There's Something Special About Indiana.

It is 7:44 am and I should be asleep. Instead I'm translating transcendental telegrams to myself from myself. It's all very metaphysical, and requires that I sit cross-legged on the floor in my underwear, listen to Murfreesboro come to life outside the window, idly watch Hamster dig through his varmint mulch, and smoke cigarettes. And try not to wake Megan. And contemplate smoking a pipeful and drinking a can-a-coke, which I probably won't do unless I decide by the end of this that I won't sleep until tonight, which is likely.

It is a cold, dreary wet night in Dayton. There's no cheer on the wind, though we were met with attentive and gracious faces. I'm restless and lonely, lounging on a flowered couch at Jenn's house. Drinking wine and smoking cigarettes indoors should brighten my mood, but some moods are best left alone. I try to read, but nothing holds my attention. So I'm left with my own thoughts and this ink blood to tattoo the paper in vain.

There's something special hidden in Indiana, but I haven't quite found it yet. The Silver Thread is buried beneath Interstates 94 and 65, stained a dull gray and sopping with marsh water.

and a perfect smoke ring drifts towards the sleeping ceiling

The giant windmills dwarf our tiny white automobile, spinning into outer space with all the greasy hope of a nation of wasteful apes, all with blood on our hands.

But there's something special about Indiana. Maybe someday I'll load a trunk with botanicals and medicines and tools and wander for an Indiana winter month, analyzing and quantifying all of these stainless-steel ghosts and sand-chewing refineries whose thick-tongued mouths fumble and rumble all of the things I've been dying to articulate.

No rest for the wicked. Shalom.