Home again! I never in my life thought I'd think of LA as home, but I already am. The wonderful huge crowds of people and noise. The addition of palm trees and the lack of brick buildings! The dry air and the cool breeze, because it's usually cool at night in the desert, and LA is definitely in the middle of the desert.

The rest of Chicago? Saturday we hung out with Sean&Stephanie all day, being a nice engaged set of friends who I met online a few years ago. They were cool, only minorly alien, and by the end of the day most of the rough edges were gone and there was only honest enjoyment left. We went to the Art Institute, where I gazed at the Seurat painting that inspired Sunday in the Park with George for at least ten minutes. I also insisted on seeing the paperweight collection, for obscure reasons having to do with my childhood.

I appreciate Monet now, after that. I've finally learned how to see the Impressionists properly, and they're glorious. We also admired various Surrealist paintings, including one by some Russian artist whose name I've forgotten -- the painting was The Rapidity of Sleep. Also Magritte's The Banquet, which is extremely disturbing for reasons I still can't describe. It's a park scene -- a wooded area, with a wall along the edge of it, and a sidewalk along the wall. The sun is setting, making the sky red, but the sun is at the very front of the painting, a huge red dot in the centre instead of obscured by the trees, and the effect of this is chilling. I stared for a long time.

After the museum and some dinner we parted ways with S&S, and wandered over to Grant Park to listen to classical music and hang out with the wedding party. I spent most of the evening bored and uncomfortable, unfortunately, and Earl was even worse off than I was. What do you talk to these people about? Not books, not music, not films, not theatre, not comics or gaming, not history or art, not computers or science or technology... and that pretty much summarises the sorts of things I usually talk to people about. We were reduced to snide commentary about the program and banalities about the skyline -- which I admit was truly incredible.

Buckingham Fountain was nice, though. It's huge, with lots of levels and variations in the water, and the lights shift through a complicated colour sequence. I admit I thought of Trip's Nexus game, which featured at one point some rocks which changed colours alarmingly. Earl and I wandered around the fountain, talking about things and I slowly reclaimed my sense of self. Discussing everyday things with Earl reminded me that I do fit in somewhere, even if it's not with Adam's family or my sister's friends.

Sunday was my sister's wedding. It was held in a rose garden in Evanston. The sun came out, after a weekend of hiding. I was her maid of honour and didn't fall over or anything. There were lots of pictures taken, including several of me and Earl, disturbingly enough. Afterwards was the reception, in which I drank champagne and ate a lot and had a good time talking to Dana, who was my sister's roommate before the wedding. It was more fun than I expected, but still necessitated dealing with lots of people I didn't know, and thus by the time we left for the airport I was quite happy to be away from the crowd.

I've never really been in a city before, I guess. Chicago is big, but it only takes twenty-five minutes to get from Evanston to Hyde Park along Lakeshore. That's about how long it takes me to get to work every day. I didn't notice the mileage, so I can't say if the distance is the same, or if it takes less time due to less traffic -- but there didn't seem to be less traffic. Just less city.

Chicago has public transportation and people use it. Chicago has a real downtown, with a recognisable skyline. Chicago has museums of all different sorts.

The San Francisco Bay Area has several million people in it, and LA has even more ... but neither of them feels like a city in the way that Chicago does. All the cities in California sprung up, and what used to be distinct suburbs have grown slowly together into an amorphous mass that only those of us who live here can distinguish between. I can tell the difference between Sunnyvale and Mountain View and Palo Alto, but to your average tourist it's just one gigantic blob of strip malls and housing developments.

Chicago has a personality, a definite identity. If you go far enough out of Chicago eventually you're not in a city any longer. You're travelling. If you go far enough away from San Francisco you're surrounded by people for an hour in every direction.

I never thought I'd find masses of spread out people with no sense of identity comforting, but I do. I do. Chicago has a personality, and it's all alone on the plains with other cities nearby but not touching it. California makes me feel much more secure.