HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEN !!!! How does it feel to be 29..... again.... Hope you have a great weekend! Love you!

I live in a great city. There is just nothing like this place. I got this feeling last night, like I do a few times a year, where I felt so incredibly lucky to be in Chicago. I am so grateful to those who supported me coming here. I had no reason to move here, no job, no family or friends.... but I knew I needed to be here for some reason. and it wasn't easy.... at all! I remember being so frustrated at how different it was just to go grocery shopping and get to and from work every day. Its a completely different way to live, and it took some adjusting. And even now it beats me down from time to time..... but its all worth it.

In the next 72 hours I will have gone to a movie where they serve cocktails and smoking is permitted, eaten a great cheeseburger way too late in the evening, seen a production of Hamlet for free, eaten some kind of ethnic food way too late in the evening again, danced at a gay bar and watched man-ladies sing show tunes, had breakfast or lunch on Michigan Avenue across from the world famous Playboy building and kitty-corner from Oprah's condo, probably see another movie while enjoying the spirit of my choice, visited the actual Lions of Tsavo, seen antiquities from ancient Egypt, an exhibit on the dinosaurs, one of the greatest aquariums in the world and fish some people will never see, sit and pray in one of the most beautifully crafted, and one of the only 8, Bahai temples on this planet, shopped the open markets for anything you can imagine in China Town, and had some authentic chinese food prepared by people that have lived here all their lives and still only speak chinese, eaten at Ron of Japan (the best food I have ever tasted in my 31 years) where someone will prepare lobster and a filet right at the table, window shopped down Michigan Avenue at night, and maybe do a load of two of laundry...... to name a few.
And all without ever being more than 5 miles away from home......

So to those that have never been here, or any big city for that matter, come visit. It just may change your life.

Have a great weekend everyone. And happy birthday again to Jenny Craig (Fischer), I love and miss you woman!
Cheers all,
-Cyn