I refuse to call it Chi-Town

I am currently in Illinois. I apologize to those of you living in Illinois for not calling but I needed to see my mom.

It's hot here.

I should not have hit the hot tubs and the sauna both days before I left because it loosened my body up to the point that it was vulnerable to every little discomfort of the traveling journey. Now, all of my muscles, even the little ones in my feet are tight and sore.

I took a ferry to a bus to the airport in Seattle to the airport in Denver to the airport in Chicago where my little brother picked me up at 1:00 in the morning. I could have gotten an earlier, direct flight on stand-by, but the woman who was checking bag said that she could only check my bag for the flight I was scheduled for but if they had space for me once I got to the gate, I could pick up my bag later when it did arrive. This seemed a little odd, what with security issues being what they are but I figured that United Airlines probably had pretty reasonable training for its frontline employees, so I went to the gates. Of course, once I got there, nothing could be done to retrieve my bag from the maw to which it had been abandoned. She was very nice, though, and explained that next time, I could asked to have my bags checked on stand-by. The two days worth of sauna and hot tubs made it so that I actually didn't care either way. That, and I just wanted to be home.

I've found lately that this seems to be the case. Things that should cause me to be upset because they just aren't fair don't actually upset me. Yet, I still talk about them in social settings as if they do. I wonder if this is a stage. I wonder if I still need things to talk about with people and for so long I've relied upon the daily injustices of life as my conversational fodder. Like Seinfeld. Hopefully, I'll stop talking about things that don't upset as if they do just to have something to talk about. It's like an Eastern religious ideal. I'll just be.

I think there are two possible reasons why things don't bother me like they used to. The first is that because I've suffered some very huge and personal betrayals in the past two years, these little things just don't hurt anymore. I've built up immunity or callouses to the inconsequential, impersonal betrayals. The second is that after taking some time for myself away from the world in order to heal, it no longer feels like every little thing is piling on top of everything else. My camel isn't carrying anything, so no one straw will make any kind of difference. In fact, without other straws to get tangled into, the wind of my journey blows individual straws right off.

I like this state but I hope I find something else to talk about because peacefulness just isn't very entertaining at parties.