So I tossed everything to the four winds and started to walk back east, head full of storms. I don’t know if I still have a job. I don’t know if I still want my job. I don’t know what I want, or who I am. I don’t know who I want to be. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be. I knew once — I knew my platonic ideal, knew it well, followed its example, and never deviated. Until it blew away on the wind. So now I’m traveling across the desert trying to hunt it down again.

I’ve seen road signs for — Zzyzx Street, Nevada; Needles, Nevada; Ghost Town Road, Nevada; Browse, Utah; Parachute, Colorado; Rifle, Colorado.

I took 200 photos.

I strode through an abandoned silver mine.

I went to a Wal-Mart in search of polygamists.

I broke into a house built in 1896 and took pictures.

I saw a woman pay for her Burger King food with a check.

I looked at portraits of Hell’s Angels in the same Burger King.

I took a picture of a condom machine in the bathroom of the very same Burger King.

I ate 9 Burger King chicken strips to commemorate what is truly the greatest Burger King in existence.

I managed to get internet access at a hotel merely by the fact that I carry around ethernet cable with me.

I met an invisible friend for the first time, and realized she is one of the few keys to who I was 10 years ago.

And for a minute, in the middle of all this, I thought I saw the footprints of an ideal me heading off into the distance.