07.15.15

ROAD TRIP UPDATE: VIII {11:00, nashville}

the fellow tasked with showing us around our nashville airbnb (a landing spot chosen on the fly back in marfa after our original booking turned shady—but that's a story for another time) received the news that he'd be meeting us around midnight with good cheer; he's an uber driver, and was out and about anyway. i also imagine that it's difficult to chide travelers delayed by sky-splitting lightning storms and life-splitting births, but that could vary from person to person.

we arrived in chicago with enough of saturday evening before us to join my college roommate and her husband for a pub dinner and a fireflyful walk back to their row house on the north side. ben made us lower wackers (tequila, drambuie, and malört, which i meant to pick up on the way out of town), we passed through the baby gate that separates smallcatland from largecatland (eddie, their seven-pound abyssinian, is no match for zeke, their 18-pound tabby) to use the bathroom one last time, and we all went to bed. i found ben drinking coffee in the kitchen the next morning. "here's an exciting thing," he said. "jen's water broke last night." my favorite theatre pros grabbed their go bag, swapped their afternoon baby shower for a trip to the hospital, and were gone. joe, eddie, zeke, and i blinked at each other. "prow," said zeke, who would eventually describe an entire boat.

we left town yesterday afternoon. "a person came out of your wife!" i whispered at ben. "i know, it's crazy!" he whispered back. that person is called leif, an excellent name for an early explorer. some babies love summer so much they steal an extra month of it; diminutive thief, i salute you.