Road warrior

I am ever so slightly in shock: I have moved away from DOU-Town.  I'm keeping most of my books and a few household possessions in a storage unit in town, but I myself have moved out.  I hit the road yesterday morning, and I've made a fair number of miles by now.  Despite some torrential rainfall near the end of my driving day, I made it to my motel in East Boondock, which is no great shakes, but at least there is free wireless internet, which allows me to sit in bed in my underwear and type this entry in comfort without rummaging in my bags for dry clothing so I can buy something overpriced at Starbucks.

Dude, I'm really out of DOU-Town.  I am really moving on.  It feels...almost fantastical.  I wonder if my sense of going on a near-magical journey of uncertain conclusion is related to the fact that I brought along the whole huge Lord of the Rings trilogy (used purchase price: $3.00!) for relaxation reading.  (Reading it afresh brings up numerous discomfiting realizations about the social and moral underpinnings of much of Tolkien's imagination, but that's a whole other post.)  I'm still struggling with the idea that my life is now a big series of question marks, as opposed to the relatively clear path of marks to hit presented by grad school.  I'll be fretting about that soon in another post, no doubt, but right now I'm just enjoying the sense of trekking off to find my destiny far from the place in which I lingered for so long.

I should probably end this post here, before I'm tempted to quote Bilbo's song like every Phish-following loser who puts a bumper sticker of the money line on the back of their car.  Besides, I can't really claim to be wandering when I'm following the interstate highways toward a very specific destination.  Moreover, some of the romance of the open road, I feel, is lost when one has to go back out of the motel room in the driving rain to bring the case of files up to the room, since one apparently can't bear to live without taking a portable filing cabinet of personal documents from city to city, and since one is too paranoid to let it sit in the front seat of the car for the night as temptation for really stupid burglars to smash the window and grab the paperwork.  My concept of 'traveling light' remains a work in progress, it seems.