My Flight is Not 815. I Checked.

I'm going to Chicago in May. It's time for another solo vacation, and I'm hoping to get work done on Bubble Gum Princess and the One Hundred Things... book? I still have no idea what to do with that story.

I went to Chicago in 1995, and again when Noah's play was produced there a few years ago. When I went in 1995 it was to interview at the School at the Art Institute of Chicago. I was pretty sure I wanted to go there, but I came home ranting about how the admissions rep was rude to my parents and the pigeons in Chicago are ugly. I didn't go to school there.

I'm happy with my MassArt education and after all this distance I can say that SIM was one of the best experiences of my life. I think I made a very good decision, but lately I haven't been comfortable with my reasons for that decision. It wasn't the pigeons, or at least not just the pigeons. If I stayed in Boston I'd be closer to my family and my then-baby nephew. I had friends who were also going to school in Boston. MassArt was cheaper. They were very good reasons and they made sense, but I could have disregarded them and pursued the unknown.

I think a lot about LOST, and the ideas of destiny and fate. Sometimes I think my life would be very different if I'd gone to school in Chicago. I might have come out of my shell earlier, almost certainly would have learned a different set of skills. I can't help but think that there was something I was supposed to learn in Chicago, so I'm going there to learn it. I'm going to see what the smoke monster brings me.

All things go. All things go.