Ooh Expo!

After hiking through the woods a couple dozen times this weekend I was a bit worried about how I would hold up at the Graph Expo today. I shouldn't have worried. By the time we got to the McCormick Center I was already giddy.

Being the sole representative of my company at the expo might have made me feel really grown up...except for my "business casual" attire of a hoody & jeans...and the fact that my objective for the expo was to grab as many freebies as possible.

So mostly it was like college, except that being with people from our split off company I sometimes had to actually listen to what vendors were saying. But that was fun too because I got to play pretend and act like maybe I actually knew what was going on. Even more amusing was when I actually did!

The only sad moment in my day was when we were driving up to the center and I thought about how funny it would be if I ran into Prof. Davis with a new group of graphic design majors going to their first expo. Oh yeah. That can't happen.



The rest of the day was, literally, a bunch of giggles. Leslie and I laughed. All. Day. Long.
I don't know the last time was that I've laughed so much. All the other attendees looked serious and bored the whole time. We laughed about ev-er-y-thing. Vendors, freebies, other attendees, demonstrations. All funny.



And I did get a ton of cool freebies. Mostly posters, but I got a nice pen, a usb-multi-port, a bag & some spiffy die-cuts too. A lot of the posters I had no interest in because mostly they were just pictures of pretty, often scantily clad, women. Could it be because most expo attendees are men? But towards the end we visited the HP booth and, whatever HP lacks in service (it's a lot) they make up in posters.

Downtown...everything's waiting for you

Thanks to me and my disfunctional alarm clocks, we left an hour later than we meant to. When we arrived it was 10-ish and nothing was open. So, in retrospect, the alarm malfunction have been some sort of favor.

The goal of our little Chicago day-trip was to find coats for my roomy and I. We didn't so much as find a light jacket, so from that perspective we may have failed, but we had a fun time doing it.

We started off well and oddly (for me) optimistic. Well, the city will do that. Christmas decorations were up, the most impressive being the never-ending Macy's. Seriously. Never ending.

Also, this might sound silly, but it was rainy and a bit chilly. For what-ever reason, this made it better. Can't explain it. I love the city.

We got to experience the overwhelming Nordstrom Rack. This is the discount version of Nordstrom's. You might think that even a discount Nordstrom's would be classy. You would be wrong. All discount stores are terrifying. The fact that people are now fighting over Steve Maddens and Michael Kors that are marked down 75% only heightens the maddness.

But, as exciting as fighting through crowds of middle-aged women digging for burried Donna Karan was, I think my favorite part of the day was getting to go into an actual brick-and-mortar Blick art store and Urban Outfitters. I didn't get anything in Blick, though I do covet the $50 messanger art bag, not to mention every pen, pencil, and paper that they stock. In Urban Outfitters; however, I bought four Kurt Halsey paintings. I mean, they're not orginals, but they are printed onto stretched canvas and even have a vaguely turpentinesque smell to them.

I adore Kurt Halsey. Rather, I adore Kurt Halsey's art work. I've never met Halsey himself and I imagine he's an uptight, emo work-a-holic obsessed with getting proper recognition for his work. So the infatuation ends with me paying $55 to hang some of his various paintings on my walls. Robin found this a little outrageous. But, I was going to buy them at some point and this way I saved on shipping! They make me very happy.

We didn't cover that much of Chicago in our walking. But we were walking around the Madison St. area and it's many department stores for 8 or 9 hours. We try to go on a walk every day around town, but those are usually 1-2 hours. Not 9.

On our drive back we stopped to get coffee. When we got out of the car our legs were in so much pain that all we could do was laugh. We couldn't walk for a few moments, just laugh.

But it was a really great trip. It was so nice to be in Chicago. So nice to do something different and see something different.

Indiana is always gorgeous. I have it-so-pretty-I-can't-breath moments at least once a week, lately every day. So I'm not discounting that. But the city has always had a special allure for me. The massiveness of the buildings and the crowds. The crazy art, the ancient and new architecture all jumbled together. I love it. I feel safer, happier, more at home - in the city.

Happy Weekend.