Nothing Good Ever Happens in O'Hare

I used to spend a lot of time in O'Hare airport, and I used to really like it. A million years ago I worked for a consulting firm that kept sending me on projects to places like Dallas and Stamford and Boston, and as a result my weekly commute involved getting on a plane every Monday morning in Chicago and de-planing, as they say, in some other city, then flying back again on Friday afternoon. And back then I loved how clean and glittery O'Hare was, and I loved being a business traveler and hauling out my laptop (which was much more exciting a possession back then before not everyone had one) and accumulating frequent flier miles. Then at some point I got sick of the whole thing and quit and moved to New York and now I rarely leave the house.

So maybe that's when my O'Hare karma began to change. The last time I was in O'Hare I was six months pregnant and no one would help me with my bag. The time before that, I came very close to getting into a fistfight with another passenger, who accused me of cutting him in line. And on this most recent visit, the airline managed to gate check the stroller while sending the car seat attachment to baggage claim, which meant that when we got off the plane we had a thing with wheels and Milo in my arms and no seat to put him in and four bags to carry. And only one free set of hands. Now, call me crazy, but you would think that SOMEWHERE in the ENTIRE O'HARE AIRPORT the lovely people at United would be able to find SOMEONE to reunite us with our car seat so we could leave the airport. Especially given that O'Hare is a United hub and is positively swarming with their blue-suited minions.

But no.

And so, after waiting nearly an hour, during which, sadly, Milo decided to be too fascinated with the lighting design of the airport to cry, which in this case would have been a bonus, since it might have caused SOMEONE SOMEWHERE to DO SOMETHING in order to shut the baby up, we finally managed to precariously stack all of our bags on the stroller frame and wheel ourselves to baggage claim. At which point we discovered that they'd sent the car seat to the gate. Naturally.

But despite the fact that nothing good ever happens in O'Hare, something good did happen in Chicago. I stopped by my old sorority house up at my alma mater, where they'd planned an event that I can only describe as splendid and perhaps the most amazing experience I've had to date, with the possible exception of giving birth, which was not amazing so much as weird and painful. I talked for a while about how to get published to a group of aspiring writers, and I was reminded, despite my recent run-in with the breast-hating reviewer, that sometimes it can actually be really nice to be surrounded by women, and that there is an intimacy that descends, especially when you're in a sorority house filled with chintz-covered couches and floral prints, that is a little like coming home. Or maybe that was just because it sort of was like coming home, because I did live in that house for a year and a half and, as I pointed out to Steven, cried in practically every room at one point or another.

But either way, after speaking with the women in the house I felt like they really got what the book was about, and really resonated with it, and that if I could only do, like, 100 more events just like that one, I might actually sell a few copies.

"I had to come because I was responsible for the food," one woman said after the event was over. "And I really didn't want to hear about some stupid wedding book. But then when you read from the book, I realized, you're my kind of girl."

I am! I'm your kind of girl! I wouldn't want to read some stupid wedding book either. Just TRY the first five pages and you'll see. I promise.