One-thousand...

Um, dear people reading this, NEWS ALERT: this is my ONE THOUSANDTH POST. I know. I KNOW. Wow. I'm not sure how to commemorate it, as I planned to just write the second half of my Chicago trip and then I saw that stat on my dashboard. Maybe I'll re-hash the site a bit? Expect that this week. After spending more than a year with everything purple because of the wedding, I'm done with it! Tried to Live Forever shall be revitalized! Or just the colors will change. TUNE IN FOR THE BIG (or small) REVEAL! And here is me excited to share this news:

He's always popping on my lap when I'm at the computer! What a ham.

Also, expect about ten posts this week, I'm not kidding, my drafts are a pilin' up!

However, I will try to epilogue my adventures in Chicago right now! Where was I?

Saturday night! Motion City was gearing up to play their album COMMIT THIS TO MEMORY! Me being me, I was beyond excited, and my friend Sam was even moreso. As Adam was to put it later: nobody deserved to be there more than Sam that night. Agreed!

I digress.

So when we got to Lincoln Hall, we ate a little dinner with Jesse, and I caught up with Josh's lovely wife Jill for a bit. Then we found our spots on the railing for some more Ultimate Fakebook show. I'm not going to lie, Justin and Matt were totally geeking out to UF; it's always fun to see the people who's music geeks you out geek out themselves. (Did that sentence make sense? I don't care.)

And so the band took the stage for Commit This and I started jumping up and down and singing along to "Attractive Today." Adam was rocking out as well, and by the third song in Sam appeared next to me as she was alongside some not-as-enthusiastic rockers previously and we jumped up and down and screamed together like wee girls and it was most fun. As I've learned from most concerts I've been to, it's always best to be next to someone who is as into the music as you are! In a related note, I dearly missed my friend Katie Brown during "Time Turned Fragile" as we both do a splendiferous job of imitating Tony's drum breakdown and segue into Jesse's keyboard part.

(Yes, I am really this nerdy and into my husband's band. Admitted.)

Afterwards, Sam and I were sweaty and exhilirated with the AMAZING live show. I'm not biased here when I say that MCS puts out a great live show; that's how I first discovered them! When we saw Jesse backstage, we were almost of equal sweat with him. That's gross, I know.

Jesse and some of us were quite famished so after the show we went to a BBQ wings place down the street from the venue. It was delicious, though I really hate wings (I ordered the pulled pork sandwich), and we had an uproarious meal.

"Uproarious," Jessica, really?

YES. Here's why: most everybody except for Adam and I ordered wings, which you can get in a range of probably twenty different flavors/degrees of hotness. Jesse ordered some wings that were the second to most hot flavor. He ate one and telling us about his body's trial in doing so - hot throat, sweating, eyes watering, etc. Sam, I believe, remarked on this description and tried half of one of the hot wings and then Jesse challenged her to eat the rest of it without drinking anything until we paid the bill and got to the next bar for $20. Sam agreed, and I don't know why it was so fascinating and hilarious, but it was. Sam took it like a trooper! She was sitting there as we finished off our beers, as the waitress charged the bill wrong and had to fix it, and for the ten-plus minute walk to the bar in which we got lost several times. She said when she opened her mouth in the cold she thought it would help with the burning feeling in her mouth, but it only made it worse. OWWWWW. BUT SAM MADE IT! We got to the bar, she drank some water, and a milk her boyfriend Jim had purchased for her, and honorably collected her $20.

Bets with hot sauce = far more entertaining than I thought possible. Congratulations, Sam! Bravo!

After a quick jaunt at the bar, we headed back to the hotel in our exhaustion. The next day, Sunday, I'd be flying back to New York, and I was a bit bummed...

HOWEVER, as we got up for the continental breakfast usual, and headed to a nearby sports bar to catch some football, I got an alert on my phone mere minutes before I hopped a cab to the airport: FLIGHT CANCELLED. Now, I had friends flying that day at 3pm and 5pm and 7:30pm. My flight was at 4. My flight, incidentally, was also the only one that was cancelled! What the what? Anyway. It ended up being a blessing in disguise as I got to spend the evening with Adam and Jesse and Jamie and a suprise visit from none other than Sarah who flew in from Detroit. LUFF.

And Motion City Soundtrack was playing EVEN IF IT KILLS ME, their last album and the one they were recording when I met Jesse. Barftime alert, but for real, I was so happy to be able to see them play that album! It's like a live show of my decade nearly - you know how everyone's spouting out these "best of the decade" lists?! All three of their albums would be on mine and they each were the soundtrack to some pretty great years and pivotal events in my life. I was especially looking forward to the band playing the last track, the title track, and I was not disappointed - though I'm a huge "Last Night" fan, hearing "Even If It Kills Me" live was beyond. It was the first time they'd ever played it live. And it was absolutely brilliant.

Jamie from Oh! How Lovely! got to enjoy her first Motion City show and Sarah from Sillygrrl was back! I'd last seen Sarah at Bamboozle two (wow, it was really two!) years ago for Motion City's set. It was fun to hang with the blog friends! I also got to see Ang one more time before I left, as she stopped by my hotel to say bye when my flight was still on time. What a gal!

After the show, Adam, Diaz, Jesse, and I headed to a diner across the street to satiate our appetite (I mean, I'm not bouncing around as much as Jesse, but I do feel tired after jumping and screaming after shows. Ha.) Then we went back to the hotel and I was pooped. POOPED. My flight had been rescheduled for the next morning, so I decided to stay in and sleep since I had to get up at 7am.

I honestly can't believe how jam-packed the weekend was with FUN!! I love my friends, I love Motion City, I love live shows, I love exploring and adventuring, and above all I love my husband. RAD. Two days after I got home, I was off to Massachusetts for Christmas with the family. But that is a story for another time!

Thank you for reading, readers. My 1000th is dedicated to you <3