microwave popcorn

The morning sun when it's in my face makes me feel my age. I'm busting down I-94 East to a young author's festival in Menomonee Falls, Gretchen Wilson's "Chariot" bringing happy gospelized tears to my eyes, 75 on the dime, passing trucks like my '98 Saturn is the Blue Flame. But the saudade is strong within me. I know it's all going to come to an end someday soon.

sip this bad coffee
whip on by this slow-ass truck:
april morn commute

I've had an easy ride these last few years, working at a nice wonderful good company that makes great products for kids, getting unlimited time to make school appearances as an Important Guest Author. I'm really good at these visits, it's kind of the job I was meant to do on this earth. And yet the end is near, the forces that drive the green fuse are driving me out of this comfort zone. Which is good, opportunity beckoning, etc. But I just don't see drives like this in my future, sun in my eyes, adoring throngs of bright shy loud funny hyper-serious kids waiting for me to make them laugh and make them work hard and tell them something interesting. Everything changes, every single day, every googleplexth of a second. Sun in my eyes.

one cloud in the sky
only notable for this:
its pure solitude

And then Gretchen is done, that last song is a killer, all about how she's the biggest thing that ever came out of Pocahontas Illinois, how she's gonna make them proud, very much the same [arrogant] way I used to feel about myself and Canby Oregon, haha, I'm not that arrogant anymore. I put on Montgomery Gentry's new CD, so Nietzchean in its stout hearty belief that we all make our own fortune and road in life, no whining no regrets no looking back no time for tears, the first song comes on all about how just making a living for your family is Something To Be Proud Of. I know that's my path to follow. So, with a little sigh of regret, I turn up the stereo and drive on to what will be one of my last gigs.

eventually
all the morning glare dies off.
stop squinting. see clear.