I Heart Chicago
So I'm back from my fabulous vacation to Chicago for the Jane Austen AGM where literature geeks from across the nation gather to inspect the banal details of a wonderful writer, dress like fools, act like fools, and feel pretty good about it.
The flight was pretty easy, surrounded by Cubs and White Sox fans, and the little boy screaming incessantly for the last half hour, but doable. Flying over was neat, seeing the city and the suburbs all lit up. Super cool. I managed to find the shuttle without much todo, and they were awesome as well. I got dropped off last and the driver had to turn around so we got to go up and down Lake Shore and Wacker and see all the neat stuff round there. I liked the drivers, chatty but not scary or annoying. Plus I was super psyched about everything, so I was pretty giddy. Checked into the lovely Westin without trouble, more nice people, really nice hotel. I fully expected my roommates for the trip, Becky and tumbling0after to be at the Art Institute for the curtain raiser thingy, and that my dinner would consist of two packages of pretzels, six ounces of Coke, and a Tootsie Roll, but no! Becky discovered that the curtain raiser was in fact at the hotel, and they were both in the room waiting for me, and they'd been to dinner and brought their leftovers back for me because while we had no place to save them, they knew I would be hungry. Mmm, pasta.
The curtain raiser was a neat speech about Jane's portraits by her sister, and the image of Jane and all that analytical stuff that I will save for a different audience. Then we all admitted we were pretty tired, went back to the room, discussed the vice presidential speeches, and then sacked out. The Westin has great beds, and they come with great pillows, except for the long one which jammed my shoulder up pretty good in the night, but the next nights without it corrected the issue. The next day we had breakfast just off Michigan Ave in this cute bakery place in the super cool neighborhood where all the buildings are vintage and covered in ivy and stuff. I also discovered that my lack of long sleeves was not good since it didn't really get above sixty during the trip. I wound up buying a great jacket at Macy's and a scarf from H&M (first one I've ever been to) and was able to look trendy and belonging to the town.
We did our poster thing and impressed people with Jane Austen in text speech. Checked out the emporium where there was tons of stuff to buy. I got my mom a tea cup, bought a copy of Northanger Abbey, a "Mr. Darcy Thinks I'm Tolerable" shirt, checked out the bonnets on offer (I must buy one some day), and puttered around in general. The only problem with the AGM was that there was something to do every minute of the day, which is great if you're in the middle of nowhere and you can live off Jane Austen quotes. I, however, am still human, and we skipped a few things to do other stuff, like eat and shop and walk around the city where I would like to move to now.
Friday was a little disappointing just because I found out from the people that I didn't get the job (admittedly I shot myself in the foot when I said I didn't have any customer service experience for a customer service job), and the mystery writers panel I was so eager to see sucked royally. First we had this moderator who took twenty minutes to explain the role of everybody there, and then forgot to moderate anything, then we had to sit through a forty-minute presentation by this businessman who was an amateur mystery expert who was given the topic "Detective Novels" and proceeded to bore us into submission. The two mystery writers I came to see looked so bored by the end of it, I can't believe they didn't walk out. One is actually former CIA and I really wanted to see her deal with this guy. In the end, they didn't get to talk much, and there weren't any specific questions, and the audience questions were fucking stupid, and my cohorts and I were pretty annoyed by the end. But I did get my books signed the next day and the authors were much better then, and I felt better too.
Saturday was busy busy busy. We had breakfast, and costume pickup, and sessions. The demographics of Jane fans was a neat bit, and some posters were pretty cool. I still can't over the Jane Austen and Global Warming poster. Next up: Jane Austen's Effect on Communist North Korea. Come on. Really? Anyway. Our costumes were unbelievably cool, and the seamstresses were so nice and accommodating. They had us try them on (and boy did mine not fit at all), but then they pinned them up, fixed the stitches, and everything was ready by that evening. In the afternoon, Becky, Karen (a fellow Omaha Jane member), and tumbling0after and I went to the Drake for high tea, which was awesome. We had a harpist, there were tiny lemon meringue pies, and I am completey hooked on scones with jam, cream, and lemon curd. Any combo will do. Then we headed back for our Harry Potter/Emma Woodhouse comparison session which unfortunately was conducted by the mystery panel moderator. I think if someone had said "Compare Harry Potter to Emma Woodhouse and make a presentation about it" I probably could've the same thing. Definitely not as good as the Love in a Shrubbery lady. More shrubberies!
After rushing with my dressage because of bad event planning (here, right before dinner, get autographs from your writers, never mind getting dressed on time!), I still managed to get into my gorgeous lilac and silver dress with the matching hair ribbon and my ginormous feather which stayed put the whole night. Dinner was good, I managed to steer clear of low flying waiters, and afterwards there was a parade. At first, everybody in my group was like "I don't know, maybe we'll just watch", but there was a lot of enthusiasm from everybody by that time, and before you knew it, we were all following Mike the bagpiper down Michigan Ave and waving at tourists and traffic like the Queen's entourage. And yes, the majority of us were sober. I had a nice Top Gear moment when I saw a guy driving an Aston Martin past. After the parade there was dancing, which must be how people kept in shape back in the day because tumbling0after and I danced several of them and we were pretty worn out at the end of the night. I'm just glad I didn't have a wardrobe malfunction considering how many times I stepped on my dress. We did the Pride and Prejudice dance, and I danced with Mike the bagpiper, who was very nice, and more so, knew what he was doing. Oh! And somebody proposed during the ball, which turned all of us into a bunch of sappy fools, as if we weren't already, and it was truly the most adorable thing ever. I envy that woman. What a guy. Even Laura (a new friend whom we adopted during costume alterations) and her completely normal boyfriend who came went dancing and had fun. He was a handsome psychologist who really didn't mind being with a bunch of very insane woman (and a few not all there guys), which makes me wonder if Jim (Laura's boyfriend) was really just taking the opportunity to study Jane Austen induced mass hysteria. Sounds like a good thesis to me.
On Sunday we packed up and had breakfast with more new people and our usual group of Becky, Karen, Peg, tumbling0after , and myself, heard about next year's AGM in Philadelphia (pass), and the one after that in Portland (totally going). Then we stuck around to hear about the formulating Pride and Prejudice musical which had some neat stories. Becky had to leave, which was a bummer but she was so cool the whole time, and tumbling0after and I had to duck out during the panel to check out of the room because once again events were planned when people actually had to do stuff. But we made it back in time for the singing which was cool, but the piece de resistance was the singing Mr. Darcy, who made up for everything bad that had happened that weekend, and the month, and the three months before that. He was delicious and adorable and I want one someday. I took many pictures that I will post later. And after tumbling0after and I talked to the writers and got autographs, we found out that singing Mr. Darcy actually is from St. Louis, and more than that, went to our rival high school. Go figure.
After that tumbling0after and I strolled around Chicago, went to the lake, took pictures of neat buildings and ourselves and such, had lunch, discussed our novel, our desire to move to Chicago, even though we could never afford the area we liked, and found Mr. Ollivander's Magical Tea. No, that is not a euphemism for anything.
All in all a highly perfect weekend. I can't believe I had to go back to work.
Pics to come later. Other stuff to do right now.