AMERICAN DESTINY

Well ... today I made the closing announcements at Borders, shut everything down, counted the safe, etc., and got everybody out of the store and safely to their cars ... maybe for the last time ...

As I got into my car and drove away, I turned on the radio. The very first thing I heard was the voice of an old friend saying:

Mine's a tale that can't be told
(My freedom I hold dear)
How years ago, in days of old, when magic filled the air
Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor I met a girl so fair
But Gollum and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her

Nothing I could do, no ...

I'm gonna RAMBLE ON!
Now's the time, the time is now
to SING MY SONG!
Go around the world, gonna find my girl -
ON MY WAY!
I 've been this way ten years to the day
RAMBLE ON!
Find the queen of all my dreams!

That's Led Zeppelin, if you don't know. From way, way back. And it was the perfect song for leaving Borders.
Synchronicity, I think they call it. Destiny turns on the radio. The previous night, as I drove away, the radio conjured up "I'm Already Gone" by the Eagles.

There seems to be a secret passage from my state of mind to the local classic rock radio station.

It was a rough last week. (I actually have to come in on Friday, too, but that will probably be a facile imitation of a real day at work.) I toiled six days in a row, but mostly I milked the clock. My emotions have been on a roller coaster all week long.

Anyway, Mara came into work tonight with most of her family. They are all very nice. It was good to see a familiar face after my weeklong odyssey of weary Borders weirdness and emotional uncertainty.

Well ... despite moments of panic and self doubt, fear and immaturity, anger and self recrimination -- I haven't done anything terribly radical yet during my mid-life 40-ish freak-out period. I haven't yet turned into Kevin Spacey in American Beauty and fallen for some goofy-underage-primadonna, or blackmailed my boss, or traded my sedan for a hot rod, or been kissed by a covertly gay Marine Corps Colonel. However, I do suspect Rerun of fooling around with the Real Estate King.

You have to have seen the movie to understand any of that.

Anyway, it's late and I feel groggy and disoriented. So good night.