In fact, he’s out riding now and when he gets back we’ll probably head back to Austin.

And I’ve realized a few things. Our hearts aren’t totally in Austin. Yet. (Don’t get me wrong, Austin is great and if we moved back here ever [which I don't see happening anytime soon] we’d probably complain about all the things we miss in Austin.) I came to this conclusion because when I realized I’d be in Houston for 4 days (one being for work) I started thinking of all the possibilities of things I could get done. I could get my oil changed at my favorite oil change place that I’ve been using for 8 years because they wash/vacuum your car for free afterwards! And wait, my tint is peeling, I wonder if I could get that fixed since it has a lifetime warranty? (THAT debacle is another blog post.) And Dave’s jeans that we bought on super sale 6 months ago need to be altered- we’ll just go to his favorite tailor! And I need to buy another skein of yarn so I can finish the scarf I started 1.5 years ago. I was going to buy it online but I’ll just go back to my favorite yarn store! (What’s that you say? 40% off Labor Day sale? Okay, I’ll buy yarn for my next project, too!) And my MobileMe is about to expire, maybe I’ll drop by the Apple store and see if my friend is working and wants to take $30 off the price for me! (He was, he did.)

It occurs to me that I also could have titled this blog post When Procrastination and Laziness Pay Off.

And that was pretty much our weekend. That, and stopping by Whole Foods twice a day (Who wants breakfast? Let’s just go to Whole Foods! Man, I’m craving pie, lets go to Whole Foods. I’m thirsty, let’s swing by Whole Foods and grab a water.) I was hoping to eat a lot more Vietnamese food, but I DID get to eat my favorite thing at Jenny’s Noodle House: Buddha Soba with Gingery Tofu. Oh man I love that stuff.

Dave’s home, more later.

Well, I’d seen a few postings about changing schedules and the like that would be starting August 22nd. Cool. I drove to work on August 23rd and decided to casually look up the routes that had changed, just in case the times affected the routes I used. And guess what? They COMPLETELY ELIMINATED the line I use. Two weeks, y’all. That’s how long this love affair lasted. And the routes they recommend I take instead go nowhere near my work. So basically I can now take the bus halfway to work. Okay, 2/3 of the way. Then I can walk a mile to work. OR I can transfer to a different line and take that 4 blocks over and only walk .4 miles to work.

OR I can put on my big girl panties and ride my bike the 3 miles/20 minutes/200 calories/2 burning thighs/1 occasional raincoat that it is to work from my house.

Anyway, I’m annoyed. And sad. That is all.

The inner Jen would love to dance a lot like this, which is when I first fell in love with Lauren.

[DISCLAIMER: None of the videos I found will let me embed them. Apologies.]

And I missed most of this season simply because I kept forgetting the damn show was on. And I’ve always hated this song (so watch it on mute if you want) but in this dance, Lauren seems to not be made of solid things, like bones. Or at least hers aren’t like mine.

But the real inner Jen? Dances like this ALL the time.

And as a bonus, you can watch this guy (who turned down the Miami Ballet to be on this season of SYTYCD) break a bit out of his shell.

So maybe you’re wondering what happened to the tweets I used to have over there on the left. I took them down to help me blog more. Because sometimes I won’t blog but I’ll think, “Well, they can read my tweets, they know I’m in DC/mad at traffic/eating a grilled cheese with truffle oil.” Well, I’ve used that crutch for too long. Did you know there’s a WordPress app for iPhone? Did you know that I have it on my phone? And still I was relying on my tweets to blog for me. So no more.

Speaking of tweeting, I was excited to jump on the bandwagon of Twitter. And everything else: MySpace (account now deleted), Facebook, blogging, etc. But have I told you how much I fucking HATE Foursquare and Gowalla? I hate them. I like to read tweets! I like to click on your links! I like to see pictures and read articles! I DO NOT like to click on a link and go to a Foursquare page that just tells me . . . oh wait, it tells me absolutely nothing.

WHO CARES?

And I realize that makes no sense. I do want to know that you can’t sleep, that ugh, you have to work late, that you just made seafood paella. I want to see 7-second videos of your cat playing with string! I want to read that article on how Netflix is finally on iPhone. But I don’t care where you are.

And I’m not sure why I have such an aversion to it. Because if someone says, “I’m at Liberty Bar with @soandso! www.twitpicofmybeer.” I’m like, “Cool, that beer looks yum!” But if they Foursquare that they are at Liberty, then I just get annoyed. Which is to say that as soon as Facebook announced “Places” I disabled that shit real quick-like. Tag me in a photo? Sure! Tell the world exactly where I am RIGHT NOW? No, thank you. (I will probably tell you on Twitter in 5 minutes anyway.)

So a little disclaimer. I was scrolling through my tweets just now looking for a Foursquare or Gowalla tweet so I could post a pic and I clicked on the Gowalla of a guy who started following me a while ago and we’ve exchanged a few tweets, mostly about food. Seems super nice, but other than twitter, I have no reason to know him. Anyway, I clicked on his Gowalla and I was like, “He’s in Dallas? But he’s from Seattle! What’s he doing in Dallas? Man, if I’d known (read: if I’d clicked on his stupid Gowalla), I could have tweeted him and maybe we could have hung out! A po’boy DOES sound good…” So, um, yeah, there’s that.

Maybe I should get over myself and try one of those stupid services.

Look for that to happen just as soon as I get over myself and stop making fun of socks and heels long enough to try it:

Too cute.

And OMG how bad do I need a tiny giraffe? Very. Opulence, I has it…

Dave laughs and shakes his head.

“Because Lauren has to win! For being awesome. And for her ass.”

“ShhhYEAH. Her ass should have a separate voting phone number.”

“Would you call in and vote?”

“Three times.”

(This is my first season watching this show. Good luck, Lauren!)

So on our first day in Chicago, when we dropped our luggage off at the Hyatt (took a taxi, natch) and asked directions to something or other and the door man suggested we go to the bus stop, I was all “Yeah, no. No bus. Let’s take the L.” Much cooler, right?? Um, no. Because we had to walk like 7 blocks through a quasi-seedy part of town (did see some cool architecture, though) where Dave chatted with a random stranger and after he left, said, “That guy has definitely been to prison.” On the other hand, on that little walk, I did get this cool shot:

Anyway, I exaggerate. It wasn’t that bad, but it WAS silly to walk all that way to take the L when there was a bus stop right outside our hotel. So we learned to ride the bus. Not “we,” “I.” I learned to ride the bus.

So here we are.  I rode the light rail 2 days last week, and it was an hour commute each way, and about a mile of walking. For a commute that is 9 minutes by car. I still enjoyed myself, reading and playing Words With Friends and feeling superior to those poor souls chained to their cars and commutes. Seriously, even with all that time, it was liberating to know that a few dollars and my feet could take me wherever I wanted in Austin. But there had to be a faster way. And for whatever reason, Austin’s bus riders are NOT crazies (maybe Houston’s weren’t either. Like I said, I never rode those buses.) and I began to look at bus route maps, craned my neck at bus stop signs while I was driving, and I think I’ve got it down.

Ready? Here it go.

To work: I walk 1.5 blocks to the bus stop, where I’m picked up by the 18 at 8:02. I get off in front of the capitol, wait about 5-10 minutes and take the 9 west and get off at Lamar at around 8:28 and walk 1/2 block to work. Under 30 minutes, y’all! With minimal walking (read: minimal sweating).

To home: Same thing, in reverse. I can take the 9 at 4:43 and be home by 5:15 or take the 5:23 and be home just before 6.

So I bought a bus pass, 1 month for $28 and I can’t see a reason to drive my car to work. Except for groceries. I can get groceries at lunch, but then I’m totally the bag lady waiting for the bus in the afternoon. Who knows, I might even be talking to myself.

And I had some uncertainty about this trip. Regarding finances. Because the money I’d planned for this trip didn’t really happen due to one of us (not me, cough, cough) filling out our W4 wrong and owing money when we did our taxes. Yes, OWING. So no nice chunk of Chicago play money that would sit and grow with interest over a few months. No. More like eating rice and beans while we saved up and put a few of the purchases on credit cards.

WHICH KILLS ME. But on the other hand? When’s the last time we had a vacation that was just the 2 of us? And who knows when we’ll have kids? Probably soonish. (I’M NOT PREGNANT) When we do finally get out of debt when we’re 95 35, and if we hadn’t spent those extra days in Chicago, would I look back at all the self-deprivation and think it was unnecessary? Probably. And aside from just the general awesomeness of the vacation, we got our proof that it was the right decision when we were in the elevator of a Holiday Inn in Peoria (thanks, Hotwire!). We got on with our luggage. Me with my carry-on and purse, Dave with his carry-on. The end. No shopping bags, no laptop bags, no grocery bags, no camera bags. And a guy got on the elevator with one of those luggage rollers that hotels have, I’m sure they have a name. And he had suitcases, a box fan, a play pen, 2 diaper bags, a Baby Bjorn and clothes just hanging loose on the rack. I think he must have read our thoughts because he said, “Traveling sure changes when you have kids.” I said, “Yeah? How many kids do you have?” “One,” he said.

Yeah, so glad we took this trip now.

Anyway, I didn’t really plan this trip at all until the week before we left so for months it had just been this big looming block of time that we’d be in Illinois. And then we were there. All of our standby flight stuff worked out better than we could have hoped for. So without going too much of “this day we did this, that day we did that” here are my highlights.

1. We flew through the Art Institute in about an hour and a half, maybe because we get bored easily, maybe because we already had a plan and didn’t go see every single section. At any rate, we’d seen what we wanted to see and decided to go look at the Miniature Rooms because WTF? Miniature Rooms? And OMG it was our favorite thing. And I don’t even like dollhouses, nor do I collect tiny things just because they’re tiny. But these little rooms were 15″ replicas of actual rooms and they were nothing short of fascinating. Pictures do no justice.

2. My friend suggested that we visit the Violet Hour for drinks. They didn’t open until 6, so we headed down to Wicker Park late on a Sunday afternoon and walked past cute little (closed) shops, fauxmeless** 22-year olds flirting with cute girls to get their leftover food, nice restaurants and that neighborhood was my favorite place. It was the first time I didn’t feel like a tourist in Chicago. There were students, couples pushing strollers, people just out and about and it just felt like . . . Chicago. (The way Montrose feels like Houston; not NASA, not the Astrodome, not the Galleria.) Even after dark, the actual Wicker Park park didn’t feel seedy, unlike every other park I’ve ever been to at night. And the Violet Hour was amazing. If you go, your iPhone Maps app is correct, even if you don’t see the bar. It’s behind you, where that man is standing by the wall. If you look close, you’ll see it’s really a door and the nice man will let you in.

3. Taza is a little Mediterranean restaurant in the Loop that was so good that if we had discovered it earlier, we might not have tried any other restaurants. Best. Falafel. Ever.

4. This hotel might be one of my favorite hotels yet. Well-designed, reasonable (they matched the non-bid priceline price), free wine happy hour every day at 5 (you can bet your ass we didn’t miss THAT), and dog-friendly! Not that we had IKE, but it made me like the hotel better.

5. Not running. I took a page out of my recent New Orleans trip notes and didn’t even bring the running gear. Instead I slept until 10 every day.

And outside of the wedding in Peoria, which was lovely and I absolutely wouldn’t have missed that, those were the highlights. We also went to Millenium Park, the Robie House, Lou Malnati’s, the Lincoln Park Whole Foods, CB2 (we don’t have one!), H&M (ditto!), Boystown, wandered through Hyde Park, walked by the harbor, went to (the edge of) Chinatown, and our rent car for our trip to Peoria turned out to be the hamster car. (You can get with this.) Which reminds me…

6. Not getting picked up by a tornado on the way to Peoria. Some of the craziest weather I have ever seen. No lie. Aside from the rain that stopped and started, we left 95° weather in Chicago. Then it dropped to 75. Then back up to 95. Then back to 75. Um…. yeah. While we didn’t see a green sky or a funnel cloud, I’m sure they were out there.

I could say more, like about how I looooove public transit and Chicago has inspired me to start taking public transit to work (starting today. I walked to the light rail station, took a connecting bus to a stop 5 blocks from my work and voila! No car needed.) and how I’d geek out every time I heard the announcer say “WBEZ Chicago” on the radio and how we took pride in not looking/acting (much) like tourists, meaning we didn’t wear cargo shorts or tennis shoes or generally look lost and people actually asked US for directions a few times, etc. but it’s late and I must sleep.

*We love visiting our families. We do it ALL the time, voluntarily.

** UGH, totally thought I made up “fauxmeless” and it’s totally in Urban Dictionary.

New Orleans is such a great city. Even though it’s smaller than many of the cities I’ve lived in, it feels more like a city. Walkable, good food, good culture, good bars where you can get a nice absinthe drink… I stayed in an awesome hotel in the French Quarter on the 5th floor, I think. There was something sexy about hearing traffic from my room. Maybe it’s the narrow streets, maybe it’s how high up I was, I don’t know but I loved it. (I just might be a city girl.)  I also loved my view.

And there was some sort of church youth group thing happening. I could tell by all the (white) teens in tennis shoes and matching t-shirts. And lime-green backpacks.

Know what’s more annoying than normal French Quarter drunks? Hearing kids chant, “We love Jesus, yes we do! We love Jesus, how about YOU?” back and forth to each other over and over getting louder and louder. And they were for some reason obsessed with the jingle from the Red Robin commercials, and they’d chant that almost as often. But the plus side of that? By 9:30pm? Silence. Plus 1 for the youth groups.

The second night I’d had enough of fancy food and I just wanted a po’ boy. So I went over to Acme and got one. I sat at the bar and chatted with the people around me. We discussed Katrina and marriage and kids and politics. The night before, at Lüke, just before I left I chatted with the girl next to me, who was also sitting alone. She was nice and about my age and I’d wished I’d started talking to her earlier. I’ve never really traveled alone before and it was fun/different/exciting talking to random strangers. I didn’t have the need to be their best friends or add them on Facebook or hope the night ended up somewhere exciting. I didn’t even need to know their names. It was just fun to have company to eat with. (Since I’ve been flying so much, I’m the opposite on planes. Don’t talk to me, that’s why I have this book.)

Anyway, it was a nice trip, in spite of the 16 hours I spent working. Oh, and I’d stupidly packed my running shoes and clothes, but yeah. That was dumb. New Orleans is for eating and drinking, not for running!! Lesson learned.

I was leaving N.O. on Wednesday to go home and prepare for our flight the next day to Chicago. In light of all the suitcase-handling I’d have over the next few days, I decided to check my bags at the New Orleans airport, spare myself lugging them through Hobby during my layover. But when I got to the Southwest gate? Guess who else was flying Southwest?

Yeah, I lugged my suitcase and laptop bag . . .

That video is old but I just saw it recently. Dave and his friend Justin follow a bunch of comedians on twitter and after Louis C.K. tweeted a whole diatribe on the stupidity of Sarah Palin (which he later deleted, stupid sobriety) they recommended I start following him. So I did. Then I heard him on Fresh Air and then I started watching his show and then I watched every Louis C.K. video on the entire internet (some of which it turned out I’d seen ages ago) and he’s my new favorite person.