Thursday night, Kaye joined la familia in celebrating Claudia’s birthday, and then we went to the airport together, but for different flights. I managed to have found one of the only on-time planes to Chicago, but she and Mollie were not so lucky. The guy in the seat next to me on the flight offered me his finished novel halfway through the very short trip; it was curled and puffed up to twice its normal size because he got to the most exciting part while on his boat, jumped in the lake, and the book followed him in. He was crabby about the fact that he had to take a hiatus from reading to let it dry out. We exchanged travel notes (he’d been to China recently, and I’d been to Alaska), and he said he’d look for me at Lollapalooza on Saturday. Um. Sure! I hopped the blue line with a crowd of other festival-bound folks, none of whom seemed to have a clue about Chicago and spent the whole ride worrying about where to go. I realized I must be a seasoned traveler, since I never really have any concerns about finding where I’m supposed to be: if I don’t know, that’s what people are there for. I exited at Division and heard Lauren yelling, “There she is!!!” even before I saw her.

We stopped at her place long enough to drop my stuff off and toast to Minneapolis with her roommate, then headed over to Louie’s for karaoke with her new cute punk-boy pal and his North Carolina friends who were also in town for Lollapalooza. It was SO FUNNY, and, due to the house drink known as the ‘blue motherfucker’, SO DRUNK.

kevin and roy singing karaoke at louie’s

We reeled home in hysterics at 2am, and I slept in my clothes.

Friday morning, I have no clue how Lauren got up and went to work, but she managed it. I slept in, spent time in the bathroom with Joe (I love that cat), talked on the phone a lot, then headed downtown to meet Kaye and Mollie. We headed into Lollapalooza, and the rocking commenced.

panic! at the disco

kaye and mollie stretching

raconteurs

My favorite bands that day were Panic! At the Disco (which featured burlesque dancers), the Raconteurs (because I love Jack White as it is, but Jack White in a southern-rock band? Drool.), and the Violent Femmes, because everyone loves the Violent Femmes. Afterwards, we met Lauren by the Bean in Millennium Park, and she and I headed to dinner at Bandera, a restaurant far too fancy for our dress (and my smelliness), but who cares?

Afterward, we met up with a dude named Walt at Watertower Park, stormed through the crowds of date rapists lining the streets of Chicago, and hopped a bus to what Lauren promised to be the most annoying hipster bar in town, the Rainbo Club. She was right; we couldn’t move more than ten feet from the doorman, it was so crowded. And smoky. And pretentious. We actually talked to a few dudes who were pretty funny, but not funny enough to make us stick around longer than a drink. We bailed around one o’clock and headed off to find another spot, finally deciding on Subterranean, when Lauren ran into a friend of hers nearby. We hung out with him for a while, then headed home.

Lauren and I got up Saturday and went to have brunch at the Bongo Room, which was excellent. We also bought me some sunglasses, which I still have to this day. That’s a new record, and I probably just jinxed it.

me in the bathroom at the bongo room, with amazing sunburn.

We saw several shows Saturday, but the one that I’d have paid the entire ticket price for was Lyrics Born. Mollie and I got there early to get a spot near the front, ending up about three people back.

lyrics born. i love this man.

By halfway through the show, I was against the railing, and totally fucking thrilled about it. I emerged from the show drenched in sweat and gasping for air, my camera chock-full-o-videos that I should probably post somewhere to share the awesomeness. Afterwards, I stuck around for Blackalicious, and was surprised at how much of their music I still knew. I was also giggling inside at the conversation the kids were having next to me: they basically discovered hiphop that day.

blackalicious

I met Kaye by a pole for half of the Dresden Dolls, and then took off on a mission: to get Lauren at the station and go find a little bit of Minneapolis in Chicago. She told me to hop in the last car so she could find me at the Damen stop, only I got turned around and got in a car very near the front instead. At each of the next four stops, I’d hop out of the train, run as far as I could before the doors began to close, and then hop into another car further down the line. I really hope no one knew what I was up to, because it was comical. But I did finally achieve the last car, met up with her at the correct stop, and we were on our way to the Abbey Pub to see P.O.S..

We got there early enough to get dinner, including curry fries, which are good enough to fantasize over, oh my god. We heard the sound check finish, the side door opened, and P.O.S. walked in. I almost peed my pants with excitement. But of course, there are like two people in the universe I’m too intimidated to talk to, and he’s currently one of them. We met some boys in line who were excited that I was from Mpls, and one of them was convinced he’d seen me at shows, so we compared notes. We went in and talked to Sims and Cecil Otter at the merch table about Hiphop and Harmony and Lollapalooza, and then the COMPLETE AWESOMENESS OF THE SHOW BEGAN.

the aristacats

mictlan

doomtree!

p.o.s.

artist outside the show

It was so great I can’t even really describe it, except that it involved a lot of yelling and dancing and jumping around and whiskey and picture-taking, many of which you will find in the usual place. I have more videos as well. P.O.S. rocked our pants right off, and I daresay Lauren the punk girl might even be a new hiphop convert. At least a little bit. After the show, we went back and talked to them some more, I was still too intimidated to do much but shake P.O.S.’ hand, we met Psalm One, and some people left with my number we can hang out when they’re in town for Atmosphere at the end of September. All in all, the best show ever, yet again.

lauren

We hopped a cab back to Lauren’s neighborhood and stopped at 7-11 for large bottles of water, which shared the bed with us that night.

Sunday morning, we got up and went downtown to Millennium Park to take about 400 photos of the bean, aka the Cloud Gate. I could probably stare at that thing all day. We sat and watched the kids in the fountain, then wandered back into downtown to find food. We found Kaye and Mollie there, so I headed back to Lollapalooza with them.

I was very excited to see the Hold Steady with their many many Minneapolis shout-outs (and also the fact that Craig had shown up to perform with P.O.S. the previous night at the Abbey). My second-favorite show was Queens of the Stone Age, although the Kids from the School of Rock kicked ridiculous amounts of ass for being so young.

the hold steady

In the evening, Lauren and I went to Piece (aka the Luce of Chicago) for dinner, and for a short while it seemed like a really great idea to go out after that; however, by the end of dinner, we were both dragging. I was sore from the walking, the rocking, the sunburn, and the general awesomeness. We went back to her place to hang out, and then I passed out hard.

On the flight home Monday, reveling in another first class upgrade with my legs curled underneath me on the seat, having survived a very large drop over Lake Michigan which went unexplained by the cabin crew but did not leave us entirely unrattled, I was peering down at the immense patchwork of farms in Wisconsin, remembering that I leapt headfirst towards that the other week wearing nothing but a hot guy with a parachute, and I was a grinning fool. And then I realized that for the rest of my life, I’ll always have had more takeoffs than landings.

I think that’s a really beautiful metaphor.