LAST WEEKEND IN CHICAGO:

A walk down Michigan Ave.


Wrigley Building

Wrigley, Marina City & IBM


The Bean

Crown Fountain

The V-Card

Last night I went through with it --- I lost my V-Card.

It didn't go exactly as planned.

As an adolescent, I never fantasized that my first time would accidentally occur at a Greek restaurant in downtown Chicago.

But that's exactly how it went down.

It was a little awkward, and I certainly made some strange faces.

But last night, I gave up a lifetime of Vegetarianism.

The whole thing was an accident. At a class dinner with friends and teachers, big sweaty Greeks brought out steaming platters of food.

"Have you tried Skordalia before?" a waiter asked, holding a dish before me.

"I don't know," I responded. "It's Greek to me."

The waiter laughed as if it was the first time I had told the joke that night.

I was feeling adventurous, so I dove into each dish.

And then out it came. It looked like pink, sugary frosting. And that’s what I thought it was. For some reason, it made perfect sense to me that they would serve birthday cake frosting among the stuffed grape leaves and flaming cheese.

I spread two heaping spoonfuls of the stuff onto my bread and shoved it into my mouth.

Garlicy, spicy --- pretty damn good, I thought.

“Wow, that is good! It tastes totally unlike how it looks!” I said to my friends.

My tablemates gave me a blank, confused stare. Having grown used to this look, I kept eating the garlic-flavored pink frosting.

Just then Mindy, my instructor, leaned across the table.

“Raam! Don’t eat the CAVIAR!”

I froze. The entire banquet table turned and looked at me, the salmon caviar smeared across my face, with a pink dollop hanging from my nose.

I tried to play it off. “Ah, no big deal,” I said, guzzling water, scarffing down bread and sweating bullets. I negotiated with my stomach --- “Can we at least save the dry heaving until we’re away from the table?”

I wanted my first time to be special. A nice dinner over wine, maybe. I’d ease in with chicken or maybe something more exotic, beef. But this was too much.

As I reflect back on the experience, I’m not sure what’s more gross --- that I ate caviar, or that I kind of liked it.

I will say that I did have one previous experience accidentally trying meat.

I was 10. I walked into the kitchen to find my older brother, Aran, eating something out of a bowl.

“Ooooohhhh! Is that Apple Crisp?!” I asked. Again, like the pink frosting, for some reason it made perfect sense to me that Aran would be eating apple crisp on a weekday afternoon.

“Can I have some?!”

Aran eargerly handed it over. And into my mouth I shoved a big spoonful of Campbell’s Vegetable Beef soup.

I instantly spat it out --- back into Aran’s bowl --- with a loud, “Eeeeewww!”

Aran fell off his stool laughing.

And that day, I became a born-again vegetarian.

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San Francisco (June)

Chinatown

Skyline

Aran, El & Raam

Flight from Alcatraz

Rahm, meet Raam













It used to be that when I told people my name for the first time, they'd respond, "Oh, like CD-ROM?"

Nothing kills me more than that.

Yet, now that I'm living in Chicago, the reaction has changed.

Instead, people respond, "Oh, like Rahm Emanuel?"

Yes, like Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel!

Today, I reported on a press conference being held by Rahm. (About what? Dunno. Wasn't listening)

I wanted to ask Rahm his trick for getting people to pronounce his name correctly. As a "Rahm," I'm sure Rahm has heard all the ways to mispronounce Rahm --- Rob, Ron, Ram, Mom.

My trick, of course, is to offer a different name entirely to strangers.

After all, I don't expect the ditzy 18-year-old behind the counter at Supercuts to take my name and respond, "Oh, Raam, like the U.S. Representative and former top aide to President Clinton?"

Instead of haggling with strangers over the correct pronunciation of my name, I make one up.

I usually say "Ron."

This normally works, except for the times when people mishear what I've said, and repeat back to me the wrong fake name.

"No, no. Not Rob," I'll say, "It's Ron."

"Rob?"

"No! RON."

Suddenly I'll find myself quarrelling with the girl at Supercuts over the proper pronunciation of my fake name.

I used to use the fake name trick when ordering sanwhiches at Seaside Market in San Diego. But after a while, I started to feel a little guilty when the guy behind the counter, Steve, started calling me by my fake name whenever I was ordering.

"The usual? Vegi on wheat with extra cheddar, Ron?" he'd ask.

At that point in the relationship, it was too late to correct Steve. And I felt bad. We had this great friendship built on trust, warmth and hummus, and here I was lying to him.

My friend Melinda's dad calls me by the right name. But he's just not so sure on how to spell it. Recently, he was asking about me in an email to her in which he kept typing my name as "ROM." Yes, in all caps, like CD-ROM.

All these things were going through my head today as Rahm babbled on at the press conference about... something.

Afterwards, I approached him, a big smile on my face. We had a lot in common, Rahm and I. We had overcome lifelong struggles with our names with courage, grace and humor. We had persevered in spite of the teasing. We had heard all the nicknames: Raamage Sale, Top Ramen, Raambino.

This was our moment. Two misunderstood Raams coming together in a mixed-up world.

I reached for his hand. "Congressman, I just wanted to shake your hand," I said. "My name is Raam."

"Raam?" he responded. "Like CD-ROM?"

Orange Sky

My neighborhood was bathed in a brilliant orange light when I got back from the newsroom today, so I grabbed my camera and headed out to Lincoln Park.

I likely would've looked like just another tourist, if it were not for the cool rollerblades buckled to my feet.



Swans
Geese
Abe

I was reminded of something my friend recently asked me.

"Do you know the hardest thing about rollerblading?" he asked.

"Telling your parents you're gay."

The Black Man


I had an embarassing experience today. I realized that over at myspace.com --- a website whose sole purpose is to prove that you can collect the most friends --- I had posted the wrong picture for myself. (Left)

I guess I had inadvertenly uploaded a photo of a middle-aged black man that I had saved in my "ethnic men" folder on my desktop.

Whoops!

Myspace.com is a website in which online friends can connect with each other. The only downside is when someone who you don't consider to be a friend, requests that you add them as a friend.

Suddenly, you're in a bind.

You certainly can't reject this person by refusing to add them to your Web space. But at the same time, you don't want people to know that this person --- this mouth-breathing, pasty-white panzy --- runs in your circle of friends.

My solution? Accept your online buddy and then change your profile photo to that of a middle-aged black man.

Some people just don't understand me.

Meet Kim.

She's my deskmate in the newsroom, yet she still doesn't understand me and why I'm the kind of person who needs to post a blog.

"Like you don't have enough to do already," she said, herself preocupied juggling a Hotmail and a university email account.

At the very least, we'll have another quarter try to understand each other in DC.

Millennium Park is brash, bold and perfect for the

City of Big Shoulders

Anyone who jokes about Chicago in the summer, I believe, has never spent much time in Chicago in the summer.

True, I can only sleep at night curled around my air conditioning unit, with my feet propped inside my mini-fridge.

But nothing beats playing volleyball on the lake with a view of the Chicago skyline, or spending late-nights sitting out on the street chatting with neighbors and friends.