First Night in Chicago

So this is my first night in Chicago. I've never been here before, and I'm hoping to explore the city tomorrow. So far my impression is that it's big. It's big and tall - kind of like those stores at the mall - with lots of steel and concrete. No wonder most of northern Minnesota is big hole in the ground and the Appalachians are shrinking by the minute; what was earth is now big freaking buildings with lots of boxes in them where people sit at computers, waste paper and seriptitiously write their blogs about how much work sucks.

So the plane landed at 7pm and it's currently 11 pm. In those four hours I met two very interesting fellows. The first is a professional dog show judge from Ventura, CA. I never got his name, but he LOVES dogs. I don't mean in a perverse way, just in way that would allow a man to talk to a complete stranger for 45 minutes non-stop about the engineering and art of dog breeding. This dude was a hoot! I never thought someone could get excited describing the history of the Doberman pincher. I couldn't help but mess with him. I asked him if he ever owned a mut. "Oh, when I was a kid," he said. "But you don't know what you'll get. That's the problem with mixed-breeds. When I get a dog I want to know what it's temperment will be and how it will respond." I wonder if this guy ever woke up to find that his dog took a dump in his slippered and eaten his wallet. Something tells me 'no'.

The second character this evening is a 63 year old dental implant expert from Montreal. The guy looked like a mad composer from the Muppets, complete with ascot, huge nose, long hair and a gotee that made me think of a 19th century snake oil salesman. He also had this habit of sucking on his teeth. I wonder if it had anything to do with spending years studying 'what goes in your mouth'.

I had a beer with him at Miller's Pub. After he explained the art of crowns and molds, I thought that the conversation couldn't get any more exciting, but low and behold this dude is also a poet. "I write about children and activism," he said. "You know this war thing? (suck) Your president is a dipshit." I love the elogquence. Doesn't it just roll off the tongue. Then I discovered he has some ideas about God. "What happened was (suck) the world was visited by aliens 4 maybe 5 thousand years ago (suck). We know this. Everyone knows this."

What I love most about meeting characters like this is how they try to demonstrate an expertise in my field, whether it's teaching or biology, or whatever I've decided to tell them I do. "Biology! I love (suck) biology. You know those fish (suck) in the ocean? Incredible." He continued to talk about environmental issues, too. "Global warming. I don't (suck) know. Maybe, maybe not. What I do know is these heavy (suck) metals are bad. That we are fucking up." Yes we are, I reassured him. Yes, we are.

He gave me his contact info. I'm hoping to get one of his poems. If I do, I'll make sure to post it.