True Journey Begins

Arrived in Memphis yesterday.  Hope to reach Sallisaw, OK today.  Then Amarillo tomorrow, and Albuquerque on Sunday.  Fair progress after spending, what, two weeks in Virginia and three in Atlanta?

Both were relaxing stays with friends.  Too relaxing.  I've gotten soft, become reliant on rolling out of bed and having real humans to talk to.  Or at least dogs.

Oh, right.  In Atlanta, I stayed in a studio with a 7-month-old labrador puppy named Gracie.  Things she destroyed of mine:

1. Electric Dragon 80,000V, a mildly rare artsy Japanese film.  DVD, case, soundtrack CD: all shredded.
2. How To Cook Everything, an awesome cookbook.  Slipcase destroyed, index chewed.
3. 40 Blinks Bucky Eyemask, devoured.
4. Vibram Fivefingers KSOs, munched.

She was a good dog, though.

Driving through Mississipi and Alabama in one day helped me realize how our current circumstances determine our Apocalypses.  I kept seeing signs for the exits..."Food" it would say, with a perfectly blank hi-contrast expanse below.  "Gas", and then "nothing besides remains / the lone and level roads stretch far away."  Hence The Road, an exurban Apocalyps, where people become so distanced from each other and so cut off from resources, they have no way of productively dealing with one another.  Compare with the rural Japanese Apocalypse of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, where life has just slowed down, with fewer kids in the village every year, and the beach slowly reclaiming the parking lots.

So-called "Dystopias" are Apoclypses as well, of course.  The world changes dramatically, the true nature of humanity (or of whatever you're afraid will constrain or warp it) reveals itself, is seen not through a glass darkly.  I keep on thinking that they'll make a Snow Crash movie, that it's yet to be made irrelevant, that it can be condensed into a dayglo meditation on gated communities and franchise restaurants.  And katanas, second life, wearable computing, and statutory rape, of course.

McDonalds even have free wi-fi now, nearly as convenient and necessary as a bathroom.  The future is like a low fire that a map of your life has been thrown onto: the edges burn first, but occasionally more mundane spots, closer to home, blacken and swell.

O let me stand next to that fire!

Yesterday, I stopped at a McDonalds to piss, and when I came out of the bathroom and headed to the door, someone on the staff sarcastically thanked me.  A few seconds later, I reeled from social vertigo: I hadn't even thought them worth enough consideration to turn and fully face them before scoffing.  I'm beginning to see why gypsies think it's okay to rob from non-gypsies.  People tie themselves to one place, one job, one lover, expecting to be rewarded for...what?  Self-doubt?  Fear?  Unquestioning service?  They're like the blacksmith from the Borges story who wrapped his son in chains so that when he died from the weight, he could fly in heaven.

Graduation, lay-offs, the death of a close family member...I'm overdue for throwing my life away on a crazy plan.  Every day is a new opportunity to say "The Journey Begins Now."  Initiation never ends.