The Second Tuesday (From the Arch to Chi-Town pt 1)

I'm laying on an air mattress in the basement of Aaron Katzs girlfriend's basement uploading something like a hundred and eighty photos to a photobucket account I made while Aaron, Adam, and Alyssa (the wonderful provider of our place to sleep (wait, maybe that's her parents(Of course, that isn't all that important, but I ask you, who doesn't like a ton of parenthesis?(See?)))) are still sleeping, or at least trying to. I'm sure the clack of keyboard typing and Alyssa's cat jumping around and opening doors doesn't help.
We'll be leaving Chicago soon. I'm not so sure that's where we are at the moment, Alyssa lives in a suburb, but I do know that I'm still going to call this Chicago, and in whatever strange corner of my brain this place and the memories I accrued here will inhabit, this will still be linked with Chicago.
But then, I don't feel we've had any kind of substantial update since Nashville. I'll try to catch you guys up, but it's a bit of a daunting task. Our days are packed, our nights are packed, my dreams have been packed, and the coming weeks don't seem like they'll be any slower at all.
We slept in the car in St. Louis. It was roughly three hundred thousand degrees and more humid than the ocean. At least. The preceding night we were offered a place to stay by a homeless man that gave us a Columbia shirt, an embroidered lighter holder, and a meat thermometer. He turned in a circle and said "Yo, you could camp at my sisters! Let me go get here." We waited for him to walk down the street and then drove away. I wonder where our sense of adventure went.
We walked around St. Louis, saw the arch, went on the Anheuser-Busch tour, and then went to Soulard market place. We met a homeless man named Reggie who was holding a DVD player in a brown-paper bag. He told me that white people used to laugh at black people for the type of gauges I have in my ears. Then he asked us if he speaks like a nigger. Then he free styled and beat boxed. Then we gave him three dollars and told him to have a good day.
We gave away six dollars in total to the homeless in St. Louis, a city surrounded and filled with mansions.
We left St. Louis for Indianapolis later that day. We made it to within forty miles and stayed at a camp site. The night was going fine, we made rice and beans on the propane stove, went and bought fire wood, then spent the rest of the night trying to make a fire. The wood was soaked through with water, and every bed of coals we made sizzled and popped with moister pockets. It never really picked up.
While we were sitting watching and working on the fire, we heard rustling by our other picnic table. Aaron shined a light on it. A raccoon grabbed our bread and ran into the woods. That fucker. The raccoon would spend the rest of the night making noises as though dying and rummaging around our tent for food. Adam slept with his hands on a Hatchet and his pocket knife.
We went into Indianapolis for the day following that night. We went to a place called Bazbeaux's Pizza for brunch, then to the IMA. I saw Ma Jolie again, I had forgotten how much it ruins me. There are very few pieces of visual art that can tug at my heart strings, but Ma Jolie seems to do it more or less every time I see it. Ugg.
We ran into a man waiting at a bridge near the Lily house to propose to his girlfriend. He was wearing a nice suit and the day was just hot. I hope she said yes. I hope they are happy.
After that we drove to Chicago. We met Alyssa at Goose Island for a couple of beers before Aaron headed to her place and Adam and I went to Sam Young's apartment. I thought the night was soon to be over, instead we stayed up and watched Beavis and Butthead until I fell asleep on the couch.
We woke up early the next day, Ilana (Sam's girlfriend(see, how much do you like these)) showed us around Chicago. We hit up Navy Pier, down around the Mag Mile, and then went to a place called R.J. Grunts with a guy named Neil that we met the previous night. They had homemade potato chips and massive sandwiches.
Ilana and Neil were both good people, I'm glad we met them.
After that we headed to a pub named the Abbey for Ricky's show. We were forced to wait outside by a fat bouncer who seemed more than a little upset with life. But we hung out and had free drinks and listened to DJ Sluggo. After that we went to a pretty crazy party packed with people and a terrible DJ. The cops showed up in full force, a paddy-wagon and a couple of cruisers. We were cattled out onto the street and made our way, more miracle than motion, back to Sam's apartment.
We had been in Chicago for a little over twenty-four hours by that point, I was pretty sure that it was to be as ridiculous a time as I could want.
But for now, we're going to go get breakfast at Superdog, finish our laundry, and then head out for Milwaukee today. Yes, it'sn ot really on the list, but we've heard so much about it that it would seem like a crime not to visit.
This trip is more than I could have expected.

Signed,
Andrew