Evidently, there is no lyme disease in Chicago.

Well, that’s not entirely true. But that’s essentially what the nurse at the Student Care Center told me after I explained what brought me there this morning. She was super nice and she told me in a super sweet, super superficial, mid-western way that it was always good to be careful about my health, even though I knew what she really wanted to say was, “Stop wasting my precious time, you frickin’ hypochondriac.”

Anyway, I guess I’m not going to come down with the dreaded LD. I just had to go and check it out in order to stave off nightmares of Miss Balducci, my high school art teacher who sported a portable I.V. and a snarly attitude, courtesy of the disease. Or of the lady who lived down the street from Amy until she couldn’t anymore because she didn’t have the strength to work and she could no longer afford her house. How was I to know that that’s purely a northeastern phenomenon?

In order to immerse myself in Chicago culture once again (now that I have a leeeetle more time, having finished with one of two classes this afternoon), I’ve been listening to Kanye West. Here’s what he has to say about the region I now call home:

“You know what the Midwest is?
Young & Restless.
Where restless N-z might snatch your necklace,
And next these N-z might jack your Lexus.”

(Obviously, I chose to quote the radio edit. But mind you, this is from a song about Jesus…)

For the next week or so, I’ll be finishing a paper, packing my stuff, preparing to move out of Hyde Park (a neighborhood where, if I did have a Lexus, there’s the distinct possibility it might get jacked), touring new apartments, test-driving new (used) cars (certainly not Lexuses) and then, oh yeah, getting ready to go to France. My blog will have to go on hiatus for the six weeks during which I am a l’etranger, so soak up the goodness now while you still can. But never fear, I’ll be back later this summer, with more tales of the high-flying fun that is my life…