here is a brief run-down (i had planned to just have the above line be my entire chicago-weekend entry, but then i just couldn't resist giving up a couple details):

io- and barbicide43 are the best hosts ever. they made me feel right at home when i got there, gave me ginger tea and i played with barbicide's dog and, um, they were really gracious to my self-conscious nervous fidgety self.

the kids are a very polite very good looking very fun bunch. i was thankful and pleasantly surprised. not so much surprised as relieved, because everything went off as well as i had hoped it would. it's a shame it was a first meeting because i am uncontrollably quiet during those, but i think i did alright.

certainly, the booze helped.

ovidovi and theredarmy are totally and completely tied for The Best Dancer Ever award. those boys are too much fun to see dance. they are roommates, so i wonder if they practice together or something.

i didn't dance, only watched, because i am a champion bedroom dancer only. if i go back, i will try real hard to get over that, but saturday it was enough breaking out for me to be there at all. to lay my dance moves on these people...well, i don't know if any of us could have handled that, booze or no.

i also got to meet the ladypete, and if she isn't the sweetest thing ever, i just don't know what. unfortunately we didn't get much chance to talk, but i am hoping to rectify that if i get up to chicago again soon.

i met a lot of non-diaryland people, too, and they were all so nice. so very different if the same party had happened in good ol' standoffish ca.

i actually ended up staying an extra day because of the fantastic hospitality of the humantorch. man, what a good guy. he was the one who convinced me to stop being "such a fuckin' pussy and come to chicago already". thanks miles! hearts! (ps--thanks again for being so nice to me even though i totally passed out on your couch at a grandma hour and probably made really weird sleepy noises and things like that.)

we spent the day going around chicago and doing lots of WhatNot and i have to say i am really taken with that city. what character it has! i want to get up there fairly regularly so that hopefully after i have had a chance to save up some money here i can maybe move up there. the real ulterior motive for this is to get my brother to come visit me in chicago, because i know he will fall in love with it, and then i will be able to convince him to move in with me out there (having the art institute there doesn't hurt neither), and then again we will be united as an unstoppable force of wow, painting with fists of fury and 40's flyin', shocking the people of the midwest, changing lives and having fun.

which, chicago kids, despite my almost totally silent performance on saturday night, I AM TOTALLY CAPABLE OF.

the only suck part is the drive is like 4 hrs, and though totally doable, I AM SO FREAKING TIRED.

and totally over what i thought was my love affair with farms.

so over it.

but when i got home there was a package from australia waiting for me! with a cd! and a letter!

awesome!