The first days.

We were taking off.

No really we were.

And then the pilot was like - nope. Nevermind. As the front wheels lifted off the ground, he slammed on the breaks and we rapidly decelerated and pulled to the left.

Ladies and Gentlemen. There is a problem with the left jet engine. Or we think so. We have to check it out. 

I guess its good we didn't take off, because my seat was the one closest to the aforementioned problem jet engine. Dying before I even started would have been lame.

The guy next to me was, I think, either extremely maladjusted to the real world, or petrified of flying. He leaned over and said calmly, but with dinner plate eyes

I was just dozing off. Then I felt a quick deceleration. Is there a problem?

I said

I don't know man. We were taking off and then we stopped suddenly. That is what happened.

Then the pilot buzzed in with the previously stated message.

He acted as if he had just taken a shit and realized there was no toilet paper.

I knew there was a problem! I knew it! Do you know what this means? I hate sitting idle in planes! I knew it!

I wanted to say that I hadn't said there wasn't a problem, I'd only presented him with the real facts. What any good journalist should do. 

He acted like I had failed him. Hands on his temples, like he had lost all faith in me. Luckily I didn't have to deal with him for long.

There is a real problem. It will take 2 hours to fix. We will try to find another plane for you, those of you with international connecting flights, see the booking agent and she will help you to find another connection. Thanks for choosing American.

Thanks for choosing American? Not only did you rape me with the extra bag fee, and with the +50 lbs. fee, you delayed my flight 3 hours. 

I leaned over to the dinner plate eyes man and said 

Well, it could have been worse. We could have taken off.

he proudly announced:

I'd rather have it that way. At least I wouldn't know. 

I would have recommended a psychiatrist, but as I was debating whether or not I had the balls, he gathered his things and de-boarded the plane. 

Hours late, I was in O'Hare trying to figure out how to maneuver 4 very large bags to a subway train. Two were of the rollaway sort, the others were handbags. I propped the handbags on the rollaways and pulled all my shit what felt like 2 miles into the tram. 

This involved getting on and off a bus (subway construction) and going up and down 2 flights of stairs. People looked at me like -- look at that skinny guy with all of that luggage. He must be devastatingly materialistic. He must be vain.

I debated whether or not to fashion a sign out of my sketchbook page that said I was here for two months, and this was all shit I needed. I wasn't a prima donna, I told myself.

I decided against it, but I still got nasty looks from most, especially on the train, as people tried to circumnavigate the small city that was my luggage. 

One very sweaty and curse word filled hour later I was at Augusta and Ashland at my apartment, meeting a room-mate. 

Friendly but slightly dismissive, he helped get my bags inside and then abandoned me for the rest of the night. I guess it was then I realized I was on my own.

You know - like really on my own. Going off to college was one thing, insulated by the dorms, by the immediate friends I made, and by the college. This was the real thing - going to a city I knew no one in and making a life (be it temporary) for myself. 

It's an exciting, scary, wonderful, liberating, petrifying thing. Something I think everyone should do. You realize the real value of your peers, your teachers, your mentors, your parents. 

I know I'll meet people. But for this one weekend, rich with the hardships of aloneness, and the feeling of a vagabond with a foreign craigslist-found apartment... I felt different. New? Maybe.