I think my everso thin, not very convincing, veneer of hip and cool is beginning to crack and give way to road weary. Maybe I’m just saying that because of the enormous zit on my cheek, probably a result of too much moisturizer and stress.

I’m just about ready for this show to end. Good timing on my part, since I’m pretty near the California border right now.

Although, I have one last marker to mark. One I have mixed feelings about, in a way. (That last bit is grammatically annoying to me, but so it goes.)

Anyway, I have never seen dry, hot desert and so I must see what I can of the Mojave in Southern Cal. (I was considering Death Valley, but I would be detouring out of my way and ticking more time away from the goal of San Jose and M. and our new digs.) It shouldn’t be too hard a target to hit, since pretty much all of Southern Cal. should be a desert if it weren’t for irrigation. (Everything I know about California water rights can be summed up in one word, Chinatown.)

The mixed feeling is over my fantasy and the likely reality. I want dry and dusty and desolate and impossibly dead but yet living. However, they say this year is a legendary one for blooming wildflowers and cacti and all manor of flora thanks to heavy rains at the right time and prevailing temperatures this winter.

So, instead of death, I will have to try my best to enjoy a display of life.

And, after reading up on it, I also realize that some of my assumptions about allergies might be a bit off (sorry, Liz). It’s wildflowers that can stay dormant without water that are blooming like shit. I’m crossing my fingers, though, that the foreign, previously uninhaled species of pollen won’t fuck my head up so bad that sneezing impairs my driving.

Today’s main question is how much driving do I do? Once I see me some poppies and lupins and cacti do I hammer it all the way up North to San Jose?

Fortunately, I’m getting an early start thanks to the most meager of “continental breakfasts” I’ve had to date. No reason at all to linger over plain donuts, mediocre coffee with fake creamer and Tang, or maybe orange Koolaid.