Freedom of Choice

Here's a tip for those travelling to the UK: you have to turn the electrical outlets on. Sure, there are some outlets in the houses and apartments I have lived in that control outlets, but in general, most outlets are just on. This, as I found out after toiling with my lamp for about twenty minutes, is not true in the UK. I was joking about this with one of my housemates: "In America, we give our kids the freedom to electrocute themselves. That way it weeds out the slow ones."

In retrospect, there might be something to this. America is often times held up as the bastion of Freedom, particularly by other Americans who like to jam Freedom down the throats of those imagined not to have it. Then, if you dislike America, it's because you don't like Freedom.

In many ways, though, this dogma is very much true. Though I don't own a gun, and though I don't think they are necessary, I often find myself debating the grey area of gun control laws with the British or others who have these misguided beliefs that most Americans tote around assault rifles. Honestly, I have a problem with the government telling it's citizens what it can and cannot posses. Certainly, there is a lot of evidence that suggests guns lead to higher levels of people dead by bullets to the body, but the claims that America is a more violent country because the gun crime is significantly higher there than anywhere else is a bit of a fallacy. While the UK has a famously low amount of crime involving guns, there is an elevated number of knifing injuries. To claim that the UK is more safe than America because less people shoot each other would be like claiming that Florida is a safer place because less people get mauled by polar bears. This is not to say that the UK and the US are on par in crime, but just to say that I am skeptical of the claims that more guns lead to more violence. More guns certainly mean more gun violence, much in the same way that more polar bears lead to more polar bear violence.

Ironically, while Americans are staunchly against letting the government tell them what high powered killing machines they can have in their homes, they have been particularly small minded when it comes to other Freedoms, like the choice to do drugs, or for same-sex people to get married. Currently, only five of the fifty states will allow same-sex marriages, and three others will recognize the union, but fail to administer the ceremony. California famously flip-flopped, which to me signaled the death of the Legalize It movement, looking to legalize marijuana consumption (California being a hot bed of this debate as well). Since the early 2000s, several states have gone out of their way to define marriage constitutionally as the union of a man and a woman. Vermont has really pushed the hardest for same-sex marriage, and clearly the other states are right to assume that the America will crumble if two same-sex people marry. Look at the horrible conditions people live in in Vermont?

The argument here is that same-sex marriage is dangerous, and degrades the fiber of marriage as a whole. While I find it hard to claim anything for the sanctity of marriage when divorce rates are as astronomical as they are, I find it surprisingly ironic that at one time it can be said that guns don't do damage, but same-sex marriage does. If we really want to uphold the sanctity of marriage, why not make it harder for everyone to get married, and make it harder to divorce. Really, nothing says sacred like a drunken ceremony in Vegas with Elvis as your witness to someone you just met earlier that evening (and from whom you can be divorced by tomorrow evening).

When thinking about how same-sex marriage can effect the sanctity, again look at Vermont. Has Vermont been turned into modern day Sodom and Gamora? Is it overrun with same-sex bacchanal parties that rage into the night, shoving indecency into the faces of God-fearing Vermontians? Has the maple syrup industry faltered at all?

The UK, on the other hand, does not allow for same-sex "marriage," per se, but does allow civil unions. And, actually, if I could prove that another man and I had a symbiotic relationship, the UK Border Agency would recognize this person as a dependent, allowing him to come with me on my student visa. The civil union here carries more weight than in America, and two people who can show proof of a shared and dependent existence can file for all the same legal rights as a married couple. This is really the heart of the issue there: equality of rights. It might not mean so much when a country doesn't require extremely expensive insurance for heath care, but still, it's nice to know that you can act as someone's better half in legal concerns. This has managed to skirt the issue nicely, avoiding the completely ridiculous debate over the moral and ethical ramifications of two people getting married.

In America, these debates have been fueled on both sides by the heavily slanted media. While it is certainly true that Fox News is a hot bed of misrepresentation and deception (Glenn Beck is a horrible person, deeply and truly), MSNBC and CNN are equally problematic. I know the idea of a state run news organization brings to mind pictures from 1984 or V for Vendetta, but this is one area I think the British have gotten it right. On the BBC, the news casters are forbidden from expressing any bias, from slanting the news in any direction. In fact, if by facial expression, delivery or other verbal or nonverbal clue, a newscaster does slant the news, he or she would be fired. Of course, this is censorship, plan and simple. The State has made it illegal for certain interpretations to be read as news. The Red Blooded American in me is looking for torches at this point, ready to defend my Amendment Rights against some deep seeded conspiracy, but the more logical side of me realizes that certain things should be censored. Let me clarify: it would be wrong for the State run news program to stifle a story simply because it caused problems for an agenda. That said, it is equally as wrong for something claiming to be fair and balanced, or claiming to be unbiased in any way.

Here's where we return to the light sockets and Freedom: it seems the UK make it illegal to do things that will only lead to painful mistakes, like owning guns or having a 24-hour news station with a hostile and aggressive agenda. See, without a media outlet, these fringe ideas, talking heads, and dogmatic thinking can't build momentum. And, in the end, that might be best for everyone involved. It's a lot harder to get mad about something if someone isn't constantly telling you to get mad about it. If presented with a situation, devoid of all bias, left to form individual opinions, I would hope that most people would see that same-sex marriage is not really a question the State should be dealing with, and that assault rifles are not necessary for protecting one's home. In the end, that's really what everyone wants from their government: the forward thinking to keep us all safe.

Some Reflections on Narrative, Memory and My Position in Space

I am here, as I keep reminding myself, to write a dissertation. One on comics. Which brings me to my first point: things in my life are surreal.

I have been reading Seymour Chatman's Story and Discourse, a dense narratologist text that deals with several aspects of narrative. What I am particularly interested in currently is the way stories are conveyed (i.e. told). That is, stories exist only as means of communicating. That communication didn't exist before I decided to tell it. For example, today I walked home. That certainly is a story. It conveys to you, the reader, that I, the subject, did something, walked home. Before I decided to tell you this story, though, it was just a series of random events that happened halfway across the globe from most of you, and down the street from the rest. The above italicized sentence does several things to those events: 1) it temporalizes them, placing the action squarely in today; 2) it gives them purpose; that is, the walk is no longer arbitrary, but from one point to a destination; 3) it relates the purpose to something that you, the reader, can empathize with: who hasn't walked home? Home is a great place, a place we would all like to be.

Chatman, though, likes to make the distinction between the point of view of the narrator and the point of view of the characters. Example 2: Seymour wrote his book while looking out the window at the sky. Here, there are two points-of-view: the first being the narrators, who sees Seymour writing his book; the second is that of Seymour, who sees the sky. Both the narrator and the character have different purposes: The narrator is looking to convey information to you, the reader, about Seymour; Seymour is looking to convey information to a fictional reader about...whatever the books turns out to be. For Chatman, as the example indicates, there needs to be a differentiation.

My claim is that the characters are part of the point-of-view of the narrator, and for all intents and purposes don't exist without the narrator narrating them into existence. Therefore, it could all be said to be part of one consciousness, or point-of-view. The narrator can see what Seymour sees (the sky, from the above example) and can see Seymour. The narrator can do this because all of it exists only in his mind, or better yet memory.

Archivist have recently begun to concede that their process, collecting and presenting artifacts, is a narrative act. This is a bold shift from previous ideologies which had archivists as the collectors of an anchored, objective past. An archive could be said to be close to or further from this fixed past. By conceding that an archive is just a story about the remembrances of a section of society, it dissociates itself from the belief in an objective history. Instead, archives, like all documents, are subjective narrations of what some remember as having happened. This would suggest, and what I find supports my argument, that there is no Master Story of history. What has happened is just the collective remembrances of those who happen to be in charge of remembering them.

Here's a fun game: at the end of a party, ask people what happened. No two stories will be the same. Taken as a collection, you will get an idea of what has happened, but certainly perspectives and interpretations are going to clash. So...which is the Master Story? Neither. Or both. A more extreme example: find a concentration camp survivor and prison guard. Ask each what happened during World War II. The two stories are going to be vastly different, but both is equally true. Clearly, memory is subjective, and thus history, archives and narratives.

Things cannot exist outside of the narrative. In this way, all major events of the past can only exist in the stories that we share about them. There are some versions that are going to be pretty well documented (by Ken Burns, more than likely), and some that are a little harder to believe. What happened, what we consider to be our reality, then, is just the most agreed upon perspective and interpretation of remembered actions.

Where am I going with this?

Right: all of that makes sense to me. I can see the points being made by both camps, I can wrap my head around the ideas, manipulate them, change them, make arguments for or against certain parts of it, and I can fabricate examples. This is dense, highly theoretical drivel, and I get it. Which leads me to my point.

While having tea today with my supervisor, I joking noted that the only part of my life that I understand, that makes sense to me, is my dissertation, which is about dense, theoretical approaches to understanding narrative forms. As I walked home, it started to be less funny, and ring more true.

Sometimes I have to remind myself of the reality of the situation:

1) I am 3000 miles away from what was comfortable.

2) Everything I know and love is on the other side of the planet (well, a quarter of the planet away).

3) I was very much in love with a woman, and engaged to be married, when, for some reason, things changed; now I am single. And confused.

4) My Grandma is no longer with us; despite believing that she would read the eulogy at my funeral, when I died at a ripe age, my Grandma passed away.

My Grandma passing has had more effect on me than I think I have let it. My Grandma gave my life context and meaning. She has always been there, but not only for me, for my parents as well. Because my Grandma was alive proved that my parents were, at one point, children. This goes a long way in helping young people understand that Mom and Dad are people - people who had lives, and mothers who cared for them, and loved and lost, etc. etc.

It's like the creation of a planet: it makes sense, to think about planets forming from space dust and gravity only if you can think about something having witnessed that thing. My Grandma witnessed the birthing of the planets that are my Aunts and Uncles. She contextualized who they have become by her very existence.

Now who is going to narrate my Aunts and Uncles into existence? Who is going to remember them past where I can...past where they can?

The street outside my apartment has had some work done on it this week. As streets go, this is a complex structure. I am fairly certain the land it's built on wasn't there before the road. The road was constructed above the ground, on relocated earth, and spans the width of the bay, or at least as fas as Aberystwyth cares to stretch it. As foundations go, sandy gravel is not the best, so the street has become a patchwork of plugged holes, and gaps stopped. One such hole was being repaired earlier in the week and a stop light system was brought in to smooth out traffic issues (as the road was reduced to one lane). When the light would change from red to green, the yellow light would flash on, then it would go green.

What an odd idea. I get the caution light: when going full speed, you'd like some warning before you have to stop. Going from movement to non-movement takes some time, and the yellow light is there to give you that time. But when going from nothing to something, you wouldn't think that you would need a warning. But there it was: a beware, you might have to do something light.

In retrospect, I would like to have just that sort of light installed in my room. This way, when things are about to get confusing, and my life is about to take a shift in some random, unforeseen direction, I can get a little bit of warning. That way, regardless of whether I am doing something or not, I can know that change is about to occur.

In the end, that's probably what we could all use.

Spring Time = Vacation Time

It's been a rough month. No, scratch that: it's been a rough year so far. A lot of changes have happened, and few of them have given me the opportunity to voice an opinion. I've spent the last week coping with the death of my Grandma, and have been working on an entry to try and come to some sort of catharsis (coming shortly).

Until then, I have an idea:

On my trip home for the wake and funeral, I had to fly into Zurich. When I was on tour with the Illinois Ambassadors of Music back in high school, playing tuba across Europe, I fell in love with Switzerland. It was magical: the massive Alps, the surrounding quaintness, the tiny villages and so on. I know that, often, people go to Switzerland to go skiing, but what I liked was the green, rocky beauty of Switzerland. I vowed, then, as a teenager, to return one day to Switzerland and spend some time there. Passing through the airport, I was struck by a great idea: why not get back there this Easter. I was originally going to plan something Mediterranean for Erika, but now I can focus on a walking tour of some Swiss town, or walk between some of the villages.

Now, I haven't done much research on it yet, but I think one of these inn-to-inn tours would probably work. What I would do is map out my own route, similar to the one listed on the site, using the local hostels instead of the expensive hotels. It might also be smarter to do a series of hikes centered on one village, but that is less across the state traveling. Either way, the trip would be lean, walking most places and spending large chunks of the day hiking in the AMAZING scenery provided by the Alps.

Of course, this could cost a lot of money. It might make more sense to do something similar, but for cheaper, in England. There are several week or so long hikes across the UK; one historically popular one is the Coast to Coast Path. This path starts at St. Bees on the Irish Sea and goes to Robin Hood's Bay on the Cumbrian Coast. It's 190 miles from one end to the other, and the website above suggests it should take about two weeks to do it well (walking up to 20 miles across the flat lands, and less on the more difficult, mountainous days). The path would cuts through the Lake Country, famous as an escape for poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge. Again, this would be a lean trip: staying at inns and hostels for cheap whenever possible, and walking everywhere.

Neither trips are made for those who like to see big cities or spend time walking around populated areas. These are dirty trips, where there will be few changes of clothes, irregular showering, but a lot of nature and an interesting story. Everything would have to fit in a backpack, and there would not likely be any late night clubbing or long days spent lazing around. It'll be a lot of work, but a lot of fun: walking, communing with nature and so forth.

I'm probably going to have to train for this trip. I can see walking 20 miles in a day, but 20 miles a day for several days is less likely to be possible. Plus, if the Swiss trip materializes (as I hope it does), then I'll be in the thin mountain air, walking up and down inclines I have only imagined and seen from the windows of airplanes.

The Swiss trip will have to be shorter, maybe a week, as I'll have to spend money that could be used for accommodation and food on airfare. The English walking tour will be longer, but will be in England. In the end, I'll end up doing both before I leave Europe, but I want to do one this Spring. And here's where you, my readers, enter the equation. I have floated this idea to some people, and there is a little interest. If anyone else would like to be a part of this, let me know (including a preference) and we can see what will materialize. Again, this is not for the faint of heart, and will require the vacationer to be in pretty good physical shape; own a good backpack, water bottle and hiking shoes; and want to spend about two weeks in close quarters with me. An added bonus would be if you know some French, as parts of Switzerland speak French. A large portion speaks German, but I know a little of that language; not fluent, but enough to ask for directions and bathrooms, etc.

So, if this is something you want to do, let me know. It'll be glorious, if this sort of thing is glorious for you. And if no one can go with me, then I'll go alone.

Traveling and Funerals

Let's get one thing straight: all you deceitful people out there are making it tough for honest people (here, read: Me) trying to make the most out of compassionate people; or, you large corporations are compassion-less jerks that deserve to have something horrible happen to you so that you can see how expensive and complicated it can be to travel at a moment's notice.

This morning I woke to find that, after 90 amazing years, my Grandmother passed away. I was faced with a choice: travel home for the funeral, having only been in Aberystwyth for a week; or, stay in Aberystwyth. It really didn't take long to make that decision: go home. My Grandma was one of the most important people in my life, and nothing short of a personal goodbye would let me sleep comfortably. If nothing else, I owe her for reading this blog so steadily.

After a quick pow-wow with my Mom, I went right to the United website to book a flight. I wanted to book a Compassion Fare, since this was not a whimsical trip. Having flown United previously (see earlier blogs), I knew that a roundtrip ticket to Chicago should cost a certain amount. When I logged in to see that price was more than DOUBLE what I had paid not even two months ago (because the time between my flight and my booking was less than a day), I was livid. With the number of empty seats on the last flight, you would think that United would be keen to sell a Sunday flight. The prices on the screen were certainly prohibitive against last-minute travel.

So I tried to call someone to ask if I could get a better price, considering the circumstances. The United International Customer Service line is nothing short of the most annoying thing on the planet. There are no number options, and the interface is entirely audible. After navigating through the menus, I was told to say "Customer Relations" for customer relations. When I did so, I was told to go back to the website to leave a comment or complaint, and that was that. No option to talk to a person. So I tried to book a flight, thinking that certainly would drop me at a booking agent. Evidently not. An automated service offered to book me a return flight for $500, and I got excited. I went back to the website to book that flight and could not find it. This seemed odd to me, but I figured I would call again. After again going through all the menus ("Reservations"..."No"..."No"....etc.), I got to the automated booking agent and tried to get that $500 ticket price. Nothing doing. Evidently it was a phantom price.

By this point I was getting quite frustrated, and was cutting that automated machine short so that I could get through this process faster. The machine kept getting my responses confused until I was eventually transferred to a real person. This person quoted me a price at $300 more than the internet, which I guess was a booking fee. I told him that I was needed to get back for a funeral, and he said the most he could save me was %10.

Again, I wonder why the ticket is so much more now. I get that last minute purchases generally tend to cost more because the company is capitolizing off of the desperateness of people who fail to plan. But I didn't plan for my Grandma to die, and I felt pretty annoyed that United was trying to capitalize off my grief-driven need to get home.

I hung up and started looking for a cheap fare through the discount sites. After all, according to the commercials, these sites are making money off the desperate need of airlines to sell their seats. None of these sites were offering anything much better. I found a Swiss Air flight with a lay-over in Zurich for just about double what I paid for a direct flight to Chicago a month previous.

This flight is going to leave tomorrow at 8:40 AM for Zurich. This means that I needed a hotel room for night, as no trains get to Birmingham by 7:00 AM at the latest (the first train would get to the airport just as the flight was leaving). That's another 45 GBP at the cheapest hotel around the airport (which does allow me to walk, but still...). Here again, the hotel knows that I need this, so they know they can charge what they need to: 45 for the room, 5 for breakfast, 3 for this WiFi usage. Everything has a price tag. I haven't checked the shower yet, but if it was coin operated, I wouldn't be surprised.

All in all, I find this to be very annoying. It might be that my emotions are rubbed raw by the loss of a very important family member, or that I am really starting to turn into the dirty-hippie that I always and openly mock, but I am starting to wonder about this whole capitalism thing. It might be better to base our monetary interactions on compassion for our fellow man, and not the Almighty Dollar. That would require all of us to be a little more honest with one another, but really that can't hurt in the end.

Back At It

On my trip from London to America, I had a pretty horrible plane trip: 1) I was seated next to an entire clan of screaming children from Saudi Arabia; 2) the video screens were out; 3) I finished my book and didn't have another one with me; and 4) my iPod died, taking with it my movies and music. Suffice it to say, it was not the most pleasant way to go back home.

That said, I would certainly live through it again for all the added benefits it gave my return trip home.

When we were getting off the plane, the staff handed out tickets that were redeemable for either 10% of my next flight to America, or $150 off an US flight. Since I won't be home for some time, neither option was really awesome. I emailed the nice people at United Airways and was immediately upgraded to Economy Plus. It wouldn't seem like the added leg room would be all that necessary, but once seated, it was amazing.

I arrived at O'Hare at seven, and after being grilled by the airport staff as to why I was flying to the UK with no return trip booked, I queued up in the security line behind a group of Chinese nationals - teenage Chinese nationals who, evidently, have not ever flown. It took the lot of them a good fifteen minutes to get ready for the security check: forgetting to take off their shoes; forgetting to take off their pullover sweatshirts; trying to cram their bags into the metal detector bins; carrying massive piles of metal on their person; etc. etc. All of this raised, obviously, certain suspicions among the Homeland Security Staff, and most of their bags needed to be checked by hand.

While all of this was going on, a new lane opened up, and I was faced with a dilemma that faces anyone who goes grocery shopping a lot: to leave my lane or stay where I was. I figured, by the time one of these Chinese struggled with the security measures most people are familiar with that the rest would breeze through. Figuring that, I stayed in my lane. I found out quite quickly, though, that I had bet on the wrong pony. Each and every one of these Chinese students needed to be reminded that no, in fact, they could not wear their shoes; and no, actually, they did need to take off their coats. But I had made my choice, and if I had abandoned this line for the new one, I can only imagine how quickly the students would have shuffled through security, smiling and waving with the Homeland Security staff, as opposed to exchanging tense glances.

I made it to the gate, and noted that I was in the fourth seating section. This, I have found, is beneficial. When I am seated early, I spend the entire time wondering who will be seated next to me. Getting excited when the single, supermodel-like women walk by, and cringing with fear when the tired family with eight toddlers gets near. In the fourth seating area, I am the last to be seated, and can only accept what is given to me, rather than get disappointed by the inevitably sizeable person that squeezes in next to me.

The Economy Plus section is in the front economy cabin, and the seats are demarcated with a sky blue head rest cover. I found my seat quickly, and to my surprise there was no one else in the row. How can this be, I thought to myself, are the people who are supposed to sit next to me in the bathroom? Are they all children loading themselves up on free snacks in the breakroom? As the remainder of the passengers filed on, it became less and less likely that I was going to get any neighbors. When they sealed the doors and I was still alone, I was shocked: an entire row to myself. I shifted my carry-0n to the space under the seat next to me and enjoyed the extra leg room it provided. This is going to be sweet!

Once we had taken off, I thought about reclining my seat. This is always a delicate procedure. In economy, when you lean the seat back, the video screen becomes unclear, your seat back is forced into the face of the passenger behind you, and the space on the tray-table becomes limited. Some people don't care, but I know how horrible it is to have that happen, so I tried to get a good look behind me. To my surprise, that seat - the whole row, save one seat - was empty. The woman behind me, being a more seasoned traveler, used to being alone in a row, had turned her three seats into a bed of sorts, and had sprawled out comfortably.

I leaned the seat back to maximum recline.

Over the course of the flight, I eventually built a fort of pillows and blankets, stretching out in my opulence, secretly loving the envy of the passengers crammed in the back with the less leg room and filled rows. Despite this comfort, I was not able to get much sleep. I arrived, groggy and tired at Heathrow.

From there, I needed to take the Picadilly Line to the Leicester Square, and transfer to the Northern Line and exit at Euston St. As I came down the stairs at Heathrow, after walking what seemed like a mile to get there, the train pulled up to the station, and I was on my way. This might not seem like much, but it turned out to be quite advantageous.

It's a long ride from Heathrow, in Zone 6, to Leicester Square, in Zone 1. 19 stops to be precise. Unlike previous trips, though, I had arrive around noon, and the tube was relatively free of other passengers. Because I caught the tube train I did, I arrived at Euston at 12:40. The train to Aberystwyth left at 12:43. This was amazing luck, as the next train out towards Aberystwyth wouldn't leave for another hour, and it has considerably more stops. I hustled to the train and found a seat just as the train was about to depart.

After the short ride to Birmingham International, I made the switch from the Virgin Trains to the Arriva Trains, and took off for Aberystwyth. A word of warning to those traveling from London to Aberystwyth: always...ALWAYS...change at Birmingham International. There is a stop at Birmingham - New St., but there are always going to be more people there. I managed to get a pretty nice seat, and secure a spot for my bag. Something that might not have been possible had I waited.

I made it to Aberystwyth around 6:00 PM BST. I had woken up the previous day at 8:00 AM CST (or 2:00 PM BST). Which means I had not slept for some 30 hours. I felt gross, tired and hungry. But I was happy to be back.

The Great American Road Trip

When I talk to my friends in Aberystwyth about America, some conversations turn to the enormity of this country. 3,500 miles stretch from the northwestern tip of Washington state to the southeastern edge of Florida (and 3,400 from Maine to California). To put this in perspective, there are 3700 miles between Aberystwyth and Chicago. There are only 2,600 miles from Cadiz in southwestern Spain, to Utsjoki in northwestern Finland (at least according to distancefromto.net). In short, America at it's widest is 1,000 miles wider than all of Europe. [For more on scale, read an older post of mine.]

Because of this, and the impressive American highway system that connects the 48 lower states, America has developed a culture of car travel. Though there is a decent rail system and a network of airports in most major cities, Americans have a soft spot for the car trip, particularly when settling in a new place. This was the case on New Year's Eve, when my brother's girlfriend moved from Smithtown, New York, to Jefferson City, Missouri. The brunt of the trip was done before Christmas when Kiernan and Courtney came in for a visit. On New Year's Day, we packed up Kiernan's Jeep Compass and a 2010 Chevy Express Cargo Van and set out for Missouri. Kiernan and Courtney took off in the Compass and I followed in the van.

The Chevy Express cargo van is, simply put, spartan. There are two seats, and that's about it. The model had no back seats, leaving 239.7 cubic feet of storage space (which we used most of). There is no paneling or upholstery in the back, making for an echoy, loud ride. It sits pretty high and has industrial strength shocks, making the noise box bumpy as well. Though the website suggests that the standard model comes with a lot of accoutrement, this particular van came with just an AM/FM clock radio. No CD player, no extra ports, not even a tape deck. It didn't even have the standard power windows or locks. That said, it was not the most uncomfortable vehicle I have ever driven.

When I was in college, and for some time immediately following graduation, I drove a 16 foot box truck for both Phillips Interior Plants and Services and Marie's Off-site Catering. Over the course of several moves for both me and my friends, I have driven vehicles as large as a 22 foot diesel truck. For a while I toyed with the idea of getting my CDL license just to say that there was nothing I couldn't drive. Oddly enough, while the van itself was fairly comfortable, driving a cargo van is a little more difficult than a bigger truck. The key is the mirrors.

While the cargo van does have the added benefit of allowing the driver to see out the back, the rear-view mirrors, or wing mirrors as the British say, leave a lot to be desired. On the larger trucks, there is a massive, rectangular, flat mirror and a smaller, circular convex mirror on both sides. The convex mirror is the most useful, giving the driver a clear shot of both blind spots and the curb. Good blind-spot mirrors are circular, but on a cargo van, the blind-spot mirror is rectangular, which forces the driver to chose between the blind spot or the curb. This makes either backing up and taking corners difficult. Regardless, after picking up the van in Bolingbrook, IL, and driving to Sauk Village, IL, I had a pretty good feel for the controls. The wind proved problematic, and most of the drive was fraught with sudden shifts in steering due to some explosive gusts.

Courtney had everything shipped from Smithtown to Sauk Village in a Cube, and we packed that moveable storage cube into the back of the van. The next day, we finished packing the van with some new IKEA furniture, and took off on the 366 mile journey from Bolingbrook to Jefferson City. If taken without stops, it was meant to take about six hours, give or take. But because a car can only hold so much gas and a person can go for only so long without peeing and/or eating, the trip was likely to take closer to seven. Once there, we would unpack the van and settle the apartment. Nicely, the van was surprisingly fuel efficient and had a massive forty gallon tank. Most of the times we needed to stop, it was not because of the van. It could have made it quite a bit further than I could without stopping.

We left the suburban Chicago area around 10:30 in the morning. I was alone in the van, and one problem became immediately apparent: music was going to be an issue. On long car trips, I generally like to play my iPod through an FM transponder (even better if I can plug directly in through either a USB or AUX port). My transponder was locked in a car that broke down and was towed to a mechanic, so I was stuck with radio. When I was in college, I didn't mind the radio, but the iPod providing my music when I want it and without commercial interruption, has spoiled me, but thinking about this blog, I was excited to see how radio might supply me with an interesting story to relate.

Radio in central and southern Illinois is a lot like the scenery: a lot of country, and not a lot else. Generally, there is one pop station and a maybe a few classic rock stations. If lucky, there will be some college radio stations on the low end of the FM dial playing something interesting. The DJs are generally terrible: vapid chatter, thick with the southern accent. Larger cities have a larger pool of potential DJs; a benefit that smaller, rural stations lack. Couple that disadvantage with the lack of talent that most radio stations have for Saturday morning shifts, and I was bracing for a pretty horrible radio experience.

There was one gem as I approached Illinois State University. WGLT: News, Blues and All the Jazz had a show featuring Delta Frank. This very charming DJ with the sort of affected southern accent that makes him sound like a nice person, and genuinely American, instead of slow in the head. The show itself was amazing. Delta Frank played a range of blues across several decades, some deep cuts from lost albums including a live version of Elvis Presley's "Are You Lonesome Tonight", and several local artists with whom he seemed personally connected. He gave some detailed and interesting information about all the songs, as well as managing several calls from blues fans. He seemed to know everyone who called and had something nice and specific to say about several callers: "There's a call on line 2 from Marjory who makes the best peanut brittle I've eaten." Delta Frank made my drive through the larger part of central Illinois tolerable.

Unfortunately, most of the trip was on I-55, a massive four-lane, interstate highway taking up nearly two-hundred yards from left to right. After a short jaunt down I-72, which was like a smaller version of I-55. Generally, I hate driving on the expressways in the plain states (plain, as in expansive fields, and plain as in uninteresting). I-55 and I-72 are wide expanses of concrete that run through the flattest parts of the countryside and leveling any interesting hills or valleys. If given an option, I would rather take the smaller, two-lane, nationally numbered highways. Luckily, the last third of the drive was on just such a road: US 52.

See, there are two types of highways in America: the very efficient, wide interstate highways that avoid going through towns, and smaller national highways that cut through small town America. Bill Bryson wrote a book where he set out down these smaller highways, and eventually decided that he hates America. When I read The Lost Continent I was really frustrated because Bryson set out to see America, and became annoyed when it wasn't Britain. I felt he was being a little unfair to the small towns, some of which I had lived in, judging their limited options. He also tended to see the parts of town that are built on these smaller, two-lane national highways, which tend to be riddled with Wal-Marts and McDonalds. Once off these connecting roads, small towns have a lot to offer.

For one, the view from the smaller highways is generally more representative of the landscape. Interstate highways tend to mold to the land to their purposes: leveling hills, flattening out fields, cutting through mountains and so on. The smaller numbered highways tend to stick to the land, rising and falling, tumbling over the hills and spilling out along the rivers. As you cut across Illinois towards the Mississippi river, the flat, farm lands of Illinois give way to gentle hills of Eastern Missouri. The highway was really pretty, dotted with forests and small river towns.

Interestingly, there is town in northeastern Missouri called Mexico. It gave me no end of joy to continue seeing signs: Mexico 67 miles. US 54 East to Mexico. Mexico, MO, was nothing like the real Mexico, though.

We reached Jefferson, Missouri in the dark, moved Courtney in, and then I made my way to a Holiday Inn. A friend of mine, Jemma, referred to Holiday Inns as "Neverneverlands of Emptiness," places that compel the patrons toward navel-gazing tendencies. Agreeing, I like to compare Holiday Inns, any hotels really, to airports: places where people go to wait. This is why people tend to think inwardly: you are forced to wait, which leads you to think about where you are, where you've been and where you are going. Naturally, I thought a lot about my journey, where I was headed and where I have been in every sense of meaning that is attached to that phrase.

The next day, after getting Courtney settled in the daylight, Kiernan and I took off for Chicago. Yes, we drove 300+ miles in one day, just to turn around and do it again. This time the truck was empty, and I can say that I learned this: I like driving a truck that is filled rather than a truck that is empty. The shocks on these things are meant for a loaded van, so a much lighter van was much, much bouncier. It also was far more affected by the winds, which thankfully had died down from the previous night.

Kiernan, who purchased a satellite radio some years ago as well as a car with an AUX port, hates radio even more than I do. But, because it was Sunday, we managed to pick up the Bears V Packers game. Surprisingly, we managed to get the game on AM 780 WBBM in Jefferson, MO. This was a Chicago station, and because the night was clear, the sky was empty, the AM waves managed to make it the 300+ miles, allowing the two of us to listen to the last regular season game of our favorite football team. Once that game was done, we picked up a national broadcast of the St. Louis V Seattle game, and that took us to nearly home. Once that game ended, we scanned for about ten minutes before we caught a classic rock station outside of Joliet.

Most of this drive was made in the dark, and a good chunk of it was spent on a two-lane highway jammed behind a truck in a very unpassable stretch of road. As Kiernan said, "Great. I can look at darkness on either side of me or a truck's ass. This is great scenery." And it was dark. Chicago never really gets dark because of all the street lights, buildings and cars. The whole city glows orange. Central Illinois, like Aberystwyth, is shrouded in complete and total darkness. A stifling blackness that can feel claustrophobic.

Once on the interstate highway, we went through a wind farm. These fields of windmills are not unusual, and we had gone through the same field the day before in the sunlight. At night, though, the lights that are meant to warn approaching planes can become very disturbing. For miles, hundreds of red light blinked on and off in complete synchronization. It was both lulling and troubling, as if the windmills had come together to do this of their own according, warning the cars and planes that traveled near by.

It was a long ride, and it was not particularly pretty, but it was one I was happy to have made. Jefferson City was a nice place, and the ride, while at times boring, was not horrible. And really, when you are doing anything in life, that's about what you'd like to say about it: It wasn't horrible.