Gone

Yesterday I got up at 7, loaded the car with all kindsa bicycles, dropped off keys, drank coffee, took medicine, and was outta the parking lot before the first person showed up for work. The Geo purred like a kitten. I covered 500 miles and got a subsantial part of the way there, listening to Bill Bryson the whole way.

Now two days away from the job, two solid days hoofin it east, more than 1000 miles from the breezy grit of Los Angeles. I’m in the big sweeping prairieland of New Mexico and the Texas panhandle, where the scene goes white with dust whipped in the westerly sirocco.

Glad to be gone, in fact. How can I say it sucked because they were unfun, those people. One colleague in particular, I desperately wanted to know as a friend. I tried repeatedly to open some friendly connection with him. And every time I felt I was feeding his not-so-secret belief that I was an imbecile. He looked at friendly gestures as weakness. I tried until I despaired, and felt I no longer needed to play the earnest suitor.