So Chicago.
Despite the fact that I was not actually getting onto a plane, I still had some serious travel anxiety. I didn’t buy nearly enough clothes and apparently my main comfort in travel is that I have new everything. In fact, I was going with quite a few old standards, but given that I had picked a very comfortable packing theme (don’t judge) of black and grey with red accents, the overall look was not outside of my comfort zone. And in order to quell my anxiety, I reverted to my obsessive-compulsive disorder of matching my clothes to my undergarments. (I asked you not to judge.)
Then, the only day that I had to pack was the Sunday prior to departure, but since my spastic neck muscle decided to seize tight on Friday and most of Saturday, I spent Sunday trying to catch up on freelance work and the (fucking) laundry, a clear essential as I didn’t want to pack wrinkled clothes that smelled vaguely of stale perfume and hamper.
In a rare bit of karma, my employer’s corporate headquarters are in Chicago, so my boss mentioned that I didn’t have to miss the company-wide meeting on Friday morning if I attended it there, and then wouldn’t have to use a vacation day, since the meeting only went until noon and then they always gave us the afternoon off. It worked out with the air travel schedules, so I then took off on Thursday morning, since I had more vacation time to blow. A wise thing, since I had absolutely no time to pack until Thursday morning anyway.
Monday night I worked on freelance and Tuesday night was Meh Race (which involved lots of wine and then karaoke until midnight because Pie and I are clearly insane). I had class on Wednesday night, and was distressed to learn that oh, I had a story due the next class. Which would normally be fine, but since four days were going to be swallowed entirely with Chicago craziness, and the remaining days would be given to my job, sleeping and freelance work, I had no idea what I was going to do, so I shrugged and said ‘I’ll try to come up with something.’ Knowing full well that the something? I had nothing. But that, taking a page from Ms O’Hara, was something I’d think about tomorrow. Or, you know, the next week.
I spent Thursday morning packing and a bit of hyperventilating, double checking lists and my spreadsheet (ok, go ahead and judge, I’m crazy) and packed the car and swept off all the snow and then took a shower and had breakfast and got the car washed and then waited for Pie to finish teaching a class. Except WOE! The big dumping of fluffy white snow had caused a slip and a fall and she had pulled exactly the same muscle I had pulled a few days earlier.
My heart broke for her, because I knew that she would probably be in pain for a few days, but threw some extra muscle relaxants, Advil, and an ice pack in the car and then went off to pick her up so she wouldn’t have to drive through the sloppy roads. Poor Pie.
My co-dependent care taking habit went into overdrive, but hopefully she was more or less comfortable on the drive down. I enjoyed the trip, and we listened to the original Rent album and generally got ourselves all psyched up for Wicked (WICKED!) that evening.
We made excellent time south through Wisconsin, only stopping once at Caribou in Mequon so that I could introduce Pie to the Ho Ho Mocha, and then once again, we were off, to meet with atrocious traffic once we hit the Chicago area. Fucking Chicago traffic. As much as I love big cities, I really am accustomed to never having any traffic. Even our home game traffic is not as bad as some of the rush hour crap I’ve experienced in Chicago. Unreal. Pie snoozed a bit, thanks to reclining heated seats and a Cyclobenzaprine, while I sweated, worrying that we would be late for Wicked. Because we all know that being late makes me physically ill.
However, as it was, we were fine, speeding into the city at ten to five, in plenty of time to get to the hotel, check in, change, and then catch a cab to the theatre. However, I did not anticipate the hurdle that was our desk clerk, Eugenia.
I know that I sometimes bandy about the word ‘fate’ but I somehow feel as though Eugenia were inescapable. I went directly to the ‘honors’ check in desk and was waiting patiently but the bell boy directed me to the non-honors desk, where Eugenia did not have a guest. As we were walking over there, Eugenia drifted away because she was completely clueless. Eventually, she returned to us, checked us into a room on the 20th floor, gave us a key, then realized, no, we needed silver keys, then realized, no, she couldn’t give us that room, because it was ‘pre-assigned’. She apologized, then picked another room, then spent five minutes randomly hitting keys and mumbling. I asked her if it would take very long, since we had tickets for the theatre. She then apologized, handed us the wrong keys again, took them back, made the right silver keys, then apologized again.
We finally were able to leave the inept Eugenia and were quickly unpacking and getting dressed for the thee-ah-tah. And then a slow realization hit me. Where exactly was my wallet? I figured that I must have had it when checking in, because I had needed my credit card and yup, there was my credit card loose in my purse, but no big black leather wallet to be found. Together, we tore the room apart but no wallet. I had only two fives and a wad of loose singles meant for tipping cab drivers and valets, so I was, in a word, screwed.
Mo assured me that she would cover the cab rides until we were able to deal with the lost wallet the next morning, but just in case, we stopped down at the front desk to see if it had been turned in. We didn’t expect a lot of help from Eugenia, to say the least, but we never expected her to say, ‘No, no wallet, but the room you are in is preassigned, so you’re going to need to change rooms again.’ What? We argued with her a little, but she was clearly brain damaged, until finally I said ‘You know, I’m a little upset right now, but we’ll discuss this again in the morning.’ Eugenia apologized again and I actually bit my tongue to prevent myself from saying ‘You know, apologies stop meaning anything when you keep fucking things up.’
I then took out my frustration on the security lady, who was nothing but matronly and reassuring, and I still feel guilty about it over a week later. During the whole security thing, Pie, who apparently knows exactly how to wrangle my anxiety and apparently read the look of anguish on my face, replied, ‘I know this might be an inappropriate thing to say right now, but man, your shoes are fabulous.’ I love Mo. Thank you for the perspective.
While shivering under the marquee, I called Chauffi and relayed the entire crisis to him and he reassured me that I wasn’t exactly stranded and destitute, but instead would be surrounded all weekend by people who love me and that, if anything, he was more than willing to play sugar daddy all weekend if the wallet didn’t turn up. One of my weaknesses, according to many people close to me, is that I am stridently self-sufficient and unwilling to accept help from anyone. I’m not sure what the psychology is but for a moment, I was awash in gratitude that I could look to my friends if I needed it, and the reminder was exactly what I needed at that moment. I think it allowed me to push everything to the back of my mind and enjoy the experience of Wicked with Mo.
Mo had set us up with incredible VIP seats as well as some kind of VIP luxury package that included private coat check, open bar and snacks as well as private bathrooms. We ensconced ourselves in a corner and nibbled strawberries and sipped champagne while being in awe of how we were totally rock stars and how perfectly we were dressed. For the record, Mo and I were both wearing black dresses and black shoes, but she wore a red sweater over hers, while I wore a black one. She had a black purse while I carried a red one and she had a black coat with red gloves while I had a red coat with black gloves. And we both looked, in a word, hot. We were a bit remorseful that we had no one to bear witness of our serendipitous fashion coup. But we soon drank away our sorrows with complimentary cocktails on our empty stomachs (strawberries and cheese nibbles do NOT make a good base for Belvedere vodka and cranberry, fyi) and were giggling. By the time they announced that curtain would go up in three minutes, we were, in the words of Pie, ‘a little bit drunk’. I was kind of teetery myself, but figured that my missing wallet was all the justification I needed to be tipsy by intermission. However, once the curtains went up and a good witch floated down in her bubble, I didn’t really have to concentrate on pushing away the stress monster because I could only sit there and be enthralled by it all.
It was phenomenal! Ana Gasteyer was Elphaba and the whole time, I just sat there hating her a little bit for being a funny, an actress and having a fabulous voice. The girl who played Glinda was absolutely incredible and totally stood up to the comedic presence of Gasteyer’s Elphaba. The entire thing reminds me of why I love musicals with all my heart because for a moment, you can only just sit back with your eyes wide and your mouth open, soaking in the carnival that plays before you.
My guideline for how much I enjoy theatre is always the intermission. If I’m not anxiously waiting for intermission so that I can get up and stretch or get a drink of water, it’s a good musical. If I am sort of dreading intermission because that means that it’s the halfway point, then it’s a great musical. I have only experienced that twice before and last Thursday, it happened again with Wicked.
But the inevitable intermission did come, and as with such things, I had relaxed and gotten my mind off the wallet situation so well that I suddenly had an epiphany. Had I really had my wallet at check in? I had filled up the gas tank at the Illinois border by taking just my credit card out to pay at the pump and then stuck it back into the pocket of my jeans. I didn’t actually remember seeing it on the counter. In fact, the last time I specifically remembered having it was at Caribou Coffee, when both my wallet and purse were in the back seat. Maybe it was there.
I relayed my thoughts to Pie as we were walking back to the VIP area and she confirmed that she had been thinking the same thing but didn’t want to remind me and cause me to have wounded puppy face again. I was fairly relieved because my epiphanies usually come with a feeling of truth, which allowed me to be a little freer with one of my precious fives during the collection for Broadway Cares at the end of the performance.
And then the delightful evening was over. Chicago was living up to its nickname and the weather was unbelievably cold. Luckily, Pie found us a cab despite several eager folks solely by virtue of her hotness (short skirt, high boots, drop dead sexy Pie, you do the math) and we were zipped back up Michigan Avenue to our hotel, with the inviting heated overhang and the constant barrage of holiday music. Pie asked if we should ask the valet to bring the car around again to check for the wallet, but I had pretty much resigned to the fact that it was either in the car or it wasn’t, and I’d rather go to bed on the hope that it was there than to try to fall asleep if it wasn’t there. Which is what we did. Besides, I had to save up my strength to rip Eugenia’s head off in the morning if she was going to make us switch rooms in the morning.
This is getting long, so more to come!
