CHICAGO CARLESS

(Photo: Can I have some soup with my garlic, please? Credit: Glória Fácil.)

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on nowness, indeed, I did go shopping for dinner, after all. If there’s anything I regret about my move to Chicago, it’s that unlike my NYC hometown, we don’t have any Portuguese restaurants in the Windy City.

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(Photo: Spinning, spinning, getting nowhere. Me and the Mad Tea Party, Disneyland.)

I’m willing to bet money the Mad Hatter had Attention Deficit Disorder. Anyone who’s eternally “late for a very important date” definitely has issues with time management, one of the major symptoms of ADD.

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(Photo: Sometimes the roof has to cave in before you can finally see blue sky. The Igreja do Carmo, Lisbon, Portugal.)

When is a neurological disorder a gift? The answer to that depends on whom you ask. If you asked me a few weeks ago, I’d have said never–and why are you asking me such a silly question, anyway?

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(Photo: Desculpe, pode me dizer onde fica o Bean?)

It had to happen sometime. Last weekend, after five years of my Chicago life–and for the first time ever in his–Jose visited me in Chicago. That’s “joe-ZAY”, so pronounce it right in your head when you read it. My best friend from my adult years in New York. My Portuguese connection.

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(Photo: Never let the vehicle deter you from the road you want to follow.)

Last night during Community Media Workshop’s 2008 Studs Terkel Awards at the Chicago Cultural Center, one of the winners, Sylvia Rivera, the general manager of bilingual public radio station Radio Arte, shared this comment from the stage:

“You write the story of your life. You create your own legend.”

In two sentences, Rivera described my dilemma.

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