Blogging from NPH’s kitchen– his mother made homemade blueberry muffins with streusel topping, add her to the list of things I love. Chicago is an absolute madhouse this weekend, not only because of Lollapalooza but because the weather is gorgeous AND Obama was in town the past couple of days. We didn’t see him, but every member of the Chicago police department seemed to be lining Michigan Avenue. As you may know, I am an avid reader of Perez Hilton’s blog– I don’t care if you judge me or hate him, he is one faboosh flaming former fatty. Anyway, he puts together “One Night In…” concerts when he’s in a city, and last night was a One Night in Chicago show to informally kick off Lolla. GUESS WHO WON TWO TICKETS?!?! Judging from the amount of capital letters in that last sentence, I hope you guessed ME! I invited the ol’ boyfriend to be my plus one, and we headed to the Hard Rock Hotel yesterday afternoon to get our wristbands. Doors were supposed to open at 8:00, we got in line behind about 20 or 30 people at 7:30 and were finally let in a little after 8:30. That hour of standing of people watching along the Magnificent Mile was both hilarious and slightly depressing in that I will never be that thin, have that big of a wardrobe budget, and be able to walk that far in that high of heels on a Thursday night while living my swank entry-level PR job in a major metropolitan area. Not that I really want to. We got inside, found a bar, ordered two drinks (specialty ones named like “Blogger Bomber” and other Perez-related stuff) then found out… wait for it… it was an open bar. That’s right ladies and gentlemen of my readership– FREE BOOZE. All night. UV Vodka was one of the sponsors– needless to say, we were pumped. Don’t think I went all balls to the wall, though (because one, there was no beer anywhere) but two, I needed to say alert and pumped for the Jump Smokers DJ Set, Nneka, J Brazil, Lissie, Kid Sister, and B.o.B. Now the only one in that line-up I’d even heard of was B.o.B. (damn that “Airplanes” is catchy) but I can honestly say they were all AMAZING. I won’t go into detail on each, but I was honestly impressed– Perez can pick some musicians. I ran into a fellow Hawkeye I was in PRSSA with who confirmed that Lady Gaga was indeed supposed to make an appearance (I KNEW it) but cancelled. Bummer. But not that big of a bummer because I’ll be seeing her tonight at Lolla, granted probably hundreds of yards away instead of literally ten feet. Oooh– we’re catching the train back into Chicago now. The train reminds me of Germany, sad; the buildings remind me I could never live in this giant of a place.