San Antonio

This morning was a difficult morning.  I did not want to leave my motel.  I wanted to sit beside the pool all day and decompress.  I did not want to drive from Baton Rouge to San Antonio.  My mind was in forty different places, and none of them were good.  My alarm went off at 8.  I felt like someone had driven a U-Haul down my throat.  I marched across the motel parking lot and ascended the little hill, up to the adjacent Chevron station.  I needed water.  I bought some water.  The cashier asked me if the water was all I needed.  I said, You don't sell what I need.  Her assessment of me changed.  I watched her face register the change.  I was now insane.  I left the Chevron with my water and descended the little hill behind it.  All my fears about myself collided on that hill.  Get the fuck over it, I said.  Get over it.  I called my mom.  I told her that I did not want to drive to San Antonio.  I told her that San Antonio was too far off.  I told her that I was supposed to meet a friend for dinner there, but that I wanted to bail on him.  This was around nine in the morning.  I told her that my friend had always been very supportive of me and my work, and she told me that sometimes you just have to suck it up and do it.  I sucked it up and did it.  The bridge that spans the Mississippi river lifted my car high above the river and into the air, and my spirits lifted too.  This long day then began to seem possible.

     
I called my mom after the bridge.  I told her that I was still not in the best head space, but that I was going through with it anyway.   That could be my life story.  Western Louisiana was yielding to the hood of my Subaru.  I told my mom that I've been unsatisfied with the work I've been doing on the road, that I put too much pressure on myself.  She told me to take that pressure off.  If you knew my mother, you would know how funny that is.  She is the queen of impossibly high standards, the most industrious person I have ever known in my life.  Taking the pressure off ourselves is something we don't know how to do.  It would be like asking us to wear a car on our feet instead of a pair of shoes.  So instead of taking the pressure off, I stepped on it and drove as hard as I could until I had to pee.  I was chugging water and sipping coffee.  I made my first ever, souvenir impulse purchase at a gas station near the Louisiana-Texas border.  A gator skull caught my eye. I was still in an anxious dream.  It was a baby skull.  It's jaws were wide open, its teeth intact, its skin shrunken and leathery.  I plunked down $11.99 and headed west toward Texas with the skull of a dead reptile in my passenger seat.  Later, after dinner in San Antonio, I called my mom again and told her about the skull.  She asked me if I'd named the skull yet.  I told her I hadn't.  But now I think I should name the skull after my mom.  So until I come up with a better name, my gator's skull's name is Tina.

  
I should be going to bed now.  El Paso is supposedly ten hours from here.  But before I go to bed I do want to say that I have been taking and editing quite a lot of road video, and eventually I will post those videos here.  Distressingly slow internet speeds have made it impossible for me to upload big files.  But the videos are coming!  As soon as I get to a good connection, I'll post one.  Until then, here's the toilet paper in my San Antonio bathroom.  Good night.