We’ve been on the road since Monday. Tonight will be show seven of eight. Each place has been different. I wonder how many dates we’d have to do to make them repeat or resemble one another.

The drives between have varied as well. Two hours to seven. Flat lands and mountains; straight roads and endless switchbacks; tollways and unlit country roads. I do the driving while Bill works his phone. We listen to music I choose. Sometimes we talk.

At each place there’s a block of time between our arrival and showtime. We fill it with eating and sitting around mostly. Bill does soundcheck; I don’t. I’ve read at five of the six stops so far. A different thing each time. Afterwards people come up and buy books. It surprises me a bit. It’s generous of Bill to let me do this. I would have been fine with just driving and selling his merch.

I’ve been getting sleepy in the afternoons but by the time the opening act hits the stage I’m usually back awake. Sleeping in a different bed every night is odd but I’ve been getting my rest. I think Bill has a harder time coming down after playing. He says he doesn’t usually sleep much on tour.

In every town he has old friends to catch up with. Most are new to me. In a few places the venues are run by former Chicagoans. Everyone is generous and accommodating.

Indianapolis was a worn cinderblock bar, Asheville a brand-new craft brewery stage, Charlotte an annex behind an art gallery/menswear boutique, DC a punk house in a gentrifying area, Brooklyn a craftsman-made survival bunker, Turners Falls a shambling house and garage full of longtime friends. Rochester will be a record store, Detroit a cafe.

We will have driven 2,500 miles when we return to Chicago.

It’s been a great change of pace from the month of bookstore assembly that preceded it.

It took two and a half years but I finally finished Olga Tokarczuk’s epic Books of Jacob sitting by a window of a house in Northampton, Massachusetts this morning.

I put together a bunch of writing and pictures of Tangible.

I look forward to getting home and putting the final touches on my Rainbo show, which opens Sunday, June 16th. There will be a reception that evening, 5-8pm. Maybe you’ll be there too.