I can't stop listening to Artie Shaw at the moment.

Harlan, Kentucky Here I Come!

I'm getting stuff ready for my service trip and I'm feeling both nervous and excited. This will sound childish but I really haven't been away from Chicago for more than a couple of days and a week seems like such a long time to be away from home. I'm hoping that this will somehow force me to grow up in that sense. Luckily, I've had an awesome summer so far and this will hopefully be a really swell experience and nice break from being at home, amongst all the drama.

On a sidenote, Duck Soup at the Movies in the Park was really neat. I just love being in Grant Park because I have an excuse for taking the train and walking around downtown as well as being in a beautiful park on a swell night. Plus, last night we got this silly Groucho Marx glasses so we could beat the Guinness World Record for Most People Wearing Groucho Marx Glasses At One Time. It was sorta like The Shared Experience thing on Jimmy Fallon. It was nice.

"I adore Chicago. I love it, I love it here."

Christian Bale! He didn't stop and talk to fans or anything but people would yell out random things and he would respond and you could hear his accent which I thought sounded adorable. I haven't seen too many movies with Christian Bale, with the exception of the Batman movies and American Psycho. In Public Enemies, Christian Bale plays Melvin Purvis, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Chicago, and he ends up taking down John Dillinger.

Johnny Depp!! I was completely embarrassed because I have the tendency to cry/drop a tear (McK reference) when I'm excited and that is exactly what was happening at this moment. Then to add insult to injury, after his little stumble thing, I'm pretty sure he saw me with my "awww!" face on. And it's true: Johnny Depp is the sweetest celebrity ever. Here, he is telling us he'll be back out in a minute and spent almost two hours talking to everybody and signing autographs. Johnny Depp is playing John Dillinger, the so called Robin Hood of his time who was finally caught and shot in the alley behind the Biograph Theater.

No pictures of Marion Cotillard or Michael Mann :(

All in all: totally worth the four hours on my feet and, even though this wasn't THE world premiere or whatever, I can still say I've been to a red carpet premiere!
I'm going to be happy for weeks because of this! Nothing but smiles :)

Chicago Premiere of Public Enemies!

This was my first red carpet premiere and it was everything I expected it to be. I got pushed and shoved due to my height (man, I wish I was like three inches taller), got a huge gash on my foot from the mad stampede to touch Johnny Depp, and got into an argument with a 12 year old girl about who Michael Mann was. On a sidenote, if you're going to a premiere of a movie, you probably should be able to spot the director and supporting cast members, like Marion Cotillard (I mean for goodness sake, she won an Oscar two years ago!).

Anyway, I was in the perfect spot, probably about the second row from the front, right outside the door. Johnny Depp is the sweetest person ever and came back out after the film started to sign autographs for everyone and talk to the fans. I didn't get an autograph/picture but I did see Johnny Depp make the cutest face as he stumbled on the city curb; he was geniunely embarrassed and extremely adorable.

I also saw Christian Bale, William Peterson (Grissom from CSI), Michael Mann, and a small glimpse of Marion Cotillard. I got some pictures but if I had just been a couple of inches taller, they would have been ten times better.

Plus, the Cubs won! Today was a GREAT day :)

I think I've made a huge mistake.

Can this show please make a comeback?

I'm an Irish Catholic and I have a long iceberg of guilt.

Edna O'Brien couldn't have put it any better. Irish Catholic guilt - it honestly never fails. I just came upstairs from supper and this is how the conversation went:

Papa: Aren't you going to have any of my homemade chicken?
Me: No, I'm gonna pass on that. I'm not feeling too well.
Papa: I spent hours making that chicken for you and you don't want any? And you weren't even here when we said grace! A heathen who doesn't eat chicken? Who ever heard of such a thing?

If you're interested, I ended up eating some of that chicken, which surprisingly enough, wasn't even homemade; it was a rotisserie chicken! I will forever be held to this guilt trip that includes just about everything you can imagine. The strength of this thing has lasted centuries and will continue to get stronger and stronger. The only time I have ever legitimately lied to my mother was at the age of 10; it was about going to see a movie I had already saw with my friends or something. The worst part about it was she never brought it up but it was completely obvious that she knew. Instead of vocalizing her conclusion, she instilled a fear in me of ever lying to her again and continues my never ending guilt trip.This, of course, goes hand in hand with that colossal fear of God and anything related to the Church. My first confession was just a flow of everything I had ever done, from stealing a pencil from some jerk in Kindergarten to saying God's name in vain.

This was all brought on by James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which I advise ya'll to read. It is the perfect description of that good ol' Irish Catholic guilt.

¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!

This past weekend was one of utmost significance in that I finally figured out who I am. I am the daughter of an immigrant who came to this country at the ripe young age of three years old with the American dream in mind for the next thirty two years. After a rocky but fruitful thirty-two years, my father was deported on charges that were filed 10 years ago. He was detained by ICE and deported on October 3, 2008; I haven't seen him in almost two years. I will never again deny who I am to anyone or any organization. I will stand in solidarity will all those who support immigration reform and with all those who believe that immigrants have no rights. I will fight for what I believe in and I will not be quieted.

As I sat in that church pew, with people I had never met before, I felt at home. I've immersed myself in a culture that I unfortunately never have known. I'm learning to speak Spanish and it is one of the greatest times of the day, when I can sit in a class and enjoy everything that is being said and the sounds of a language rolling off of someone's tongue. As I sat amongst people who spoke broken English and those who spoke no English at all, I realized this is who I am. I experienced (for a lack of a better word) solidarity with this people I knew absolutely nothing about.

As I listened to the young Polish boy speak about his father's deportation and about how much it reminded me of my own experience, I cried. I sobbed and couldn't breathe. The Mexican woman, whom I had never seen nor met in my life, sitting next to me, hugged me and I cried into her shoulder. She calmly told me in Spanish, that things were going to change and I would see my father again. It was one of those random acts of kindness that one only experiences rarely in life. I owe that woman everything. As I sang the protest songs in a language I'm still getting the hang of, I realized that these are the words of a people who have been in such a lucha (struggle) for almost all of history and my family and I are a part of that and we need to fight for what is just. I felt so blessed to be there amongst all of those wonderful people.

I can honestly say I was changed forever. I still have not fully grasped that which happened on November 4th, 2008. As Kinley and I embraced in the middle of Grant Park from the joy of Obama winning 365-173, I felt I was a part of history but I never realized it was going to affect me personally. Now I know why Obama's message of change IS real. Things are going to change and I know that I will see my father again IN Chicago, not in Durango in Mexico.

That was a long post but I had to say all of that.