It was a great trip! I wish it lasted longer, or at the very least, that I was able to stay through Sunday instead of coming back early and missing the big dinner on Sunday night. I told myself that the honorees were no big deal to me so it was ok to come back early. And that's true. But I wish I could have stayed longer because of the people I met. Even though things started out slow and I was my usual quiet self when it comes to being surrounded by strangers, by the end of Saturday night, I had let loose and was feeling good.
Let's start from the beginning.
Being me, I left packing until the last minute. I had jury duty the week before Chicago and even though I was home by 5pm every day that week and should have used that time to get all my preparations done, I didn't. I was on a red-eye to Chicago Wednesday night and was working a full day, so it didn't give me much time. I bought all my toiletries Monday night, did laundry on Tuesday night, but did I even start packing? Nope, no I didn't. I came home from work on Wednesday and had 2 hours to pack and get ready before I had to catch the bus to the airport.
I finished packing in time, but didn't have time for a quick shower. Did I mention that I only had about three or four hours of sleep Tuesday night? I always have a hard time sleeping before I fly, but usually have no problem falling asleep on the plane.
Once on the plane, realized why the flight was so cheap. It was like a sardine can in there. When the guy in front of me reclined his seat, he could have used my boobs as pillows. I felt for the guy next to me because he had long legs and absolutely no space. The good thing was that the guy in front of him didn't recline his seat. Who knows what he would have done then. It was completely uncomfortable and neither of us could get any sleep. Next time I'm paying for the $50 seats. (The return flight wasn't so bad, though.)
I arrived in Chicago just before 6am. I was a mess. Once I got my bag, I went into the bathroom to try to freshen up a bit, but I still looked and felt awful. Oh man, I should mention when I walked into the stall at O'Hare, I was like, "WTF??" You're not able to put a seat cover on the toilet. It already has a plastic one on it. You wave your hand in front of it and it automatically changes it to a new one.
I had done some research and found that the easiest and cheapest way from the airport to my hotel was taking the L and it dropped me off about a block and half from my hotel. The train stop is right in the airport and it was easy to buy a cta card and get on. Unfortunately, it was Thursday during rush hour and I was going into the heart of the financial district so the train got pretty packed. It was about an hour to the hotel so I arrived around 7am.
The hotel was fancy. Actually, as my college roommate said when I told her where I was staying, "super fancy." Here I am, just off a red-eye flight, in jeans and a loose t-shirt, looking a mess and walking into a rather posh hotel. Yeah, I felt out of place. And as I thought about the clothes I packed, completely under dressed.
I was able to check-in early without being charged the $25 check-in early fee, but it meant instead of a king size bed, I just got a double. I so didn't care. The conference was starting at 8:45am and I wanted to at least take a shower if I couldn't take a nap. I don't know how I made it through that day. Meeting after meeting from 8:45am to 4:30pm. I hoped to take a quick nap before dinner at 6:30pm but I ended up going to the bar with my old boss and having a couple of drinks while we talked yv business. I had two whiskey sours and I was buzzed. That's usually not enough to affect me, but considering my lack of sleep and the very little food I had (I didn't get breakfast and lunch was on the light side), I was feeling good. I barely had time to go upstairs and change for dinner.
Dinner was on the light side too, so my old boss and I ended up leaving early and going around the corner to eat. We came back and the band had stopped playing, but they had brought out a piano and people were drinking and singing. I was a good girl, though. While a bunch of them went next door to a bar, I went up to my room. It was 10:30 and I was exhausted, but kept thinking, "it's only 8:30pm," so I ended up staying up til around 1am. I overslept the next day. :(
I missed the morning session from 8:45-11am. That sucked because I missed a bunch of tent presentations about events they've had. These presentations serve to give others ideas. From what I heard, I missed some good events. :(
That afternoon, I had another 2 hour break before dinner, and while I had hoped to get away from the hotel for a little bit, I ended up back at the bar with my old boss and had two more whiskey sours. This time, I was well rested and well fed (well, no breakfast again, but still) so they did not affect me like they had the day before.
At the cocktail reception before dinner, I met staff from the WI tent and met the ED from Kansas City. When I was introduced to the Kansas City ED, she exclaimed because she knew me from Facebook (I follow as many tents as I can and comment when possible). The dinner was great and afterwards I stuck to our former yv prez. We were at the hotel bar for awhile before going over to the bar next door.
Have you seen the Sandra Bullock/Keanu Reeves movie "The Lake House?" The bar next door where everyone kept hanging out was the same bar from the movie. :)
Had a few drinks, met more people and had a meatball sandwich before heading back at 1:30am. I stayed up til about 3am watching tv. I was still on LA time, plus I was putting things away since my college roommate was coming in on Saturday so I didn't want her to walk into a mess.
Saturday was the day I was looking forward to. In the morning was the yv meeting, then we were getting on trolleys to the pier for the kids luncheon, then I actually had five hours of free time before the yv event that evening.
Even though I didn't go to sleep until 3am, I was up bright and early Saturday morning and made it to breakfast. Yum! At the yv meeting, I learned a lot about the other yv's and realized just how different we were (and that's not a good thing). The kids luncheon was on a boat, but it stayed docked. The Illinois tent brought in a bunch of kids groups they support and there was lunch, games, face painting and jewelry making for them. I volunteered for the jewelry making and helped a few make necklaces and bracelets. Unfortunately, many of the beads provided didn't fit the cord provided so options were limited.
I took the trolley back to the hotel with some of the other yv'ers because I was meeting my college roommate and another college friend to go sightseeing around Chicago. It was great to see them. :) We walked round and round, went to the Buckingham Fountain (from the opening credits of Married with Children), went to "the bean" and the spitting fountain. I was starving so I had some Chicago deep stuffed pizza. Went to the cultural arts center, took a photo in front of the famous Chicago theatre and went to the first department store, Marshall Fields (now Macy's). Boy was I tired from all the walking. Five hours of walking! Ok, 1 hour was spent at the restaurant (the pizza takes 40 minutes). We arrived at a good time and were seated immediately. When we left, there were tons of people outside waiting to be seated.
There was still tons to see, but we had to get back and get ready for the yv night at the House of Blues. I didn't mingle much, stuck to my college roommate most of the time, and yet, I agreed to head out to the next bar/club with the group. Here we are, this huge group of people showing up in multiple cabs, to this club with a long-ass line of people waiting to get in and we stroll up to the front. Did I mention we had Mr World and Miss World in tow?
The club was to capacity and we were going to go into the club next door, but as soon as we turned, the doorman called us back and was like, "my bad." He led us around the club to the back door and let us all in. That was the beginning of an incredible night!
The basement of the club was the biggest part, with different rooms and 2 bars and it played 80s music. The upstairs, which the street entrance led into had a smaller dance floor and played pop and hip hop music. We spent quite some time in the basement, drinking, singing along with the music and dancing. We were transported back to our college days. We stuck with the group for a bit, but then my college roommate and I ventured off on our own.
After a couple of hours in the basement, we ended up upstairs and back with the majority of the group. We hit the dance floor and honestly, I danced non-stop for hours. I can't remember the last time I cut loose like that. Not even for my birthday. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast on my birthday, I was also hammered that night. But this evening, even though I had been drinking earlier in the evening, I stopped at a certain point and was way sober for the majority of the time at the club.
We were on the dance floor, singing and dancing. My former yv prez said she was so happy to see me cut loose and that it was a completely different side of me. I honestly think if my college roommate hadn't been there, the night would have ended early for me. I probably would have left the House of Blues event early or at the very least, gone back to the hotel instead of going to the club. Her being there was comforting, enabled me to relax and just let me be myself. In college, it was usually the two of us at the parties and dances. We stuck together and had fun.
Aside from the atmosphere of the basement and 80s music, there was another moment that took me back to my college days. I had finally taken a break (I was tired after walking for 5 hours and then dancing non-stop for hours), when a particularly awesome song came on. I was dancing by the tables because the dance floor was packed tight and a guy came up and danced with me. When the song ended, he said thanks and went away. A few moments later, another guy went up to him with drinks and they were getting close. My college roommate and I looked at each other. We couldn't believe it. It was definitely college. It took us back to sophomore year at the notorious Casa party where two of the hottest guys were taking turns dancing with me, "fighting" for my attention. They were gay, by the way. The attention was nice, but of course, it's like "why is it only the gay guys???" So here I was again, a great song had come on and who decides to get freaky with me - the gay guy. :(
My old yv prez is very popular with this crowd as she's been to several of these conferences and there were two guys that were vying for her attention. One she was clearly into as well, so the other one just looked like a sad little puppy following her around and watching her with the other guy. At one point, the sad little puppy grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the dance floor with him. It was so nice to dance with him. It would've been nicer if he hadn't spent the entire time we were dancing watching my old yv prez and the other guy. :(
I had obviously seen him throughout the conference and he was one of the hotties in attendance, at least in my opinion. There's just something about those Midwestern boys. And I especially liked how tall he was and he was so funny.
He held me close to his body while we danced and he'd pull my arm around him if I wasn't holding on to him. It felt so good to slide my hand up and down his back and just feel the curve of his body. I was tempted, so tempted to let my hand stray away from his back, further down, sideways, everywhere. But I was a good girl. (nuts!) If he had actually been paying attention to me, there's no telling what I would have done. ;)
I wanted him to hold me tight and look at me the way he was looking at her. I kept thinking about making a move, maybe I would have if I wasn't sober. Watching my old yv prez and the other guy made me long for attention; the way he kissed her shoulders or just simply held her hand. Maybe it's been too long for me, maybe since I tend to feel rather frisky when my time ends (before and during too!), maybe it really wasn't about him, but just my own longings. Either way, I didn't do anything and he certainly didn't do anything, so we both missed out because I can honestly say, if he hadn't been as drunk as he was and if he had paid attention to me, he wouldn't have been the sad little puppy he was.
We left the club at about 3:30am and a group we went with still stayed behind, including the sad puppy. Others had left earlier. I was just amazed that at the time of night, there was still a long line of people waiting to get in. I'm not a club/bar person, but didn't think this was a normal thing, at least not in LA. But what do I know.
When we got back to the hotel, I was still wired so I had trouble going to sleep right away. I wanted to stay up talking, but considering I still had a bunch of meetings, starting at 8:45am before I had to leave for the airport at 3pm, I knew I needed to get some sleep. I fell asleep around 4:30am and was up at 7:30am. That gave me an hour to shower, dress and pack before the 8:45am meeting. My college roommate got to sleep in a little longer and took my luggage down to the hotel lobby at 10:45am. That gave me 15 minutes to check out and check my luggage at the bell desk before running off to my next meeting and lunch.
I was so tired on Sunday and kept dozing off. I felt so bad. And boy was I sore. Either I'm getting old or I need to party like that more often so I'm not sore. OK, I'm getting old. I was still sore on Monday. :(
I don't know at what time the others returned to the hotel because they didn't make it to the morning session or lunch, so I didn't see him before I left.
On Sunday afternoon, I had the same problem taking the train back to the airport that I had coming in on Thursday - a full train. It's so incredibly easy to take the train to and from the airport that the train was full of people and their luggage.
I got some sleep on the flight back and upon landing, the second we were able to turn on our cell phones, the flight attendant immediately announced that Osama bin Laden was dead.
I had a great time in Chicago and wish I could've stayed longer. I learned a lot during the conference and was so happy to meet so many new people within the organization. Before the conference, I was counting the days until the end of my term as secretary, but I came back with renewed excitement, enthusiasm and spirit. I wrote up a 2-page report (I cut out a lot and only put the most relevant and interesting information) for my fellow board members. It only took the hour and a half long board meeting I attended on Tuesday to kill the renewed excitement, enthusiasm and spirit. My board will never change and I see no point in continuing.
I find myself trying to figure out how to continue with the international aspect of the organization without being involved at the local level. :(
I'm looking to Facebook to keep this feeling alive. Immediately a bunch of us have been adding each other on Facebook and keeping in touch. I'm such a dork. I went back and forth for a couple days, trying to decide whether or not to request him on fb, wondering if he would even accept me. I finally did it and requested him and he accepted me right away. :)
Now I can't stop thinking about him. I'm just a fool. I'm obsessing over a guy that's halfway across the country and he's just too young (only 26!). Who knows when I'll ever see him again? But I just keep thinking about the what-if's - what could've happened if I stayed through Sunday? What could've happened if I had gone for it?
Either way, it was a great trip and I look forward to returning to Chicago (still so much to see!) and maybe one day (hopefully not too far into the future), I will get to see him and everyone again. :)
And again, I am so very thankful and grateful that my college roommate took the train in on Saturday and we got to hang out and that our other college friend also came and took us sightseeing. And she made me yummy banana bread. :)
