CHICAGO CARLESS

(Photo: Is that your final answer?)

Another in a string of recent unexpected happenings, last week, fellow blogger Chris Brunn asked to interview me for the Third Coast Audio Festival. He was fascinated by my being a fan of the Chicago Diner’s Radical Reuben (read all about the interview in my Gapers Block post: When an Omnivore Loves a Veggie Reuben).

What I found more fascinating, though, were the two versions of Yours Truly who appeared and vanished in turn, each time the microphone was turned on.

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(Photo: Food porn in convenient amaretto-cherry cookie size from Lido’s Caffé in Oak Park.)

Lately, my life has been a string of unexpected occurrences that have taken even this life-is-flux loving Buddhist by surprise. Some haven’t been so pleasant (two words: Fleet Week). Two of the happiest have been my rekindled friendship with pastry-chef Chris, and my discovery, through said fellow foodie, of Lido’s Caffé in Oak Park.

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(Photo: xxxxxxxxxx.)

Perhaps the biggest open secret in my life is my heritage. The Irish last name is a red herring. I’m actually one-hundred percent Hispanic. Mom was a first-generation American born to Spaniard parents. My father was Puerto Rican. Him I never knew, and mom brought up all of her children white-bread American. By other children, I’m referring to the brother and sister I rarely reference and haven’t known in years. There’s a deeply substantive-abusive reason for that on their part, but that’s a backstory for another time.

Though I never did learn to speak Spanish in childhood (and, boy, did it kill my mom to hear me coming home from college speaking French and Italian), I did learn a thing or two in the kitchen. My most cherished culinary memory from childhood will always be my mom’s Spanish rice. It’s been my go-to dish for years and will be again tonight as I bring a couple of vats of it to the Gapers Block potluck dinner meeting for the Drive-Thru food & drink staff.

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(Photo: “Local Chicago blogger Jasmine Davila has a vagina and is not afraid to use it.)

The first step to getting healthy is admitting you have a problem. There’s no getting around it, I am hopelessly addicted to Cincinnati chili. I and my waistline dream about the stuff. I find myself making excuses for being in Lincoln Square, eight miles from my downtown home, to accidentally drop in at Cinner’s, Chicago’s only authentic Queen City chili parlor. Just such an accidentally intentional trip is how I ended up discussing vaginas with fellow local blogger Jasmine Davila (a former Chicagoans Project subject on these pages).

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(Photo: Different bridge, same exodus: my experience on 9/11. Credit: Joseph Rodruguez.)

An annotated version of the following entry is cross-posted on my Huffinton Post Chicago byline.

Today, with the world again awash in retrospect, I usually prefer to be blogging about about courtesy, or kittens, or one of any number of safer, happier, topics. Seven years on and I had originally thought not to mark the occasion again. At some point, we just have to emotionally let go inside, or we destroy ourselves. In the end, while I feel no need to make a pilgrimage to a dusty construction site in Lower Manhattan, I still feel a need for words. I wrote these particular words in 2006, to mark my experience of the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Here’s my story from that day…

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(Photo: Would you attempt to take food away from this man? Yours Truly experiencing his first Beijing Duck at Sun Wah. Credit: Jamie Williamson.)

American Apparel must feel vindicated right now. Last year, after the depression diet that followed my breakup with Devyn, I was happy to discover two things: St. Johns Wort is like God’s Zoloft without the sexual side-effects; and I was trim enough to shop at the official clothing retailer of America’s heroin chic. Under 200 pounds for the first time since my twenties, it was a thrill to step out of changing rooms wearing clothing marked “medium” and not look like a stuffed grape.

The thrill’s worn off.

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(Photo: Averting my gaze from Chicago’s big gay fest.)

Let the gay community come and take my toaster oven back. I’m not a fan of Market Days.

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