hot peach on a beach..

a chicago heat wave and summer love

it’s true, it’s summer and i’m in love..

but first, i went back to chicago and it was HOT.. in more ways than one.

i was telling someone about my chicago trip and they said “wow, that all kind of sucks.. i’m sorry” and i was thinking “wait what? i’m saying i had THE best time!” to be fair, i probably talked about how the cubs game got rained out, visiting during a blasted heat wave, breaking my sunglasses on the first beach day, and how i ran out of my anti-depressants. but not a single one of those things, or all of them combined, could derail my good time because time spent with randi & josh is always a good time.

we sipped coffee at four letter word. i ate my first ever chicago dog ( but sorry, no tomatos! ) in front of wrigley stadium, which will have to do for now! swam many days in lake michigan ( frickin brrr! ) where i was the tannest texan among a sea of very pale midwesterners. we ate breakfast at doma cafe ( and must have just missed jeremy allen white ) listened to jazz at the green mill ( where al capone used to frequent ) but the real entertainment was observing how blatantly rude the bartenders were to everyone. there were bookstores, a camera shop, riding about 18 escalators to the top of the harold washington library to get to the garden terrace, getting lost in a seven story macy’s where i purchased $100 worth of calvin klein underwear and then had to carry around said bag of underwear for the rest of the day which felt crazy. there was also a lot of pizza, and ice cream, and wine and yes my pants are much tighter. and can you believe it? there was a pride & prejudice screening on a rooftop! i’d throw my anti-depressants into the ocean ( lake michigan ) for just that alone.

i learned that randi loves to eat a hot peach. she had a very sweet, nostalgic reason for this. i however did not enjoy it, was actually quite repulsed, and this i will never forget. if it’s not in a cobbler it shouldn’t be that hot.

on my flight back to austin a storm was moving over the city so the captain told us we were going to “hold here” over the intercom and basically we just flew in a circle outside of the city at the bumpiest altitude possible and somewhere around the 6th one is when everyone starting barfing. it was one of the more uncomfortable moments of my life to be trapped in a metal tube of barf flying in the same circle over and over. eventually we landed and i’ve never witnessed a plane empty quicker than that one.

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i deleted hinge the day i got back from chicago. like i said, i didn’t expect to find love that way..

just real life examples of shots being shoot on hinge.

and i didn’t.

i didn’t even try to be honest. it was purely for my own twisted entertainment. the same reason some people scroll tik tok, i was just giving people the opportunity to make me laugh.

it did however make me realize that my life is currently ( and often ) absolutely overflowing with all kinds of love already. and sure, a romantic life partner would be great but i like to imagine that will unfold somewhere along the way. somewhere in the midst of living day to day life alongside all of these incredibly lovable human beings. somewhere in between slingin’ coffee, having backyard cookouts, watching friends make music, spontaneous tennis matches in the rain or in the heat of the day, playing pool, maybe flying on planes or swimming in cold water, crying with friends in movie theaters, or laughing at the mall while choking on a pretzel. i mean, who wouldn’t find love in a life like this? sounds romantic as hell already.

x —