I've been taking a little break from talking about politics on here. It's such a divisive issue, and there's only so much ranting I can do.

But I thought I'd just make a couple of brief observations about the RNC speeches tonight. Arnold got up and gave a very exuberant, populist speech that makes the moderate version of the Republican Party seem very attractive. But to me, it's a sham, because even though many of the members of the GOP are moderates, too many of the key decision makers are the ones that cling to the far Right. More on that later this week.

And then the Bush twins got up. Nervous giggling and way-out-there comments ahoy! I was getting physically uncomfortable during this speech. It was like listening to someone give a rambling, drunken toast at a rehearsal dinner, or worse, a bad roast at the Friars Club. Laura's talking right now, and she's doing fine, but Jenna and Barbara (Jenna, especially) just sounded spoiled and bratty. Did I just see them rag on their grandma on live TV? Was anyone else weirded out by that? It was icky stuff, people.

Monday Wrap-up:

A bit of good news today: a few kids from my classroom that were incredibly gifted in math get to skip a grade in math this year at the junior high. We fought for a long time for those kids, and I'm so glad to hear they got accepted. Also, I got an email from a couple of former students today, just saying hi, seeing how my summer went.

And now the weird shit: so I'm talking to my aunt today, and she tells me that my uncle has a fairly serious form of prostate cancer. They found it last month, but it's too advanced to get rid of it all, but they think they can contain it. So that's good.

Now, to make this story a little more weird, you need to know that I haven't exactly talked to said uncle in a long time. Family shit. You'll understand more in a minute. The next part of this story is where it gets into really fucked up family drama territory: my dad has had prostate cancer as well for over a year now. Radiation treatments at Northwestern, yadda yadda yadda. But he's doing pretty well. Good? Well, here's the last part of the tale: I haven't spoken to my dad in over five years. This is also why I haven't seen a whole lot of my uncle, or that entire side of the family. Why? Sorry, none of your business. But dad's a shit-bag, and I'm only going to say this once: I don't want to hear anything on the order of, "But he's your father, you should talk to him, make amends, blah blah blah." Please, don't go there in the comments.

Also, I'm not looking for sympathy or "Sorry to hear about that, Brian". It's a fucked up situation that I didn't make. I just try and get by.

So anyway. Uncle and dad both have cancer, but should be okay. Here are all the thoughts that are running through my head. Cancer? And I haven't known about this? My uncle could be dying and I'm out here not talking to any of them for too many stupid reasons. My dad's had cancer for a year? How do I feel about that? I don't want to ever see him again, but I don't wish cancer on him. So now I'm the guy who doesn't talk to his dad who has cancer. But he's a shit bag. Fuck him, but not Stricken-with-Cancer Fuck Him.

And the whole thing that started this was my statement to my aunt:

Me: "Haven't seen you guys in a while; I'd like to come over and say hi."

Aunt: "That'd be nice. Oh by the way, I've been meaning to tell you about this whole cancer thing. Looks like it runs in the family, so you should find out about when you should get checked."

I've said it before, I'll say it again. WTF???!!!?!?!?!?!??

So why am I writing about this? Well, it's just what I do. I've been sitting here all evening, with too many dark thoughts running through my head. Talked to my sister about it, which helped. As she told me, we're the only people in the world that can really understand why we feel the way we feel on this. And act the way we act. But I'm in a real strange mood right now, and I don't really have anyone else to talk to about all of this.

So I write about it. It helps. I write about things to put them into some sort of order, you know? It makes them a bit clearer. If I didn't, they would run round and round inside my head and then I'd never sleep and then I'd slowly go insane...

September is National Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.

Why I have no passion for "Passion."

Things I learned from reading the Sunday Tribune:

• Apparently Lance Armstrong's wife didn't "stand by him" during his cancer days. They met afterwards. And apparently the divorce was amicable. And apparently he met Sheryl Crow after all of that. Just to notify those that thought he dumped his loyal wife for a rocker chick.
• The comic strip Frazz reminded me that in Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck proclaimed that by riding the (then-new) interstate highway system, you could travel all across America and never see a thing. Good point there, as I just traversed 2400 miles of them earlier this month. Most of those were just trees, rest stops, and gas stations.
• A New York man was arrested for watching porn on his in-car DVD player. Apparently other drivers could look into his Mercedes and watch the action on several screens.
• With Tuesday's release of The Passion of the Christ on DVD, you can also stock up on several of your favorite Jesus movies or Mel Gibson movies for low, low prices! They're also shilling soundtracks and "inspirational music" compilations, so you can feel good about feeling bad for Jesus. What a deal: Jesus Christ Superstar, Mad Max, and "Songs Inspired by an ultra-conservative, Jew-hating Aussie's version of the last 12 agonizing hours of Christ's life" for only $20!!!!
• For those that condemned Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ and yet loved The Passion of the Christ, I say this: Best Buy never advertised "Temptation" on all those wide-screen HD TVs in their Sunday ad flyer. That's just wrong on so many levels.

So Craiggers is gone, after five years as the host of the Late Late Show. He spent the last night drinking 25-year old scotch with Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn, among others. He's leaving to pursue a producing and writing career, saying he'd done everything he wanted to do on the show.

Five years and a farewell show. That's it.

I think Kilborn's departure is a good symbol of how modern Americans function in the workplace. Think about Johnny Carson: He hosted the Tonight Show for, what, 29 years? The final episode was a moving and memorable last hurrah after almost 30 years of being the undisputed King of Late Night.

Then again, he was really the only one doing it for a while, and anyone else was small potatoes, until the mid-80s or so when Letterman and (for a brief time) Arsenio Hall tapped into a younger audience.

But enough of Late Night History. My point is Carson's longevity. His generation was more apt to find a good job and stick with it for a long period of time. Nowadays, people around my age tend to stay at one job for a bit, until the better one comes along and we jump ship. I know people that have worked for 3-4 different companies in a five-year span. In my field, we have principals that teach for 2-3 years and then go right into administration.

And so Kilby, after stints at SportsCenter and The Daily Show, does the Late Night Talk Show Thing for five years and says, Thanks and So Long. I've got other ideas.

So is this a good or bad thing? Some might argue that today's workers have no sense of loyalty, that they just chase after their own self-interests and the higher paycheck. But isn't that part of the American Way? Is it a good thing to stay at the same job/company for 25-30 years? What's the difference between devotion and being stuck? Do we really need to have Craig Kilborn put in 30 years hosting a show after David Letterman? Is it better to just have him put in five good years, and then go try something else? If he had never left The Daily Show, it would have never morphed into the brilliant media satire it is today with Jon Stewart.

I guess I keep thinking of baseball players. Back in the day, players tended to stay with one team, instead of the journeyman players we have today. The journeymen get a bad rap, criticized for not having loyalty to a team or a city. But oftentimes those players were virtually held hostage to the team, unable to get a higher salary or to get out of a (sometimes) miserable working environment. Nowadays, players have that freedom to go where they are wanted most.

Is that true of today's workers? Some people may shake their heads at people who dart from job to job, but is that just the end result of a more flexible, free workplace? Maybe we lost the concept of the Loyal Worker, but are there more benefits, more advantages to this new system? Are we finally in more control of our own employment possibilities, and thereby able to control our own destiny more?
I don't work in the corporate world, so I definitely don't have the proper perspective of that environment. My thoughts are fueled mostly by the youth movement in public education, where aging educators take early retirement and are replaced by younger teachers and administrators.

What are your thoughts, dear readers? I know I can count on at least a few good comments. Janie, see if you can get Jason to pony up a few thoughts.

And the winner of the 2004 most annoying, overplayed commercial is the Ford Motor Company's advert for the Focus. You know, the one where they advertise a free Dell computer if you buy their lil' Focus, all to the tune of a punk'd out version of "The Farmer in the Dell."

If you watch a lot of Cubs games like I do, then you are at the point where you want to pull an Elvis and shoot out your TV.

I fucking hate that commercial...

Any challengers?

Go Team Hotness!!!!!

I hate this time of year. Not the back-to-school season. The right-before-back-to-school season. My days of leisure are drawing to a close, and I'm getting ready to go back to work like a regular guy.

Only this year it's a little different. After six years as a classroom teacher, I'm now a Gifted "specialist" or something like that. It's a good gig, but right now is the hard part. While my former fifth grade teachers (and good friends) unpack their rooms and get set for the new school year, I sit in a strange limbo. No longer part of that world, not quite part of the new one to come.

It's going to be a great job, and void of many of the more stressful and consuming aspects of a classroom gig. But a classroom was also like a little family, and my teammates were (and are) close friends. So it's goodbye to all that.

For now I wait until my new room is ready, and they deliver my stuff to said room. Until then I watch movie after movie, or go out with friends and eat buffalo wings over and over again.

Can't sleep can't sleep can't sleep. So I'm doing what makes me happy.

Watching the trailer for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Wes Anderson movies make me happy. I like the idea of a world where people's quirks aren't something they downplay, but celebrate.

Dignan's yellow jumpsuit. Max's overzealous attempt to be in every possible club at Rushmore. Margo and Richie's strange romance.

Perhaps I shall fall asleep, and wake up in such a world.

Weekend Wrap-up:

Friday: Went to see Garden State with T and the Prince Fan. It was just about a perfect movie, except for the last 5-10 minutes. A bit rushed, but overall I really loved this movie. "The Only Living Boy in New York" was just magnificent. And Natalie Portman is just at her best.





I'll write more about that movie another time.

Later we met up with the Duder's, had pizza, drank, started a fire, drank some more. Then I came home and felt all sorry for myself (No need to elaborate) and fell asleep.




Saturday: Mom and Dave picked me up and we drove to Joliet. For Dave's birthday we got him the Richard Petty Driving Experience. This is where you get to drive a stock car around the racetrack for 8 laps and feel like you're a big-time NASCAR driver. Dave had a blast. The guys who run this thing know what they're doing, make it a lot of fun for everyone, even though you have to sit outside in the sun for 3-4 hours.

Then we went to this place called White Fence Farm or something like that for a chicken dinner. It was tasty. The restaurant is massive, with hall after hall, antique after antique, and picture after picture of Speaker of the House Denny Hastert. (I believe his aunt and uncle own the restaurant.)

Later I hung out with T and Prince Fan some more.

Nothing too terribly exciting. This is my last week of freedom before school starts, so I'm going to make the most of it.

You know, I really should have run spell check on that long essay I wrote yesterday. For those of you who read through it all and spotted my typos, I apologize. I hate spelling mistakes. Almost as much as I hate proofreading.

By the way, the golden days of blogging are over. I think Blogger's got a whole pop-up thing going on now. Anyone notice?

First the sweet:

Bravo to Carly Patterson for winning the gold. I didn't know much about any of these gymnasts competing this year, but when I was watching them earlier this week Patterson drew my attention more than the others, because she screwed up and she knew it. There was that sad, nervous fear in her eyes, and so her victory tonight is well-earned. Good job, kid.

Now the vinegar: I give a TV Guide-quality Jeers to the NBC journalists that continually tried to paint the steely-eyed, gangly Russian Svetlana Khorkina as the Villain. Yeah, she's a diva, but she's driven and determined, and I give her a lot of credit for staying in a sport well past the median age. Plus, the Old Woman seemed to relax at the end and accepted the silver gracefully.

Movies and the Misery

"What came first--the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?"

Rob from Nick Hornby's High Fidelity.





Music never fucked me up the way movies did. A great song or a great album does nothing but make me happy. Even the saddest music in the world gives me comfort, because I realize that any pain I'm feeling at that time has been felt by plenty of other people as well. Or it just provides a great soundtrack to a bad mood.

Movies are more sinister, though. They promise something and never deliver. You spend two hours with a movie, getting lost in its world, for that brief time believing everything on the screen could happen, whether it's Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star or that a pair of star-crossed lovers might actually wind up together.

Music floats in and out of our heads, sometimes staying little more than a few weeks (like much of today's one-hit wonders) or moves in, sets up shop, and never leaves, becoming part of who we are (Revolver, Tigermilk, and Astral Weeks are just a few that own nice two-story brownstones in my brain.) Music may shape who we are, but it's a pretty benign process, merely a part of the "Stuff we like" that says little more than what our tastes are. Only the few really get fucked up from music. Think about Brian Wilson driving on a stretch of California highway, pulling over to listen to "Be My Baby" for the first time, having his mind blown by Phil Spector's Wall of Sound.

Movies, though. Movies. How many of us have walked out of a movie wishing that our lives could be like the exciting, larger-than-life worlds presented on the silver screen? When I was a child, it was of course the Star Wars trilogy that promised escape. Who wanted to live in a small Illinois town when you could be off in that galaxy far, far away, battling Stormtroopers and fighting with lightsabers? I remember being 11, on vacation in 1983, walking through a forest with my uncle, and all I could say was, "this would be a great place for a speeder bike chase."

Of course, such silly childish fantasies are replaced by something much more substantial and important: girls. Childish obsession about Star Wars is replaced by adolescent day-dreaming about pretty girls who sit next to you in Chemistry. And movies once again fuel that fire.

Let's face it: movies and our love lives should never get involved, because it's a dirty marriage of hope, dreams, and cold reality. How many of us have watched a love story unfold onscreen and think, "This is just like my life!" How many people wanted their own relationships to be just like Love Story, or Annie Hall, or Say Anything? And then the cute dialogue and happy endings of said films become the brass ring we chase after in our own love lives.

For a time, When Harry Met Sally... was that movie for me. Madly in love with a female high school friend, that damn movie whispered in my ear, "See, best friends can fall in love and live happily ever after!" And so foolishly spurred on by the false hope film promised, I got my heart broken, not for the first time.

As I became a bit older, I looked to movies not for hope, but for warning. Mature, darker movies like The Age of Innocence and The Remains of the Day showed me the dangers of not following your heart, the consequences of not "Seizing the Day," as Dead Poets Society had instructed me to do senior year. As I grew older, I saw that you couldn't compare your own life to the made-up ones depicted on-screen. Movies are entertainment, made-up stories with happy endings that aren't a whole lot like life. Your life could not be like it was in film. You would never be Lloyd Dobler.

Then in 1995 I saw a film called Before Sunrise. A young American (Ethan Hawke) meets a Parisian (Julie Delpy) in Vienna, and they spend an evening walking, talking, and falling in love. The film ends with them promising to meet again in six months, but we never find out what happens to them. They go their separate ways, and we are left to create our own version of what happened later. When I was depressed and frustrated with love, I figured they never saw each other again, because that's life, right? If I was feeling hopeful, I thought they might have a chance. Director Richard Linklater sort of anwered the question in his head-trip of a film Waking Life, where we see Jesse and Celine talking in bed, apparently happy and living together. But it was just a dream, and we never really knew.

Dream or no dream, we're still talking movies here, so it's all fake anyway, right? What made Before Sunrise different for me was that it seemed so real, so genuine. Here was a movie that got it right. I watched it over and over, sharing it with others, and always wondering. The fate of Jesse and Celine said a lot to me about how my own life was going to turn out. As my 20s faded and my love life sputtered along, I held out hope that one day I would meet someone and we would connect like those two young people in Vienna.

When I heard that a sequel was being made to Before Sunrise, my first emotion was not excitement (like when I heard that George Lucas was finally making Star Wars: Episode One), but fear. Now we would know what really happened to Jesse and Celine, and all my little versions of What Happened would be replaced by the definitive answer. I probably wasn't really worried about that. I was more worried that they would mess it up, diminishing my opinion of the original (See Star Wars: Episode One.)

So when I was walking around Cambridge, Massachusetts a couple of weeks ago, I finally bought a ticket to see Before Sunset. As the film began, I saw two characters I had known so well, only now they were older, wiser, their youthful declarations of "Let's meet up right here in six months!" replaced by a more mature outlook on life.

I won't go into the details of the film, so don't worry about spoilers. But once again, I have been fucked up by a film. Before Sunset is 90 minutes of people in their early 30s haunted by a night they spent together nine years ago. I had never really "identified" with Jesse and Celine in Before Sunrise, aside from the fact that they were my age and liked good conversation. But as I sat and watched the scene in the car, where Jesse and Celine finally unload all the baggage they've carried around with them for nine years, I started thinking about my own baggage, and what I've carried with me. I saw how that night really fucked them up, and I saw much more of myself in those two characters than I ever had before. I saw what being over 30 was really about, all the choices, compromises, and good and bad decisions you make after you start to "grow up."

During that long drive home from Boston, I thought a lot about where I've come in nine years. I saw a 32 year old who still lives like he's 23. In my small rented apartment I've shielded myself nicely from any sort of real commitment. Most of my friends have gotten married, bought houses, and are having kids. I still sit around on donated furniture watching Conan O'Brien and collecting Lord of the Rings figures, holding out for the one moment that will transform my life and make everything perfect.

Am I saying that I'm suddenly going to go out and buy a house and get married? No, of course not. But it's time to start getting serious. I'll be 33 in December, my "coming of age" in Hobbit years. (Yes, the Lord of the Rings reference implies immaturity, but give me that one.) I can't spend my entire life waiting for it to become a plot from a film.

Not that I've spent the last ten years working at a video store and living in my parents' basement. I have a very successful career, run a great theatre company, and consider myself a fairly cultured and mature guy. But there are many parts of my life I've put on hold, and many parts of my youth I've been unable to give up on. But I'm older now, and I have to start acting my age.

I'm certainly not going to give up listening to the music I like, or start buying sensible Dockers from JC Penny. I still have standards! And while I've spent a lot of time talking about how movies are fake, and evil, and deliver false promises, ironically it's Before Sunset that has woken me up a bit. And I don't even think I've figured it all out yet.

Yeah, Yeah, I haven't written much in the last few days. I'm bored with talking about the trip. (I'll post some stuff up on my travel blog this week.)

What have I been up to? A recap:

• Watched plenty of Olympic coverage. Yesterday the Americans were humbled mightily, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't like the attitude that we're going to go in and dominate every single event. Well, we didn't. I think the basketball team's loss to Puerto Rico says a lot about how some people prepared for the Olympics. Or didn't prepare. I'm not shedding any tears that Allen Iverson and Lebron James got their asses kicked by bunch of nobodies. Those nobodies probably practiced a lot more than our guys did, worked as a team more, and probably put more effort into the whole deal. Half our guys couldn't even show up to a team meeting on time. Screw basketball. I'll spend my time watching the people no one's heard of. Where's the Curling of the Summer games? (And yeah, I'd like to NOT see Michael Phelps everywhere I go for a while.)
• I feel a lot more sorry for that girl swimmer who threw up on her coach than I do for Iverson.
• Beach volleyball....oh yeah...
• Charley was nice enough to curve south of Tampa, so my nieces are just fine. I can't imagine what it must be like for everyone down there right now, though. Hope Jeb takes care of ya'll.
• Finally watched Signs last night. Sure liked it a lot more when it was called Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Pardon my David Spade.)
• 4 days until Garden State plays around here.
• While driving for hours and hours, I came to a lot of conclusions about myself. I shall expand on this further at a later date. I also saw Before Sunset. There is a lot I'd like to say about this movie as well, but I've been playing with the wording to get it just right.

I'm going to go and enjoy the remaining bits of my summer now. Swano.

Dear Hurricane Charley,

First of all, I want to say congratulations on being upgraded to a Category 4 Hurricane. That puts you up there with some of the elite 'Canes of the day. You've definitely proven that you're a bigger bad-ass than your older sister Bonnie.

But as you zoom your way towards Florida's west coast, I would like to remind you that my sister and her family reside just north of Tampa. While my brother-in-law is currently out of town on business, my sister and her two young daughters (and a mother-in-law) are currently fending for themselves in Hillsborough County.

Now I know that you're a hurricane, and that what you do is What You Do. Wind, floods, general destruction and what-not. But I'm making a special appeal to you to make sure you don't get too close to them. The girls are young and might get a little frightened by all the dark clouds, high winds, and pelting rain you're producing. While it's in your nature to be a horrific force of nature, could you make sure that you don't do too much damage down there? I'd like to still have family to come visit from time to time. And storms scare the little ones. They're great people, and I'm sure that if you took the time to get to know them, you wouldn't want to hurt them.

Thanks a lot, Charley. Good luck with that whole Category 4 thing. Keep reaching for the brass ring, and you might get to be a 5 yet!

Uncle Rock

While I was in Boston I didn't see this...

















But I did see this...



It was an exhibition of original costumes, props, models, and what-not from the Lord of the Rings films. For now, it's only US visit was Boston, so I had to see it. The exhibit featured original Alan Lee sketches of places like Bree and the Shire, or the three Elven rings, or Gandalf's complete costume and staff. The level of detail and realism of all of these items was staggering. The worn leather of Aragorn's clothing. Legolas' knives, and the worn points where Orlando Bloom's fingers had worn away the original color. At times I felt like I was walking in a museum of rare artifacts from an ancient time.

The other main attraction in Boston was the ongoing process called The Big Dig. I didn't get a chance to drive through the underground highway, but the remnants of the old expressway that used to cut right through downtown Boston are being ripped away.

This and other pictures in My Buzznet site.



The pictures don't tell much of a story, I'm afraid. You gotta go there yourself to see portions of empty highway rising up from old Boston, the green girders and piles of concrete that litter Beantown's neighborhoods, which will one day be replaced by green parkland.

I know I don't provide links very often on here, which is something a lot of bloggers do, but I guess it's something I've never latched onto much.

Anyway, here's a great column by Molly Ivins about Bush and Canada. It's a nice response to the attitude that "Just because we're America everything we do it right."

Enjoy. I'll be back later.

Apparently the Olympics have already started, because the women's U.S. Soccer team beat Greece 3-0 earlier today.

I never know what to think of the Olympics. I like them, yet I feel I'm supposed to dislike them somehow, yet another example of corporate/jingoistic puffery or something. I don't know. I still like 'em, but I'll cringe every time I see someone go overboard on Rah-Rah USA-type bluster. Don't get me wrong, I want the US to excell in everything, and win plenty of medals. I just don't want it to turn into this big, "We won the gold and that makes Iraq okay!" thing.

If you think I'm crazy, just wait and watch. Some idiot will make that comparison.

Oh yeah, and another prediction: we'll be fighting in Iran within 18 months. If you think I'm crazy, I said we'd be in Iraq on September 12, 2001. I get 'em right every now and then.

A few pictures of the WW2 Memorial in Washington D.C.




I walked around DC the day after they raised the terror level, due to "new" information about al-Qaeda wanting to hit financial centers in NY, NJ, and DC. I thought it was pretty quiet that day around the Mall, but it could have been the fact that it was 90 degrees and horribly humid.

Why did they build our nation's capital on a swamp...






More pictures in My Buzznet site.

create your own personalized map of the USA
or write about it on the open travel guide

This would be a map of all the states I visited last week. Poor Rhode Island, a little speck of unvisited white up there in the corner.

The Numbers:

In six days I drove approximately 2400 miles. I paid $125 in gas fill-ups, mostly on the turnpikes where they get you good.

In one day I drove through DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia (sort of), all of the New Jersey turnpike, the Bronx, two major Connecticut cities, before finally arriving in Concord, Massachusetts.

The total mileage from Concord to Aurora is 1009 miles.

It cost $6.00 to cross the George Washington Bridge in New York. Another $6.00 to go underneath Baltimore Harbor. I must have spent over $20.00 in tolls that day.

Right before I left I took my car in to make sure it was in good working order before I piled on the miles. $550.00 later....

I ate a lot of Subway sandwiches on the trip.

I bought no souvenirs, for myself or for others. (Sorry, folks.)

The longest traffic delay lasted about an hour in Ohio, where I cruised at 20 mph for a long, long time...

My mp3 player has about 2000 songs in it that I played at random during the trip. It was the best part of my trip, actually. Nothing like having good music to keep you company.


Random traffic searches being done in NYC after the new terror alert. (Hard to tell from the picture, though. Traffic was completely shut down going into NYC.)

Okay, so T and I went to go see The Village tonight. You will note that I didn't title it "M. Night Shyamalan's The Village." That's because the Hitchcockian director ripped this movie off, baby.

Now I like Night's films a lot, but I'm disappointed in him right now. I can't really say more right now, because I don't want to spoil it for you. But the movie has some incredible similarities to a book I read my 5th grade students every year. It's called "Running out of Time." If you know the book, then you'll know the plot of The Village.

I shall address this more later. For now, go see the movie, or read the book, or do both. Feel free to comment.

It's Sunday afternoon and I'm back home in good ole Illinois. I've been home since early Saturday. I ended up driving straight through from Boston to Chicago.

Instead of presenting my travels in day-to-day diary form, I think I'll just write about moments here and there. That's more interesting, I think.

And to make it even more screwed-up, I think I'll write about the last day first...

Friday, August 6th
Concord, Massachusetts

Checked out of the hotel and grabbed some breakfast to go from Starbucks. Drove a few miles south to Walden Pond, paid $5.00, and walked around the Nature for a while. (Yes, the image of me and a latte at the pond is a bit too city-boy, but this is the 21st Century.)

This is where Thoreau lived in a tiny little house for two years and wrote, among other things,

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.




Walden Pond was nice and peaceful, and a perfect place to spend my last morning. The plan was to drive until I was ready to stop for the night. I figured that would be somewhere in SW Pennsylvania or far eastern Ohio.

But Ohio is a temptress, people. I have made many drives from Illinois to Pennsylvania, and once you hit Ohio, you start thinking, "Hey, I'm almost home!" This is true, sometimes. Four years ago I drove from Baltimore to Illinois in a day, and the Ohio-Indiana leg can fly by if you drive hard enough.

By the time I had driven the length of Massachusetts and New York, it was early evening. Driving the short trip through Pennsylvania, I wasn't ready to stop for the night. It was only 7:00, and I started doing the math. 3 hours through Ohio. 2 hours through Indiana. An hour to get home from there. Why spend $50 or so on a hotel room I'll only use for a few hours? Do it Do it Do it!!!!!

This energy lasted until about mid-Indiana. By then it was past 1 in the morning (it does not take a mere three hours to get through Ohio, especially when you have to stop for gas, food, and a little rest. There was also a huge construction delay that lost me about 45 minutes.) My eyes were burning, and my mp3 player's batteries had finally conked out. I was only a few hours from home, but I just couldn't go any further. So pulling off at a well-populated rest area, I leaned the seat back, grabbed a pillow, and shut my eyes for an hour or so.

Around 2:30 I woke up, mildly refreshed, grabbed some food, and got back on the road. Ohio and Indiana are both very easy states to drive through. Flat, straight roads, and you don't pass through too many big cities. Until you arrive under the shadow of Chicago. There a great mass of expressways, highways, and turnpikes all converge into a huge fucking mess. This is where I left that last audioblog post. Construction delays had caused an on-ramp to come to a complete stop, where I sat for about 14 days until they let us go.

I think I finally arrived back to my doorstep around 6 in the morning, after having left the peaceful serenity of Walden Pond at 10:00 AM. 20 straight hours of driving, give or take an hour here and there for the nap, 2 major construction delays, and stops for gas.

Perhaps it's something I can look back at and say, "Fuck Yeah I drove straight from Boston to Chicago!" But right now it makes me exhausted just thinking about it. Last night I went out to dinner with my folks in Melrose Park, and just the sight of 294 or LANE CHANGE AHEAD signs just made me shiver.
Coming Soon: A D.C. post-terror alert, and the Camera Obscura show

Greetings, true believers! It's my last night in New England, and I finally have the opportunity for a quick post. Getting online out here has been one headache after another, and one I'll tell in more detail upon my return. Plenty of pictures, plenty of stories. You'll just have to wait a bit longer.

The week in brief:

• Maryland is a beautiful state to drive through
• DC is not an easy place to drive through.
• Hot, hot, hot weather in DC. But WW2 Memorial worth it.
• Camera Obscura was great.
• NYC off in the distance was an amazing vision to behold.
• Concord and Boston very pleasant.

Ehh--that's all I feel like writing about for now. Look for a new post on Sunday.