Somehow the day was bleeding slower than usual; somehow I'd stopped around 3.

And as tequila's retarded 2nd cousin swam in my pipes, I remembered a story...

What can be said of friday mornings. Somehow they go down easier and get forgotten more quickly. Mine had come without any strings attached, though. I was off for the day, and I intended to make good on it.

The ride ahead was pretty simple: five hours and change of driving from this town to Jen's place. Chicago was a speed bump in the way, along with the low-hanging branches of the I-90.

Toll roads. I fucking loathe toll roads.

I took my time in getting lunch, sending a round of e-mails, IM's, making sure nothing and noone would explode until I got back. I decided on my bright-loud orange, red and black dragons shirt, a black long-sleeve, and some charcoal grey pants. Ubiquitous as ever were my flip-flops with the arab strap.

This is a hole of a city. It's a nice hole, but the design is simple: it doesn't want you to leave. So you struggle out of this codependent relationship of semi-rises and endless cafes, weaving past pedestrians jogging across busy streets. The drivers are even more incompetent than in Los Angeles. But with luck, and a sturdy middle finger, I hacked my way out and headed east.

Cheeseland passed by without a sound. I almost shuddered when I saw Illinois coming up.

For the record, Illinois is a piss-hole nightmare to drive through. Well-meaning Save the Highways Democrats decided way back when that toll roads were a porcelain god everyone needed to piss in. And if you wanted to get to Michigan from anywhere up north--Christ and country help you, because the toll masters wouldn't.

I got change at one of those godless 'Oasis' joints. Got an apple pie out of the deal, at least.

Things were great until Chicago. Along I-90, you eventually hit 'the loop'. If you've never been, all you need to know is that it's a black hole, a monstrous vortex that sucks your time one precious, idle second at a time. Rush hour had started early, it seemed, and a hearty slop of road construction on the side. To keep from overheating, I turned off my AC, the vent, rolled down my windows, and admired the heat waves.

Miles crawled by like maimed soldiers.

It got moderately better until downtown proper. Somehow, civil engineers decided 3-4 lanes of traffic would suffice for commuters, out-of-town fucks, and jack-off locals. Los Angeles has a proper 6 lane highway within a rock's throw of damn near everywhere. Just another big midwest city huffing paint fumes and cock. Seem to be alot of those.

Near along Gary was another craze. Apparently a crane had snapped and dropped 1/2 mile stretch of freeway onto another freeway. Thankfully it wasn't my freeway. Rubbernecking eye beasts stretched far in front, but eventually we collectively forgot about it entirely. One of the better qualities of Americans.

Sometime around then I called Jen. She was going to dinner. Then karaoke. I wouldn't have anyone to direct me when I got to town. Needless to say, sitting in a metal sauna box surrounded on all sides didn't help my mood.

And, eventually, I cheered as Illinois and the last toll gate died behind me. Things were much quicker after that. I decided food at Mc's was a good thought, going even farther to try this selection chickens of theirs. Not half bad for a godless global fart of a corporation.

It was late dusk when I rolled into town, more specifically when I got to Jen's place. What followed was a series of phone calls that got me lost twice trying to get to her friend Rachel's place. I'd upgraded to being pissed off at this point. Not even the french took this long to eat dinner. Where was she?

Backwoods road sign reading at night by yourself ain't a crowd pleaser, what can I say.

But I made it to Rachel's. And summarily met her fabulously wonderful family. I mean these people were gold. But I had a new task: to get to the place Jen was doing karaoke. She hadn't waited for me to come to town, she hadn't offered to come and get me, she was just at karaoke and I needed to get there. Considering I'd driven 7 hours, had heat-stroke, and gotten lost twice in the rural township already, I was not at all happy about having to drive more, let along getting lost again.

Everyone I asked directions for (twice) assured me it was easy. And each time I got a mix of 'turn here on this street, over this overpass, past this stoplight, along this highway to the first exit, past this, turn here, turn there, go straight..." and it all in short order sounded like gargled Mandarin Chinese. I wanted to stab myself for not bringing a pen.

Eventually, after getting lost again for at least a good 30 minutes, getting turned around a few times and boiling over into ragingly fucking pissed off, I found the place.

I was ready to yell at her by that point for the degree of inconsideration on her part. Hypothetically, I personally would have stopped whatever I was doing to to make sure she arrived ok. But despite all that it was her birthday, and I basically snapped my fingers and made the anger go away. Instead, I set myself to neutral and walked inside.

It was a decently lit midwestern bar, filled with patrons that looked either rural midwest or rural southern. A biker here, an older hot mama/MILF there, and of course the scorchingly hot cock-teases. I found Jen's table as she was singing Evanescence. She was damn good, with a vibrato and power that just came out. She came back, smiled, and we hugged. It'd been 3 years since I saw her. We'd sporadically talked here and there, just enough to keep the friendship up--but recently we'd gotten closer again.

Anyway, the rest of the night was one song after another. Jen's cute date played wireless poker while she got the royalty treatment. Seemed like she knew damn near every regular in that bar. Seemed like alot of fun people, too, and I got to work on my introductory dimple smile and eye contact greeting thingy. At a few points Jen was hug-whacked by this uncharacteristically cute girl her age or so, Natalie. And just the body type I like. We got to talking over the raging blast of karaoke for awhile. At around that point, Rachel came by off her job. Hugs and brew were had by all. I switched from my shit-in-a-bottle guinness to a more respectable tall Tanqueray and Tonic.

The trick here was that Jen wanted Rachel and I to possibly hook up. I'd talked to Rachel, she was kick ass and cool, but I knew in pretty short order nothing else was happening. But Natalie's thigh pressed up against mine and the way she was leaning in and smiling, well, let's say I'm not completely out to lunch when it comes to noticing what people do.

In short order, Jen leaned over, said 'nah', gave a short explanation that was lost to booming noise, and then went with Rachel to I assume the restroom or some place. And after that, Rachel and Natalie. For 'girl talk'. And I could guess exactly why. You can probably guess why too. Whatever was said didn't have much impact on Nat, though. Kindof was a shame she left early. I was hoping to get some drunken waist holding going. Even if she was 'on the prowl' after dumping boyfriend X, I wanted me some human contact.

There was a big party on saturday, so I asked if she was coming. She smiled and said yeah. I figured I'd play it cool, then, build up the anticipation on both ends.

So eventually the night came to a close. I was taking a leak when some dude sauntered in. He farted, said "Oooh yeah", unzipped his fly, and let loose. I just stood there. When he was done, I fucking kid you not, he let loose a 6 second squelching, thunderous, mega fart that put to shame anything I'd ever heard. His comment? "Damn that shit stink!"

Sweet God I could barely keep myself from laughing my ass off.

Jen, Rach, and I then went to drive off, but not before the very, very drunk other birthday girl of the night came over. Jen wanted out of the conversation, fast. I admired the view. For some reason the drunk chick was really concerned about me driving home drunk. I told her I was fine, she giggled, then piled into a truck with her fuck of the evening.

Damn if only it were that easy.

Jen went back to her place, Rach and I to hers. I got to talking with her and her folks for a really good long while. Her mom was pretty hip for being in what I guessed was her 60's, and used some of the same slang Rach did. The atmosphere was really laid back, very friendly, very accomodating. It couldn't have been more different from the first day of the Las Vegas trip if you tried. There were scads and scads of cats and dogs to scratch and pet and nuzzle, and they all loved me. Given how cool people were to me at the bar (and how, ah, friendly Natalie was), I got the feeling this would be a great trip.

Even my sleeping den was awesome. Only thing of note was my taking a picture of a picture. It was of Rach's older brother and her girlfriend. It was...perfect. I starred at it for 10 minutes. It was him sortof gnaw-kissing her cheek with the side of his mouth, and her laughing about it. I just marvelled at how much emotion was there, how genuine and quirky it was.

But considering the day, I wanted to sleep. And I did. Like flat coke.

previous - next