Pilson

Jan 15: Emily picks me up from the airport. (Hurrah! I’ve been trying to get someone to do that for ages.) I follow her from the orange line to the pink line, and then off at Damen. There is a lot of old snow and ice and salt on the sidewalk, which makes pulling the suitcases a chore, but Emily has one and I the other. She leads me through a small gate and down a narrow walkway between two houses to get to the back.
"And this is where I kill you," she jokes.

I am still full from the monstrous double whopper I had at the airport, but Emily is hungry, and so around 10 we walk to get burritos, which is about the only thing you can get in Pilson.
For those who don’t know what Pilson is, it’s like living in Hillsboro. For those who don’t know what Hillsboro is, it’s filled with Mexicans.

Our house is colorful and disproportionate. It has two bedrooms, a good-sized living room, a kitchen for two, maybe three, a large (cold) basement, and a bathroom for one. The walls are Spanish yellow, pea green, baby blue, brown; the kitchen cabinets are red; even the lights are blue and red (except for the one in my room, which is just a single gigantic lightbulb).

This is my room. It’s orange.