A classic Chicago bar with some classy writers telling classy sex stories. And when I say classy, I mean sexy.

The Burlington Bar @730pm.

(And it was voted BEST BET from Chicago Tribune's Red Eye!)

"The hardest part about moving forward is not looking back."

"Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can pretty much change your life forever."

"Sometimes in a relationship, going through hell isn't so bad if you come out of it a little stronger. The same is true about friends."

"I've become a real believer in not defining every single thing. Seems like everytime you think you've figured out what something is, it just becomes something else."

"Maybe getting over someone you're in love with isn't impossible. Unless, maybe you don't actually get over it. Maybe you just learn to live with it."

Every guy needs a girl.

You know. Gay. Straight. Every guy needs an amazing girl in his life.

She's the one that you looked at from across the table in studio photography class, instantly smiled at and said: She is going to be the one I get tipsy with at Thai restaurants after two bottles of wine or she's the one that's going to hold me when I'm crying from a dissolving relationship or she's the one that's going to say "Byron, he has a bald spot! You can do better than that douchebag!" or she's going to be the one that you tell everything to and she will tell everything to you. You will get in to tiffs. You will apologize for those tiffs. She will call you her Schmoopie. She will support you in everything you ever do.

Every guy needs his girl.

Mine is Michele and, man, you need to be jealous. Because she's amazing. I'm not just saying that because of all the times we've had at parties or in car rides or walks in flip flops to local 7-11's because we needed some ice cream after watching a Golden Girls Marathon. I'm saying it because we have been through it all.

I was watching this A&E deal a few months ago with my dad. He likes those history war deals. You know, where all the footage is black and white. It's where the narrators are foreshadowing what's to come in their voice when, if you've read even one history book, you know what's about to come. Anyway, the show was about war buddies. These were guys that lived through, well, war. And something really struck me. One of the guys looked off in to the distance with this watery look and said: Though I could never love this man like how I could love a woman, this is a type of love I could never share with another human."

Michele and I have been through nothing even close to war unless we metaphor this bitch, which is what I am about to do. Ready?

The battles of getting older are terrifying. Once some of us leave college, we don't fall in to that pocket of nine to five fill the blank investments here. We fall in to the "What the flip is my life going to be like now and what does this all mean?" Some of us jump job to job searching for contentment. Some of us live paycheck to paycheck so we can keep doing what we believe in even though we have barely enough money to get us on the train. Some of us don't marry the first person we fall for and go through bloody painful heartbreak. Some of us go through battles in life. Though they are little and never can compare to that that real war is, we still fight to survive. And that survival is often easier with a buddy... a war buddy.

"It's funny. You can tell we're getting older." I say to Michele while eating a spring roll a few afternoons ago."

"How come?" She says tilting her head.

"Because we are calming down and smiling more and laughing more and realizing that things fall in to place... remember how we would freak at every little thing that went wrong..."

"Everything sort of happens for a reason..." Michele says taking the last Crab Ragoon.

Michele is my war buddy. And though our lives are soon going to change, she will always be the one that knows when I need back up. She will always know when I've been shot down and need to be carried along for a bit. I will always know the exact same thing.

She is the girl that I will look back at when I am old and pretending to be on an A&E special(but really I'm just talking to some grandkids but because grandpa Byron always wanted to be on t.v., he will pretend he is on t.v.) and say: Though I could never love this woman like how I could love a hot piece of man, this is a type of love I could never share with another human."

Because every guy needs his girl.

Every single person out there needs that person.

People are always asking me what I'm up to all the time. When I say something like "2nd Story this or 2nd Story that" I end up going in to this sort of "picture this" kind of attempt of explaining how awesome 2nd Story is and what exactly it is. Most of the time it's successful. Other times people say: "So, it's like an open mic." And then when people say that I go "NO!!!!!!" and then they tilt their heads and look at me and say something like "I don't get it." And then I tell them to come to a 2nd Story event and then they come and then they fall in love and then they get it.

Well, because 2nd Story is so great and people in 2nd Story are so great we've finally become great squared and created a teaser for this seasons upcoming festival. The festival, you ask? It's three weeks of hot in your face amazing stories from fifty-two phenomenal writers and performers at Webster Wine Bar in Chicago. You can get more information at www.storiesandwine.com (AHEM, I'm performing April 23rd if, you know, you were wondering...)

But you can also get your tease on:

2009 2nd Story Festival from 2nd Story on Vimeo.

"Mr. Byron. Why ain't you married? You look like you thirty-eight and should have twenty babies."

"People who whisper are scared they're being listened to."

"That monkey looks like my mom when she mad. Don't tell her that. She'll get mad."

"Mr. Byron. Why do you have so many wrinkles in your forehead?"

"Do you cut your own hair? It looks like you cut your own hair."

"One time I sat on my sister until she gave me her red crayon. Then I didn't use it."

"You look like Freddy Krueger on a good day."

"Why does it smell like monkey? Oh, because there are monkeys in here."

"I bet that lettuce gives that bear gas. Lettuce gives me gas."

The other morning I woke up hungover.

Don't judge. Not fair. Just because you don't openly admit that you may have drank too much at a good friend's birthday party the night before and woke up feeling like you lived a full scene from Fight Club doesn't mean you can judge.

Anyway, lately... well... lately I have been feeling immature waking up feeling this way. Not that I wake up often feeling this way, but when I do it's like what my mom used to say about why she doesn't drink: Why have to waste a next day feeling like you have the flu when it was you that chose to make yourself feel that way?

I always called her lame when she'd say that. "Lame, Mom doesn't like to party." Lame. But the more I think about it and the older I get and the times I add up waking up feeling that way I feel...well, I get embarrassed about it.

And what sticks in my mind is the word my mom always emphasized on: Choices.

Lately, I have been having to make quite a few choices with my life. We do this everyday, really. What do I want for lunch? Where should I meet friends tonight? What movie should I put on my Netflix? But, for some reason lately, I feel like my choices are bigger. I have opportunities and new found perspectives and challenges that I've never ever had before.

And it is the most exciting feeling I've ever had in my life.

It's like this: OK, about two years ago I was going through what I dubbed "My Quarter-Life Crisis." Some may remember this. Fresh out of college, I knew what I didn't want to do, but that left a slew of things to do. It was terrifying. It seemed daunting. It seemed like I was going to forever feel this sense of lost.

"Byron, what would make you happy the rest of your life?" My grandma once asked me while she stirred a gravy on the stove.

When I told her I didn't know yet she said something like (because she loved me): "What! By your age I had three kids already. I knew what I had to do! You should pick something and stick with it!"

But not everyone feels this way. Some people, like, have their destiny all in order. Like a road map that was given to them when they popped out. Some people in life have this path. My brother is one of those. People like my brother or even some of my very close friends always impress me with their direction. With their choices.

Then I found this movie:

While lying curled up in bed attempting to consume as much water as possible, I watched the entire preview about "shifting" and finally got it. Seriously. I finally got it.

A plan.

I'd like to think it was inspired by this film, though it's not really what the film is about. It reminded me of my priorities. It showed me that change can cause effect. It reminded me that my choices make an impact on everything. Everything is truly everything.

The next day I journaled my five-year-plan. I had NEVER done that before. To me, a five- year-plan was more terrifying than adding up my school loan debt and figuring out how long I had left to pay it off. But, after I watched this clip, the five-year-plan was exciting... because it included exciting things that WILL change me... and will make changes to others. Those changes will hopefully cause mass changes. Changes I would have never seen before when I was in my "Quarter Life Crisis Mode". Changes that include traveling, teaching, and going back to school.

Maybe it was the hangover. Maybe it was how life had been in the last few months. Or maybe it was this movie, but that moment I had when I finished watching this clip changed me. I finally felt like the choices I need to make are going to shift me in the right direction. Not that I was going the wrong way before, but like how engines need a gear shift to get more "umph" for a great big hill... maybe I need a shift to get more "umph" for my great life.

I am going to shift my life to make it happen and that's going to involve a lot less hangovers-- from alcohol and other "toxins" in every day life.

A few days ago, I was getting my hair cut downtown by a friend who has been cutting my hair for almost seven years. Seven years, people! That's, like, the longest relationship I have ever had besides with my family, which really doesn't count because for the majority of my life I lived with them and in that there's really no choice. Well, there is choice, but this isn't Maury Povich where I wanted to divorce my parents. I liked living with them. OK. We'll just say this is the longest chosen relationship I have ever had with someone.

Anyway, it's taken five of those seven years to get to the point where she really knows my head. You know, I sit down and by just looking at the way my hair has grown out, she can snip at certain spots to get it back to where it should be. Sides of my head too puffy? Snip. Head doesn't look so round. The front is curling in? Snip. I don't look like Jimmy Neutron.

But, like a lot of hair stylists, my friend has not just gotten to know how to make the outside of my head feel right. We have both learned how to talk about what's going on in the inside.

See, the other thing about this friend that cuts my hair? She also cuts Dave's hair. Yes, the ex-boyfriend's hair.

When we broke up, she was devastated. She had been friends with us both for years and didn't know how to handle the separation.

Conversations used to go:

Her: So, uh, yeah... so... you know... Dave was here a few days ago for a trim.
Me: Stop! I don't want to talk about him.

Or

Her: So, uh... well... have you spoke to Dave the other day... we had dinner and...
Me: STOP! I don't want to talk about him.

Or

Her: Uh... Dave says he misses you...
Me: #@!!&@&@@!!!!

Or

Her: Are you EVER going to be able to talk about Dave?
Me: I... I don't know...

OK. It wasn't that I didn't want to hear about him. Of course I did. I mean, I shared my life with the guy for years. We lived together. We made pasta together. I loved him. I do love him still. This is a person that you shouldn't just write off nor scoff at when you are getting shampooed by a mutual best friend.

But the thing was... I wasn't "grown-up" enough to want to hear anything about him. Especially the good. My friend didn't want to gossip about us. She just wanted to check in with her friends. She wanted things to be back to normal. She hated that we weren't Dave and Byron anymore.

Eventually she gave up on even mentioning his name. She finally learned that what she always had in common was "Us." It was like split ends. Would she have to trim one or the other out her life or could she try to prepare for how different our lives were changing without each other and get to know us separately?

She chose the latter.

Because sometimes things don't work out, but you still have to co-exist. Sometimes you have to be prepared to bump in to him on the street because you live in the same neighborhood. Sometimes you have to be ready to be ambushed by him and his friends at a bar, because how many gay bars are there in the city? And sometimes you have to be mature enough or grown up enough to hear your friend that has cut your hair for seven years say: Dave is finally happy.

I think it slipped. She was trimming my sideburns this last hair cut when she mentioned (without being asked!) that she had had dinner with him.

"I know you don't like hearing about him, but I think you should really be moved on by now... he's really happy... it's the first time in a year and a half where I think he finally feels like himself again." She said while checking my hair line at eye level.

And that's when I realized it. Just like how hair grows over time, so should the way we look at past relationships, failures, or losses.

The truth? When she said "He's happy. He's really really happy. He's got great things going for him." It was the first time I was happy... for him. I liked hearing he was OK.

Because, finally, so am I.

As she styled my new short do, I looked in the mirror and nodded at the next topic she was chatting about. But all I could think about was that feeling. You know that feeling you get when you look in the mirror at a new hair cut and feel like a new you? You turn your head from side to side admiring how you look and feel like a different person. All it took was some trimming and styling and a bit of trust for your stylist and all of the sudden it's a changed you. A fresh you that you like looking at in the mirror and in pictures.

Yeah, it was that feeling... except instead of liking what was newly styled on top of my head... I finally was happy with how I was newly styled on the inside.

Rachel was about to throw her last dart at the board when she saw Dr. New York suddenly appear from the corner of her eye at the crowded bar a few nights ago.

Continue Reading HERE.

There are people in your life that you love. These people are the people, no matter how many times you say it, you just don't think you can truly show how much you care. You never really can express how close you are. That's where photo booths come in. There's just something about being crammed in to a tight space wearing vintage clothes for an amazing birthday party for an amazing person having an amazing time all while being captured on film. Sharing space in a photo booth is something you only do with those you trust. Those you want on your lap. Those you truly want to share a closeness with.

They say that if you love someone you should let them go. These are just some of those people who are willing to let me go... who are letting me try to see if there is something else somewhere else. These are just some of those people who are close enough to believe in me.

And just like these photo booth pictures, there is no way I could forget the closeness that we've shared. No matter what. No matter where. We will always just be photo booths apart.

" U want 2 do dinner 2nite?" Reads the text Mark shows me while we're waiting in line at the quiet post office. I'm sending off a long overdue wedding gift and he just got asked out on a first date... via text.

"Wait, he asked you out on a first date through a text message?" I whisper-yell to him in line. A woman wearing a puffy down coat turns around to look at us. She smells like Pine-Sol.

Continue URban Legend Column HERE.

I tend to fall hard when I fall. It's this thing I've always struggled with. My mom says it's because I wear my heart on my sleeve. My mom is smart.

Anyway in an effort to, you know survive the winter Chicago evil cold, I decided to visit friends who live in California and for work. While I was there, something strange happened.

I fell in love.

I'm not sure how you feel about your city when you see it from a view in a plane, but whenever I look out the airplane window and down at the skyscrapers that build Chicago I always say: Huh, I love that city. I just adore it. I'm so lucky to be there. It's usually the same thing when I fly back in. I'll see it in the dark with all the twinkling lights that make just faint shapes of sky scrapers and I will just sigh.

Chicago and I have been in love for almost eight years.

I'm really quite lucky. Most people are never really in love with where they have lived. They just stay in a mediocre city or town because their job is there or they've been in that place for so long that leaving would be too much work or the idea of leaving something they've known for so long seems terrifying, but Chicago and I... well, Chicago and I have had our moments. We've defined each other in ups and downs, yet we've always seemed to make it through the changing seasons. We've given each other support in most opportunities. We've been patient for each other when things weren't really going the way we planned. Hell, we've financially support each other. That sexy tax hike that Chicago has going on never really got me going, but I still pay up when necessary. I quite honestly thought Chicago and I would be forever.

But forever is a really long time. Especially when you are talking about a relationship with a city.

My week in California felt like I was cheating. Each day I woke up in San Francisco or Los Angles I got this really butterfly-y feeling, right? You know, the same googles you get the minute before you kiss someone you want to kiss and not just kiss because they bought you dinner.

But I felt guilty. These feelings shouldn't be happening. You have a city waiting for you back home. You have a life. You have friends. You have Netflix episodes of Felicty all waiting for in Chicago. You can't do this... you can't be falling for another place...

For the final couple of days, I had a really hard time. Sitting out on patios doing work while the sun hit my face made me feel like a scoundrel for enjoying it. Putting my feet in the sand while finishing a latte made me feel like scum. Loving the possibility that on the weekends, instead of dodging cold spouts to head a bar, I could have a beer after surfing... I started getting upset.

Who do I think I am? I've worked hard to get to the dream I am living in Chicago! I've had to chase after so many directions to finally be in the direction I am in now. I've had to have so many jobs and so many heart breaks and so many bad apartments and so many learning lessons. Aren't I a tad bit too old to go chasing after those same passions in a whole new place? Do I go back to Chicago and stay with the one I love... or do I... run off with the one I have discovered?

On the last day, the morning before my departing flight from Los Angles, I went to a park close to my friend's house. It was sunny. I had an iced coffee. I was wearing sunglasses. The entire park was filled with moms and little kids running around squealing in the seventy degree weather.

As I started writing in my journal, I looked in front of me and saw a group of three kids playing with bubbles. They could be no older than four. There was two boys and one girl.

"Catch the bubbles! Catch them!" One of the kid's mom would squeal as the bubbles would fly around their faces and the little kids would try to clap their hands to snap the bubbles out of sight.

You should have seen how excited they would get when they'd catch the bubble they so wanted. It was as if it were the most satisfying moment in life. The bubble they wanted to catch was caught and they could move on to the next bubble to focus on.

But the little girl was focused on this one bubble. As she continued to chase it, she started chasing it in my direction. Then as it reached the bench of my picnic table, the wind blew the bubble far up and unreachable.

"You better try to get it!" I said enthusiastically to the little girl. She looked at me and reached her hand entirely focused on the round shape that was slowly flying off in to the sky. Her face twisted. She thought she was so close. She thought she was really going to make it happen. She believed that bubble was the bubble.

The bubble was impossible to get.

"Madeline! Come back over here! There are more bubbles back here to catch!" Her mom yelled from behind her.

But she watched the bubble float away. We both watched that damn bubble float away. Behind her, new bubbles were being made every single time her mom blew... but she wanted that bubble that now seemed so far away... so far gone... so unreachable. She just stood and stared with a look of "did I not try hard enough?".

And that's when I made my decision.