Insight to Me

I was thinking about this blog a little bit while I was at work (since apparently a restaurant downtown on one of the busiest shopping days gets NO business) and I was realizing a few things.  All of which, as I think about it more, gives insight to me as a person.  First of all, I use ellipses a lot.  I have tried to use them not as much on here, but it is something I like to use.  I think I use it to show when I am thinking or take a break from typing.  I like reading this as though it is a conversation...as if I was reading it aloud and you could see the parts where I stop to think and then carry on.  

The second thing I notice (and this one I do do in the blog quite frequently) is that I use parenthesis.  Have you read Stephen Colbert's "I Am America...and So Can You"?  I use the parenthesis in the same way he uses footnotes and sidebar notes.  As I type, I think about what I'm saying and if I want to make a comment about it or explain it further, I use the parenthesis.  I like parenthesis.  Another tool I use to allow you further into my brain.

The last thing I think about a lot when I think of this blog is the fact that no one really knows about it.  It is a very strange concept to me.  I have told my girlfriend about it, but don't think she has read it yet.  Chelsea reads it (I think...) but I have actually not even told anyone else.  I almost said something, but decided against it.  Not that I don't want people to know, but there is something beautiful about writing my feelings and thoughts of my world and publishing them for the anyone and everyone to see, while at the same time those who are closest have no idea it's even happening.  There's something about that I like.  One day, I will tell more people.  Right now, though, this is for me.

Today while I was waiting for the train I told Haley (my amazing girlfriend who I'm sure I will talk about in a future blog one day) that I decided I was going to write in my blog more...that I found it very therapeutic.  She asked me what the name of it was, and when I told her "my cozy apartment" she asked why I had named it that.  Just as I mentioned in the last entry, it was as if the name had always been there but it was for me to discover.  When I first moved to Chicago, I felt very uncomfortable.  Work, big city, trains, bars open til 4 am...nothing felt like home.  Except one place.  My extremely small room.  Barely big enough to fit my bed.  The most common reaction when people walk in:  "Wow.  This is small."  It's not much, but there is a feeling I get when I am lying under the covers, leaning against the wall, looking at the albums of Monty Python, Steve Martin, Gilda Radner, and Bill Cosby hanging on the wall.  The countless cds, books and movies on the shelves hanging on the wall.  The two large windows on the opposite side of the room.  The guitar and mandolin on the wall.  The sound of the red line going by every 15 to 30 minutes.  That feeling: cozy.  I feel comfortable, I feel at home.  It was (and I use was, because I really do love living here) the only place I could be safe and comfortable.  Like this blog, it is something that holds a very special place in my heart, yet none (or very few) of the people who mean most to me in my life have seen it, or know of its importance.  And since "my comfortable bedroom" sounds...eh...not very good...I decided "my cozy apartment" had a better ring to it.  Hope you agree (or don't...I'm not changing it).

From my cozy apartment,

CB