Aimless Thoughts: One More For the Road
2022 On the last day of August I was sitting at the shore of Lake Michigan, letting mild waves pull me into the muck. Kanye West was in my headphones rapping about Chicago. I threw a pebble toward where I thought Menasha probably was. It skipped five or six times as the guy from Coldplay sang, “I'm comin’ home again, maybe we can start again”. I hated the only home I’d ever known. Some eight hours from now I'd be headed back. My north star was a girl in Nebraska. A month later I got my first full-time job because of her. Broke, futureless youth was finally behind me. In a year I'd have enough vacation accrued to drive down to her. Everything was looking up, assuming the job went well. My dad texted me out of the blue: the Covid-era King Gizzard tickets he got me for my birthday in 2020 were still valid, they're coming back to Chicago in October. The same week I started my job. Fuck, I couldn't afford another bad first impression. But as far as I was concerned back...