ChicagoChicago
Exhausted.
Frayed.
Here.
Chicago!
Category: Verandah
Morning in BloomingtonMorning in Bloomington
Bloomington, Illinois — This morning much like yesterday. Awake before 4:00, lying in bed till after 5:00, thinking (with eyes closed this time). Much to do today and tomorrow, much to get right. Sail the great yellow Penske land-caravel into Chicago and dock at the alleyway behind the building which harbors my new home which I haven’t yet seen beyond in the floor plan and what I could see of the exterior and the neighborhood in Google Maps Street View (I walked that whole neighborhood a few weeks ago in Google Maps Street View). Meet with building management and get the keys (I should call them first and confirm I’m coming; I should keep their number close at hand for easy access; I should keep Eric’s number with it (I called him yesterday and left a message, told him our arrival is nigh, we will see him there, he need call only if he won’t be able to be there)). Remain on the bridge of the LC Penske while my crew off-loads its cargo (but I should secure promise and payment of overnight docking facilities at the rumored gas station quay a block from the new home, and I should diesel up; the truck must be dropped off across town Saturday morning and must have a full tank; and I should diesel up here in Bloomington before departure, it’s likely to be less expensive than in Chicago). And I should double-check my maps, make a couple quick sketches and some notes regarding today’s arrival and tomorrow’s expedition by El down the famed Red Line to the legendary Loop for the afternoon job interview (3:00 p.m., can not be late). Oh, and I should make sure I know my route to the Penske delivery berth, truck’s due there by 9:00 tomorrow morning, should not be late.
Time to shower and dress and pop downstairs for breakfast (could use some coffee, there’s none here in the room). Not a great many things to do, but all must be done and must be done right.
Springfield to BloomingtonSpringfield to Bloomington
Bloomington, Illinois — There is a field of root vegetables next to the Fairfield Inn where Owen and I are staying tonight. I don’t know what kind they are and it seemed less than wise to pull one and find out. I’m in a new country and a main road runs by the field.
There is a baseball tournament in town and the hotels are full up. Owen and I tried the Holiday Inn first but no luck. The desk clerk there phoned the Fairfield across the street. They had a suite and we took it. Pricey but beats sleeping in the truck.
Beyond the north edge of town there is a wind farm, the first we’ve seen since Oklahoma. The southern parts of Illinois are mile after mile of corn and soybean fields. Then comes Springfield, which is a little undulaty and treed, then more miles upon miles of corn and soybeans. And the mysterious root vegetables.
Missouri’s Ozarks were under overcast skies this morning, the clouds so low that at times they were fog and at times they were drizzle on the Penske’s windshield. The roads there and in Illinois were fine as they always have been, even the portions where work is being done and the lanes restricted. I was a little boy when the interstate highway system was being built. Though we now take it for granted, it remains a wonder of its age.
The Illinois state police were active along the interstate this afternoon. In a short space of road they had pulled several cars over. All but one looked to be routine traffic stops. The one exception was where two police cars, one from the state police and the other from some other agency, had pulled over an SUV and had the people out of it and the doors opened while the vehicle was searched. The motorists were black and the police were white. As we sped past I said, “Busted for DWB,” and Owen said, “Yep.”
Chicago tomorrow. We expect to reach the city late in the morning.
Morning in SpringfieldMorning in Springfield
Springfield, Missouri — It’s just after 5:00 a.m. I’ve been awake since before 4:00. I lay in bed for over an hour, hoping I might get back to sleep, not believing it was likely I would get back to sleep, knowing I need as much rest as possible before today’s long drive through the Ozarks down to St. Louis, across the Mississippi, then up the Illinois shield to Bloomington. I lay in bed in the dark of this Holiday Inn room, listening to Owen snore, watching the light on the smoke detector, thinking a thousand thoughts.
It’s not what might go wrong on the road that I think about. No, that’s not quite it. I do think about that, but I’m not terribly worried. Everything Susan and I own is in the back of the Penske rental. One may say, “It’s just stuff,” and it is, but stuff is always more than just stuff. It’s the physical evidence of the years of one’s life, one’s labor and dreams. One doesn’t want it to be lost or destroyed, but the news is awash in stories of people who lose everything to fire, flood, storm and war. Odd the ways we entertain ourselves. One gets used to footage of the survivors testifying as to how “it’s just stuff–we survived, and we have each other, and we can rebuild.”
It’s just stuff. It’s not what I’m worried about. The roads are good–interstate all the way up to Lakeshore Drive–and I’m an experienced driver, though this is only the second time I’ve driven a truck as big as the bright yellow Penske land-caravel. The first was a lifetime ago, when I was living with my parents in Arkansas for a short time and they decided to move to Colorado and asked me if I wanted to come along. I did, and so I did. But that’s another story. Its relevance here is that it showed me that one can be a middle-aged American and load up all one’s worldlies on a big rental truck and cross the continent to make a new life when all one has is a little bit of savings and a lot of determination.
Not to get all rah-rah, here. This is not a pep talk, not even for myself. The drive is work and is tiring, but harder work was getting packed and loaded, and harder work will be getting unloaded. Due to necessary vagaries of scheduling and planning, Owen and I are due in Rogers Park, Chicago, at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow. We are to get the keys to the new home Susan has secured for her and me–an apartment on N. Eastlake Terrace–and we are to pull the truck into an alley. My nephew, Eric, is to meet us there and help us unload, which must be done before the end of day, then I must find a place to park the Penske for the night. The following morning–Friday, August 2nd–it is to be returned by 9:00 to a place just across the Chicago River. Susan, who is flying in on Thursday with our two remaining cats and getting a rental car at the airport, is to pick me and Owen up at the truck rental return place and bring us back to Rogers Park. I am to get ready for a job interview Friday afternoon. I have a new suit just for that. It is hanging here in the Holiday Inn room so it doesn’t get overly wrinkled. The interview is at a law firm in The Loop. I’ll be taking the El, the Red Line, to get there and back. Owen will be coming along, as he would like to visit the Field Museum while I am angling for what I hope will be my new job. Saturday afternoon, he flies back to Albuquerque.
A thousand things ran through my mind earlier this morning while I lay in the dark and watched the smoke detector’s light. Things like, Will the timings work out right on Thursday? Is this all a terrible mistake? Will I get a job before the money runs out? Will Susan and I be happy in our new home? Will we make it safely to Chicago? Did I get enough sleep last night? Is 55 the new 35? Am I sharp enough for the streets of Chicago? Will it matter that I have no advanced degrees? Can I make it not matter? Will it matter that I’ve no practical experience in my field in the state of Illinois? Can I make it not matter? Will it matter that my resting mental state is confusion and my resting emotional state is fear? Can I make it not matter? Will it matter that I just posted the questions here? Can I make it not matter? Can I make matter only what I want to matter? Can I sufficiently control this? This life? These choices? Can I dance with it? Can I flow with it? Can I make it matter? Anything could happen. If something terrible happens, can I make it not matter?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VzAKpPJTqQ
Elk City to SpringfieldElk City to Springfield
Springfield, Missouri — Green. I’ve spent most of my life in the deserts of the southwestern United States and I always marvel at how green the landscape is nearly everywhere else I go. And here in Springfield, where it rained heavily last night, it has just begun to rain again. I hear the drops hitting the window of the room Owen and I have taken in the Holiday Inn.
Tired. Having driven about 850 miles in two days, I am tired. It’s been, and will continue to be, freeway all the way, following what was once Route 66. The road has been good and fast, the great Penske land-caravel a reliable machine. Bright yellow, too, for easy visibility.
Many stretches of the freeway have had lane closures and speed reductions due to work being done on them. If I am figuring right, this is the application of federal infrastructure money. It is nice to see it at work.
As with the Texas panhandle, Oklahoma’s plains are also sprouting wind farms. A car dealership in Tulsa had two huge flags, one American and one Oklahoman. The Will Rogers Turnpike was straight and smooth and not terribly expensive, and well-patrolled by the Oklahoma State Police.
People all along the way have been good. Owen has been a great help, watching the truck’s blind spots, managing the truck’s music, helping find lodgings, conversing with me, and keeping me on an even keel. I would not want to be on this trek alone.
Tomorrow’s goal: Bloomington, Illinois.
Morning in OklahomaMorning in Oklahoma
Elk City, Oklahoma — The coffee maker in the motel room malfunctioned, giving off a wispy curling smoke such as might be seen in a horror movie and stinking up the room in a way John Waters might appreciate. I’ve gone down to the lobby to get a cup of lobby coffee and have it here next to me. I have not yet drunk enough of it.
A huge storm came in the night. Around 2:00 a.m. I was awakened by thunder. There was that and the causal lightning and buckets of rain. It was after 3:00 before I got back to sleep, to dream of the Cadillac Ranch and the great Groom Cross, both of which are along Interstate 40 and both of which Owen and I saw yesterday in passing. At the Cadillac Ranch, the frontage road was clumped with the SUVs and pickup trucks of sightseers who had stopped to see the noted work of art, photos of which I had seen before and which is somewhat smaller in real life. As we passed the great Groom Cross, I saw no one and did not see the grounds with their array of bronze sculptures. While many poor could have been fed with the money it cost to erect a cross nearly 200 feet tall and fashion the accompanying structures, the poor will always be with us and would only have got hungry again so they will have to find some other way to get by.
There is also a leaning water tower in Groom, about which I did not dream.
The lobby telly says a cold front is coming. It is a barrier of stormy weather through which Owen and I will be motoring later today in the great yellow Penske rental. Time to finish the coffee, pack up, check out, and head out. Breakfast possibly in Oklahoma City.
Albuquerque to Elk CityAlbuquerque to Elk City
Elk City, Oklahoma — Owen and I arrived just after 7:00 p.m. local time and secured lodgings at the Days Inn off Interstate 40 eastbound at exit 38. It was a good drive and fast, often at 70 mph in the 26-foot Penske rental. The vegas of northwest New Mexico were green from recent rains. The burgers at the Denny’s in Tucumcari were superb, the wait staff sullen and distracted, the men’s room a mess. Northwest of Amarillo is a vast wind farm, dozens of large white turbines arrayed for thirty miles or so across the plains, looking like nothing so much as the spaceships of an invading alien army. The American and Texas flags in Amarillo were large and extended in the stiff breeze; the girl at the Love’s truck stop wore a tight pair of knit shorts in an American flag pattern. Once across the border into Oklahoma, where the flags are much smaller and not made into clothing, the steady wind picked up dust and hazed the late afternoon view.
The Days Inn once had a Denny’s on-site and the floor plan at the front desk still shows it. The desk clerk said, “They closed it down and didn’t even tell their staff they were going to.” She said we could find dining at any one of a half-dozen eateries across the road. We crossed and chose the Western Sizzlin’, where it was Monday Night Buffet. In the lobby of the Western Sizzlin’, there is a photograph of the 66 Diner in Albuquerque.
Back here in the room now, we can hear the voices of revelrous travelers along the balcony outside our smoking room (“All I have available is smoking rooms,” the desk clerk said). The ashtray by my laptop is face down. Tomorrow’s goal is Springfield, Missouri.
Say We’ll Meet AgainSay We’ll Meet Again
This is almost certainly my final routine post from my desktop computer here in the home my wife, Susan, and I keep in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Later today, I will shut down and pack away this machine. Today and tomorrow, my adult son, Owen, and I load up the rental truck with all Susan’s and my household possessions. Monday morning, with Owen riding shotgun, we head for Chicago.
I have a laptop and expect I may post again from it tomorrow, and may scribble a bit about the trip as we make our way by interstate highway along the old Route 66. We’ll see.
Turn it onTurn it on
VeracruzVeracruz
Billy BraggBilly Bragg
Bist du loco, quizas?Bist du loco, quizas?
Worse on the wayWorse on the way
Sometimes you just gottaSometimes you just gotta
This amount of sugar can induce shock or even coma (sweet dreams are made of these)This amount of sugar can induce shock or even coma (sweet dreams are made of these)
Resistance is futile (and not much fun, and rather suburban)Resistance is futile (and not much fun, and rather suburban)
Finding the lightFinding the light
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP7DCXIrY2E
For those moments when nothing else will doFor those moments when nothing else will do
Up above our headsUp above our heads
A fortuitous happenstanceA fortuitous happenstance
Some lads from LondonSome lads from London
Fifty years ago today, The Rolling Stones released their first record: a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Come On.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV62UcqbcQA
Deconstructing the hegemonyDeconstructing the hegemony
Strike anywhereStrike anywhere
A tongue in which to speakA tongue in which to speak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVnW94Z2L8I
You figure out what’s importantYou figure out what’s important
“As you get older, you start to realize that what actually holds relationships together is just liking the other person in the relationship, wanting them to be around, feeling like they increase the value of your time and that you, despite your evil cursed nature, can do the same for them.” — Jeanne Thornton (interviewed in Bookslut)
Shake this houseShake this house
You make me dizzy, Miss LizzyYou make me dizzy, Miss Lizzy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV37BKk3Dr4
A break from dutyA break from duty
Look at that windmill, SanchoLook at that windmill, Sancho
“I see people who do not read: they are so limited in their lives, even in the good things. They do not see beyond their immediate surroundings; they are incapable of changing anything because they neither know what there is to change, nor how to go about it. They don’t understand other people, not even their own loved ones, because they do not have the habit of reflecting on the yearnings, motives, and passions of human beings. And whatever thing they experience makes much less sense than it does for someone who reads. Besides, what would a man see in the fields of La Mancha who does not know who Don Quixote is? Dusty roads, nothing more.” – Agustin Cadena, “Why I Read” (trans. Mayo)
Me an my friends, we was juss talkin about this yestidayMe an my friends, we was juss talkin about this yestiday
“Facebook can seem at times an enormous simulacrum of the Pussycat Lounge, full of voyeurism and cynical, semi-professional exhibitionism, but obviously the divide between performer and audience that structures the flow of money, power, pity, and contempt in strip clubs has been largely obliterated online. Instead, there is the ambiguous simultaneity of consuming and producing spectacle, of performing the self, of spectatorship as performance, in a medium that immediately allows you to substitute yourself for any performer with broadcast responses of your own. This stew of contradictory and self-negating impulses makes up what now often gets described simply as sharing. It’s sharing when we confess something; it’s sharing when we link to someone else’s work; it’s sharing when we simply express approval for something; it’s sharing when a social-media service automatically announces some action we took. Online we all have a million hearts to give.” – Rob Horning, “The Failure Addict”