It snowed again today. First day of spring and it snows, Chicago is unbelievable. On the first day of spring I almost get ran off the road by some random lasik in Chicago truck because it is too foggy and rainy to see, and above all that, the guy had the nerve to honk at me like I did something wrong. What I can say is that traffic was pretty light for the first snow day in spring. Usually if anything is falling out of the sky, everyone forgets how to drive and hands the keys over to their blind friend and trusts them to get them home safely. But today, it was pretty clear. I think it is the first time, and probably the only time, I woke up and left for work about a half an hour to forty minutes before I had to be there and was on time with a little to spare. All in all I think it will be an enjoyable day given how things are going. Of course knowing me, I have now officially jinxed it and it will be a very steep downhill drop from here. At the very least, at least I got breakfast.

I’ve lived in the city for exactly three days and I already need to find a personal injury attorney in Chicago.  I had just finished my first day on the job, the job that I packed up my family and moved here for.  I got into my car and just as I prepared to pull out of my parking space - BOOM, some guy in an SUV smashed into the back of me.  My car wasn’t in gear and I didn’t even have my seatbelt on yet.  He hit me so hard that the impact nearly tossed me into the passenger seat.  He jumped out of his vehicle and ran over to my car, full of apologies and how are yous – I guess that he was thinking that I wouldn’t do anything if he was nice about smashing my car.  Under normal circumstances I probably wouldn’t have called a lawyer, I understand that accidents happen and I would have just let the insurance companies handle the damages to the vehicle, but I consider myself a pretty healthy guy and I was so darn sore already that I could barely make my way out of the car.  I at least want to get my medical bills taken care of, and then I guess I’ll wait and see how I feel before I consider anything extra for the suffering.

My parents were always telling me how lucky I was.  We were a middle-class family that lived on the northwestern outskirts of the city of Chicago.  We lived close to the suburbs, but not exactly in the suburbs.  At most, they were a ten minute drive away as was the rest of the city.  We were never poor, but never rich either.  I was never a starving child in Africa.  I was never had to experience living as a Type 2 diabetic or someone diagnosed with cancer or scoliosis.  I didn’t have to drop out of school and work in a factory from dawn until dusk.  No, things were never that bad for me and my family.  At the same time, I never had designer clothes or really expensive gym shoes.  I didn’t play the latest video games or own the latest video game systems.  I had to save up enough money so that I could put myself through driving school and then get my license.  I had to work and save up to buy my own car and I finally got it when I was 20 years old.  I didn’t even go to my high school prom because I didn’t have any money to go, not that I wanted to given I practically hated everyone I went to school with.  So while I was never Oliver Twist in modern America, I also had to earn just about everything I ever got.   

It was a full day of shopping for me and my daughter.  She ended up with the cutest outfit to wear to her friend’s birthday party.  The dress was red knit with a wide belt.  Of course she had to get shoes and a little clutch bag to round out the outfit.  Next we are going to get our hair done at this salon my daughter goes to every week.  I can’t afford to do that.  So I will have to make due at home.  It’s a good thing that my hair has been cut short or I would be right there with my daughter in the next chair.  I’m sure the salon has hair loss shampoos and my hair has been just falling out in a very big way.  Everyone is saying that maybe it’s all stress related, and they could have a point.  I guess I’ll have to sit and ponder over it.  Maybe it’s simply time for a break from work.  Or maybe it is that commute to and from work, which is getting to be a real big deal – so much more traffic and so many more people than when I started commuting around 10-15 years ago.

These days, I’m barely sleeping at all at night.  I’m not sleeping during the day either, not really.  Sometimes I snatch a nap for around 15 minutes or so, but that never makes up for all the sleep I’ve lost.  I used to be an account manager, and still sometimes do the work of an account manager, but now I’m a consultant for a few relocation companies, all of which are in different cities in different states.  New York, Chicago, Saint Louis, Atlanta, and both Portland Maine and Oregon.  I’m living out of hotel rooms and planes.  Sometimes, I stay overnight at an airport hotel since my flights are so closely timed and those aren’t even like real hotels.  I rent this great 2-floor apartment in the Chicago neighborhood of Bucktown that has 3 bedrooms and this awesome roof deck.  But I’m barely ever there.  I think I sleep in my own bed something only 5 nights out of 1 month.  That’s my problem.  I’ve never sleeping at home so I’m never as comfortable as I should be.  I love my job and I make a lot of money doing it, but not even sleeping pills are doing the trick for me nowadays.  Maybe I should try hypnotherapy. 

My Uncle Ed is a personal injury attorney in Chicago.  I imagine that he does pretty well, because he has managed to pay tuition for three children to go to out of state colleges, and each one of them has a luxury car or sport utility vehicle.  They also always get to go to all sorts of exotic vacation spots and every winter they go on a cruise.  I know that he started his own firm with another attorney from the old firm he used to work at.  Because his partner is Latino, they have a large Spanish speaking clientele.  His oldest daughter, my cousin Jennie, is currently in law school at John Marshall, and she also works for him in the summertime.  His middle child, Anthony, is also interested in going into law, and plans on working for his fathers firm part time this summer.  He only wants to work part time though, because he also vends at Wrigley Field.  This summer he is finally 21 and can sell beer, so he will make the big bucks.  I really do not see my youngest cousin, Lauren, going into the law profession.  She does not seem to take too much interest in the families law discussions.          

I have had a great life surrounded by great people. One of my best friends name is Karin. Unfortunately for Karin she suffered from female baldness. I only have one other friend who was bald her name is Rachel. All through college she kept her head shaved with a Bik.  It wasn’t because she was a Nazi, or racist, or a skinhead.  Rachel was the type of girl that liked to do things out of the norm, and in our college days, shaving one’s head was only for the boys. Now she lives in Chicago on the North side and has a great job as a professor at DePaul. She regrets her styling decisions in college. The only real case of female baldness that I have encountered was at Irish-Fest in Milwaukee. I loved Irish-Fest. It was a time to relax and let loose with one of the greatest cultures in the world. My father and I were dancing and a bald woman walked up and hugged my father, she apparently worked in his office with him. She was not only bald but she was growing what looked like a mustache.  My father treated her like any other woman and has since said nothing about it. I decided it would be best not to ask considering there might be some sort of medical reasoning behind it all. Moreover, I was really young so I had no idea how to ask or even what to say.  I was too young to understand life at the time.

A friend of mine just got a job selling ticket packages for Madison Square Garden.  He told me he could get me the best seats if I came to visit him in New York.  I might try and schedule a trip around going to see a Bulls game or a Blackhawks game.  That would be fun, even though he’s not really a Knicks fan, he is a diehard Rangers fan.  I have never been inside Madison Square Garden either, so that would be really fun.  I will have to look into when those games are, and if plane tickets are available.  I’m sure they are planes fly from New York to Chicago every hour.  It would be really good to see Jesse too; I have not seen him since we graduated last May.  I can’t believe it has been that long and that it is already December.  It is also kind of funny that he is selling ticket packages.  He is not exactly putting his journalism degree to work.  Although he told me last week that he was thinking of starting his own blog.  I really think he should, he is an excellent writer.  I know I would be sure to read it.

Last weekend my sister and I went up to our parent’s attic to bring the holiday decorations down.  When we moved all the boxes close to the stairs we noticed a big rolled up bundle in the back of the attic.  Being curious, we both went to check it out.  To our surprise, we found our grandmother's beautiful Oriental rug.  She always treasured that rug and told us it was the most beautiful Oriental rug in Chicago.  We dragged the rug down with the holiday stuff and asked Mother about it.  She said she had forgotten all about the rug.  She loved it but it just didn’t fit in with her décor.  My eyes widened as I thought that this rug would be the perfect addition to my den.  We had just bought a new home and the den is our last room to furnish.  I didn’t want to seem greedy so I never asked anything further about the rug.   The following week when we arrived for our family holiday celebration, the bundled rug was decorated with a big red bow and had my name on it.  Mother had seen the twinkle in my eye when I first found the rug and thought it would be better for me to enjoy it than just let it being hidden in the attic.  My sister agreed as she has her home all furnished and doesn’t need grandmother's rug.  This was the best gift anyone could have given me.  You can’t buy memories!

My Aunt Sylvia is driving me nuts!  She decided to pull up all the wall-to-wall carpeting in her living room and dining room.  She had the hardwood floors sanded and varnished.  The company she hired really did a wonderful job and the floors look absolutely terrific.  The problem is now Aunt Sylvia wants to purchase an Oriental rug in Chicago to put under her dining room set and matching Oriental rugs to put under her coffee tables and in front of her sofa in the living room.  In her mind she can see these carpets of her dreams, but the problems is that we cannot see what she wants in the many stores we visited.  We must have been in over thirty different stores and she still couldn’t find what she wanted.  I have been in so many carpet stores lately, some I didn’t even know existed.  I don’t even know if the kind of Oriental rug she has in mind exists outside of her dreams.  She turned down every selection that the sales people had shown her.  I don’t think she ever saw an actual Oriental like the one she is looking for but it is one she hopes she will miraculously find on one of our many shopping expeditions.  I hope she finds what she is looking for soon as my shoes are wearing out!