I Will Sing, Sing a New Song

Here is what I have eaten today:

• one package of maple & brown sugar oatmeal
• one bagel w/cream cheese
• one Dove Promise (you know, the mini heart)

That’s not sustenance; it’s ridiculous. But I don’t feel good. I really don’t feel good and I don’t know what’s wrong. It’s weird, because I’m not really nauseated or anything. I’m just fall-on-my-face exhausted and headachey and totally not hungry. I feel listless. I kind of want to be whiny and cry but I doubt I have the energy.

Sammi says it’s Maryland’s fault. I’m really pissed at Maryland because their exits are weird and their drivers are rude and they scam you into driving halfway into town to get gas. We did not enjoy driving through Maryland.

This was supposed to be a whole post about our road trip to Philadelphia this weekend but I don’t know if I can get it all out. Maybe just the highlights:

• When I was sitting in traffic on the Beltway on Saturday, my cell phone rang. Sammi answered it since I was driving and after listening to her strange, stilted end of the conversation, I asked who it had been. “Friends of John Kerry,” she said. Why this is weird: I have been on the Kerry mailing list since the primaries, and have given money and signed up to volunteer. I have never received a single phone call from them until Saturday, when I was sitting in traffic on the Beltway for the first time in my life. I suspect they have a tracking device on me.
• It took us 45 minutes to find our hotel once we got to Philadelphia. This is because a bunch of the airport hotels are hiding behind this giant weird building and you can’t see them from I-95.
• Driving in and out of the Wachovia Center was the easiest thing I did all weekend. Seriously, after the concert I expected to sit in the parking lot for a couple of hours, but we were able to get right out.
• We again got lost coming back from Philadelphia yesterday, and this is because Sammi fell asleep and I can’t follow directions to save my ass. So we almost went to Richmond instead of to Roanoke. Luckily, thanks to the bountiful resources sent to us by AAA, we were able to work out a side route that got us back to I-66.

The U2 concert was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve had in my life. Fans who have been to dozens of their shows have been saying that this was one of the best they’ve ever put on, so Sam and I are particularly lucky that this was our first time seeing them live. I wanted to write more about it, but I don’t know if I can convey it the way I want to. We got teary; we danced our asses off; we sang at the top of our lungs along with 20,000 of our closest friends; we were part of something bigger than all of us.

Perhaps the best part, the part that will stick with me forever, was the very end. They closed with “40,” which is the last track on War and a song they used to always sing to close their shows in the 80s. It’s a beautiful, simple little song (trivia: taken from a Bible verse) and they had the crowd repeating the refrain (“how long to sing this song”) while they dropped out one by one and said their goodbyes and left the stage. And everyone kept singing. Most people sang until the house lights came on, and kept singing as we filed out of the arena, and kept singing as we went down the escalators and out into the night.

It was very cool. You should have been there.

Addendum: Sammi wrote a great recap of the show from her perspective, and since it was my gift to her, it seems right to let her tell it. u2 concert re-cap