I easily could have handled sleeping longer. But it was nice for me (and for those around me) to take a shower. I never noticed libraries being particularly odoriferous before, but I guess if you hang around one long enough, you start to pick up a smell.

I had an omelet. With cheese. I love omelets. And cheese. Real food fill real man heap good.

Gabe and I boarded the bus back to Chicago and, helplessly tired, conked out. We arrived in the late afternoon. I love Chicago. It is the greatest city anywhere, ever. And I'm not just saying that because I'm from there and it is now. Rome was all right in its day, but you can get pretty good Italian food in Chicago, and the architecture is decidedly more modern.

Had I known that the Chicago terminal's electronic departure schedule would be wildly inaccurate, or that the psycho hose beast at the gate would respond “You think this is an airplane?” when I asked if Gabe and I would be likely to be able to sit together on what looked like a fairly full bus to Cleveland, we could have spent some quality hours about Chi-town. As it turned out, we just waited in the dreary bus terminal while the schedule skewed itself toward making sense again. Thank goodness for readily available People magazines. Gabe read it twice through.

We talked to a girl sitting across from us with her baby and more than a few belongings. She was moving to Florida (via Greyhound) to live with her family, because it was too expensive living alone with the baby. When the time came, we helped her move her things to her bus, then boarded ours, where a noisy family sat around us, two behind and two in front. No peace for our tired ears, but even less for the mom in charge of her young kids.

Against this backdrop, I am reminded of how glad I am to stand alone. I appreciate the degrees of freedom afforded me by having significant responsibilities only to myself. At some point in the future, this may no longer be true; I am enjoying it while it lasts.