Behind the normalcy of every home lie the quirks, the secrets, the idiosyncracies: the small things that add personality and character (some would say oddness) to each household. Every household has its own taboos, its requirements of family members, and they're impossible to discern from the exterior behavior of the occupants.

We head for home in approximately ten hours. I have been here since one a.m. on Saturday morning, and I've come away with the same feeling that I always have when I visit here: Tull is my home in a way that no place else can ever be, but the chances of my ever living here again are very, very small.

I am thankful for kitty purrs and coconut-milk desserts and dinners with friends. I still love the feeling of driving over the I-55 bridge over the Mississippi River, and I still am secretly thrilled when Jeff approves of something that I do. I still can't remember the name of all the reindeer without singing them, and I think it's funny that this year is the first year, ever, that my father has put Christmas lights on his house.

I was thirteen on the day that my parents heard the sounds coming from the woodpile. At first, they weren't sure what they were hearing, but after a day or two, they became certain that what they were hearing was probably a kitten.

Somewhere along the line, a few years ago, the tax base in Tull got stout enough and the houses got paid-for enough that it became time to have some official representation of law and order in this town. In the past, the isolation of the town pretty much guaranteed that just about any would-be criminal would get good and lost before ever reaching the city limits, but every now and then a bad wind blew long and hard enough to throw a not-quite-desirable someone down the winding road that eventually led to Tull.

I confess. I was a bad, bad girl while I was on my trip. I didn't take any pictures. But—for those of you who just can't live without having this sort of thing, I did save strange and random bits of things to put together into a collage.

2001 Illinois trip collage
by domesticat.
[see full-sized version on flickr]

Here's what you'll find in the picture:

1. The all-important packing list, taken from my visor. Can't forget the cell phone, or beer for the host.
2. My alarm clock, with the 'alarm' pointer still signifying my four a.m. wakeup time.
3. Chicago Transit Authority bus pass.
4. Pass to the Dana-Thomas house, which I toured in the rain.
5. Movie ticket from Innocence. I cried.
6. 'Cashier was USCAN'? Aaron and I both boggled over that one. Quite funny, we thought.