When something real is about to happen to you, you go toward it with a transparent surface parallel to your own front that hums and bisects both your ears, making eyes very alert.  The light bends toward chalky blue.  Your skin aches.  At last: something real.
                                                        --Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow.

        Standing in a parking lot.  The clouds are low.  The heat is crushing.
        Part of me wants to go back home.  Another part of me is glad I'm here.
        "Jesus, my legs."
        "You said it," from Adrian.
        A few feet away, a steady stream of cars.
        "We made it," I say.  I stretch.  I yawn.
        "So what do you wanna do?"
        We're standing in a parking lot of a grocery store because my legs have cramped up.  When I drive, my legs tend to either go numb, or cramp.  Or sometimes-- which is a very strange sensation-- both.  This means I have to stop roughly every hour to restore proper blood flow to my legs, or to relieve the pressure on the nerve that's being pinched.  I've never been able to figure out if I have bad circulation, or sitting in a car just pinches a nerve.  Oh well....
        "First, I've gotta make a phonecall to let them know I'm in town."  I can't stay with Alex on this one, and there are no vacancies at any hotel or motel because of the G8, so I'm staying with my Aunt and Uncle.  "After that, we're free for whatever."
        "Me too.  I should call my sister."
        "And then what?"
        "I dunno, you wanna check out some of the bookstores?"
        "Sounds good to me...."
        And as we walk into the grocery store, I begin to feel dizzy.  Probably all the driving, and the fatigue.  But I really am dizzy.  For just a second.
        Above me, a sound.  I look up.  It's a black helicopter, high up in the sky.  Probably just a traffic chopper.
        The helicopter circles the area, and then hovers in place.  There are no traffic jams, here.  Just a steady stream of cars.
        And then, suddenly, the chopper accelerates southwards, takes off for another part of the city.
        I shudder.
        And then it hits me just how close this place is right now.  And it's not just the heat (although that is a part of it).  The people of Calgary are preparing for the end of everything.  They're expecting an all-out war.  They're waiting for anthrax and bombs.  I can feel it in the air.  Paranoid tension radiates off this place like rippling heat.  And I'm not even around a crowd, yet.  And I'm not even at a protest.
        The first major protest is tomorrow.
        In the middle of downtown, right at noonhour, a bunch of people are planning to take off their clothes in order to protest Nike.
        Nudity and paranoia.  It'll be quite a combination.
        Everyone's expecting quite a turnout....

BUT...
45 MINUTES EARLIER....
        Skies threatening rain.  Approaching the turnoff, now.
        Highway 1.  The speed limit is 110, here.
        Speeding up, for the home stretch.
        And, in the distance, Adrian notices the mountains.

BUT, BEFORE THAT....
        In Drumheller, now.
        We've stopped in the town.  We're checking it out.  I've never wandered around Drumheller before, just driven through it.  Or maybe sometimes I've stopped for food or a pop at one of the local gas stations.  But that's just about it.
        And I was at the dinosaur museum, once, though.  A long time ago.  So long, now that I can barely remember it.
        It's hot outside.
        "Calgary's going to be insane," I say.
        "Yeah.  How many people are they expecting?  And if it's going to be this hot for the protests?"
        Drumheller is a tourist town.  Meaning that it's a nice place to visit, maybe once.  All the shops specialize in marketing Drumheller as Drumheller.  Drumheller exists as a pure thing, a thing in itself, for itself.  There is no reason to remember your visit to Drumheller beyond the fact that you have just visited Drumheller.  It's all very self-reflexive.  A closed loop.  Which isn't to say it's a bad thing, just that the only thing this town really means is itself.  Very self-identical.
        If not for the dinosaur bones people find in the hills every now and then, this town would be a wasteland.  But the dino bones bring in the money, and the tourists, and the tourists buy souvenirs.  And the souvenirs remind you that you were in Drumheller.
        There are shops full of dinosaur t-shirts and stuffed dinosaurs.  But they're not just stuffed Dinosaurs, they're stuffed dinosaurs you buy in Drumheller.
        Even the little book/music store we find, before being a book/music store, is a book/music store in Drumheller.  The guy behind the counter tells us how much he loves it here, in Drumheller.  How much he loves walking down the street, in Drumheller.  How much he loves those hills out there, because we're in the bottom of a huge valley, those hills that frame and help create the majesty that is Drumheller.
        And I have to admit, the hills are nice.  And even with all the tourism the town is quiet.  And I think maybe I'd even like to maybe come here and spend a week here, maybe, some day, all alone, just be in this place simply for the sake of being in this place.  Maybe.
        The self-reflexivity is contagious.
        I find a cheap copy of Gravity's Rainbow (because I can never-- NEVER-- have enough copies of Gravity's Rainbow-- I'm kind of like Mel Gibson's character in Conspiracy Theory when it comes to that book) and then we leave.

AND BEFORE THAT....
        Sitting at a picnic table beside a gas station.  And advertising this gas station is a huge white cactus made of out bent pipes.  We left the burger an hour back.  It went straight.  We turned.
        The picnic table is beside the outer wall of the gas station.  And I'm leaning against the wall, and I'm eating some fries.  And Adrian, drinking an iced coffee says:
        "It's all so very flat."
        Where we are is next to the highway.  The huge white cactus is the only thing that can be seen for miles.  There are no trees, no hills, just a slight upward curvature nearing the horizon.  And the huge white cactus made of bent pipes.
        Surrealist, minimalist, desolate, and kind of beautiful.
        The clouds are a deep purple swirled with white.  When the wind blows, the wind is warm.
        The only real sounds, aside from the occasional gust of wind, are made by passing trucks, and a few gophers.  The trucks and the wind and the gophers come in loosely predicable intervals, like three tape loops slightly out of synch, each loop a different length, creating a static yet infinitely randomizing effect.  Like a Steve Reich phasing experiment, or maybe a piece of holographic music by Brian Eno.  It also feels fractal, the same events recurring, yet each time still slightly different.
        "I could actually stay here for a long time," I say.  "I wonder what it'd be life to live here."
        "It would drive me crazy."
        "But just imagine what this place would be like at night.  Pitch black.  The only light from the moon and from inside the gas station."
        "I couldn't take it."
        "Me neither, probably.  In the end."  I sigh.  "But sometimes it seems pretty compelling.  If only for a little while.  The isolation."
        Gophers, wind, two trucks.
        A car, a truck, a gopher.
        Wind, gopher, truck.
        Wind.

AND BEFORE THAT....
        Ozzy Osbourne and his family have hit on something special.  Or, rather, the truth of what celebrity means has finally dawned on them.  In this way, they are innovators.  They are acknowledging that the reason they have chosen to become celebrities-- and it is a choice, not an accident-- people become famous because fame is something they chose and chase, something they need, something they court.
        Because if you don't court fame it leaves you almost immediately.  The whole idea of fame being thrust on you, that's just bullshit.  When it's "thrust" upon you-- if it's "thrust" upon you-- you have a choice: either accept it or decline it.  And if you decline it but the media hounds you, if you don't give into the media, the media will go away.  It's just that most people, no matter how large or small, most people want to be, in some way, remembered-- and being remembered is a form of fame.  And even those few who don't want to be famous, they want to be famous for not being famous.  They want to be known for not giving in....
        Anyway, what Ozzy and company have discovered, or are at least acknowledging, is that they became famous in order to be watched.  They do not want to be anonymous.  If Ozzy had wanted to be anonymous he would not have been in Black Sabbath.  He would not have started a solo career.  He would not be making music if he hadn't wanted people to watch him, if he hadn't needed the scrutiny of the public.  Everyone who makes any sort of art-- no matter how "private" they want to be, or seem to be-- they all make art because they want to be public figures.  People do not create if their creations are being ignored.  People want recognition, they want to be in the public, they want to be important, listened to, and worshipped.
        Even people who don't want to be worshipped want to be worshipped for not wanting to be worshipped.
        And Ozzy Osbourne and his family are finally acknowledging the core of celebrity:  They want to be on tv.  They want to be in your home.  And this is the whole truth, the function of celebrity-- they are finally acknowledging they are public figures-- they are famous and want to be more famous.  Fame for fame's sake.  Because fame cements your identity.
        And other celebrities will follow suit.  Maybe the age of the artificially "private" public individual is coming to an end.  At least that's a little bit more honest.
        The movie star who says:
        "I vaaaaant to beeee allooooone,"
        is lying.
        Pure and simple.  Privacy is publicity stunt.
        He or she would not be a movie star if he or she wanted to be alone.  Instead he or she simply wants to be acknowledged for wanting to be alone, want to be remembered for wanting to be forgotten.
        And so they all want you to bother them, the rich and famous.  They want to be hounded.  They want the fame, they want the followers, they want to be noticed.  They wouldn't have it any other way.  And if they wanted to really be alone they would simply take their millions and drop out of sight.
        It's easy.
        It's easy because there will always be another celebrity to take your place, immediately.  All you have to do is stop giving interviews, making movies, writing books, making music.  Don't be on tv and we-- the entire global culture-- will forget about you.
        Easy as pie.
        But not the Osbournes.  They want to be in your world.  And they want to be your world.  They want their reality to be your reality.  And their reality is, of course, not real.  The lives of the famous are not real.  Not in any conventional sense, anyway.  That is also part of fame.  You do become better than the real thing.
        And it's funny that first the "reality" shows focused on the ordinary man and woman, elevating their lives, making them famous and hyperreal.  And now "reality" tv is beginning to focus on the famous, the already hyperreal.
        So now, what have we got here?  The hyperhyperreal?
        Gripping the steering wheel, I try to accelerate, to pass that goddamn burger.  But then it accelerates.
        I drop back, and so the burger drops back, too.
        Adrian wakes up for a minute, and looks out the windshield.
        Bobbing burger, hanging there pure and surreal.  Hyperreal.  Hypersurreal.
        "You know," he says, "this fuckin' hamburger getting really, really old!"

AND, BEFORE THAT....
        Grinding my teeth.
        "Y'know," looking at the burger, vaguely craving fast food, "I don't really have a problem with capitalism."
        "I do and I don't," Adrian says, also staring at the burger.
        I put my foot on the gas, the car speeds up.
        "I mean, it's kind of evil," he says, "but, at the same time, what alternatives are there?  I hate the commercialism of life, but I also like having my stuff."
        And the burger speeds up to match.
        "I don't want to exploit people, but at the same time I like going to restaurants.  I like the 20th-- 21st Century-- and the Western World.  I like taking showers."
        And when I drop back, the burger also decelerates.
        "I mean, it sucks," Adrian says, "that people get stomped all over, all the time, all over the world.  Capitalism walks all over everything.  But I also like leisure."
        "Yeah," I say.  "And on a more selfish level, I don't want to work for 'The State.'  I want to work for me, and then retire-- hopefully young and wealthy and healthy.  I mean, we-- Western society-- made this Western World, let's utilize it."
        "I think part of it is that most of the people who have money don't do anything with it."
        "Yeah."  And I speed up again, try to get into a passing position.  "If I had money I'd be making art.  I'd be writing, making music, trying to change people's lives."
        "Trying to make an impact on the culture-- maybe improve things a little."
        But the burger speeds up.  And when I slow, it also slows.
        "That's the key," Adrian, "but the people who have the money just sit on it.  But that's why they have money.  I'd try and do something cool.  Just try to make the world a little bit cooler.  I mean, you've only got once, right?  Probably, anyway.  So why not spend it doing cool shit and making everything and everyone just that much cooler?"
        "Exactly."
        I speed up.  The burger speeds up.  I slow down.  The burger slows down.
        "And that's where Capitalism comes in.  You need money," I say, "to make things cooler.  You need cash to make good art.  Primitivism just doesn't cut it any more.  It's time for robots.  Robots and skyscrapers.  And so I don't really hate Capitalism."
        "Also," Adrian says, "we do have money.  We're hardly millionaires, but we still have a bit of money."
        "Yeah.  I guess."
        "And people who have a bit of money don't really hate Capitalism."
        "In fact," I say, "a lot of them pretend to hate Capitalism so they can get laid by other people with money who pretend to hate Capitalism.  That way they can still love their money and not feel as guilty."
        And I speed up.
        And then the burger speeds up.
        And then I slow down.
        And then the burger slows down.
        "This is getting on my nerves," Adrian says.  "This is like some carrot dangling in front of some goddamn donkey."
        "Yeah.  Well.  Yeah...."

A FEW MINUTES EARLIER....
        Me:  "If I start seeing bugs, I'll have to pull over for a bit."
        Adrian:  "What?!"
        Me:  "The flickering the road.  Right at the front of the car, the gravel and the painted line, they strobe, and sometimes that makes me start hallucinating."
        Adrian:  "And you waited till now to mention this little fact?"
        Me:  "It's not really that major.  I see little beetles that start crossing the road from the edges, and by the time they hit the centre of my vision they vanish."
        Adrian:  "Uh...."
        Me:  "I noticed it once when I was with Alex.  I asked him what he made of all the suicidal black beetles on the road.  Then he said, 'Uh, Brian, there are no black beetles on the road.'  Then I pulled over and got out of the car and he was right.  No bugs."
        Adrian:  "I can drive if you'd like."
        Me:  "No.  I'm fine.  It's just like some sort of really low level hypnotic state, of something.  If I see bugs I'll pull over.  When the strobing stops, the illusion goes away, and then I'm fine.  It usually happens when the sun's really bight and I'm really tired.  Right now it's cloudy, so...."
        Adrian:  "Uh, right.  If you start seeing bugs, let me know and I'll drive for a while."

STILL EARLIER....
        The sound of the road.
        And I must've zoned out for a while because suddenly Adrian says:
        "What the name of God is that?"
        And it turns out that I've been following a semi trailer with a McDonald's ad painted on its back end.  A Big Mac 8 feet tall.
        And the tone of Adrian's voice seems to indicate that he hadn't noticed it before now, either.  Which is weird because we're the only two vehicles on this stretch of road.
        Somehow the burger just intersected with our reality.  It wasn't there, and then it was.
        But the thing is, it must've been there, in front of us, for at least a little while.  But I just hadn't noticed it.  Hadn't seen it pull in front of us, turn off from a side road, hadn't seen it start small and then grow as we approached over a period of minutes.
        Because vehicles don't just appear out of nowhere.  And if they did, I'd notice that, too.
        But here it is, now, a magical bobbing burger painted on the ass end of a truck.  The facts speak for themselves.
        We've fallen into a new reality.
        "It's making me hungry," I say.

BUT BEFORE THAT....
        Thick, black clouds in the sky.
        Driving.
        Thinking about my old high school, my old elementary school.
        A bug his the windshield.
        A big juicy one.
        Rain.

AND BEFORE THAT....
        Watching the floaters in my eyes floating, listening to the sound of the wheels and the pavement.  Light spatters of rain on the windshield.
        Adrian is reading me bits form a book on Postmodernism he brought along.  Stuff about Jeff Koons, and the Guerrilla Girls.  Also some guy who does paintings that look an awful lot like like Mondrians.
        "The problem with this," Adrian says, "is they look just like Mondrians, but they're supposed to be about Baudrillard."
        "How do you figure?"
        "The grid the guy paints is supposed to be representative of hyperreality.  Or something."
        "It looks just like a Mondrian."
        I hit a bump and the book snaps shut.
        "Shit, I lost the page."
        "So who was that guy?"
        "I don't know.  Let's see if I can find it again."
        "Sorry."
        "Don't worry about it."  Flipping pages.  "But that's part of the problem with Postmodern art.  Sometimes the theory outweighs the art.  I mean, with, like, Picasso for example, even if you don 't get his paintings at first, you can still look at them, and eventually figure out what he's doing.  You can figure out Cubism and Modernism without a book of theory to help you along.  It takes work, but you can do it."
        "Yeah, but that guy's checkerboard doesn't remind me of Jean Baudrillard at all."
        "Exactly," Adrian says.  "It looks like somebody trying to copy Piet Mondrian.  And, again, with Mondrian you can get what he's doing.  The paintings are about spatial relationships and the relations of colors to each other.  Yeah, they all look like squares and tile flooring, but that's because he's talking about straight lines and colours.  It's self-reflexive, and you can get that out of it.  They're like paintings about math.  But this guy, you can't get Baudrillard out of his squares.  He just looks like he's copying, or that he wants to be Mondrian.  There's no politics in these squares-- or rather there is, but you have to have it explained to you by a third party.  I can see how Baudrillard would have said that contemporary art is worthless after seeing this.  I mean, I wouldn't want to associate my identity and my theories with some guy who is just obviously copying an already famous painter's style because, well, because well it just looks like he's lazy to me, frankly, but I'm hoping there's more to it than that."
        "That is a weakness, the fact that you need theory to get anything out of those paintings.  I mean, even with Finnegans Wake, and Ulysses, you can figure out what Joyce had in mind from the texts of the books-- and even if you don't get it 100% you can tell something's happening.  Ditto with Gertrude Stein."
        Adrian:  "You can't really compare writing to painting, though, in those terms, really, though."
        Me:  "I guess, yeah."
        "But you can figure out the surrealists, though."  Still flipping pages.  "But, I mean, like, the Guerrilla Girls?  I mean, putting Gorilla heads on nudes and stuff like that-- what's that about?  Well, I guess it does have a certain politics.  The 'Anatomically Correct Oscar' makes a point about how everyone who wins Oscars are white men.  That makes sense.  And the other stuff they do, the 'Pale Male Internet' stuff, again, it makes sense."
        Me:  "It's kinda Riot-Grrrrly, but, yeah, it's transparent.  You can figure out what the Guerrilla Girls are about."
        Adrian:  "So, I guess they're okay.  But...."
        Me:  "And Jeff Koons.  Some of his stuff is pretty cool."
        "I don't like the ones he did of him screwing his wife.  Those are just too cheezy."
        "Yeah, that's just ego-- trying to come off like a big deal porn star or something.  But those aren't the ones I like.  I like the huge stainless steel bunny, and the big puppy made of flowers.  The ones that play with pop-culture and pop art conventions.  I mean, the sex ones he did do play with pop cultural conventions-- because porno is pop culture-- but, again, I think those are just Koons reveling in the fact that he can get laid.  Artists are notorious for living to show the world that they can get laid."
        "Pretty narcissistic."
        "Most of them probably got beat up a lot in school for being dweebs and and couldn't get dates," I say.  "Believe me, I can relate and I just wanted to write.  I didn't want to do anything as quote 'faggy' unquote as be a painter."
        "Yeh."
        And then we're silent for a while.
        But, then:
        Me:  "But you can still get some politics out of postmodern art.  You just have to find the right stuff."
        "Yeah.  But still, there's a point where the conceptualization gets so abstracted the end result is utterly impenetrable."
        "Sometimes it's just bullshit, too.  Artists love bullshit."
        And then:
        "But those are neat," I say, glancing away from the road in time to see something catch my eye.  "What are those?"
        "Allan McCollum's 'Surrogate Paintings.'"
        Me:  "Allan McCollum's 'Surrogate Paintings' are pretty cool."
        Allan McCollum's "Surrogate Paintings" are a bunch of black, framed squares.  They actually look like strange alien insect eyes.  They come in all sizes and if you see a whole wall of them, the effect is actually fairly neat.  Kind of funny, and kind of creepy at the same time.  A whole wall of framed black squares.
        Adrian:  "Yeah.  They do have a kind of aesthetic effect when you see a bunch of them together."
        "I'd buy a few if I had the cash."  Rubbing my face, blinking so my eyes don't dry out.  "Is there any Takashi Murakami in that book?"
        "No.  Nothing from Japan."
        "Oh."
        "It says here that the Post-Modern period actually ended in the 1980s.  So anything after the '80s is Post-Post-Modern."
        "So Murakami would be Post-Post-Modern."
        "Hell, we're Post-Post-Modern."

AND BEFORE THAT....
        Rain on the road.
        It lasts for half an hour.

A WHILE EARLIER....
        Sitting in a roadside café:
        "So what do you think it'll be like?"
        "I have expectations," Adrian says.
        "Yeah."  I sip my coffee.  Coffee with lots and lots of cream.  The only way I can drink it.  The only way I can stand the taste.  "I hope it's not just a lotta people blindly protesting the horrors of Capitalism.  That's stale."
        "I hope there'll be more than that.  There's some people who're biking up to protest at Kananaskis.  Maybe we'll pass them."
        "You know anybody?"
        "Yeah, I do.  If we pass them honk and I'll wave."
        Adrian laughs.
        "I biked out to the lake once."  He eats some eggs.  "It was like 40 miles out of town.  And biking out was great, but then, shit, once you get there you have to bike back.  Which totally sucks.  I couldn't imagine biking all the way to Kananaskis.  That'd take a week.  Through all this nothingness.  I mean, I like minimalism as much as the next guy, but shit.  A week on the road.  And then you'll be all wasted from the trip.  And then you have to protest.  And then you have to bike back?  No thank you.  Give me the miracle of the modern motorcar any day."
        "What are they protesting."
        "Evil or something?  I'm not really sure."
        I yawn.  Close my eyes.
        "Oh."  Through my yawn.  "Jesus."  And a groan.  "We're gonna haveta get going soon."
        "Yeah.  We've been here for like an hour already."
        There's a tv on the wall, behind Adrian. It's on CNN.
        Bin Laden's face, then a newscaster.
        The sound is turned off, and it's really not worth the effort to try and read lips.

AND BEFORE THAT....
        The sound of the wheels against the road.
        The flatness of the prairies.
        This place is like living in a Robert Wilson opera.  It takes six minutes for a single tree on the side of the road to slowly approach, and then flash by.  Above, in the sky, you can watch the clouds slowly changing shape.
        Nothing happens.  But when something does happen, it seems much more important.  Because it's surrounded by so much nothing.
        Every quadrant of land perfectly squared off.
        My hands on the wheel.
        Unblinking.  Staring at a fixed vanishing point.
        Minutes feel like minutes.

EARLIER....
        Ten minutes out of the city:
        Me, rubbing my face, yawning, desperately trying to shake loose fatigue.
        "Don't worry," I say.  "I'll wake up more when I get into the groove of the road.

EARLIER....
        "I'll have to stop a lot."
        "That's no problem," Adrian says.  "I can drive too, if you want."
        "Yeah, we can trade off, or something."
        Still driving through the city.
        "Sorry the tape deck's broken."
        "Yeah," he says.  "That sucks, but what can you do."
        "There's still the radio.  At least that works."
        "Yeah.  But, still.  Sometimes the radio's even worse than silence."
        Down the street, now.  And there it is, to my left, the old high school.
        "What's up?"
        I point out the window with my thumb.
        "Oh, yeah.  Feeling nostalgic?"
        "It's just the morning.  I get kind of sentimental and depressed when I don't have enough sleep.  And paranoid, too, sometimes."
        Through the green light, and then down the block.  And then, there it is, to my left, now: my old elementary school.
        "Within walking distance of both."
        "I had to take a bus," Adrian says.
        They've made additions to the old school.  They've also torn down the swings and moved the big hill right into the middle of the schoolyard.  Also, the rink is gone.  The hill, in fact, is where the rink used to be.  I remember watching people put up that rink.
        The additions look like snap-on cubes, sort of like leggo fastened onto brick.  Like leggo leeches.  Totally unreal, plastic and tin, they date from the beginning of the 21st Century.  And the rest of the school dates from the beginning of the 20th century.
        We drive on.
        "I walked," I said.

AND BEFORE THAT....
        The world seems a bit more real, now.  But just a bit.
        My hair still hurts, but the burning in my eyes has subsided.  A bit.
        The shower helped, also the open air, wind through the open windows of the car.  That sort of thing.  A lot can be said for fresh air.
        And Adrian lives out in the country.  Lots of fresh air in the country, on the edge of the city.
        I yawn.
        On the margin, the periphery between the artificial nature of the prairies and the natural chaos of the city.
        Right between.
        I turn off the highway.
        Even though there are deer in the distance, and jackrabbits and foxes, the roads are still paved, here.

AND....
        Morning now.  Seems only a few minutes ago I fell asleep.  Probably because that's what happened.
        Sleep before trips is always difficult.  I never sleep much.  The trip is always there, in the back of my mind.  My eyes burn.
        Trouble opening my eyes.  My eyes burn too much to open.
        I struggle, turn on the light beside my bed.
        My vision flickers.  Silver particles everywhere.  Rods and cones trying to adapt.  My pupils hurt.  The size of pins.
        My pupils are always the size of pins, though.  Always constricted, tiny.  I don't know why this is.
        Maybe I'm just extremely focused.
        No.
        No.  I close my eyes.  Swing feet from bed to floor.  Lying still on my back, feet on the floor.
        I sit hunched, now.  Rubbing my face.
        Have a shower.  That'll wake me up.
        Pack.
        Pick up Adrian.
        No.  I'm not focused. That's why I'm going, right?
        The focus.
        Feeding like a vampire on the focus of other people.
        Right.
        Sigh, groan.  Rub my head.
        My skin.  The air hurts my skin.  Sensitive first thing in the morning.
        Hair follicles, also hurt.
        What was it?  Maybe 4 hours of sleep?
        Hung from within.  The phrase "hung from within" pops into my head.  What?
        The skin over my eyes hurts.  Eyelids, forehead.  The skin under my eyes hurts.  Cheeks, whatever.  Sinuses.
        I sneeze.
        Sneezing hurts.
        I begin to shiver.  Shiver so hard I feel like puking.
        4 hours of sleep.
        Then on the road.
        Focus.
        Better be worth it.
        There better be helicopters....
 

Next:  Field Work....
 

Epilogue 27b.
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