So, 24 hours ago I was on a plane stuck on a runway in Nashville, feeling like I'd lost my napping mojo. Five hours and one mutilated duffel later, I was ready to swear off all non-corporate/non-funeral-related air travel for the foreseeable future.

However, it never takes me long to fall back in love with the city of Chicago. On the Blue Line train, there was an older couple chatting in Italian; a large family from Kansas City with giggly, goofy kids; and a posse of skateboarders (one with giant fluffy-looking silver rings covering most of his hand), as well as the usual mix of locals; I fell into conversation with a black, be-braided woman behind me after helping her extract a Japanese beetle from the Italian woman's fluffy hair.

My hotel's near Merchandise Mart, which has already been useful from a food, business, and entertainment standpoint: I picked up some sushi and shumai from Tokyo Lunch Boxes for a late breakfast and a chickpea-with-hazelnut-vinaigrette-salad from Au Bon Pain for lunch, made two trips to Fed Ex, and admired the window- and case-displays for various shops. I can't do it justice with my phone-cam, but this display of miniature cups and wine-colors was one of my favorites...



... and I also enjoyed peering into the radio station studios. They're fully operational rooms, so I didn't feel okay about taking snapshots as people reviewed ads/broadcast/etc., but here's the entrance:



At the Sun-Times shop, you can adopt rubber duckies... and also treat yourself to a great cup of coffee (on their spiffy Italian machine), which is complimentary with a purchase. At .50 for a daily paper, that may be the best coffee-and-paper deal in town.

And speaking of newspapers, when did the Reader go color/tabloid-size/single-section? (I know, I know, business realities. But another part of my youth died when I saw that.)

And speaking of college days, it turns out to be a bit challenging, trying to photograph a tattoo on the back of one's leg:



My college's alumni magazine distributed the stick-on phoenixes a while back; I've been saving mine for an appropriate occasion, and since I'll be playing Quidditch this weekend... (And yes, the shorts are sad, but they're from my U-M days - some of my teammates weren't even born then, so some saditude is to be expected.) (And, because some of you have asked: no, I won't be on a broom. Think of a football/field-hockey hybrid with a human Snitch.)

What else? I love staying in high-rise hotels and riding trains, and the garlic crispy tofu at Ben Pao is a religious experience (and the service is good, too; wasn't as sold on the eggplant or mu shu Peking duck, but I'll probably go back for more tofu and a froufy martini). The hand-dryers at Ben Pao are pretty nifty, too:



And there's more, but it's time to finish lunch and head north...

[Subject line from Sandburg's "Chicago"]