<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/chicago.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-168" title="chicago" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/chicago.jpg" alt="" width="310" height="413" /></a>

<em>Here are the tweets (micro-blog posts of 140 characters or less) I wrote between yesterday at 3 p.m., when Jason and I got on the road to Chicago, and today at 3 p.m., when we returned to our much smaller and less chilly town.</em>

<em>One of the reasons I like <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> is it offers a writer's equivalent of an artist's quick pencil sketch—the essence of the story or scene. Another thing I like about Twitter is the interaction it invites.</em>

<em>I think this series of tweets and replies (from people I know in "real life" and some I've met only on Twitter) offers good examples of both.</em>
<h4>Thursday afternoon, December 4</h4>
<span class="entry-content">- kt_writes: just finished a conference call with two GREAT clients. now getting on the road to Chicago.</span>

<span class="entry-content">- kt_writes: </span><span class="entry-content">on 57 north, reading the ridiculous guns save life "poems" the farmers like to display at the edge of their fields. (3:50 p.m. Dec. 4)</span>

<span class="entry-content">- kt_writes: </span><span class="entry-content">stopped at mcdonalds to use the bathroom (herein lies my love-hate relationship w coffee) &amp; they were blasting hip hop. took me by surprise.</span>

<span class="entry-content">- kt_writes: </span><span class="entry-content">close enough to the Chicago loop to be down to 20 mph. heading straight for the "serious tower," as the girls used to call it.</span>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong></strong><span class="entry-content"><a href="http://twitter.com/kt_writes"></a>Wordydiva: Ha! Cody also.</span></p>

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<h4>Thursday evening, December 4</h4>
<span class="entry-content">- kt_writes: </span><span class="entry-content">hmm...it's 21 degrees in the Windy City, and I want to do a bit of shopping. trying to decide how dedicated I am to the concept...</span>

<span class="entry-content">- kt_writes: </span><span class="entry-content">I'll never cease to be amazed by how bitter cold this city is, or by the # of people who refuse to wear hats.</span>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="entry-content">nmp620: I used to be one of those people who refused to wear a hat.</span></p>
<span class="entry-content">- kt_writes: </span><span class="entry-content">getting ready to go out, and I'm taking forever. in a stupid way, not a luxurious way.</span>

<span class="entry-content">- kt_writes: </span><span class="entry-content">in some crazy, steamy piano bar w half of Chicago, everyone singing along to Dancing Queen. wow. I wasn't ready for this.</span>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="entry-content">nmp620: I have a piece of flair that reads: "I dream of a world where people spontaneously erupt into choruses of Dancing Queen."</span></p>
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<h4>Thursday, after-hours, December 4 &amp; 5</h4>
<span class="entry-content">- kt_writes: </span><span class="entry-content">moving on to the next place. the entire outdoors smells like chocolate, like someone organized a city-wide brownie bake-off.</span>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="entry-content">Wordydiva: I bet I know kind of where you are...</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong></strong><span class="entry-content">smussyolay: </span><span class="entry-content">i call it 'the big cookie.'  i'm "in the big cookie."  it's blommer's.</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="entry-content">smussyolay: it always makes me happy to be in the big cookie. actually, they were in trouble for chocolate air pollution!</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 60px;"><span class="entry-content">kt_writes: </span><span class="entry-content">aha! I don't know how anyone who's in that hood on a regular basis can stay thin. just breathing makes you crave chocolate.</span></p>
<span class="entry-content">- kt_writes: </span><span class="entry-content">now eating fries &amp; drinking a martini w blue cheese stuffed olives.</span>

<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/english_bar.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-170" title="english_bar" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/english_bar-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>
<h4>Friday morning, December 5</h4>
- kt_writes: SO hungry. J brought cereal &amp; coffee up to the room. how lucky am I?

<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/breakfastathotel.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-171" title="breakfastathotel" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/breakfastathotel-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>

<span class="entry-content">- kt_writes: </span><span class="entry-content">bright, cold morning in Chicago. getting ready to head out for 2nd breakfast at the Bongo Room. yum.</span>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="entry-content">nmp620: My old hood! I used to live at 1324 1/ N. Milwaukee. I'm sure it doesn't exist or if it does, it's probably no longer a rat hole.</span></p>

<h4>Friday afternoon, December 5</h4>
<span class="entry-content">- kt_writes: </span><span class="entry-content">goodbye big city. back home, I go to a cafe to get some work done &amp; see 5 people I know well. none of them are at the cafe together, either.</span>

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