cblj_backup | (no subject)

I have checked into the hotel where the women of my clan and I are staying this weekend. Everything's sort of...not quiiiite as nice as I'd hoped it would be, but hopefully we won't be in the room much.

Someday I will live in a flat that is up to my mother's standards, and we won't have to do this hotel thing anymore. It's not that her standards are especially high, it's just that they're different from mine; I like to be able to pay the rent and don't care about trains, whereas she can't sleep if there are trains in the general vicinity and has a drastically off-target view of housing prices in Chicago. She pays about the same in mortgage on a four-bedroom house as I pay in rent on a one-bedroom apartment. But then, she has to live in Texas, and there's no real substitute in cash dollars for NOT having to live in Texas.

I probably won't be on much this weekend, but I'll try to send photos occasionally if possible.

If you read about any matricides in Chicago this weekend, I was with you guys the whole time, okay?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Awww.

Trains are barely a thing in Alabama (anymore, Birmingham used to be a pretty big hub back in its glory days of steel production) but I grew up close to a railroad crossing on a commercial line that's still running. Not close enough to hear the wheels on tracks unless the wind was just right, but on a quiet night you could always hear the whistle. Sounds of a train while I fell asleep meant all was right in my little world.

There is nothing more comforting when you can't sleep at 3AM than hearing a lonely train whistle and knowing that someone is out there, more alone than you.

I live about 50 yards from the track, so I hear wheels and everything. I barely notice until I don't hear it, then I want to know where the train is.