Chicago

Its not often that I write about my everyday affairs, but this was one particular weekend that still stands so unforgettable I don't ever want to risk the chance of forgetting.

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It's our first trip together, but it's been one we've been lusting after ever since the semester started. When school and orgs and everything in between got to be too much, we'd daydream about escaping away to his beach house or, in his grander plan, to Chicago. His descriptions of the city and the mere idea of flying away to a place far away from events and programs and long pledging nights and papers got me excited as well. We'd never really thought it was possible until his father called the week of his birthday to offer him flights and a place to stay in his shiny new pad right in the heart of Chicago.

And so we bummed a ride off of his big the friday of his birthday and checked ourselves in; I don't think the realization that we were finally living out our fantasy had hit us quite yet. We bought a sandwich and a smoothie, and I sat reading my borrowed AACC library book while the boy spaced out listening to his ipod, waiting for our delayed flight. It wasn't until we had boarded and the flight took off that I started to get excited, squeezing his thighs or tugging on his arm to reassure myself that this wasn't just one long dream.

We get into Chicago late at night, and hop in a cab that whisks us away straight through michigan ave and to the doorstep of his father's apartment. It's a gorgeous shiny new building, with a roundabout in the front for taxis, futuristic lighting, high ceilings, glass walls and embedded speakers that pump out jazz. A cozy bar that blasts 80s music is across the street, and we drop off our things at our (yes, ours - his father rented out a separate apartment for us for the weekend!) apartment and met his parents there for a late supper and beers. I'm suddenly self-aware and nervous; I don't want to sound like an idiot in front of his parents, both of which were intelligent and had rather discriminating tastes (no doubt for their son as well). They eat (I was too nervous to ingest anything save my own saliva) and drink (I'm the only one not of-age), and we head back to our apartment to explore the rooms some more. We fall asleep in our undies, a privilege not often celebrated due to my roommates, exhausted from the plane ride and excitement.

We head out mid-afternoon the next day to explore the city and its culinary offerings - it turns out the Dunns' were food people, my favorite kind. The boy's father is charismatic and opinionated, but easy to talk to, and the boy's stepmom was warm and bubbly and classy, and I relaxed a little in their company. The weather is gorgeous and clear, unusual for Chicago. We hit up an Italian bistro, and I try palenta for the first time. There's a gentle breeze that blows in from Lake Michigan, but the sun is strong and makes the reflections of the architecture off the Chicago River glitter. There's bridal parties and photographers everywhere, taking advantage of the clear, warm day.

Chicago's a romantic city, with old-world architecture and streetlamps and bridges standing shoulder to shoulder with shiny new high-rises. The new steel-and-glass giant Trump Tower stands in sharp contrast across Michigan Ave from the classy Chicago Tribune building, and everywhere we look there is a roman column, an archway, a glossy skyscraper. We take the tourist ferry around the city and out into the lake, where the temperature drops and we shift closer for warmth and munch on the leftover panini from lunch.

After the tour, we bum around the city, and I drag the boy into every store we pass. He's a good sport for the most part, and I reward him with an early return back to the apartment to nap and mess around and prep for dinner.

Dinner is at a high-end, modern-y restaurant called Graham Elliot that blasts rock and serves basil/truffle oil popcorn and overpriced but delicious entrees. We head over to an old-school Sinatra-esque piano bar with his parents afterwards, where we find ourselves surrounded by a much older set. We are easily and far-and-away the youngest people there, but I don't mind. The boy and his dad buy a drink, and I watch a 50-something lady in a turquoise sequined top drunkenly dance with every semi-available 40-to-60 something man in the piano bar. Her drunken debauchery makes me smile, and the music is just my type. Eventually the boy and I get bored, and we decide to walk back the 10 blocks back to the apartment. It's a brisk autumn night, but the walk was just long enough, and we paused only to check out the Lamborghini dealership (the boy is a car fiend, but even I appreciated the bright red convertible sitting in the corner window). We pause to snog and snuggle under a colossal metal column two blocks away from the apartment, and the sad reality that our trip was soon ending sets in. Not prepared quite yet to end the night, we stop by the same bar we ate at the first night, but it's not quite the same, and we fight off yawns as we sat fireside before we finally called it a night and crawled into bed sans clothes.

We wake up early next morning to hazy skies; it seemed like the weather reflected our lack of enthusiasm for returning home. The boy dumps his baggage into the boot of his dad's car and runs around the front to gape at his dad's new ride while the dad, ever the gentleman, helps me with mine and opens the car door for me. I'm amused at the stark contrast of demeanor, and tease him later about it. We hop in the car and whiz to the airport and say our goodbyes. We're melancholy as we wait for our flight, and when we get on board we don't say much but I nestle into his neck and his arm finds my waist. I don't think I realized going to back to reality was part of the agenda until it was time to do so. And before long we were back in Newark and I was checking my email again and he was texting people back and returning phone calls.

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I think ever since that trip I've been yearning to get back to Chicago, back to the city where I could envision myself one day living and working and going back to the boy and our apartment at night, grabbing dinner next to the river or on the pier. I've been itching to be finished with Rutgers and everything along with it already, to go on pursuing my next goals in life, inspired all the more by this fulfillment of a daydream with the boy, with MY boy. I was happier than I could remember in that one weekend than I have been in a very, very long time.