i'm driving in my car

i remember reading Tex in sixth grade while a friend and I were in the middle of our SE Hinton phase. there was one part in the book when tex and mace are driving to town and tex asks his brother if he ever wonders about the story of everyone else on the road. every other driver is going somewhere and to them, it's a hundred times more important than where mace and tex are going. mace, who has way too many responsibilities for a kid his age, is suffering from an ulcer and basically says tex is stupid.

ever since i read that a million years ago, i can't help but think of everyone's stories when i'm on the road. sure, they're all made up, and most of the time are probably really really far from the truth, but i still do it. i divorce some people and widow others. i make some fall in love and others fall out of it. i make people desperate and excited and tired. i give them long distance relationships and guilty secrets and business trips. i make dreams come true and hopes shatter. i create traffic jams and strings of nights sleeping in clothes on motel beds. people become pilots and CEOs and liars. they go out for diapers and never come back. they stop for milk and find the love of their life. no matter how uninspired i'm feeling, the minute i get into a car, my mind is able to think up a million and one scenarios from a quick glance in a car.

random note: there are a bunch of emails sitting in my inbox waiting for replies. if you are the sender of one of these emails, know that i'm not ignoring you i just don't have the time/brainpower to answer right now. but i will try to eventually.

*Fire - Bruce Springsteen