“We just have to get to June.”
“June.”
“Juuuuune.”
“Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuune.”
“How long has May been going on for, now?”
“Two years? Three years?”
“Longer. I think Chevy Chase still had a talk show when May started.”
“I think you’re right.”
“It’s bad.”
“Well, it’s not good.”
“I keep singing ‘we gotta get outta this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do’ stuck in my head.”
“Bad.”
“Not good. Endless loop of non-goodness.”
“You know what I’ve got looping? That scene from Clerks when Randal’s like, ‘You know which ones I hate? The customers,’ and Dante’s like, ‘Which ones?’ and Randal goes, ‘All of ’em.'”
“I’ve had that one looping for, like, fifteen years.”
“Juuuuuuune.”
“Juuuuuuuuuuuuuune.”

Living in New York, I find that the city intensifies whatever emotion I’ve got going. If it’s “happy,” I walk out the front door of my building and the weather works with me and I enjoy walking around and everyone’s smiling at me, and I’ll find a dollar on the ground or something. If it’s “depressed,” I walk out the same front door and won’t get a cab and a girl will walk by wearing the same pants as I’ve got on, but looking way better. If it’s “tired,” well, it’s all an effort out there — every hill is up, that kind of thing. I had a trip planned for months. June finally came. I skulked out of Manhattan after dinner, my favorite time of day to blow town because it feels like I’ve gotten away with something, and I sat on 39th Street and looked at the couples strolling out of midtown happy hour and the dealers at the top of Herald Square. It’s always crowded on US 80 for awhile but by the time I get to the western edge of Jersey, it’s just me and the trucks headed into the Alleghenies. I’m not at my desk. I’m not paying six bucks for a bottled beer. I’m not smelling blanched garbage. I’m going. I’m gone.

“Hey.”
“Hey. Where are you?”
“I’m at your house, actually. Hey, how old is that grapefruit juice?”
“Not that old — go for it. How are the woobies?”
“You mean the cats?”
“No, I mean Ma and Dad. Yes, the cats.”
“Oh, fine. But is Hobey ever going to stop hissing at me?”
“Oh, Jesus. Sorry, dude.”
“You should send him to therapy.”
“Yeah, I know, but he seems so content in his contempt for everyone. I’d hate to upset him by, like, solving his problems.”
“I see what you’re saying. He’s like Sartre.”
“He’s like — you know, you’re right. He kind of is.”
“Can I call him ‘Le Hobe’ from now on?”
“Hee. Yes. But not to his face.”

I like the road. It’s a pain sometimes when I travel alone, and I don’t love interstate rest stops, but I like the road a lot. My mind is too fussy for me to meditate, but in my grubby Honda, I can almost do it. It quiets my mind. And I like motels. I like jumping on the bed. I like the “free” toiletries. I like turning the AC up to Jesus and piling all the pillows onto one bed. I like dining on mini Oreos and Diet Coke while watching cable, and ordering a wake-up call through a mouthful of tiny cookies. I don’t know why I like these things; I’ve seen the scandalous Dateline reports on germy Holiday Inn bedspreads, and I wouldn’t invite a pebbly foam pillow into my home on a bet. Maybe I just feel grown up and sassy driving around in a big country by myself. Sitting at home, trying to sort out my estimated tax forms, I feel really young and stupid. Doing bomb dives on a hotel bed in central Pennsylvania, I feel like an adult. Go figure.

“Why do you always drive everywhere?”
“I hate to fly. I love to drive. I have to smoke.”
“Well, there’s driving, and then there’s driving a thousand miles.”
“It’s only eight hundred miles, Dad.”
“Still. It just seems like a long trip.”
“That’s the point, though. Look, I know it’s not logical, but in the car, I can stop whenever I want, and I don’t get hemmed into my seat by a big aluminum box full of yucky meals that smell like barf. Plus, you can’t see anything on the plane.”
“What’re you going to see on the interstate, cows?”
“I like cows.”
“You’d better. You’d better like wheat, too.”
“You’re bringing me down, Dad.”
“Don’t forget to check the tires now and then.”
“I won’t.”

It’s a big country. It’s a flat country. It’s a country with a part of it in the middle where the men should really look into knee-length shorts, because they’ve given the rest of us far too much information. It’s a country where I can screech into a parking space at a rest stop, open the door, throw my sandals out, and step into them, and nobody looks at me twice. It’s a country where I can support the Ursuline, Ohio high-school marching band boosters by buying a handful of Diet Cokes. It’s a country I’d like to see from the window of my little car while she’s blowing the doors off the eighteen-wheelers on a steep upgrade.

“Hey, where are ya?”
“I’m passing Comiskey, and girl, I really really have to pee, so go stand by the buzzer because I ain’t playing.”
“Okay. Are you going to want a beer?”
“‘Beer,’ yes. ‘A,’ no.”

I always have things to do — things to write, things to file, things to organize and mail and pay and negotiate, to edit and correspond and decide. I “have to,” “need to,” “should,” “must,” and “ought” — I always have. It’s my unfortunate nature to worry and fret and feel obliged. I hate asking for help, or admitting that I need a rest. But I needed a rest, and I went to another time zone to get it, and it’s resting I’ve come for and it’s resting I’ve done. I bought a pair of shoes. I did my toenails. I went out to dinner. I bought a disturbing painting of two tigers for seventy-five cents. I drank a bunch of beer. I defiantly refused to shower because it involved leaving the couch for more than five minutes. Let them get along without me. Let them call if they need me. Let me rest. Let me be.

“Look at this! Not just one hopping frog, but a whole barrel of them. For a dollar! One dollar!”
“And lizards. There’s at least eight lizards in that bag.”
“I know!”
“For a dollar!”
“I know! This is a great country we live in. Where else in the world do you have the freedom to choose between Altoids and — and — what are those?”
“‘The spuriously string munt,’ evidently.”
“Yes! Generoids! God bless America. Does that yo-yo blink?”
“It does. And I believe that it glows in the dark as well.”
“I am deeply in love with the dollar store.”
“Dude. Nail art.”
“I KNOW! And you know what else? That elephant is wearing a hat. And it’s still only a dollar! Hat? Included!”
“I can’t believe there’s no silly string. That’s a serious oversight, in my opinion.”
“I think that purchasing that adorable ‘I Love Jesus’ Frisbee — excuse me, ‘Frosboo’ — would do a great deal to comfort you.”

I love my work. I love the city. I miss the cats, and I want to see Mr. S’s new pad, and I wish I didn’t have to skip Scrapper’s birthday party. But I had to go. I had to spend a few days drinking Hawaiian Punch and taking silly Polaroids of my friends. I had to leave so that I could come home. I had to miss things for awhile and get from “sick of home” to “homesick” somehow. It’s working. And I got a sweet deal on that tiger painting.

“We have to go home now.”
“Oh god yes.”
“We shouldn’t have left home at all.”
“Oh god no.”
“Why did we do that?”
“I believe that you bellowed, ‘Get your shoes on or perish, fuckwads,’ so we all got our shoes on.”
“I regret that now.”
“So do I. Move over, dude, there’s a jogger coming.”
“Dude. There’s a JOGGER COMING. What are we DOING out here? It’s SEVEN-FORTY in the MORNING!”
“I believe we wanted to find a bar. Also, the bellowing.”
“I didn’t think anyone would actually listen to me. You had an icebag on your head!”
“Can I sue you for that?”
“For getting you an icebag?”
“Where were you when I fell down?”
“Sticking decals on a sleeping Texan.”
“Right. Damn.”
“We shouldn’t be here.”
“We shouldn’t be anywhere.”
“Why are we alive? Seriously. I’m not speaking philosophically. Why are we still alive? Because we should be dead now.”
“We will be dead soon. Very soon.”
“Good.”
“Okay, here’s the plan. We go upstairs, we sleep it off, we get up and buy a gun and I SHOOT THOSE FUCKING BIRDS STOP CHIRPING STOP YOU’RE DRIVING ME MAD!”
“Okay, you know the kooky sunglasses that the guy is wearing at the beginning of Big Trouble In Little China? Can we go back to the dollar store and buy forty pairs of those and jam them under our eyelids to block out the infernal rays of the sun, and then shoot the chirping birds?”
“Yes. We will hold up the dollar store. Our livers will drive the getaway car.”
“Okay. Excellent plan. May I lie down in this flower bed?”
“No. No, you may not.”

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