As I crossed the state line I realized I'd missed the grand turning-out of the lights, the unknown but somehow pre-determined moment when all of the good citizens of Alabama realize it's time to go to bed, and turn out all the lights. There hadn't been many lights in Tennessee, but in comparison, Alabama was utterly dark. I took the state line exit onto the back roads, and did not see another car (or an open gas station) for the rest of the drive.

Details of the Jackopierce concert will arrive soon, after sleep, the ingestion of sustenance, and stoppage of this strange bouncing that I've been doing for the last few hours. Your normal, reserved, albeit slightly goofy domesticat will return sometime on Monday. For now, the demented impostor that has taken over her body feels the need to go into the living room and squeal for a little while.

It must be spring. My hands smell like varnish.

We don't really know the cause, but pseudo-scientific tests have confirmed that my brain has turned to mush. The prevailing theory has to do with the undoubtedly mutagenic chemicals in the varnish, but I have a sneaking suspicion that three nights of forcefully-applied iambic pentameter might have something to do with it.

Jeff rightfully pointed out that porn, while supposedly the seedy underbelly (there's a bad pun in there somewhere, I just know it) of this interweb thingy, is also quite possibly one of the most [only?] profitable sectors.

We were driving back from Rick's on one of those zero-traffic nights where the space between your friend's house and your own gives you more time to converse than is probably good for you. We'd spent part of the night's socialization talking about various spam-stopping methods, which of course led to the discussions of the worst/most disturbing spams we've each received.

Granted, I have a nice little antispam program that munges any and all HTML in emails it thinks are spam; therefore, I can open such spams as catch my eye and look at them without worry of being tracked, logged, bugged, spied upon, or just generally bothered.

Words don't like forcing. When pushed, they fight back with kick and claw and bite, resulting in nothing but torn-up papers and cramped hands. Finished sentences rarely result, and the ones that survive their troubled gestation usually prove to be truly ghastly infants.

The past week has been tough. The next few will be tougher. I am approaching the one-year anniversary of Dad's death with something deeper than apprehension but differently-flavored than dread: knowledge conveys its literal meaning, but precariousness conveys its resonance.

It's extraordinarily rare that I talk to anyone about what happened last year. Even now, a year later, I don't have the mental distance or emotional stability to do it, so I leave the words hanging, swinging, between my lips and another's ears.

The mirror tells me I am not fundamentally different.

* * * * *

"People get uptight about the most bizarre things," Jeff said, nodding, as I showed him the pictures. I agreed.

I'd been zeroing in on a sweet little parking space at the store when the battered blue Dodge had caught my eye. I tossed my car into 'park' after whipping around the row, and had my camera ready before I walked by the car.

While I'm legally allowed to photograph cars, I prefer to do it as inobtrusively as possible.