"I'm back baby!"

I've discovered that two weeks in a car with your mom is a very long time. And I never imagined saying this (or writing this), but it's good to be back in Dekalb. For a long time now, probably since I was in college, but maybe earlier than that still, there has been some part of my life, era, if you will, that I've felt distanced from. All the pieces, whether determined by my age, geographical location, friendships, etc. haven't all coalesced into one big ball of me in quite some time. I'd look back and at least one of these pieces didn't fit and didn't feel like it was truly a part of my identity, myself. I mention this because on Saturday, in the early evening, I was riding in the car, looking out the window, listening to Transatlanticism when we crossed the state line in a triumphant return to Illinois and all the pieces came together. It was the first time that everything in my life felt like my life in several years, and it was pretty spectacular. I also thought how glad I am to have been born and bred in various places in Illinois, especially after driving through a bunch of crazy states on a not-entirely-voluntary trip.

Some highlights from the voyage (in no particular order other than when I think of them):
1) I met Ben Gibbard!!!!!!!! I will write of this further when I will hopefully have prolonged conversation with him at the Revenge of the Bookeaters this Thursday.
2) I saw Death Cab for Cutie at the Greek Theatre at Berkeley, along with Mates of State and Spoon!!!!
3) I discovered that both Mountain and Pacific time zones follow Eastern time for most television programming (something I have always wondered about).
4) I can now say I've been to San Francisco and to City Lights bookstore.
5) I visited Hyde Street Pier and paid 25 cents to light a little white candle (see "Grace Cathedral Hill" by the Decemberists.
6) I saw Little Miss Sunshine.
7) I saw a horse's penis.
8) I drove by the studio in Sausalito where Fleetwood Mac recorded Rumours.
9) I visited John Steinbeck's hometown, Salinas.
10) I visited Sundance's hometown, Park City.
11) I learned many interesting things at the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum.
12) I wrote a poem.*

Highlights of being back inDekalb:
1) Seeing friends and my fella at the Annex.
2) Eating Portillo's.
3) Having I-haven't-done-anything-remotely-sexual-in-two-weeks sex.

It's good to be home.

*We Ride the Clouds

With handfuls each of
Montana and Washington
you're looking out to
the horizon for a mushroom cloud,
confusedly asking me
about a man called Grimes.
I reply: I can't tell you
when it's happy hour in Bangkok;
I'll always let you know the
whereverweare time.
the thought spoken aloud,
the rest jostling around
up there to be put to
paper for you:
I should be having sex right now.
I need to read more Thompson.
I have only enough money to
be a partial completist.
I think it's too early to say
certain words, but I kind of want to
and am not sure if that makes
me feel worried or wonderful.

with an unrecognized quote
and an unfinished hangman,
I had a little hope, a possible drizzle
ending two years of draught
(after three months of raindancing).
If only the gods had responded earlier,
you think; we would've had more time
and I wonder if it's a meritless concern,
if we'll have time enough.
In dreams, in night and day,
I don't stray, pass up offers
wished for so intensely and
I think that you have made
the bitter of bittersweet
retreat to the dusty corners of
the attic on my shoulders.
the thoughts not yet uttered
but repeated in this echo chamber:
I want you here.
This place would shine bright in my view
if only you were in the vicinity.

With thoughts twirling and feet stumbling,
I am attempting to fit the pieces together
even though I've lost the top of the box
with the picture. And maybe the thought
comes that I'm doing this blind
but you'll be guiding my hand
and it's put to paper, but quickly targeted
as overdone. I realize it's always been
a gut feeling and my ruminations,
spoken aloud or not, today, tomorrow, or never,
written in a vaguely cryptic manner,
will never all reach you the traffic's bad
from synapse to synapse to mouth.
Instead I'll kiss you and tell you
how you remind me of those
two that are at the top, you
know the ones I mean.