Improbably restful natural sleep has happened three times so far on the tour (twice at Carol and Elizabeth's and now once at Rebecca's) and I'm beginning to think ballerinas are somehow more effective than Ambien. When we got to Marian College, where we were hosted by Andrew Scott (pictured below, rocking the mic), whose fiction chapbook Modern Love I highly recommend... 
...I couldn't decide which section of Live Nude Girl to read, so I asked the students, some of whom are pictured here... 
...to kick it democracy-style and vote for whether they wanted to hear a chapter that was more about sex, or one that was more about death. As in Carbondale, sex won by a landslide, even though (or maybe because?) it was a Catholic college, and we were clearly, as indicated by the World's Largest Cross by the side of I-57...
... in God's country. After the reading, Kyle and I parted ways, not to be reunited until May 18th, when we'll be reading with Zach Dodson and Gina Frangello in Chicago at the Book Cellar. He headed down the lonesome highway to Muncie, and I went to Carmel with one of my oldest friends, Liz...
...who I met 15 years ago, during our freshman year at Downers Grove North High School in Downers Grove, Illinois. Go Trojans! Thanks to her, her husband Dustin, and their son Marcus (pictured here, being really excited about drinking tiny bits of water from his mom's plastic straw)...
...for having me, and for driving me to the Megabus stop downtown this morning, so that I could be delivered safely back to Chicago this early afternoon.In conclusion, here is a picture of a record-player that was in the same room as the ballerinas:
Why? Mostly because I like it. But also maybe because it feels like Kyle and I have set some kind of record in the world of DIY touring? And because I never met a pun I didn't like? I'm inevitably sad when something comes to an end, even when said something sort of sucked sometimes (which, for the record (Get it? Sorry, I can't help myself.) this tour pretty much didn't). So I am happy to say that this is not good-bye, not yet. This is still until next time.
