There is no sleep on this final night in Kansas.
I find it hard to believe I was ever here, much less that I will soon not be. I'll be packing up my 'things' (National Geographics, dirty clothes) and picking up smoking again for most of the day.

Our Fourth Monthiversary pie sits in the fridge waiting to fork its filling over, but I'm not sure I can really look at this pie without forking over every bite of my grit. He always told me that he hated the notion of Goodbye. If he had it his way, we would probably all hang up the receiver the way a real cool guy does it in the movies, or the way New Yorkers do it in Seinfeld. So I guess it isn't that bad to leave like this.

My train arrives at midnight plus two minutes. This is the most offensively theatrical and dramatic time of day to take a Goodbye Train. If I had it my way, nothing I did would be cinema worthy for a while. I'll wonder what he might be doing as the train pulls away and some old man will ask me where I am going and why I might be going there. I'll think of the still-in-the-fridge pie and I'll tell him

I just can't really remember.



This would be the fifth time that I have uprooted myself from a town during this Two Thousand and Six of mine, and I am going to have to say from experience that it feels very different each and every time.

Right now I feel exactly like the First Day of School mixed with My Small Rodent Just Died.