Normally I don't blog about events in Fort Wayne, where I've been hanging out for a couple of weeks. That's because normally events in Fort Wayne are just sort of regular day-to-day life, and not particularly notable or funny. But last night was funny - or perhaps I just feel that way because I've spent much of the last two weeks sitting around waiting for things to happen and I'm a bit stir crazy.
It turns out that the world will punish you for not having an address. By "world," I mean more specifically "credit reporting agencies" who are not being particularly helpful with the leasing agent in Chicago who needs to run a credit report in order to approve my renting an apartment. This has been going on for over a week and it's been alternatively frustrating and tedious. This week I also spent an afternoon with Terri, a very nice lady at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, renewing the registration for the Vue. This was surprisingly less painful than one might have thought - in general, my experience is that the BMV is better than it used to be, particularly if you compare it to the Bad Old Days of Republican Political Party BMV Operation (yes, honest to God this how the BMV operated, pursuant to State Law until the 1990's) and you had to go into the basement of that creepy building off of Pearl Street (coincidentally owned by the Chairman of the Allen County Republican Party) where even in daylight it felt like somebody was going to jump you as you walked down a dark staircase since apparently electricity was considered optional in the BMV Procedures Manual, and which subsequently became a 7-space parking lot if that gives you an idea of how big it was. Anyway, Terri patiently explained to me that I had completely missed an important step last summer when I traded vehicles - not surprising, really, given my state of mind last summer - but she helped me out and now all I have to do is hope that the registration shows up at Rachel's house rather than being returned, undeliverable, to the BMV. I did stop by the Post Office yesterday with the goal of explaining to them that I need mail delivered here, and the manager was also friendly and appeared to understand what I needed. We shall see.
But I digress.
Last night the evening began with a party for a friend who is changing jobs. It was lots of fun and I might have stayed for karaoke but Mitch and I had made plans to see Ty Causey, a local R&B singer whom we like a lot.
Mitch picked me up near Rachel's so we could take just one car. "Near" ended up meaning a block away but finally I saw her down the street, arms waving in the air. And in fairness to Mitch, there was a side yard with a fence on this block which looked, more or less, like the side yard with a fence next to Rachel's house. And it was dark, for crying out loud. Plus, in walking down the street to her car, I received a lovely invitation from three guys on a porch. Although I didn't take them up on their generous and friendly offer, it's always nice to have options.
First off I got to be Mitch's designated texter, in a conversation she was having with an amorous and drunken guy who shall remain nameless due to my desire to avoid a libel suit. We were unable to convince him to leave the comfort of his, um, home, and arrived at the North Star unaccompanied. At least, for a while.
Even before Causey started playing, the entertainment had begun, featuring a guy with a desert camouflage
outback hat and matching do-rag, who is the first person I've ever seen doing Air Bass. He later did one of those "wrap your arms around yourself so it looks like you're making out" things that you generally don't see outside of middle schools. But he was clearly having so much fun that you had to smile.
There weren't a lot of open seats, but unfortunately, as it happened, we were next to two of them. A short white guy who would look like George Costanza if Costanza were an artist with hair and a goatee slid in next to me and then tried to begin a conversation as the music began. Best as I could determine, the guy was a flutist from Detroit who was checking out the band to see whether he wanted to play with them, and it bothered him that the bar has a $10 minimum for credit cards when all he wanted was an O'Doul's, so he wanted to buy us drinks. Something like that. Listening to a musician with a big ego talk about how other musicians have big egos is a bit tiring, and I wasn't sorry when he told me he'd had enough. I'd had, too. Safe travels back to Motown, buddy.
Then a former elected official, whom My Attorney advises me to avoid describing with any more specificity, sat down next to Mitch. This is a man who Mitch (also a former elected official, just for the record) knows, but she'd never had a conversation before with him where he had discussed, for instance, all the women in the bar he planned to pick up. Initially, of course, this sort of conversation is reassuring, because it implies that he's their problem, not yours. (Sisterhood may be powerful but at a certain point it's every girl for herself.) Sadly, Mitch's luck, and mine, didn't hold and we ended up on the dance floor together. Mitch had a chance to practice the "brush the hand off the rear end" move more than once, but the bar was crowded and there weren't a lot of places to go. During a break when the guy wandered off, Mitch and I decided it was time to move on.
And so, to O'Sullivan's, which on Friday nights is a haven for dart players, a couple of whom are acquaintances. So we decamped to West Main Street and as luck would have it the Dart Boys were there. We learned all sorts of news from them. For instance, Jason just had an app published by Apple called Fortune Caster, which you can buy at the Apple Store for $1.99 and which will be available for Android as soon as Jason finishes it, possibly this weekend. We met Mary Beth, who is an actual professional dart player, although I don't think that's her full-time job. Despite the best efforts of the Dart Boys, who had once attempted to teach Mitch and me how to play darts, all I know is that you throw three darts, look either slightly satisfied or clearly frustrated, then scribble something on the chalkboard and let the next person throw.
Mary Beth and Phil (the other Dart Boy) started talking about a dart tournament they go to every Memorial Day weekend in Chicago. I guess we started that discussion with my mentioning (which I will explain shortly) that I am moving to Chicago. Anyway, this event seems to be routinely booked by the hotel at the same time as an S&M Convention and, curiously, some sort of conference for high school students. Yeah, we all thought the same thing, too.
But the point of this is as background to Phil's story that one night he got lost in the closet in his hotel room for, according to him, about 15 minutes. The next morning he awoke, mercifully on his bed, to find that the floor was strewn with hangers which he had flung about in his nocturnal efforts to find his way out of the closet. Seriously. Although I had much earlier switched to soft drinks, I still thought it was about the funniest thing I've ever heard.
After the dart game ended - and I'm still not sure who won - Mitch and I went over to the bar to see Carmen, our favorite bartender. She gave us five bucks to play juke box roulette, and we came up with what Mitch called "every middle aged women's high school playlist." I took issue with the use of the term "middle aged" but since Mitch pointed out we were unlikely to live to 120, I had to defer. Their selection of Eagles songs was woefully inadequate but despite that we enjoyed CCR and Coldplay and Tom Petty, the most underrated man in American popular music.
Then we were hit on by a 30-ish Asian guy with a frozen, hazy smile, who kept asking me what I was drinking. (He was a bit taken aback when I said, "Dude, we've already been through that." But his hazy smile returned and a few minutes later he asked me the same question.) So when the clock struck 2 and Fat Bottomed Girls started booming over the sound system, we were ready to call it a night. Fortunately the guy's buddy had finished his peanuts by that point and poured his friend out of the bar. That was lucky, because it would have been a shame to miss Bonnie Raitt and Lou Reed who came on shortly thereafter. And we would have missed the very brief Ty Causey after-party that occurred when a couple we'd seen at the North Star walked in, looked around, greeted us when we said "hello" to them, and left. I don't think it was us, exactly. Mitch surmised that the wife was unimpressed with the lingerie hanging from the ceiling and had to get up early for church, anyway.
And so ended My Big Night Out.
Okay, here's the Chicago thing: I am moving to Chicago May 1. I'd been waiting to post anything definitive until I know whether I've been approved for this fabulous apartment that I'm hoping for, but that is taking a lot longer than anyone would have predicted (see above) so I'm just going ahead and telling you, although without details of said fabulous apartment in case it falls through. If it does, I'll find another one.
The reason I'm moving to Chicago is to go into the government consulting business with my friend Beth Malloy. Fort Wayners will remember Beth as our Deputy Mayor several years ago and she is one of the best government operations people I have ever had the pleasure of working with. I am really, really excited about this opportunity, and I am equally excited to be moving to Chicago.
Part of the reason is because Chicago is a great business location for us. Partly, however, I want to live in Chicago. It's close enough to friends and family that I can get to you (and you can get to me), but it's also one of the great cities in the world and I want to be there, at least for now.
It's funny how people have responded to this news. Some people are all "how exciting, when can we come visit?" and some people have, shall we say, a different opinion. One friend has sent me several e-mails, complete with news links, about crime of various types in Chicago. One former co-worker screwed up his face in an expression that makes me laugh out loud to think about - a combination of disgust, confusion and the face you make when you're dealing with a lunatic. I think you're either a city person or a small town person, and someone choosing the opposite just isn't going to make sense to you. I am a city person and need to have other people around. The only part of the Driveabout that has made me nervous about possible crime was when I was hiking in a part of Smoky Mountains National Park where there were very few people. The thought of living in the country, with neighbors that are so far away that I can never hear them, makes me uncomfortable. To each her own, of course, but seeing my co-worker's face still makes me smile (you know who you are, Brian.)
I've been in Fort Wayne for two weeks, and given that I have not had a lot to do for most of that time, I feel stalled. So I look forward to getting back on the road Monday, when I head to Pittsburgh on my way to Our Nation's Capital.
Oh, if I can ask you a favor: please don't ask me about whether I've heard on the apartment. I'll let you know when I do, and in the meantime it's a sore spot with me. Thanks.
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