I had an extra hour on my lunch break so I decided to go to the Hot Carwash of Self-Knowledge, which is like a normal carwash, except a person dressed like a belly dancer does a mind meld with you and says, “These are your pluses and these are your minuses. This is what makes it nice to be around you, and this is what makes it a pain in the ass. This is what is good for you, and this is what is bad for you.”

The Hot Carwash of Self-Knowledge is always right.

Except I got real lost. It was over on the other side of town and I got mixed up on which street to take. I turned too early and when I realized and turned to cut over to the right street it was too late and I nearly went onto the freeway. Then, just like that, I was in FARMLAND and passed a sign saying, “Thanks for visiting Vienna”. I had left the city limits!

I eventually found my way there, but it was an art-supply store and I had wasted two hours trying to find it — all of my lunch break. I bought a few basic book-binding supplies for this secret project and was half an hour late getting back to the office. Fortunately no one noticed.

I would fear that I’m going senile and have to start pinning my name and address to my shirt when I go places, but getting lost is not uncommon for me, albeit that was pretty epic.

It crashes down with the dead weight of a rusty bulldozer falling into blackberries, into the tough vines that pulled it back to earth when it had fought its way heavenward. A tractor freed from gravity, momentarily, rising in an anomalous moment before normalcy brought it crashing back to earth, blade askew.

Sometimes you open the dishwasher and stray metaphors come out, fogging your glasses like steam.