Work in Progress: A Postscript

I've been thinking about how to finish the last non-fiction piece I posted. Right now, it's mostly just pretty, and you can tell I'm sort of having fun writing it in places. But a lot of it's flinching. It's good flinching, but it's flinching all the same. What am I trying to get at here I ask myself. I do not yet know.

But this is something I know. Friend Two and I, equal parts melancholy and depressed in the past few weeks, have decided to take a roadtrip. Destination: Montana to visit Friend One. Date of Departure: September 22nd. Which also happens to be the day my divorce is finalized. John and I will be in court at 9:30, will likely be out by 10:00, since there is nothing being contested, and in the grand scheme of things, it has been a relatively placid split. But I knew I wouldn't, couldn't, go work that day, and so Friend Two and I will leave in his car and make the 10-hour drive to Montana.

If I can't figure out what I'm getting to about roadtrips, the need to travel, at that point, then you can all take away my laptop and never let me write again.

*tm

Comments

[bartonfreak]

Are you looking for an answer, or confirmation of something you suspect to be true?

Instead, I offer a road trip playlist:

James McMurtry's "Too Long in the Wasteland." "Deck Hand's Daughter" is for lonesome stretches of highway in twilight. "Talkin' at the Texaco" should be listened to until you can sing along at the top of your lungs.

Indigo Girls' "1200 Curfews." They're good in the studio. They're great live.

"Outside Providence" OST. You'll laugh, you'll moan, you'll sing along.

Paul Simon's "Here Comes Rhymin' Simon."

Rickie Lee Jones' first album. Save "Company" for the drive home.

Monty Python's "The Final Rip-Off." "Bookshop" and the Australian Philosophers song are highlights.

Aretha Franklin's "Jazz to Soul."

Misc....

Less than Jake's "Johnny Quest Thinks We're Sellouts" and "I Think I Love You."

Rufus Wainwright's "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk."

Ray Charles' "You Don't Know Me."

Bob Dylan's "Tangled Up in Blue" and "Don't Think Twice (It's Alright)."

Teddy Thompson's "Separate Ways."

Shirley Horn's "Hit the Road, Jack!"

Cake's "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps" and "Manamanah."

Matarca Berg's "Back In the Saddle."

Ella Fitzgerald's "Don't Fence Me In."

Patsy Cline's "You Belong to Me."

[Terrible Mother]

Mostly I'm looking to see what happens. I'm not sure yet, but I think that this is the best time/way to figure it out, if I'm going to finish this essay.

I'm going to burn this CD tonight. What say ye, though. Should I burn it in this order?

[bartonfreak]

Yes.

And you should add The Perishers' "Sway" at the end.

[Kari]

We're taking that with us to Beirut, FYI.