Late night nostalgia - (No. 81)

Just after dark, streetlamps are on and out.

I know my mind is a little wandering right now.

I have a sudden sense of yearning for aimless car rides around at night, with music playing and a few friends or two or one, in the passenger seat, just driving and turning and stopping at stop signs, and laughing at dumb things.

I do my best to replicate the feeling, right now. I bike around, I play Fuerza Regida from my phone speakers. I do lazy laps on my Pedal Grinnell bicycle, and I wish that I could keep it so I don't have to walk back to my dorm on my two feet after returning the bike. I want to expend mechanical energy, for no purpose other than my enjoyment and pleasure. Aimlessness, but not listlessness. I want to feel the warm heat from the car seats, and feel the wind rush through when the window is open. What happened to the wandering part of life? I want to wander to a gas station and park and open car doors lazily and shut them leisurely and then squint into the bright fluorescent lights of the gas station and then joke about discount apple fritters, and window shop for greasy gas station food that we don't end up buying.

We drive and we stop at the stop sign and there's no one else around so we stay there for a while. Who were we talking about? It might've been a girl, it might've been a dude, it might've been the music, or political instability, or something about a professor (but maybe we're still in high school, so it's Mr. this and Mrs. that, not Dr. and Prof.).

It must be hours but no one even thinks about regretting it, or needing to do anything else. Nothing's due. What the hell is an intern? We talk about internment, about Diddy and celebrity gossip.

I actually don't know about Diddy, maybe that is not a good example.

Come back, Baby Girl, said the radio.

Okay, no that is just the song playing right now. Una cerve-za -- puede ayudar a que salgas de mi cabe-za.

I want to start a band, and they offer to contribute their keyboard, and their trumpet, and to learn guitar. We all know no one's starting the band.

What will the world look like? someone is thinking, and no one knows, but it should be fine, right, because everything then is fine.

I don’t know how to drive.