After getting up at 3:45 a.m. and subsequently spending many hours spent sitting in tight plane seats on the tarmac and not going anywhere (because of broken bathrooms, another plane hogging the gate, etc.), we finally managed to arrive in Chicago. And now, after a giant taco dinner and a long night's sleep, I am staring out of my older son's third-floor into a wilderness of roofs, facades, steeples, scaffolding, crosses, mysterious metal things that might be old cisterns, and beyond them the glass and steel monsters of downtown. The flatness of the landscape is apparent even from up here; the view through the wavy window glass almost seems to be two-dimensional.

I don't know what we'll be doing today, but apparently there will be big waves on Lake Michigan, so maybe we'll go look at that. There's been talk of the aquarium, museums, a plant conservatory. Tonight we're going to the theater to see Lynn Nottage's Sweat, which I've looking forward to seeing for a long time. If you haven't heard about this play, you should check it out. My younger son, the apprentice director, calls Nottage the best playwright working today. He's quite excited we're going to get to see her work onstage. I wish he could be here with us.