IRA Convention 2006: the prelude

I come to you this evening from the Hyatt Regency in lovely
Chicago. Tomorrow I am to attend sessions and whatnot. This evening we had a ReadWriteThink team dinner at Spiaggia, which was wonderful but so expensive. Nothing like food architecture to set off a meeting. I still don’t know how they cut the pancetta into little tiny curls for the pasta course. I would love to figure it out. It was remarkable. I wish that could have been my entire meal. Sadly, chefs do as they please.

My drive to Chicago was uneventful for the most part, except for the section when I drove by the Aurora/Joliet exit on 55 (yes, I took a very strange route, but I avoided all the construction). When my eye found the hotel that I met my father at when he was helping shut down an arsenal in Joliet, I teared up and wept in the car.

I was listening to the audio version of Don’t Think of an Elephant, which really doesn’t go well with weeping. Still there was a point in listening to the book where I thought that I might understand Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as a system of reframing, and I thought that perhaps if I could just find the right freakin’ frame I wouldn’t be crying constantly when random things like a Comfort Inn in Joliet come into view.