chicago: we the living

and you thought tuesday, thursday and friday were nuts? nay, my friends. just you wait. i had completely ruled out chicago weeks and weeks beforehand; i knew how tired i'd be by the end of #bestweekever and a seven hour drive just wasn't an option. i had already told the guys i wasn't going, too, and had pretty much written it off without much more thought. well nora tweeted me at some point during the week about it, and i immediately told her no way. then i hopped in the shower. now, i don't know about you, but the shower is my sacred place where i do all of my thinking, brooding, and contemplating, and come to all kinds of epic philosophical revelations. well, it was during that very shower, while i was conditioning my hair to be precise, that i made up my mind. i made up my mind to bite the bullet and make the trip up north to see we the living. i got out of said shower, texted nora, she told me i was crazy, and we planned out my eighteen hour jaunt. hot damn.

so saturday morning came way too quickly for my liking; seven hours of sleep was not enough for adequate catch-up time. but i rolled myself out of bed, showered, threw some clothes in my backpack, and packed up the car. my wonderful roommate had even made breakfast, so i enjoyed toast, bacon and the best coffee ever before heading north. the drive was relatively painless. it ended up being about six hours since for one, i was only going to la grange, and thus, two, skipped out on all the traffic of the city. i made it nora's house a little before seven. nora's friend olivia had made the last minute decision to fly in from nashville, so we had ourselves a little trio heading into to the city by around eight or so. we wandered around for a while, eventually got dinner, and headed on over to schuba's. they hung out in the bar for a while [since we the living didn't even go on until midnight, eek.] and i ventured into the venue and met up with all muh frands. so good seeing sam, stephanie, nikki and claire. love them!

it was so very entertaining running into each of the guys. brian saw me first and freaked out. "oh my god! you came!" precious. and then adam saw me and exclaimed "holy cow!"; then matt came over, shook his head at me, and we proceeded with a normal conversation [okay, so our conversations are never normal, but you know...]. ben didn't see me until he was up on stage. we made eye contact, he cocked his head, and gave me such a puzzled look. too funny. i am easily entertained. anyways, they played a fantastic set and i am so in love with both their original new music, and their new boom forest cover of travis' happy to hang around. can't get enough of it. also can't get enough of the new version of sound of love. so so good. matt also has a new favorite activity - in st. louis during 'all i need' he had pointed to me and katie and motioned for us to start slow dancing together. we laughed and complied, and had a quite a few spins around the dance floor. well this time, once again, matt pointed at me. i had no idea what he wanted at first, but it dawned on me. so i turned to megan,who was standing next to me and we slow danced our little hearts out. thanks matt.

my gaggle of girls left pretty quickly since they too had been on a crazy roadtrip of their own for a few days. so i hung around the venue for awhile after they left, talked to various people, and met ben's girlfried kelly who's probably the cutest thing on planet earth. we bonded over manchester orchestra and it was lovely. utterly ridiculous conversations then took place with matt and adam, we eventually sauntered out into the bar area, and chaos began. schuba's bar area is strictly 21+ and i was a minor. so i was royally pissing off the door guy who kept informing me to LEAVE NOW every ten minutes. sorry my ride is twenty two; do you want me to roam the streets for two hours? awesome, okay. so while i was avoiding eye contact with evil door man, matt and i bonded over how blind we are, and jp showered me wish adorable compliments and asked about my anxiety disorder. HA. clearly word travels fast in the van. those boys, i tell ya. they just kill me. we finally headed out, ate white castle at four in the morning and i passed out hardcore. the morning was unkind, but coffee helped to clear the hallucinations [err, what...?] and i was on my way back to columbia by around one. what a whirlwind. it was a good few hours in chicago, and i'd do it again in a heartbeat.

have i mentioned how much i love my touring life?