On Sunday, I woke up fairly early and tried to be quiet to not wake up Jen, who was sleeping on the sofa, but figured that my shower would totally wake her up. No dice. My phone rang and I hurried to answer it, worried again that I’d wake her up with my cellular ring tone of ‘Just Like Heaven’. Wrong again. Then Chiara called and made arrangements to meet for brunch somewhere uptown at Ann Sathers and Jessamyn gave me directions to get there, Jen slept soundly through the entire conversation.
I hung up and realized that we had to meet them in forty minutes and before that happened, I had to wake Jen, call Kelly, pack up all of my stuff, get the valet to bring up the car, check out, get some money at the ATM and find this mysterious place that was apparently twenty minutes away when in general, the Weetabix method of Chicago transportation and getting lost-edness doubles the average travel time from Point A to Point B. Or in my case, Point A to Point B by way of Point X and Z and also by that famous fountain at least twice. Yikes. As I roused Jen, I realized that the entire building could have collapsed and she would have slept through it, which I sort of admire, because I sleep as soundly as a post-traumatic stress survivor. I snap awake at just about anything so I really admire her ability to fully relax and tune out the world, even while cramming her six foot tall frame onto a glorified loveseat.
She woke and I gave her the bum rush, which I still feel bad about, as I should really wear an alert bracelet caution friends and acquaintances that I hate to be late. Hate. I suspect that it comes from years of being the last kid picked up after school, the one whose teacher sits and waits with them until dark, the one who would rather die than have to walk into a crowded event that has already begun, the one who joined ever family gathering already in progress. It has broken my head, to the point where I leave for work forty minutes earlier than necessary, just to reassure myself that no, I’m not going to be late, it’s fine, it’s fine, there is plenty of time.
Jen, to her credit, managed to take a shower, get dressed, pack up her stuff, and be ready to go in the same time it took me to throw all of my things into my bags, call the valet and finish drying my hair. Which makes me think that maybe Esteban is right and I probably don’t need to take as much time getting ready to go.
We hit the street, missed our exit and then ran out of Lake Shore to Drive on, but then called Jessamyn, clarified directions, did a quick U-turn that may or may not have ripped off a part of my car (someone watched one too many Dukes of Hazard as a child), found a sweet ass parking spot and met up with Chiara, Jessamyn, Katie and Kelly while only being a few minutes late. Hooray!
We then had a really unbelievably yummy breakfast with lots of laughter and delightful company. How can a morning that starts out with so many hot women (and an adorable baby) be bad? It can’t. Also, I have seen the darkness and their name is legion, for they are cinnamon rolls. They almost made me forget about the bacon-wrapped dates. Almost.
After breakfast, we all walked to my car and then had hugs and byes and see you soons and call me girl! until we all went off in different directions towards our individual Sunday afternoon endeavors. Chiara and I tried to not be too glum, for we were off to see the fascinating exploded corpse exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. After some confusion, we found the museum, parked in the garage and ran up to the exhibit. We decided that since it was only a little after 1 and we didn’t have to leave for the airport until 5, we would wander the museum a bit first. We went into the Fairy Castle doll house, with the violin that really works and the books that are real books, then wandered up to some exhibit on industrialization and railroads and plastics and petroleum andasdraselkrja;sldk ooh, sorry snoozed off a bit. In retrospect, we shouldn’t have wasted any time and gone directly into Bodyworlds and did not pass Go because it was so cool that we could have spent the entire afternoon in there. However, after about an hour wandering through the museum, we hit the carb wall and needed to regenerate with some iced coffees in the fake Starbucks, during which time we went from slumped in our chairs like slackers to sitting on the edge of our seats, chatting animatedly about the internet and gossip and boys. The magic of caffeine. And then it was time for corpses!
I am fascinated by human physiology and in college biology, I was always the lab partner holding the scalpel. In another lifetime, I would have gone to medical school rather than Playing With Words school. I wasn’t too worried about the ‘controversial’ aspect of the exhibit, because I could appreciate the educational aspects that to me clearly outweighed any ethical issues, especially since the donors were willing and interested in giving their remains to the Bodyworlds team. At first when you walk into the exhibit, you’re somewhat stunned by the fact that there are corpses in the room with you, and the feeling that they are just strangely shiny horror movie props. There’s an impulse to giggle when you see a skinless penis. And then you get past that. You see the tendons that allow you to move your hand. You see a lung, black with tar. A cool British voice describes the processes of the body, using the lovely Latin names of things you never knew existed. You think about how Michelangelo used to dissect corpses to understand the body, and how the statue of David is missing an important back muscle but since he was carved from scrap marble, that section of the marble was missing and Michelangelo always viewed the piece as hugely flawed because of it. You walk up to a man who is holding his own skin, flayed and limp, for your appraisal, and there are tiny blond hairs on the legs and a delicate scar along the knee. He looks introspective, like someone at the Gap, wondering if a pair of jeans is going to fit. And you wonder if you are really seeing this. If you can even comprehend your own skin being separate from your body, or being the sum of so many dedicated parts and structures and systems, two parts calcium, three parts protein, five parts oh my god.
I wish they had allowed us to take pictures in there, just because even now, I think back to the intricate infrastructures of the hand, the leathery thigh muscle, the crimson lattice work of blood vessels that all work together to make a person live and walk and talk and eat a sandwich. I can’t wrap my brain around it, which makes sense especially when you look at an actual brain sitting under Plexiglas, as benign as a strawberry-kiwi Jell-o mold, and know that you’re looking at the subconscious, the Id, the Ego. That clump of grayish pink gristle is responsible for the most beautiful music and the most unspeakable violence. You’re looking at the place where dreams come from. You’re looking at literature and medicine and astronomy and our perception of God and everything, everything, everything, comes from a dun tightly coiled mass of tissue. This is where you fall in love. This is what makes you cry. This. Right here. Why do we laugh? Who are we? There should just be an arrow pointing down at it, exclaiming ‘You are here’ because you are. Right there. All condensed down to a handful of the most precious and mysterious icon in the world.
In the early parts of the exhibit, Chiara and I couldn’t stop talking about how cool it was, how neat, how absolutely fucking insane that this was what we looked like with all our clothes off and also skin and in some cases, muscles and organs too. But then the enormity seemed to overwhelm me and I could only just walk around in awe, wide-eyed and mouth open. What a piece of work is man, said Shakespeare, or rather, Shakespeare’s pink Jell-o mold. But really, he had no idea. The body is a little like space itself. I just can’t fathom the beginning and the end of it, but it is so beautiful and complex that I can never again think of it as just a body no more than the stars are just a sky.
We had gotten through about half of the exhibit when we realized that we only had a half hour before we absolutely had to leave for the airport, but everything was so completely entrancing that it was hard to rush through anything. I started trading off exhibits, skipping any individual organs in favor of the full body displays. But to be honest, I could have stared slack jawed at the vein displays for an hour alone. We finally raced out of there, made a quick potty break, ran out the door, paid for parking at the automated kiosk, and started the car, which was perilously close to being out of gas.
The late fear started kicking in. I was terrified that we would run out of gas before we found the nearest gas station (the Chrysler’s little computer said we had 1 mile of gas left, the nearest gas station was 12 blocks away) so when we pulled up to the parking kiosk and needed the parking ticket that Chiara had just handed me less than a minute earlier, I had no idea where it was. It wasn’t in my pockets or in my purse (which is a crazy conglomeration of loose cards and cash until I find a replacement wallet) or in my pockets again or in my hoodie pockets or in my other pocket or on the floor of the car. I was getting more frantic as I was certain we would run out of gas just sitting there with the car on idle. We held up a bunch of cars until I offered to pay for the parking again but the very kind parking attendants raised the gate and waved us through. As we pulled out, the paid parking ticket fell out of the CD visor onto Chiara’s leg. Hi, I’m a dumb ass.
But we found the gas station and then the highway and were on our way. Phew! Except that apparently there was major road construction and hence traffic jams on a Sunday afternoon. Garg! I started sweating immediately, worrying that we were really really going to miss Chiara’s flight and oh my god I was the worst person ever. Late! I was going to be a late person! I started cutting in and out of lanes like a jackass, trying anything I could to make some forward progress. It was like we were the unlucky team on Amazing Race and about to be eliminated. I was pretty confident that she’d make the flight or be ok because I would make sure of it and accept nothing less. So then I decided that it was silly to worry about the possibility of something bad happening, when that something that not had actually happened yet. The time would be better spent enjoying Chiara’s delightful company instead. So we chatted about hot men and flings and the secret of inner hotness while making a mile’s progress over 40 minutes, but then we were rolling smoothly, 40, 45, 50, 60 miles an hour and life was grand once more. We made it to the airport at 6:30 for Chiara’s 7:04 flight and with absolutely no time for schmoopy goodbyes, my friend was off in a sprint. I made a mental wish for speedy security and a nearby gate. As I drove away from O’Hell, around 7:05 I saw a plane climbing into the clouds and I imagined Chiara snuggling into her seat, pulling out her iPod and exhaling over a harrowing ninety-minute airport transit. I learned the next morning that she had indeed made her flight, so all was well.
I pointed north and followed the line of Lake Michigan for 200 miles. The weekend was exhausting, but so very well worth it, between babies and martini flights and tapas and sequined circle skirts and belugas and spleens, it was like being set loose inside Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory only without the Oompa Loompas. I rolled up my driveway by ten that evening, climbed into bed, and fell asleep immediately, secure in the knowledge that I had not wasted a single minute of a wonderful weekend.
You can read more about the weekend from Chiara, Jen and Kelly.
