Ridin' the Rails

It’s after 2:00 am, and I am somewhere between Carbondale and Memphis. In about four and a half hours I’ll be pulling into Memphis. C got off the train about an hour ago and now I have the Amtrak sleeper to myself. But I can’t sleep. As I type this in Word, I’m sitting here listening to Wilco’s “Via Chicago,” watching the almost-full moon peek in and out of the southern Illinois landscape. If you have ever considered traveling Amtrak first class, I highly recommend it.

We pulled out of Union Station around 8:30 or so. Before we left, K called. I had left him a couple of voicemail messages and an email or two the night before. He had read the email and gave me a call but I missed it. By the time I called him back he had heard my voicemails. We had a nice chat. A few minutes after that he called back looking for N’s phone number and at some point I squealed, “We’re moving!” and “Oh, look! It’s the Sears Tower! I can see the Sears Tower!”

Anyway, he needed N’s phone number because he didn’t have it in his new phone. But he hadn’t realized I couldn’t give him N’s phone because it was in my phone, and I couldn’t look at a number in my phone while I was on said phone. I offered to text him the number. As I was about to write the number down on one of the brochures in our sleeper compartment, C mentioned I might not want to write the number on something I planned on leaving on the train, unless I wanted to add “for a good time call” to the number. About this time I lost my mind laughing because I could just imagine someone calling N and N going, “Hey, Man! What’s up?” and then carrying on a twenty minute conversation with the person who called him. (Don't deny it, you know it’s true.) Anyway, because I was busy texting N’s phone number, I missed the Chicago skyline. D’oh.

The final day of Lollapalooza was pretty low key. We saw Of Montreal who were amazing. I am a sucker for a guy in drag. It was another hands waving, jumping up and down show. We left 45 minutes into the show to get to the other side of the Park for Wilco. By the time we got there it was packed (it was a hometown show afterall). We got stuck with all the old people on blankets who were too busy, 1) being drunk, 2) talking, or 3) sleeping to pay attention to the show. Bastards. I was eventually able to move to the middle of the front section. The sound was terrible, but it got better the closer we got; the crowd got better, too. Once I settled in a different place, I was able to get into the show, and, as always, I almost cried. I just adore them. But, you know what? Jeff Tweedy looks like Grizzly Adams.

Wilco was the end of the Palooza for us. As we were leaving I called a friend in Albuquerque and asked her to call a friend in Chicago to tell him to call me 'cause I didn’t have his number. It didn’t work, though. He wasn’t around. But, hey, I tried.

We wandered up to an Indian restaurant north of the River. Excellent.

The next day we shopped. And shopped. And walked. We walked from Michigan and 11^th to the Miracle Mile. That’s a lotta walkin’. By the time we headed back down to our hotel, I had had my fill of humanity.

I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did find a brown linen Lands’ End jacket, a couple of t-shirts, the most recent John Irving in paperback, and the Perfect Red Purse. But I didn’t purchase the Perfect Red Purse. I know I will regret it. Later we made our way to a yarn store close to our hotel where we raided the bin of dollar yarn.

It was a very good weekend. Chicago is an amazing city--I just love that place. Lollapalooza was exactly what I needed after the worst week of my life. Of course, now it is back to reality. I don’t know if I am ready for that--denial was working well for me. But, I knew reality would come sneaking back eventually.