Chicago and the Friendly Atheist

How's this for a coincidence?

I just returned from a most triumphant trip to Chicago to pay respect to my dad's home town and see Tim Minchin in concert at the Just for Laughs Festival. Chicago, in addition to being the most bad-ass, amazing, beautiful, clean city I've ever seen, is also the home of Hemant Mehta, or as you may know him, the Friendly Atheist. I've met him twice, once in DC at the Rally to Restore Sanity when he held a dinner for all of the poor, lost, godless souls in town, and again down here when he spoke as part of a Secular Student Alliance presentation. I can tell you, he genuinely is very friendly. On my visit to Chicago overall, though you might stereotype big-city folk as rude and always in a frantic hurry, I found that the people of Chi-Town were, in fact, incredibly kind and accommodating to a small-town southern girl who asked vacuous questions like, "Where does this train go?" Maybe they thought I was just simple and took pity on me. I was wearing flip-flops in fifty-five degree, rainy weather.

I've done this too.

So imagine my surprise upon returning home to see that my page views on my week-long dormant blog went from twenty-eight hits one day to thousands and I see that the Friendly Atheist linked to one of my posts! Before I found out exactly what he had said, I began chanting out loud, "Please let it be a good link, please let it be a good link, please please pleeeeease let it be a good link." In my panicky brain, the catastrophic scenario was the following:

"Hi, all you multitudes of Friendly Atheist followers, this is Hemant. I know that you visit my site about 25,000 times each day, so I wanted to share something that made me roll my eyes. Look at this complete idiot here. This is how not to write a blog. Just read this post by the Blonde Nonbeliever and laugh uncontrollably at her stupid and completely pointless rambling."

Turns out, it was a good link. Whew! Thanks, most friendly of the atheists. I appreciate the support! I will eat a Chicago-style hot dog, with the hot pepper, in your name!

Gloriousness. 

Oh, and here's a teaser. I have many things to share with you in upcoming posts from my fifteen-hour road trip and visit to Chicago.

1. My evening with Tim Minchin. It involves a hug and a toasting of red wine!

2. Interesting big-city street preachers. This involves large crucifixes, flashing body lights, and microphones.

3. Scary billboards in rural Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana. These involve hell, the devil, Jesus, and syphilis.

Stay tuned!

As an afterthought, as much as I'm glad to be home at my balmy beach, I miss the sound of the L. It was a nice metaphor. As I would lie awake during the night in my dark hotel room on Harrison while the boyfriend snoozed peacefully by my side, the L would pass by my window every twenty minutes. You can say what you want about life, and look back on your regrets, or worry about your future or your purpose in life, but the train always comes. It signified constancy to me. The L will always run.

Amen.