Insert Supertramp Music Cue Here

Willy Loman, Unenlightened as Always, Returns Home

Let's keep this short and sweet, shall we?

I woke up early - sleeping in the living room of The Bell School, with its open floor plan, will do that to you. Particularly when people are making coffee-making noises just a few feet away. Sarah cut out at 6 AM to drive back home to Portland for her first day waitressing - that's a two hour drive, for the Maine-illeitrate among you.

Pinocchio and I went over to a nearby Dysart's - a sort-of I.H.O.P. recast as a truck-stop. This turned out to be the place where he'd met his wife (a blind date) about a decade earlier, but the vibes there were so - interstatish - that it was hard to picture it being the start of anything of that nature.

Anyway, after some French Toast (although the Dysart version of the McGriddle had been recommended to me by all members of the Bell School, I had to demure, thinking of the seven-plus hour drive ahead of me), and some career conversation about Pinocchio's music, I hit the road.

And drove, and drove, and drove, and drove and drove. And drove. I had plenty of music with me, and some stand-up by David Cross and Patton Oswalt to keep me company. I took one stop, at the Freeport Friendly's. This was mostly intended as a piss-break, but I decided to make a meal of it. After a couple of days of healthy, home-cooked food, I needed some real-honest-to-goodness artery-clogging crap, and Friendly's is also good for a Proustian Rush of flavor, given how often my mom and I went to the now-defunct one in the local mall when I was a kid. So, I got the usual: burger, fries, and a junior chocolate Fribble. And when say 'usual,' here I mean a meal that I haven't had in about twenty-five years, but was my standard back in the day.

From there, it was a pretty straight line, and this time I smartened up and avoided 95 and 91 entirely once I got on to the Mass Pike. 84 all the way to New York, to 684 to the Saw Mill Parkway to 287. Over the Tappan Zee Bridge - now taking bets on just when it will be the follow-up in the Minneapolis 35W Bridge S.M.E.F. Derby - onto Route 9W, and home.

Home, Yesenia. Kiko, sleep. Unfinished work from home and office. All that stuff.

Next time, I'm going to New England for a week. and I'm taking my wife with me. Our cat, too, if we can keep her sedated.

D.