Man Land

My previous girlfriend and I used to call my personal space, "Man Land."  When I wanted my personal space at the end of the day, I'd tell her, "I'm going into Man Land now."  Sometimes I said this over the phone; sometimes I said it face-to-face.  "Good night," I'd say, I'm going into Man Land now."  I must have said it two hundred times.  Man Land: the place I'd go to drink beer, watch movies and make them.  I'm in Man Land now, but now I am only taking personal space from myself.  I have been alone all day.  I went to New Mexico in a relationship and came home single.  This is not a personal ad, though driving across this country I did hear that song about the personal ad—if you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain, if you're not into health foods, if you're into champagne—many times on the radio; and each time I heard it, I thought it told a touching story.  Rain, sun, mountains and flatland, that song made me think that sometimes love renews and sometimes it doesn't.  The big point that I'm laboring to make, though, is not about love, it's about Oilchanges. Oilchanges turned a corner in New Mexico.  I now reserve the right to write about whatever I want and to do so at unprecedented length.  If I wrote about the thrill of crossing a border, I didn't write about how I felt when I approached Santa Fe from the south, during my last couple of hours on the road the day I reached the farm.  I almost wept at seeing those mountains to the north.  I had no idea that I was crossing into Man Land for good this time.