Mace.

Did you know there's a city in Indiana called "Mace"?

Yeah.

Mace.

Like pepper spray.

Or Windu.

Knox, Night Two, Morning Two, Non-Existent Day

Watched the last dress rehearsal last night. It was pretty good. Taped it. It was good.

Peaced out and got some Wendy's.

Came back.

Passed out.

Woke up this morning to a call from my mom. I was pretty dead. Went back to sleep.

Woke up to a call from Tom. Still dead, for the most part, but actually dragged myself up to go to the bathroom and change out of my justice league pajama pants. Kelsey was up and getting ready for class. She walked me to the computer lab, where internet is foolproof (all other connections at Knox really really suck) and I printed out directions home.

Drove. Drove. Drove. Drove. Drove. Drove. Drove. Drove. Drove.

Drove.

Got home.

Called the manager at CVS.

But that's not really travel-related. Unless you count "I will be travelling there on Tuesday."

Whatever.

I'm home.

Lunchtime at Knox.

So for lunch, Kelsey and I hit up the C-store. The woman that works there is the epitome of demon. They have this little counter where you can go and order food, and each food item is assigned a number of points. A meal is 14 points. You can pick any combination of food as long as it totals up to 14 points, no more, no less. I apparently lack basic math skillz.

Croissant- 2 points

Bagel- 2

Chocolate milk- 3

Cream cheese- 1

Fruit- 1

Sandwich- 7

Oh no, 16 points... The crank behind the counter looked at me like I was stupid and said, "You have too many."

Excuuuuuuse me for going on a point rampage. Not my fault that your idea of a meal is actually closer to two meals and a snack. Sue me.

I didn't even want to use all 14 points. My original order was a bagel and schmear and chocolate milk. 6 points. But no. I had to get more food.

Whatever happened to eating as much or as little as you're hungry for?

Knox. Night One, Day Only.

So here I am, at Knox College, in lovely scenic Galesburg, Ill. 

I know blogs are kind of lame, but I'm sitting in Kelsey's dorm room and I have a whole day of not much to do, and both Tom and my mom requested that I document this, so, here I am, and here you go. I couldn't think of a URL though. I wanted "lifesatrip.blogspot.com" but that was taken. "lifestrippin" wasn't, and although I intended for it to mean "life's trippin" it looked a little more like "live strippin'", which I thought maybe wasn't a very good option.

I left after work yesterday around 5:15, and got here around 10 Indy time. 

Currently not on speaking terms with Mapquest. We are so over.

I was not made aware that I had to go on 865, instead of staying on 465, so for about half an hour I thought I was going in the wrong direction, but there was nowhere to turn around. Then, for some reason, I wound up where it said I was going to about 45 minutes previously. Longest .9 miles of my life. Then, once you get on I-74, they apparently don't believe in numerical order. I was supposed to get off at Exit 163. I pass Exit 172. Exit 166. Exit 152. In that order. Because there were no exits in between. So I turn around. Still nothing. I turn around again. Nothing, again, because 40 minutes of lost isn't enough time to install like 15 missing exits. So I kept going. See Exit 160. What? Then 161. 162. 163. What. The. Heck. When Jake came to visit he thought 465 and 69 were confusing. Next time that happens, I am bringing up 74 to him. Because there is just something wrong with that.

So I showed up at Knox. Finally. Kelsey directed me to the Center for the Fine Arts (CFA) and I parked. Woohoo. I followed her down to the basement, where people were getting in costume. I found a piano (yessssssssssssss). They all came out. Commence dress rehearsal. The song doesn't sound too terrible. None of them are music people. It's a little quiet. The high E sounds like an out of tune kazoo line and the second part can't find the F, which is her first note and a whole step below what first part is singing, but it's supposed to sound creepy so I'm not too terribly crushed. Because those parts do, indeed, make you want to run screaming from the black box theatre. Or maybe that's just me. 

Rehearsal went til midnight. Afterwards, Kelsey and I went to "The Gizmo", this cafe on campus. Pretty cool place. Strawberry lemonade slushies. I'm set. 

Pretty nice campus, from what I could tell in the dark. Which wasn't much.

Woke up this morning to a map. Main points: you are here, food, car, piano. Done and done. Oh, and a weed patch. I forgot the weed patch.

Tonight is another dress rehearsal. I'm filming it on the beloved Mac (PC USERS ARE COOL TOO, DON'T KILL ME, I'M A MAC USER AND I DON'T JUDGE PEOPLE BY WHAT COMPUTER THEY USE) and also hopefully getting a recording of the singers on GarageBand.

The first thing any of the singers said to me when Kelsey introduced me as the composer was, "It's beautiful. I'm so sorry."

Please.