On December 19th my sister (X-factor) and I set off to Chicago to meet Clay Aiken. Make fun if you must but this was one of the most fun weekends of my 25 years. (Please note, to all of the family that reads this, I said one of not the most)
This trip was a combo birthday present for my sister and Christmas present for me. We got tickets to the Joyful Noise concert at the legendary Chicago Theatre for that Monday, December 20th. It happened that a one Mr. Clay Aiken was doing a book signing at the Borders on State Street that afternoon. Could we have been more excited? No.
We drove the five hours to Chicago, which was pretty uneventful. The drive through Illinois isn't what you would call, pretty. It was hella boring. Luckily X-factor and I rarely run out of things to talk about so the five hours went swiftly.
We get to our hotel, The Palmer House Hilton, where the husband and I stayed this summer. We have time to kill until check in and decide to go to Borders to check out this book signing situation. We check our bags and head out to Borders. Let me tell you when they talk about The Windy City, they are not kidding. The winter wind there is brutal.
We brave the wind and walk a few blocks to Borders. Everything in Chicago is huge, and this Borders is no exception. It's three floors. Having done thorough research on the Internet we know that this event is going to take place on said third floor. In the corner the signing table/display is all set up. We start to squeal with sheer delight.
Under the guise of looking for the latest season of Smallville we corner an employee. Very sly like, we say, "Ummm, yes about this Clay Aiken book signing tomorrow..." as if we hadn't just drove 5 hours for this event. I tried not to appear overzealous but I fear that it may have come out more like this, "WHENISTHECLAYAIKENBOOKSIGNINGCANISLEEPINTHEBATHROOMTONIGHTSOWECANBEFIRSTINLINE?"
The very nice manager said that the book signing will be starting at noon tomorrow (Dec 20) and that people have already tried to start lining up today at noon (Dec 19) but they have told them to go home and that the police will be clearing the streets. They would be letting people in the store at 8am when they opened and the first 300 people would get tickets to meet a one Mr. Clay Aiken and the next 300 would get a different type of ticket and would not be guaranteed but still had a chance.
We immediately decided that we would not be part of the latter 300. We thanked the manager and skipped out of the store in pure excitement. After stopping to take pictures with the posters advertising the event, we headed back to the hotel.
We did a little shopping and then got ready for dinner with my best friend (from Houston) who was home for Christmas. She and her brother picked us up and we went to a Mexican restaurant, Lalos, where we were serenaded by a fabulous mariachi band. They even did a rendition of a birthday song for my sister. We shared a pitcher of some of the best raspberry margaritas I have ever experienced. It was a great time. My bf and I decided that we were quite the jetsetters, as we had just seen each other in Houston not 2 months ago and now Chicago and she was spending a bit of time at Christmas in St. Louis!
We called it a night a little early and went back to the hotel to strategize a plan of action for the book signing. We decided that we would go to bed around 9:30am and get up at 3:30am to go stand in line. This was all very exciting but the fear of freezing to death in downtown Chicago was a little daunting. Nonetheless - we were doing it!
Going to bed was like going to sleep on Christmas Eve when you were a kid. 3:30 came quickly but we had set so many alarms we had no chance of sleeping through anything. We got up, dressed in 40 layers and waddled out to the lobby, preparing a beatdown on the Chicago winter. We stepped outside, armed with the Canon 35mm, the digital camera, the camcorder, 6 books to be signed, beauty products, iPod, multiple headphones, extra batteries, and magazines. Please remember that Borders is about 2 blocks from the hotel. Ha.
We are pleasantly surprised that it is not near as cold now as it was that previous day. We start immediately shit talking, "This is nothing! Bring it!" or something like that.
We skip down to Borders and see people in line already. Recall that the book signing is at 12 noon and it's now about 4:03am. We get to Borders to find that we are numbers 73 and 74. What time did numbers 1 and 2 get there? We resolutely take our place in line and settle in.
One of the best parts of this was 1) watching the other women. There were all ages of women, probably from 11 to 60. There were a gaggle of girls that had a @#*&$ boombox playing a one Mr. Clay Aiken; they proceeded to then bust out some very white dance moves. Some people traveled from Michigan, Iowa and even one family from Montana. (Sidenote on Montana: She and her family were traveling to see her mother, who was dying and to give one of her kidneys to her brother. I kinda wondered where a Clay Aiken book signing ranked with those things but hey we are dedicated fans.) and 2) The opportunity to wear several different patterns and no one cared.
We were doing ok with the cold until the wind picked up. That was just mean. After 2 trips to the 24hr Dunkin' Donuts on the corner (where all of the homeless people in Chicago convene and ask Clay fans for "half of the piece of their cheese") and one run back to the hotel room for a blanket and extra socks, the sun was coming up and people were filling the streets on their way to work. A few people stopped to ask people what the hell was going on. It was hilarious. I guess when you are getting of the subway on a Monday morning and seeing 500 women in tents and snowsuits (yes people had full size tents) was a little weird.
It's finally like 7am and employees from Borders come out offering free coffee to people and telling us it was only an hour to go. I felt a little like I was on Survivor. With coffee and doughnuts. And Clay Aiken. Around the 5-6am time we get numbers written on our hands, marking our place in line.
Somehow we ended up number 98 and 99. Not cuts people! Not to fear though, we were still in the top 100!
8am finally comes and you have never seen such a happy group of people. We all shuffle in, get our books marked and get a red ticket. It was like in Willy Wonka but we were all Charlie and got the golden ticket. We take the 2 escalators up to the promised land (3rd floor) and are very uniformly lined up by the head of Borders security (a very nice man) and members of the Chicago PD. This whole thing was run very well. We are told not to get out of line yet, to hang on to your ticket at all times and get to know your neighbors. After some time we can take turns leaving the line for the bathroom, etc. X-factor goes first and is gone for nearly an hour! I decide that I have to put some faith in my fellow Clay crazy neighbors to save my spot and go look for her. I meet her coming back up and she had been in line for the bathroom all this time. There were literally about 500 women that had been drinking coffee and hot chocolate for 5 hours in the cold that all needed the bathroom. I decided to hold it. Ha.
We sit from 8:15ish to noon on the floor between the electronica and folk music sections. We are starting to become a little cranky. In order to fend this off, we start making fun of people and their crafty soccer mom sweaters. This lasted about 15 minutes. Ha.
Noon comes and the entire group has become restless, all holding our breath in anticipation for a glimpse of Clay's very tall hair over the top of the bookshelves. Well the darn elevator door keeps opening but it's just the darn employees. Meanwhile the Cool Boombox Girls feel that they need to bust out singing the Christmas album. Next thing I know, the whole room is singing. Now group singalongs really give me the willies. I was like come on girls, you are embarrassing. Had those elevator doors not opened and in walked a one Mr. Clay Aiken, X-factor and I may have killed those girls.
Well the room goes apeshit with screaming and such. From that point on the stress of trying to get some pictures was on! The line was going so fast that we could hardly lug our shit fast enough around the little line place holder things. The closer we got, the more aggressive everyone got. One girl made a comment about the amount of Burberry there was in line and how most of it was fake, then she looked at me. I was like, "I'm sorry did you say my Burberry was fake? *&$%^#." I think I may have said this more to X-factor than directly to the girl but I said it loud enough. It was like I was in high school but with more confidence. Ha. Then I thought what if I get thrown out or something after waiting more that 9 hours.
Finally it's my turn to go up to a one Mr. Clay Aiken. I hand the pushy publicist (who kept getting her giant dome in all of our pictures) my books, after she said, "HON I NEED YOUR BOOKS!" I apparently had already set sail to la-la land where I remained for several days. I go up to the table and a one Mr. Clay Aiken says, "Hi!" and I say, "Hi!" a little too excitedly (is there such a thing?) and then he says, "What's wrong? because I am sure I looked completely petrified and as though I was experiencing the beatific vision. I said, "Oh I am nervous!" and he said, "What are you nervous about?" and I intelligently replied, Ahhh! I don't know!" where I then clutched my face that was now beet red and started to cry a little.
He laughed a little and asked "Where are you from?" and I pause like where the hell am I from? and I say, "ST. LOUIS!" like it's the best place in the world. So then he puts out his hand to shake mine and I was thinking OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO DIE RIGHT HERE AT BORDERS IN CHICAGO! So I take his hand and shake it and he asks my name.
This here was what I was waiting for. In his book, he writes a whole chapter about his best friend growing up that happened to share my name. Since it's an unusual name I knew that is what I wanted to say when I got up to the table. Unfortunately I totally froze and forgot this until he asked my name. I responded with my name and he says, "Is it really?? That's cool. Now you can tell everyone I wrote the book about you." I laughed and then.I.died.again. Then he said, "Merry Christmas!"and said the same and it was time for me to go.
I wandered away, completely forgetting that I was even with my sister. She yelled my name as she was approaching the table and handed me the camera. My brain was like turn around and get the camera but my body was like what are you doing? you are a pile of mush. I turn to take her picture and the camera was out of film. AHHHHH. I turned to the nice man, head of security and said, THE CAMERA IS OUT OF FILM!!!!" I don't know what he said but by this point X-factor was coming towards me. She too had the tears. She was like, "I need to get out of here I can't breathe!" So we turn to leave and then were like @&^%$ are we doing - we go back and sneak between the shelves to take more pictures. Then nearly sobbing, we fight our way through 3 floors of Borders and burst outside into the freezing cold. We numbingly cross the street, lucky we weren't hit by one of those 2-in-1 buses. We place the appropriate phone calls shrieking that we just met and touched a one Mr. Clay Aiken. Somehow we made it back to the hotel, not even wearing our coats. Ha.
We change clothes and take a cab over to Rosebud's on Rush for great pasta and a glass of wine. We replay the entire thing several hundred times and nearly fall asleep in our respective pastas. We take a cab back to the hotel and crash.
We get up at 5:30 and prepare for the 8:00pm concert. We get dressed and head once again town the 2.5 blocks to The Chicago Theatre. The marquee lights are on and the same 500 women are all lined up to get in. There is a strict rule about no cameras, etc. in the theatre so I bought 2 disposable cameras in case they were going to take them away, it wouldn't be a big loss. I covertly hid one in my rolled up gloves in my bag and X-factor hid one in her gloves, under her arm like a newspaper. Well naturally I got in Nancy Drew's line because she looked in my bag and unrolled those *^%$# gloves like someone had told her the camera was in there. I stammered some dumbass explanation like, "Oh that must be in there from earlier." I hear X-factor silently laughing at me. Nancy Drew says, "You need to check that" and points to a huge line. I was like "OK!" real chipper like. Then I turned to X-factor and was like #$%&* THAT and walked right into the theatre. No one was following up on the 'you need to check that rule.' We still couldn't take pictures because the security swarmed down on you if they saw a flash. One middle aged woman actually ran up the aisle clutching her camera while they chased her in the middle of the concert.
They were of course selling programs that were made up almost completely of pictures for 20 bucks a pop. I was like,"2 please!" and threw down $40. As were finding our seats I thought I just paid $40 for pictures that I already have downloaded. Ha. I reasoned this out by telling myself that so, this was a tangible object. I know, there are some holes in that theory.
We decided that we needed champagne to help commemorate all this greatness so I went to order 2 champagnes ($7 a piece) and then the guy (who looked like Blair Underwood) says I need to see both of your ID's. $%**. (X-factor turned 21 on Christmas Eve - we were 4 days away!) I show him mine and we do the well practiced, hey-give-me-your-id-oh-wait-i-left-it-in-the-room skit and he just gives me the 2 champagnes with a smile. I gave him a $4 tip.
The Chicago Theatre is gorgeous. It looks just like The Fox Theatre here in ST.LOUIS! (apparently the best place in the world.) Our seats were magnificent, 10 rows from the stage. It turns out the people to our aisle right didn't show so we moved into their great aisle seats. The concert starts right on time and was just total heaven. We sat and cried through the whole thing. It was just gorgeous. We swore we were taking our butts to church as soon as we got home. I really can't describe how great the concert was. At one point during a song, a one Mr. Clay Aiken walked down off the stage and sang to different women in the audience. He was so close to us but no direct singing.
When the concert was over I thought I was going to really cry, had it not been for the complete humiliation that would have ensued, I would have really let loose. Ha. We concluded the great evening by going to a bar/grill called Miller's right by our hotel. We had dinner and a few drinks and rehashed the entire emotional day again.
We got up early the next day to go to the Field Museum to see an exhibit entitled: Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years, which featured tons of her clothes from her years in the White House. It was very neat but very long. We were like does this ever end?? We were ready to go home by now.
Things I learned on my sophomore (adult) trip to Chicago:
1. The people are very rude.
2. You must have a lot of patience to live there.
3. No one has any patience.
4. The city sucks every penny from your Ralph Lauren wallet.
5. There are a lot of Clay Aiken fans in the Windy City.
6. Whoever coined the Windy City as such was right on the money!
This concludes the very long recap of one of the greatest weekends of my life. If you made it this far, congrats. I am recording this for posterity and so I can go back and re-read it when I am having a shitty day. It will make me smile.
