My Story: Part 1

I was raised in a nearby suburb of Chicago and I really did not get out of the region until I was 14. I went overseas with my Dad: the joke was I had been to Chicago, Milwaukee and Paris. I went to high school in the City of Chicago for four years, commuting by train and car. I basically have friends and family in the city and suburbs and I didn't live anywhere else until I left for college. For many reasons, I had to come back for almost two years; I worked and lived in the city and suburbs until this last January. My goal of this blog is to explain what I realized about Chicagoland from growing up there, until recently returning to school. I will describe everything from the cultures of Chicagoland to the food.
It is sunny out right now in Cincinnati; I want to be outside. I feel so strongly about what I am going to write about, that I would waste a beautiful day just to get the first post going. I want this blog to be compared to A.J. Liebling's critique of Chicago The Second City but without the pretension that the East is better: I simply want to describe Chicagoland as someone who grew up there and saw the devastation of mind and body it can fuel. I call this blog "Chicago Withdrawal" because that is exactly what leaving Chicago causes when you have lived there and especially if you grew up there: it makes you sick. I'm not talking about being home sick, I'm talking about realizing how tragic Chicago is. I will work hard to explain why I feel this way.