The Confused and Angry Campus Tour Guide

On Friday night, Duke and I went to Chambana-Urbane to see my brother's girlfriend Pipes perform the lead in an opera version of Romeo & Juliet.  She was indescribably amazing.  Seriously, words can't do it justice.  I'm told there's going to be a DVD for sale, so anyone who visits my house should be prepared for some opera.

I know it's totally showing my classlessness by referencing that scene in Pretty Woman where Richard Gere tells Julia Roberts that opera is something that you either love or hate, and if you love it, it becomes part of your soul, and if you hate it, you can learn to appreciate it, but it will never mean as much to you.  When Pipes took the stage on Friday night, and I was sitting there breathlessly waiting for her to open her mouth and sing, I thought about that scene.  It wasn't 10 seconds into her performance that my eyes were welling up with tears and I had a lump in my throat that I couldn't explain.  No offense to, well, basically the rest of the residents of Earth, but I don't think I've ever known anybody as unbelievably talented as Pipes.  Listening to her sing was something that just consumed me.  I couldn't look away.  I couldn't think about anything else.  The opera lasted 3.5 hours and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Duke always looks forward to a trip to the University of Illinois campus.  After spending 7ish years there, every trip back is a tour of his Glory Days. 

It looks like this:

It sounds like this:  "And this is where I . . . wait!  What the hell?  They tore that down?  What is this?  Where am I?  Noooooo.  Seriously?  What?"

Every trip gets a little worse, with the demolishing of places he used to live, study, and work, and the building of new places, and the reversal of one-way streets, and the general activities of a campus that is surprisingly, somehow, not just a static memorial to Duke's years there.

This year, the confusion started when he was driving us past one of his architecture department buildings, when I looked up and saw a giant tower full of bells rising from behind it and said "When do they ring the bells?" and he replied "What bells?" and I made him park the truck and get out to look at this:

There was also the construction of this, which I think he managed to identify but now I can't remember what he said it was going to be:

And we spent a lot of time driving around looking like this:

Despite the anger and confusion of a U of I campus tour with Duke, I enjoy them immensely.  I always hear new stories every trip, things that he forgets about and suddenly remembers and can't wait to tell me.  When standing in the Krannert Center waiting for the opera to start, Duke said "It's cool to be inside this building doing something other than delivering sandwiches."  During his years as a Jimmy Johns delivery driver, he'd had to learn to navigate the catacombs beneath the various theaters to find the flamboyantly hungry late-working drama majors.

We spent the night in a Super 8 hotel room, one of the few remaining vacancies in the city because of the visiting Ohio State fans in town for Saturday's football game.  On Saturday morning, we got up and went out for breakfast with Wags, Pipes, my Aunt S and Uncle K who drove from Ohio for the opera, my parents, and a couple of my parents' friends.  After breakfast, we drove back to the hotel to pick up Wags' car.  Duke spent five minutes cleaning up a bunch of beer bottles strewn across the parking lot by the Ohio State assholes, and we then we followed Wags over to his apartment, which I'd never seen before.

I don't mean this as an insult to my dear little brother, but his apartment was pretty much exactly what I expected from him.  Not because it was tiny, kind of scary, and in a basement.  But because it was so simple.  This is the first semester that Wags has lived on his own, and his place is about the most basic stripped-down version of a dwelling you can possibly choose to live in.  The oven was the only thing that really distinguished it from a hotel room.  And that's exactly what I imagined he'd choose for himself.

We stopped at another fine eating establishment on the way out of town for a quick beverage, something that I will explain in more detail tomorrow, and then we were on the road.  Duke took us on a "shortcut", stopping to fill gas. 

And then we had to get back on the interstate and head back into town.  Why?  Because Duke's shortcut was a shortcut to "home" - home when he was a U of I student.  Isn't it amazing how hardwired our brains can get?  He was leaving Champaign and going back to his parents' house on auto-pilot.  He will probably be mad that I posted this part of the trip, but I think it's adorable.

Our trip home was good.  We made a stop in the Peoria area to pick up some new windows that we ordered through a home builder friend, and then we had dinner with Nacho and DeNacho.  Overall, an excellent weekend, and it wasn't over!  Duke spent yesterday installing windows, which I'll show you soon, because it's very exciting.  To me, at least.