The city mouse and the country mouse

When I first meet people in the Chicagoland area/am giving tours I tell them that I am from Southern Illinois because no one has heard of my hometown, Freeburg. However, the other day my friends and I were talking and Freeburg isn’t really that “Southern Illinois.” Now that it’s becoming built up and more populated, I feel it is more of a St. Louis suburb. There is so much more farmland south of us in towns that don’t have a Pizza Hut, McDonald’s Dairy Queen, AND Subway. Yeah, we’re rolling in the deep in our fast food chains.

So Monday my friends and I drove down to visit our friend who is in Carbondale for his first year of med school. On the drive down we drove through some real Southern Illinois towns. I’m talking desolate, hopeless looking, and populations smaller than Freeburg. I’m sure nice people live in those towns... and only know their town of DuQuoin or Elkton. It made me appreciate my life. Freeburg (fortunately) doesn’t look that dumpy when you drive through it, but I was lucky enough to get out. I don’t have to spend the rest of my life there. For some people, that’s great and I’m not bashing it. But I truly belong in the city. I’ve tasted what life in Chicago is like and I know I can’t live anywhere else. New York is too crowded and too expensive. California is too far away. Chicago is just right; for me anyways.

Sometimes I feel like I'm both of the mice from that Aesop fable story "The City Mouse and the Country Mouse." I might complain about Freeburg/Southern Illinois sometimes, but it is my hometown and gave me many experiences during my first 18 years of living there. It will forever be home to my parents and for that, I will always love Freeburg despite its quirks.

Posted via email from Becoming an Adult in the City

Long Live Wenneman's

Today I was informed that one of my favorite places in Southern Illinois was burnt to a ground by a fire. Wenneman's was the butcher shop in St. Libory where we always get our Easter ham, kabobs & brats in the summer, and take our deer meat in the winter. The folks were friendly and it was just a nice local place. I am a big lover of meat (as I say, I'm a "steak and no potatoes" kind of girl) and this place was the bomb. It will be interesting to see how it looks when they rebuild.

http://www.bnd.com/2011/01/27/1568159/st-libory-meat-market-wholesaler.html

I can't believe January is almost over. Next week is midterms and spring quarter event request forms are due. Writing my little heart out this weekend and saturating myself with stand up comedy. I just got Whitney Cumming's album, and I absoluely love it. Today my fellow-comedy nerd gave me a stack of CD's of comedians ranging from Greg Giraldo to Bo Burnham. May take me a while to get through them, but they'll keep me sane in the short, but jam-packed month of February. Hoping to squeeze in some baking too.

Posted via email from Carrie Emge