First Night of Utter Freedom

If it wasn’t for the fact that I was expecting people to come look at our apartment that morning I don’t know how I would have gotten out of bed. It was a Wednesday and the only alarm going off was the small voice in the back corner of my mind. It was reminding me that I needed to clean the place up. That little voice and it’s constant nagging finally got my lethargic body up and moving, albeit slowly. It ended up that nobody showed up to look at the apartment but at least I got a head start on that ridiculously long cleaning list that the landlords gave me when I turned in my notice to vacate. It actually says “polish to a shine!”

The rest of the afternoon was spent playing phone tag with the bank. I had paid for the car almost a week ago and NEEDED the title ASAP! I had sold the car over a week ago as well and was leaving the state in four days! Needless to say the girl who bought the car was on pins and needles and she stayed in touch. My phone beeped constantly as we became text-buddies of sort. She was teetering between trusting me and panicked that I was scamming her somehow. My banker must have told his co-workers how I was stalking him as when he was out one day I was put on hold, hung up, and then put on hold again-this time for 15min before the someone told me they couldn’t do anything more and hung up. I was about to declare war by the time John came home. He came bouncing through the front door bursting with excitement. He had just finished his last day of work and the future ahead was looking bright to him that afternoon. The enthusiasm was infectious and I decided to call a cease fire with the bank till the next morning and poured a glass of wine for the both of us. We cooked the last remaining items in our pantry, luckily we had enough for a great pasta dinner, and drank our wine from milk glasses (we had already packed our “nice” stuff away). We spent several hours enjoying the nice weather and doing little chores around the apartment. Then around 9:30 when normally we would be winding down we realized we didn’t have to! By now our apartment has no couch, TV, and our computer was on the floor, needless to say there was nothing really to do. We jumped out our normal stupor of a Wednesday night routine and headed down town. Having looked online for anything that might be going on and not finding any useful info (Lincoln needs a good mini-city nightlife guide…the one I found hadn’t been updated since 2007!) we decided to check out the famous Zoo Bar.

True to form the Zoo Bar was offering high caliber gigs, I was surprised by the amount of people down here and the quality of the shows. It seems not everyone went to bed early on a Wednesday night! We got there just in time for a unlikely collaboration between three very distinct singers who happened to be friends touring together right now. One was from Arkansas, Chris Denny, and sang with a distinct twang and wobble in his throat. His style and songs makes you think he would have fit right in with the ‘50s old school rock and roll scene. The second guy, James Levy, was from New York and was tall and skinny with the tight jeans and a bomber jacket, complete with a cigarette tucked behind his ear. He took us in a completely different direction musically and brought a smooth and moody croon on stage. The third and the lead singer of the band playing, Graham Wilkinson, was funny and tall with a head-full of long blonde dreads. He had a soulful voice and got the crowd going with his clever and quirky verses. The band, The Underground Township, was on tour and had invited Chris and James to join them. They were all as different as they came but they were able to jam together surprisingly well. They may have different apparent styles, but that night they all wore matching brown cowboy boots! If you ever run across their name in town make sure to check them out!

I ended up chatting with Erin, who was traveling with her boyfriend Chris from Arkansas for the tour. We ended up getting along pretty well and bonded over the fact that we had both decided to take a risk and go traveling. She had just quit her job two weeks ago to go on their whirlwind tour. They drove all day, performed every night, had to sneak in eight people into one room with two dogs and start all over again the next day. She was having the time of her life. We parted ways and we ended up with Chris’s album and an amazingly well done poster with all three singers signing it! I wish the best for them on their tour and we’ll keep the poster safe, one day I’m sure it’ll be worth a ton!

So all in all I would say we had a pretty good time!