Good-bye, you City of Wind

Accomplished today: Finished packing, lugged four bags around city and Union Station, had doubts upon doubts upon doubts, shed tears for some reason

Well, the adventure begins. I’m scared as hell but there is, quite literally, no turning back now. I’m on the Amtrak train and headed into the wilds of Michigan. Battle Creek, actually. Dragging all of my stuff around Chicago and, then, Union Station was kind of an adventure all on its own. I opted for the cab from home to downtown after I got outside and it started to rain. An omen of things to come? Maybe. So I got to Union Station and it really hit me. I am leaving this city for two months. I have opted out of four different shows, I have chosen not to crash the Steppenwolf auditions next week (which might have been a good thing for me to do), and I have quit my fairly steady and easy day job to do this crazy gig out in Turkeyville, USA. Yikes.

I dragged my four bags all the way down the length of the train to get on and ditch my bag wherever I could and get a seat. I settled in as the other passengers boarded and found their own places to sit. I condensed and got myself situated. Before too long, a very attractive alterna-chick walked by, all pierced lips and dressed in pink and asked the guy in the seat in front of me if she could sit next to him. He’s got that 13 year-old fuzzy half-mustache thing workin’ and he’s right this minute impressing her (in all seriousness…I’m baffled) with his Rubix Cube prowess. An omen of things to come? I’m frightened.

There’s little chance that I would be able to find a wireless connection on a moving train so I’m not even going to try but it would be nice to send out e-mails or IM some folks (they know who they are). Just to have some sort of contact with people that I know and like. (Yes, even ex-girlfriends, I suppose.) Maybe it will help ease me into this whole “being completely out on my own” thing. But then again, maybe this is all just better done if I do it like a band-aid or something. Rip this free. Just…be gone without looking back and without regretting what I’ve done or how I maybe have handled some things or without worrying about what might lay three hours East and two months in the future. Or maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better by, once again, over-thinking things.

The train has stopped. We’re letting a very slow freight train play through. Or something. I don’t even pretend to know how these things (scheduling and all) might work. So I’m just a captive. Stuck in this tin can with attractive young girls, child prodigies, and other assorted strangers. I’m not yet out of Chicago and I’m on a stopped train sitting next to another now-stopped train over a highway I’ve probably been on but don’t recognize. Static, unable to do anything about my situation, over-looking people who are going somewhere, in my own head about everything…Jesus, you don’t need to be any kind of genius to see that this is very much a metaphor for my life. Want more proof? I’m going to go get a damn beer.