Monday morning roles on by at the parent's house, sound asleep til seven AM, still waking up in the darkness of daylight savings time. I gather my personal belongings:

1) Laptop - Check!

2) CD ROM copy of slideshow - Check!

3) My one and only hemp suit - Check!

4) Pocket PC - Oops! Left it at my apartment back in B-Town. There goes one less bright idea to try out.

I brew my usual breakfast of Green Tea and hit the road in style with my parent's green minivan, jamming out to their recently installed Sirius radio. (Note to self - satellite radio would make for a sweet way to podcast, but not sure if it is logical).

I stop by that gas station that happens to sell copious amounts of native american souvenirs for no apparent reason (just north of exit 146 on I-65). It is the epitomy of all that is hypocritical in this lovely world of ours - bringing almost total annihlation to the native american culture and then selling that culture back to the citizens of America at a convenience store. I try to imagine the people that would actually end up buying these cheap plastic suveniours. Do they really think they are bestowing that ancient indian honor upon themselves by buying these little pieces of capitalistic crap?

I think of George Bush as I tighten my gas cap, and continue onward upon the long and exhaust-filled drive, feeling that familiar sense of melancholic insanity as the mezmorizing road tends to amplify the mind's reflections on the recent past.

After miles and miles of pure and untainted, multi-laned asphault, and the typical score of traffic jams that come built into the Chicago interstate system, I finally see that first faint hint of skyscraper mania in the distance. Each passing moment reveals more and more of that beautiful architechtural detail, waxing into existence, like a grande ship on the distanct ocean slowly but surely coming into shore. I see the city of Chicago appearing before me like the rising sun. The surreality of this moment always manages to encapsulate my soul with amazement for the human race, and what collectively it is able to construct simply by being endowed with a genetic tendency to be socially interative creatures.