone. This was the first time I actually had full attention into our phone call. When she called me on Thursday (and even during our date a couple of weeks ago), I just had a really hard time listening and paying attention. This time was different. Surprisingly, aside from being exhausted, I was pretty focused.

I had to go and she said she'd ring me up later this day to figure out our plans.

During the afternoon, being totally sleep deprived made me think of this time with Wendy when we first started dating. I had done something that involved staying up all night the night before and regardless of that we had arranged to get together and just stay in and watch a movie. We ended up cuddling and it was one of our first moments really close to each other. I remember it distinctively because it's also when I told her I was a virgin and she was ok with it (although her being ok with it didn't last forever... but that's a whole different story).

So, as a first instinct that is kind of what I wanted to do, just watch a movie and cuddle up with someone (not necessarily Gloria) but I soon realized that that was too soon a thing to be thinking of or suggesting for a second date. So instead, when Gloria just called me 5 minutes and waking me up from napping (I slept an hour and I'm feeling so groggy now), I didn't mention anything about renting a movie. Instead, we decided on going for coffee and then watching a movie in the cinema.

It was actually that she helped me decide on what to do. When I dated Wendy I always had to come up with suggestions and then she'd never have any answers:

Elwood: "So what do you want to do tonight?"
Wendy: "I don't know"
Elwood: "How about we go see a movie"
Wendy: "No..."
Elwood: "Do you want to play pool?"
Wendy: "No..."
Elwood: "Do you want to go bowling?"
Wendy: "No..."
18 more suggestions later
Elwood: " Do you want to do (suggestion # 18)?"
Wendy: "No..."
Elwood: "So what do you want to do??"
Wendy: "I don't know..."

This went on every week! In the end we'd most likely rent a movie and just fall asleep together until one of us went home.

Anyways, back to Gloria.

I have this feeling that I keep coming across to Gloria as a little weird (especially now since I'm having a hard time thinking straight from just waking up) but on the other hand feel that she's really curious as to who I am and how I function.

Well, I better get ready for my date!

The Mish-Mash Post

Yikes! It's been over a week since I last posted. What has been going on you may ask? The short answer: Not a whole lot...

Ok, now for "Not a whole lot" in detail:

Work

For the past few weeks I've just been insane busy with work. I've been pulling in over time left, right and center. This past monday marked the first time I worked a 12 hour day.

I was working on something just when my computer program fucked up and crashed and I lost everything so I decided to bite the bullet, switch gears to other work I needed done the next day and worked an extra 2 and a half hours (time already being 6:30pm).

Chicago

I booked a ticket to go to Chicago. My team is registered in the Chicago Improv Festival (CIF). We're doing 3 show and I'm in two of them. If you live in Chicago you may get a chance to see me live! Just look for the tall skinny Jewish guy with glasses and curly hair. I'm sure you can find me out of the 100s of troupes and shows going on that week.

I'm pretty excited about it though. I've been putting off asking for the days off work for a long time now since I was afraid to ask my boss but I finally asked him and he said it was ok.

I have the greatest parents in the world since they gave me their Air Miles and my flight was free!

A fun thing about the festival is that there are all kinds of workshops, shows and parties going on. I'm really hoping to just meet lots of people from all over the world. It'll remind me of my time in Australia.

Girls

Over the past month I've had so many connections with people through the net. I realized I never mentioned what happened to any of them. That's because nothing exciting has happened.

Comic Book Girl
How'd we meet: Through Plentyoffish.com
The story: Started messaging on the site back and forth over a couple of days. Got MSN address and real e-mail address. Sent her e-mail but no response. Got one a week later saying she was busy but wants to meet.
What happened: Never heard from her again. I wrote back with suggestions of things to do. Never got a response.
Plan of action: That was probably a month ago. Should I e-mail her again?

Older Chick
How'd we meet: Through Craigslist
The story: We e-mailed back and forth and went for a beer after a few stalls ( I was sick, she was busy, etc.)
What happened: She seemed nice but i wasn't realy into her in that way. She has a group she put together through craigslist that gets together every two weeks and jams out on guitars. I started going to it and it was fun.
Plan of action: To continue hanging out at the jams. There are a few cute girls there that perhaps I'll get to know better in the future.

Gloria
How'd we meet: Through Plentyoffish.com
The story: We messaged back and forth and then arranged a date. I took her out to an italian restaurant for pizza followed by a circus show. I had fun but had a hard time paying attention to her. At the end of the date, our goodbye was pretty awkward and she said "You're funny" but in a "You're strange/weird" way rather than in a "You're hilarious" kind of way.
What happened: She told me she was going to San Francisco for 10 days. I figured that was a good clean slate to end things. However, tonight she gave me a call and now we're to potentially hang out this weekend.
Plan of action: I have no fucking clue! I don't mind giving it another chance, but I'm really afraid I'm just going to go for it because I can. The easiest people to fall for are the ones that are into me. However, it is too soon to know that she is into me or not anyways although, just by the fact she called me back makes me believe she must have some interest in me. Any advice?

Quick Chick
How'd we meet: Plentyoffish.com
The story: Sent messages back and forth over a couple of days. Asked her out. She said yes but misunderstood I meant that night and we never met.
What happened: I asked her out a second time and made it extremely clear as to which night I wanted to meet. Never heard from her again. (Hence the name Quick Chick)
Plan of action: I'm not going to do anything.

Speed Dating Girl
How'd we meet: Speed Dating Event
The story: Went to a speed dating event and she was one of my matches. I was really busy with work but when I finally sent her an e-mail she said she was going out of town for the weekend but suggested we hang out when she got back.
What happened: Never heard from her.
Plan of action: Should I send her another e-mail? It's also been a few weeks.

British Chick

How'd we meet: Craigslist
The story: Read a nice ad asking if anyone remembered the 80's. Wrote back and she liked what I had to say. She gave me her real e-mail address and added me on MSN. Then she went away out of the city for a few days for work.
What happened: Not too much. We've spoken maybe 3 min at a time on MSN.
Plan of action: To chat online for more than 3 minutes, try to get her number and then call her for a date.

PHEW! That was a lot to type...

It's late and I need sleep!