Woke up to sunlight with a fresh sense of my road trip. There's nothing like ten hours of sleep to reset your perspective on life.

I've noticed that my writing got a lot happier and less disjointed as the day logs went on. If I recall correctly, at this point, my caffeine withdrawal had gotten to the point where a massive latte would deal with the hangover-like headache and nausea.

My definition of hard drugs now includes caffeine in sufficient quantities. Learn from me, people: don't get beyond 2-3 cups a day. The heart palpitations, sweats, and incessant craving for stimulants are really not worth it.


I woke up in Louisville well rested and content with life. After packing my things back into the truck, I meandered down to a coffee shop spotted the night before, and whiled away an hour with a latte and my laptop. Eventually, however, DanseMacabre escaped class, and we wandered down to the local metaphysical shop for some herbs (for him) and some atmosphere (for me).

The shop was one of these bright, clean airy stores. It was skinny, with a short leg of an L in the far back and the front portion lined with shelves filled with herbs and spices. God and goddess statuary vied for space with chamomile and myrrh, soaps and moisturizers rested on counters below. It was an herb-witch's dream, and for me, simply someplace with a nice atmosphere and some pretty trinkets if I were so inclined.

I wasn't. I meandered through as DanceMacabre made his purchases, soaked up the smell of herbs and incense, hugged him, and drove off to the north towards West Lafayette.

There's not much to say about Southern Indiana, other than there being a lot of small towns and rolling, flat plains. I reached Indianapolis and jaunted through towards West Lafayette, arriving half an hour to an hour later with the instructions to let myself into alex's place, as he was out and the kids were in. A short time later, he made an appearance, and I inflicted massive amounts of hardware (accumulated over four years in DC) on him.


Six servers, three switches, a box of hard drives, a box of RAM, a multitude of cables and other goodies. The last of my lab ended up there.

The teenager made me uncomfortable in a way I don't think I can fully articulate. It's amazing watching people who remind you so very much of yourself in all the wrong ways. I'm not sure what leads some teenage girls to fixating on a distant boyfriend (in my case, Iowa, in her case, Vermont), in order to move themselves forwards through life.

It took me a get to figure out why I had this particular emotional tic. Having a distant, seemingly unobtainable goal keeps one moving forwards. Actually getting what you think you want is a terrible, terrible thing.


Dinner was had at Applebees: teenagers were baited and horrified. Some time later, I nuked someone's writeup while sitting less than five feet from them. I only realized my mistake when alex started snickering.

Two bottles of wine later, I passed out on the couch and slept for ten hours, drunk but happy.


And woke up hungover. I always wake up hungover at that house.