An uneventful day. Coming back to Kalamazoo is sort of anti climatic. Go to one of the three coffeehouses worth going to, make some small talk and even then, can't knock this feeling that I'm somehow intruding on this pointless, incestuous small town. Of course all the students are back. The locals are surly and resentful because they wish that it could be as slow and removed from the world as all the awful, little wanna be farmer towns that surround it. And the students are loud and obnoxious because they're well to do suburbanites from outside Detroit; white boys with visors, blaring rap music and making sure that they live in someplace as far removed from culture and diversity as possible. And me, I'm torn between a sort of social starvation and an intense desire to not interact with any of the folks of this town because at least when I'm isolated, I'm not annoyed.
Welcome home from your neighborhood bundle of cheer.
Anyhow. Wisconsin.
So, as we were heading out of La Guardia, Rob found out that the hotel room we got was in Brookfield, a suburb of Milwaukee. We had hoped it would be downtown, so I could go and peruse coffeehouses on the east side, maybe get a hold of my college transcripts from MATC. Believe it or not, I was looking forward to it. I may hate Milwaukee on many different levels, but there's a fuck of a lot more to do there than there is here. When I was there, I didn't want to do stuff because it seemed too much trouble and I had bad experiences with people, but here there's really nothing to do even if I want to. So I figured it would be a fun few days to bop around, then leave before the town really started to get to me.
The suburb was in the next county, so getting around would be tough. I would need to take a bus to the mall then another bus downtown, using two different county busses. I just didn't have the motivation.
The first day, I opened my window and was awed by the hills. I had forgotten that Wisconsin is actually kind of pretty. It's even more so when subjected to the bland strip malls, rural industrial landscape, interspersed with just barely enough farms to call it "country". It really was a nice site, and reminded me of why moving there wasn't a completely horrible concept, until I learned how closed minded the town actually was. I decided to walk around, and enjoyed walking on sidewalks for two miles, until I found this cool little coffee bar, then perused a little bookstore next door. I bought some drawing books to help me get over my creative depression, which helped to an extent.
That night, Rob and I went out with a business associate. We went to a decent (not great but definitely decent, especially for the price range.) Italian restaurant. We then went to Brewed Awakenings. Ahh, Brewed Awakenings. My old haunt. All my bad memories of Milwaukee...really sleazy guys that had been fit for no more than flings, renting a basement bedroom from a senile and alcoholic old lady, and ignorant classmates picking fights with me and hacking into my webmail...had made me forget how much cool stuff there was in the town itself. When compared against Grand Rapids (which is of equivalent size) there is a much bigger per capita cool area, a lot more nifty coffeehouses and bars and boutique-y little shops. Oh yes and restaurants. Let's not forget that. There's some good cannoli to be found, too. And I could admit that Milwaukee did in fact have cool points. So I can then admit that while it wasn't right for me, that it wasn't the most evil city on earth, either. But then all my travelling through some god awful midwestern towns had shown me that anyways. I just hadn't fully come to terms with it. If forced to choose between living in Ohio and Wisconsin, I'd choose Wisconsin probably. Columbus is definitely far worse.
The next day, I didn't feel like making much of a trek. So I drew. And read. And drew. And wrote. And drew. And watched television. That evening Rob and I went to Starbucks, since it was open and didn't require us driving downtown. We also went to Barnes and Nobles, where we bought more books. I was really starting to miss the cats. I felt reflective and creative. Something I often felt when I had lived there. But I also felt a bit antsy. Despite any other opinions of the town, I still get twitchy when I have to be there for too long.
The next day it was finally time to go home. Between New York and Wisconsin, it felt like it had been a year since we'd been at the apartment.I had a bit of a headache all afternoon. It was a gray and dreary day. So, we finally got on the road around five. Traffic out of Milwaukee was hideous. Just passed Kenosha, it started pouring. Really bad. I was a bit nervous about the weather, since it was a full on thunderstorm, but it was so bad that everyone either had pulled off the road, or was driving really carefully. It was pretty clear sailing until about Northbrook, and then it was backed up again.
We stopped for dinner in Pasta Diavolo in wicker park. I had a tasty creamy pesto. It was comfortable walking around, as the rain had made everything really cool and really nice. We both wished for the umpteenth time that we still lived there.
After dinner, we promptly trekked on toward Michigan. We played the new Current 93 album, Cats Drunk on Copper. It's just an awe inspring album, with a great rendition of "Horsey" on it. I got lost in thoughts, as we went through the straight, drab highways at night.
We finally got into Kalamazoo around eleven pm, where we found the cats had trashed the kitchen. They had broken a blender, deciding that the cheesecake brownies on top of the fridge were tastier than their meow mix. The kitchen floor was a mix of blender and brownies (maybe they were trying to make a cheesecake brownie shake?)but they were still glad to see us. So I spent the evening reading my 200+ emails, as well as the wealth of postal mail which had arrived.
So I finally got to sleep in my own bed, and actually slept better than I have in many nights. As much as I don't like being in this town, it's still nice to curl up with a cat and your favorite blanket...