Dawn Xiana Moon: Melodic folk pop infused with passion and honesty. From Chicago.

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Saturday, July 09, 2005

Anatomy of a Spontaneous Road Trip, Part II

Read Part I here. The following may not entirely make sense otherwise.

Sunday 1:45pm: After killing time by watching Strong Bad Emails, the tow truck (with its break-into-your-car tools) finally arrives, half an hour later than they said they'd be. (Note: this was the second time Jeremy had locked his keys in his trunk this month.) A few minutes later, we're on the road at last.

Sunday 3:00pm: A mere two hours after leaving the post, we get a phone call saying from Mike, a math PhD student at the University of Chicago, who says that we're welcome to crash with him for the night. Dancers are awesome! (Some quick background: lindy hoppers are generally good about housing out-of-towners, even ones they don't know, usually in conjunction with large events. But this was still absolutely incredible. And no, neither of us knew him before this weekend.)

Sunday Night: After spending some time catching up on work of various sorts (philosophy and art history readings for me, rewriting a resume for Jeremy) at a Borders, we meet up with Mike and go dancing. When we arrive at Willowbrook, Jeremy realizes that he's forgotten to bring socks (he was wearing sandals), a problem when you need to wear dance shoes. So he heads off to find a store and Mike and I go inside. I meet a bunch of locals and some dancers who are visiting from Milwaukee. And dance with a follow who is so heavy that after just one song, my lead arm is sore until the following Thursday. But overall, we have a blast that night.

Monday Morning: Jeremy and Mike are up earlier than I am (is anyone really surprised?); Jeremy leaves to have breakfast with the guy he's thinking about rooming with for the fall. When I get up, Mike and I have a great conversation about blues and lindy music--he's just starting to DJ and so am I.

Monday Afternoon: I'm supposed to meet up with my friend Jane so we can get lunch in Chinatown, and Mike graciously walks me to the bus stop to make sure I get on the right one and pays for my ticket since I don't have exact change. (How awesome is that?) Jane and I meet downtown and take the subway to the Penang restaurant, where I'm ecstatic about getting to eat Singaporean food. (One of the distinguishing characteristics about anyone from Singapore: we love our food. And will travel for miles to get it. It's an obsession to the point of my relatives--on both sides--together planning out half of my meals in advance when I tell them I'm visiting so they can make sure I'm not going to miss eating anything.)

Monday Evening: Jeremy meets up with me in Chinatown and we head north to find a BBQ that's being hosted by the church he wants to attend come fall. I decide that wandering around town myself would be more interesting than the BBQ, so we split up again. I stumble upon an Algerian creperie, and since crepes remind me of Paris I end up ordering a dark chocolate crepe and reading Plato. Bryan calls and tells me that he's bought food if we want to BBQ, and since I figure Jeremy's going to be at his for least another hour and a half, Bryan and his friend Jonah pick me up from the café. Ten minutes later, Jeremy calls to say that he was never able to find the church group and what was I up to? So we turn back around to find him so he can follow us to Bryan's house in Evanston.

Monday Night: Michiganders invade Chicago. Bryan did his PhD at U-M, so knows a lot of Michigan people--apparently when I'd called on Saturday, I called right after two other friends who still live in Ann Arbor just said they'd also be in town on Monday. As people start to arrive, I meet Gabe, who used to give violin lessons to Anna Draper, who sometimes plays with me. I haven't seen her in a while, and he tells me that he'd invited her to come to Bryan's but she'd decided not to go because she wouldn't know anyone. So I call her and convince her to find a ride out. Another random coincidence: the string players are all in town for a Suzuki camp, and one of the others who comes is Andrea (PhD #3 for the weekend), who knows me from swing dancing. We'd talked via the Detroit message boards, and now I have a face for the name. In total, there are nine of us that night, all from Michigan--and six are just visiting. Spontaneous lindy hop breaks out at one point (there are four dancers in the room). After everyone leaves, the three of us talk late into the night--at some point Jeremy goes to bed but Bryan and I can't stop until the sun starts to rise (which explains why I sleep most of the drive home).

Tuesday Morning: Bryan makes us breakfast (awww) and leads us to the freeway--Jeremy and I head home, stopping at Starbucks to inject some caffeine into his veins.

Tuesday Afternoon: I sleep for half the drive--he's interviewing and talking to people on the phone anyway--and when I wake up we make plans with the rest of the contingent that's coming for a dance event in Chicago next Saturday (yup, that's two weekends in a row). I get home just in time to teach a lesson and go dancing that evening.

Quotable Quotes:"I put on this facade of being irresponsible" (Jeremy). "The one thing that's true about all human beings is that in serious relationships, we're all just a little insane" (Bryan).

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