I’m staying at the Quality Inn Market Center in Dallas. This weekend, it just so happens, is the annual Mary Kay convention. Makeup retailers from all over the United States have congregated…

[Drive Through Oklahoma With Oneida] “Pretty much every road I’ve been on has undergone serious construction and it really… it kind of, um…debilitates my driving when there is just one lane open…

The drive from Saint Louis to Kansas City, Missouri is one road. Interstate-70. You would think that from downtown Saint Louis it’s easy to find the highway. This is not so. I…

[Dead Meadow – “Let It All Pass” MP3] When I awoke, I was alone in the house. I found an envelope outside my bedroom door, with a note thanking me for getting…

During my freshman year of college, I was constantly strapped for cash. It wasn’t like I was poor—money had been set aside for my first semester that was to be used for…

I was once in a car driving to Princeton Record Exchange with a friend. He reached for a CD and inserted it into his car stereo. As the first song began to…

The sky is blue—but not peaceful blue—more like, potentially threatening blue. You’d know it if you’ve seen it. I’ve crossed the Ohio River into Indiana, and have roughly four and a half…

Following my meeting with Tim Furnish, I race back to the apartment where I’m squatting to find JK McKnight’s number. I call him, and he groggily offers to meet me for drinks…

I climb the stairs to the front porch and glance back to my car in the driveway. I press the doorbell slowly, and step back from the door. The porch is covered…

Beyond the Daniel Beard Bridge, Cincinnati disappears. Skyscrapers stretch high in the rearview mirror, and Kentucky’s electric green expanse begins to encroach on the car. It’s a humid day in early July—the…