"God only knows why I don't just retreat // instead of riding the rails back to the place of my first defeat." -Hedwig & the Angry Inch

Back in Chicago. First eighteen years of my life were spent fooling and tooling in this city - longer if you count the years I kept my thoughts here and nowhere felt more like home. How strange and disjointing that it would ever feel so alien. So archeological. So like a dream, surrounded by faces wrapped in smoke - you know them well and love them well and they bear that same love for you. Their smells and thoughts and voices are the same as you remember, but you cannot to save your life place their faces.

When you wake up, some live. Others have been dead for years.

Chicago, nothing has changed. Chicago, everything has changed. I love you when I'm here and miss you when I'm away. How pleasant that you stay right here - more or less - so that I can come visit you. I forgive you in advance and a thousand times over for being a hundred degrees on Wednesday. Sometimes you have to bake.

Location:Chicago