10:30 AM:

Okay... French exam today, followed by the start of the semester on Monday. The absolute deadline for my linguistics project is noon Monday; missing said deadline means the automatic failure of two courses.

I have got to stop stalling.

1:37 PM:

Oh, I keep forgetting to mention this: Should you wanna accept the challenge of keeping up with a short narrative read by Yours Truly, with the added complication of music in the background, well, here's your chance. Plus you get to hear several other online diarists -- quite likely people more articulate than myself -- reading stories of their own, in addition to getting the 2001 Reality Asylum archives. A bargain at just 10 bucks!

On the other hand, let's be honest: one reason why I keep participating in these projects is that I get a free copy and don't have to pay for one. But it's a bit too late for you guys to try that now... Also, I haven't yet received my copy, so I don't actually know how it sounds, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

For what it's worth, I did like last year's project, which I think is still available on the same site. Highlights of that one include my recitation of "Jabberwocky" and Jen's reply to a personal ad. And, either way, I have nothing to gain by your ordering either CD, and I understand that nobody else does, either, this being a labor of love on Rien's part. But I figured it was worth hyping a bit anyway.

12:56 PM:

I just updated my pages linking to other journals and other sites. The latter's been expanded somewhat, more or less at whim. The former's had one URL updated (Jen's) and a few now-defunct journals trimmed (Karen's, Sarah's, Acanit's). Diane Patterson's journal has been retained -- despite not having been updated since April -- in the fervent hope that she'll decide to return to escribitionistic pursuits one of these days.

(Aside: I think that's the first-ever citation for "escribitionistic," at least on the Web. Feel the rush!)

I'd been similarly holding out hope for Karen's return, but I've now given in. The good news is that she's posted one last entry (with lots of cute Tot photos); the bad news is that Thought Experiment really is closing up shop. It'll be missed.

5:33 PM:

Come to think of it, 2002 is already getting off to a good start. For the first time in eight years, Rudolph Giuliani isn't the mayor of New York. That's cause for celebration and optimism right there...

Another day, another online quiz...

This entirely fails to surprise me.

8:33 PM:

So... 2001 is going to be over in a few hours. About bloody time, too.

The capsule review will wait until this journal's anniversary next month, but, yes, like a great many other people, I'll be very glad to put this year behind me.

What scares me is that 2002 could well be worse. Looking back, 2001 may turn out to have just been the warning shot across the bow.

But I hope not.

The plan for my weekend in Chicago was as follows:

8:05 AM Friday: Board the Greyhound bus to Kalamazoo, MI.

10:45 AM: Arrive in Kalamazoo. Transfer to the Indian Trails bus to Chicago.

11:00 AM: The bus to Chicago departs.

1:10 PM Chicago time (2:10 PM Ann Arbor time): Arrive in Chicago. Following a friend's directions, take the train uptown, be met at the station and driven to his home, where I'll spend the rest of my stay there.

4:09 PM: Shabbos begins.

5:14 PM Saturday: Shabbos ends.

1:30 AM Sunday: My bus departs Chicago. Transfer at Kalamazoo.

8:55 AM (Ann Arbor time): Arrive back in Ann Arbor.

That, as I said, was the plan. It seemed straightforward enough, and allowed more than enough time to make it to my friend's place before sundown. Or so I thought.

At that point, I was under the mistaken impression that a bus to Chicago would be leaving shortly thereafter, that either the original one had been held up, or that a replacement was being readied. By the time I realized that this was not the case, and that the next bus to Chicago was leaving at 1 PM, the only bus that would have gotten me back to Ann Arbor before Shabbos had already left, and pressing on to Chicago was my only viable option.

I still wonder what I would have done if I'd caught on sooner. I probably would have gone on anyway, if only because another thing I'd failed to consider was that travel time on the next leg of the trip was likely to be extended, too. Plus I wasn't certain at that point what time sundown was in Chicago.

So I got on the 1 PM bus to Chicago. It slowly made its way through the states, and the driver explained that we were likely to run late. If we got no further behind schedule, he said, we'd arrive at downtown Chicago around 4:30 PM Chicago time.

At which point it became almost certain that I was screwed.

At the next stop, I took the opportunity to go to a pay phone, call my friend, find out that candle-lighting time was 4:09, inform him that we had a problem, that if I made it to Chicago in time in the first place, I'd probably have to walk to his place, suggest that he figure out the details of Plan B, and scurry back onto the bus.

• The "candle-lighting time," mentioned above, is when Shabbos is traditionally ushered in, eighteen minutes before sundown. However, the deadline is actually sundown itself. So while it's considered proper to get the day underway before sundown, one does have until the last minute if necessary. My deadline, then, was actually 4:27 PM, assuming we made it to Chicago by then. (Given that we were travelling east, we were to some extent trying to outrun the sun, making the deadline earlier, the further we were from the goal.)
• I needed to be off the bus before sundown. Furthermore, I needed to have my bags taken care of somehow by that point, because I wouldn't be able to carry them around outdoors. For that matter, I wouldn't be able to handle my wallet, return ticket, and other stuff. The upshot being that I'd need to find a place to keep everything but the clothes I was wearing for the following 25 hours.
• I'd been in Chicago only once before, and that briefly. To say that I didn't know my way around town would be something of an understatement.

Around 3:25, I think, we hit Gary, Indiana, and the driver told me that we'd probably get to Chicago about 45 minutes later. Which would, at least, get me there before sundown, so that much was well with the world.

(Plan C, if we hadn't made it back to Chicago, would have been to get out at an earlier stop, and spend the weekend there. Not a desirable solution by any means, but an unavoidable one.)

We got to my stop right about candle-lighting time. I got off the bus with my knapsack, went to the side for my other piece of luggage, only to find that it wasn't there. I'd given it to the driver in Kalamazoo, but he'd apparently neglected to put it onboard. He said that it would probably come with the next bus. I nodded, realizing that it was just going to have to wait until the following night, and rushed into the terminal.

Called my friend, assured him that I'd find a place to put my bag, and got instructions for Plan B, which I scribbled on my arm. (I'd have scribbled them on a piece of paper, but I wouldn't be able to carry that piece of paper with me after sundown, so that would have been kinda useless.) I was to walk to Clark Street, and walk north on the right-hand side of the street. He'd walk south on the left-hand side of the street. We'd meet around the halfway point between where we'd started, and then walk the rest of the way north to his place.

As it happened, storage lockers were available at the terminal, but they had a newly-imposed 6-hour time limit. (I'm guessing post-9/11 security measures account for this.) I didn't find that out until Saturday night, though.

I'm going to leave this next part a bit vague to protect the other person involved, even resorting to gender-neutral pronouns. I asked somebody working at the terminal where I could put my bag for the next day or so, and was told that there was no such place. I briefly explained that I needed to get rid of it one way or another before sundown -- in about five minutes, in fact -- that I was supposed to have arrived at 1:10 PM, but had just gotten there now, thanks to the snow, and that my alternative was simply abandoning all my stuff in the station. Sie asked why I couldn't take it with me. I sighed and gave the simplest -- and most accurate -- answer I could: because God said so.

Sie asked what I had in the bag, and I opened it and showed hir: a book, a pair of shoes, a newspaper, a teddy bear, a Palm Pilot, that sort of thing. Sie said that, well, this was against regulations, and sie could lose hir job for this if discovered, but... okay, sie could hang onto it for the next day, perhaps treating it as lost luggage. (And I was going to tip hir well for this, right? Right.)

Sie then got increasingly nervous as I proceeded to stuff my return ticket and wallet inside the knapsack, strongly suggesting that I keep my ID on me at least, but I explained that, well, I didn't make the rules, and I wasn't going to be allowed to carry anything, period. Sie asked what religion I was, anyway. "Jewish," I replied, remembering to add "Orthodox" a moment later. Sie explained that hir shift ended at 6:30 the next day, and I agreed to be back for it by then.

On the other hand, I had no idea whether I was going to be walking 20 blocks, or 200.

The latter turned out to be closer to the mark. Perhaps a little on the low side, even. Chicago is big. The purple line on the map to the left is not the route I took, but the starting and finishing points are correct. Approximately two hours after we started walking, we met. (This was at least a half hour after I decided that we'd probably somehow passed one another.) Approximately two and a half hours after that, we arrived at his place.

The rest of Shabbos was uneventful. I slept a lot.

Immedately afterward, we rushed out and drove to the terminal, arriving at 6:30 sharp. The person I needed to see wasn't where sie was the day before, but mere moments after I noticed this, sie found me and retrieved my bag. Everything that had been in it was still in it, albeit rearranged; sie explained that they'd needed to look through it again, which seemed eminently reasonable. (Mysterious bearded religious stranger asks you to hold a bag for him in a place teeming with commuters and then runs off... no, I can't imagine why anybody would find any cause for concern, especailly now...) My wallet appeared not to have been opened, though (or else they replaced everything in it with an extreme attention to detail utterly lacking in the treatment accorded to the rest of the backpack, which seems wildly unlikely). I gave hir the fifteen bucks that had been in it as a tip; it seemed a bargain under the circumstances.

Shortly after that, I presented the claim check for my other piece of luggage to the appropriate Greyhound employee, and got it back, too; it had indeed showed up in the interim.

We then returned to my friend's place for a bit (during which time, largely to placate him, I verified that my debit and credit cards hadn't been used in the past day), then went back to the terminal. The ride home was uneventful. And that's my story.