Don't Say Liar

on Chicago and storytelling

I took one weekend off from traveling before getting back on the horse, and by horse I mean cheap economy seat on an airplane. Though last in this recent rapid succession of travel, this was the first trip I put on the calendar post-breakup because it was a trip I was going to take with the man who dumped me (before he was the man who dumped me). When I bemoaned the falling out ruining Baby’s First Trip To Chicago, my friend Kaitlyn offered the obvious solution: “well, we can still go to Chicago?” We decided to take advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend, and that was that. A couple’s trip became a girls’ trip, and isn’t that always the best-case scenario?

We had a great time (imagine if that’s where I ended this whole newsletter), but on our trip, Kaitlyn came to a new conclusion about me. Lovingly, complimentary cheese plate in her hands, she called me a liar.

Growing up, my mom didn’t let us wield that particular accusation against each other because it is too strong of a term. Her mother taught her, and in turn she taught us, that to say someone is lying is a very serious thing, denoting especially malicious intent and/or consequence. If we caught someone fibbing, we should say they were “tellin’ stories.” I can hear my mom’s voice in my head now, tsk tsking someone saying an un-truth “stoh-ryyy STOHry!” The devil, for example, lies. Your sister merely tells stories. And telling stories can still get you in trouble, but it isn’t lying.

Kaitlyn called me a liar, but I come from a long line of women who insist upon calling me a storyteller.

I especially believe in telling stories to large corporations with more money than God, so the first story I told for this trip was to Chicago’s JW Marriott. A week before our arrival, they sent me an email requesting I give them any information they could use to make our stay “extra special.” Because apparently providing you a free bar of soap and fresh sheets every day is already extraordinary, so they’re asking what they can do to go the extra mile. Questions included what beverages I preferred and when, which is how we ended up with two fresh bottles of water every time we came back to the room. They wanted to know what time we would be getting in, if we needed them to arrange transportation to and from the airport, if we wanted them to make a reservation for us. Stay loyal enough to Mr. Marriott and he will treat you like a much fancier person than you are.

I skipped past most of these specific offerings, but when faced with the prompt “is there any special reason for your stay?” I couldn’t resist. This is not the first story I’ve told to a Marriott property about my occasion for staying- a couple months ago I got a free bottle of Prosecco and a plate of truffles for telling the hotel my not-yet-official-boyfriend (I left that qualifier out) and I were celebrating an anniversary. I don’t have enough hubris to try and use the same story twice in so shockingly less than a year. Nor did I want to be forced into a corner where I had to tell a story about being polyamorous and taking each partner to different big North American cities for each respective anniversary. Clearly I have limits to the fictions I’m willing to weave. I fear I’m too straight-edge on the face to pass for poly.

So anniversary was out, and birthday felt too easily disprovable for a place that routinely asks for your ID. When I saw the generic “other celebration” was a choice, I was inspired and decided to type out a story in the “tell us more” text box about my friend Kaitlyn celebrating a big job promotion, a life-changing career move. I remember tying a bow on it by saying, “while this is not a romantic occasion, any amenity you could provide to help us celebrate would be much appreciated.” I have learned hotel concierges like words like “amenity” and “occasion” and “folio.”

Our room wasn’t ready when we got to the hotel that morning, despite my telling them in advance what time we would be there on the let-us-treat-you-like-a-special-star form they sent me. The concierge wrote down my phone number so they could call me when it was ready and I imagined a bunch of people in the back blowing up balloons to fill our room with. We checked our bags to piddle around until they called me and let me know our (hopefully very festive?!?!) room was ready for us.

And piddle we did. Our hotel was nearby Chicago’s iconic “bean,” the giant reflective sculpture whose official name is “Cloud Gate,” but got its colloquial name from…looking exactly like a giant shiny bean. It’s a classic touristy spot that you’d like to be too evolved to feel the need to visit. It is not historically significant; it was installed in Millennium Park in 2004. Pure spectacle. Once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen all there is to it. That said, of course we had to go see it. I was surprisingly touched by the crowd taking pictures in front of this giant rounded mirror. It reminded me of last year in DC, when the metro was jam-packed with people going to see the cherry blossoms on peak weekend. If humankind is still flocking to just look at pretty things, just to photograph themselves with these otherwise useless spectacles, maybe there is still hope. Maybe we have not yet fully streamlined our souls away to the gods of efficiency and convenience and millennial grey. Kaitlyn and I got our own pictures both in front of The Bean and in her reflection, amongst dozens of others holding up their phones to the official legume of the Midwest.

From The Bean, we stopped in the Chicago Cultural Center, where we craned our necks back to admire all the mosaic tile and stained glass the building has to offer. And there’s a lot. We tried our best, and often failed, to stay out of the way of the dozens of couples taking wedding photos on the grand staircase. There were so many, it began to feel like a haunted house of matrimony, with people posing in a kiss around every corner, waiting to jump-scare us two single young women. Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped in the Center’s delightful artsy gift shop and I bought both of us small red pins with TYPICAL WOMAN written in a white sans-serif font.

When we were finally able to get into our room, I was disappointed to find it was not filled with balloons. Not even the usual “thank you for staying with us, loyal ambassador member” handwritten note I’ve become accustomed to. Lord, forgive me, I’ve been conditioned into assuming a Marriott property is going to give me a little something extra every time. I can’t believe I’ve become this person. Not only would my late grandmother call me a storyteller for fruitlessly fibbing to the hotel, she’d also call me spoiled for expecting to be treated like a princess. TYPICAL WOMAN.

After tummy time,¹ we went out again to eat and hang out at Navy Pier before the season’s inaugural fireworks that night. See my above waxing poet about people still coming out in masses to see pretty things in-person to know how I felt about the (admittedly sub-par) firework show. More importantly, though, I had a Chicago-style hot dog that night and my hot dog standards were forever changed. For the love of American opulence, put a celery salted salad on my bun every time, please.

Even more importantly, when we came back to the hotel room that night, the dream of an extra special treat was finally fulfilled. The hotel had left us each cards- mine the standard “thanks for your loyalty, Ms. Beacham,” handwritten note I was expecting that morning, and Kaitlyn’s a handwritten “Congratulations on your new career!” Accompanying the notes was a cheese board, arranged stylishly and complete with crackers, pepper jelly, and a little bowl of gherkins. My story-telling success rate and spoiled status was again restored. Kaitlyn, laughing and shaking her head, called me such-a-liar.

Sunday, we went to the Chicago Art Institute and did a little story telling just between the two of us. I told Kaitlyn to pretend like we were filthy rich collectors there to acquire pieces for ourselves, that we each had to pick out a piece for our formal dining room. This involved duping no one but us, just in our heads, just for fun. I imagine this pretend set-up would upset some of the artists whose work I considered for the respectable Brooklyn brownstone of my imagination. Surely they didn’t create art for the sake of conspicuous consumption, not even the play kind. To them I say: it’s not that deep. The challenge to choose only one piece began to feel more and more impossible - we spent hours in the place and still barely made a dent. In other words, it was a dream for art museum lovers like myself. I took pictures of top contenders, figuring I would decide in the end between all this art neck and neck for the coveted spot. Then I ran into the one, and there was no more competition.

The plaque beside the piece called “Meekness” explained it was created for the artist’s patron as a collection of all of the eight Beatitudes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. From 1650, it is one of only two of the Beatitudes remaining. As a shy kid, Jesus’ words about the meek in these verses was always my favorite. In a world that rewards extroversion and charm and the loudest voice in the room, I was comforted by the notion of the little guy inheriting the Earth. The way the artist depicts this Beatitude is striking- the image of God as a defenseless lamb, echoed in Jesus’ equivocation of himself with the most vulnerable in society, is probably the trait of God my faith hinges on. The way the woman’s (Mary’s, I guess?) one hand is folded out gently to the lamb’s mouth, with the other protecting its neck, giving the impression of utter care, made me stop in front of the piece for several minutes. What’s more, usually saints/God have halos in the sacred artwork from this era. The fact that Mary and the lamb in this piece didn’t suggests ambiguity- maybe it is just a lamb, but should the uncertainty of divinity change the gentleness with which we treat the vulnerable creature (say it with me, Sunday School style, “nooo”)?

Clearly, I could write a whole essay on why this piece is perfect, but instead I’ll conclude by just saying: this is the one going up in the dining room.

I told another story to a sushi restaurant² when I made our reservation. “Oh, by the way, it’s your birthday,” I informed Kaitlyn while we waited at the host’s podium. We were meeting up with another couple of friends for dinner, and I realized too late that I didn’t clue them in on the story when the waiter came out, at the end of our meal, with a dessert platter with “happy birthday” written out in a white chocolate sauce. They were both visibly confused when I clapped and turned to Kaitlyn as the waiter carrying the candle-lit dessert waited for a hint on who to give it to, “happy birthday, girl!!” When he walked away Kaitlyn apologized to our birthday bamboozled friends on my behalf, “she always does this.” And that’s true, I do. Now give me a bite of that mousse, birthday girl.

After dinner, we went to a bar I had picked out specifically because Reddit users told me it had great music. But when we went to this bar I picked out for the good music,³ we happened upon “Emo vs Pop Punk Night.” Every Sunday night, according to the website that I didn’t check before choosing this bar, is Emo vs Pop Punk Night. The four of us, who had ostensibly come here to dance, sat around a squatty table and tried (and failed) to chit chat over the young white men sing-screaming their hearts out over the loud speakers. No one else there was dancing, either, but maybe I could’ve told a story about knowing how to dance to such music. Maybe I could’ve pretended to be comfortable violently nodding my head and pumping my fist in the air, but again, I have limits to my fiction. I fear I’m too straight-edge on the face to pass for emo or pop punk. After giving up on talking over the not-danceable music, we laughed about my oversight and walked out with a cute strip from the photo booth.

Another day, we headed out to Lincoln Square just so I could stop in a store that carries lots of niche perfume.⁴ There is always a little storytelling involved with perfume shopping, when you have to pretend like there is any chance you are going to buy a bottle way out of your budget so you can get a sample of it on your wrist. It’s a little improv game you have to put on with the salesperson (what better place for improv than Chicago?), and most of the time they’re weaving their own tale of value and projection and taste. They don’t know I’m a fragrance fiend who doesn’t need convincing. Kaitlyn and I both got a little something, but the real consequential storytelling that day didn’t happen until we were on the way back to the hotel.

Standing on the platform, waiting for our train, a man clearly a bit out of his mind approached us. “You two have gotta be sisters,” he slurred with an expression suggesting he had revealed a big secret. Like one of us was wearing one of those big nose-mustache-glasses combos in an attempt to hide our resemblance. Like our similarities don’t end with us being white and women and visually impaired. My instinct in these moments is always to placate, to avoid any pushback that would keep this interaction going, so I responded without missing a beat, “yuppp we are.” I hear my mom’s voice in my head, “stoh-ryyy.” He smiled and nodded with that dang, I’m good look on his face and stood next to Kaitlyn. The train rushed in and I realized if I didn’t do something, he was going to get on the same car as us and we wouldn’t know peace for the next 45 minutes.

As the train pulled in, instead of waiting for the first door to open in front of us, I began to walk a bit with the train in order to get on the next car ahead of where we were standing. Kaitlyn was to my left, and I just hoped she was following me, because I feared turning my head in her direction would also get the attention of the man we were trying to lose. I finally turned as we were stepping into the car and was relieved to find only her right behind me. As the doors closed, we watched the man try to rush up to our car. He must have noticed we were getting on this car too late, and instead of getting on the one behind, he took his chances and ran up to ours. But, again, a bit out of his mind, he was too slow. I watched him watch me as the train pulled away and he was left on the platform; on the wrong side of the particular glass doors I was so glad I chose to go through.

We sat down and Kaitlyn laughed to shake the remaining nervousness off, “welp, we made that guy miss his train,” and we agreed this is the kind of instant karma you get for being creepy. He wanted to believe me about the sister fib, but I suppose this man would probably call my quick train car maneuver a kind of mislead.

My favorite part of our Chicago trip was the thing everyone said was their favorite part of their own Chicago trip: the architecture river tour.⁵ Chicago really is probably the most architecturally diverse city I’ve ever visited and features a beautiful buffet of my favorite style- art deco. I think it was in the architecture center we went to afterwards where I saw the Frank Lloyd Wright quote I’m sure Chicagoans are familiar with: “"Eventually, I think Chicago will be the most beautiful great city left in the world." On this tour, you understand what he meant and I was starry-eyed behind my sunglasses the whole 90 minutes. The sunburn on my back was well worth it, and I hope Kaitlyn feels the same way about the red on her shoulders (we thought our pure enthusiasm would protect us from the UV index, apparently).

These kinds of tours are fertile ground for storytelling in both the classical sense and in the fibbing fashion. I have been on different history tours before where a guide has said something along the lines of, “other tour guides will tell you this bogus story, but I’m going to tell you the truth,” or they’ll start something riveting with “legend has it..” and how am I supposed to know if it’s really an organic legend or a tall tale they personally have workshopped over many tours? Our tour guide for this boat tour had the opposite problem - several times, in the middle of explaining the history of a building, she’d forget a name. And instead of making something up, fibbing, telling a story in the lying sense, she would give up and say she would remember the name later. And she often did, several buildings up the river. Eventually, I turned and whispered to Kaitlyn, “why doesn’t she just make a name up? We’d never know??” She quietly chuckled, equally incredulous.

I know my critique of this forgetful tour guide says nothing about her and everything about me. Yes, I have a pension for storytelling, and sometimes by “storytelling” I mean a little harmless lying. I loved Chicago- there’s no fib to exaggerate there. And, and, I submit that my first experience of it was only made better by the embellishments I decided to sprinkle along the CTA.⁶ I’d like to think my dashes of drama fit in quite well with all that art-deco.

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Personal Selections No. 78

I frantically made a Chicago playlist on the plane before switching my phone into airplane mode, downloaded it, and was ready for take-off. These are a few tracks of the dozen I picked out in this last minute frenzy on the precipice of being air-born.

Sun Come Down x Chance the Rapper

I like to think my going to Chicago was inevitable when I became deeply obsessed with Chance the Rapper in 2016. I was laying in my bed in my shoebox college dorm room when a video of Chance performing at the Grammy’s appeared on my doom scroll. I wasn’t much of a rap/hip-hop fan, but then I’d never heard someone rapping like this. Explicitly hopeful, reverent but real, from a voice almost too goofy to be true. When I think about driving home from college, I think about blasting “Angels,” while sitting in the gridlock of Friday afternoon downtown Atlanta traffic. I survived working a job I hated over Christmas breaks by bumping his Christmas mixtape in my car during my lunch break.

This is a song from his third project (his first technical “album,” as the first two were technically mixtapes), an album widely considered a flop. And sure, it does pail in comparison to the first two. But there are moments I think deserve more love. This song, for example.

Atheist x Christian Lee Hutson

I started listening to Christian Lee Hutson when he was signed to Phoebe Bridger’s label. I was in Turkey, going mildly mad writing my Master’s thesis, and this kind of mellow guitar-led music helped me cope. Hutson’s strumming reminds me of children’s public television, somehow. There is no cozier feeling. I also love a good voice track double, a la Elliot Smith. What is about it that makes an already mellow song that much more melancholy? I don’t know, but it works.

White Horses x Darlingside

I was introduced to Darlingside in high school, when I went with a friend and her mom to see them perform at Atlanta’s iconic Eddie’s Attic. The name is a play on the writing advice “kill your darlings,” as in “darling-cide.” But they decided that was a little too emo for what they were going for, and thus the alternate spelling “Darlingside” was dubbed the band name. Their music from that time period was very of its time, reminiscent of Mumford and Sons and the other assortment of stomp-and-holler hipsters. But a little softer, less stomp and more harmony, perhaps? I collected their CDs and played them as a drove around in my little Honda Accord. This track was always one of my favorites.

Chicago x Sufjan Stevens

Oddly enough, or perhaps appropriately enough, I discovered Sufjan Stevens the same way I discovered Phoebe Bridgers- by stalking a crush’s Spotify page. I think both artists would appreciate this. Sufjan Stevens has a true cult following of which I’m not really apart, but I’m an avid enjoyer of his hits. This one is such a good example of the way he can build a whole atmosphere in a song - you feel like you’re inside one of his memories, complete with blurry colors and a pit in your stomach.

1. “Tummy time” being a fun name for nap time, except I don’t nap on my tummy. I stole the appropriation of this infant development term from my friend Anna a couple years ago on one of my annual NYC trips. NYC necessitates tummy time.

2. Yuzu - it was very good!

3. Beauty Bar- It was indeed very cute, even if the music didn’t end up being what we were looking for.

4. Merz Apothecary- I highly recommend. The neighborhood was also rich with shops carrying local artists.

5. We did First Lady, the internet’s favorite! They had tons of tour time options. Don’t let my snarkiness about our forgetful tour guide dissuade you- it was so worth it.

6. Threw that one in just for my fellow public transportation heads out there.