It was twilight as I was driving to my parents' house and everything was so beautiful I thought I was dying. I think it was the clouds that did it, the illuminated and the shaded, flocks but not of sheep, of gigantic, ragged, independent birds with trailing feathers and bodies bathed in light and bathed in purple. I thought it was purple, but then it was pink and then it was grey against blue that could have been orange, and on the other side, the sun was shooting out rays that jostled and tore the edges of its last faithful guard, sparse, tough, and lighter and brighter than any rare air. And the rest of the world should look the same, but it's not, it's not, and the roadway is porous and looking up like a choir, and the trees are becoming clouds too, and I think maybe the clouds are my skin. Yes, I think the clouds are my skin.

So this gets me suspicious, like, am I headed to a car accident or something? Perhaps there's a blood clot slowly forming in one of the main vessels to my heart, or my brain, or perhaps when I step out of my car I'll step out into a different world forever. Because I was smack whap in the middle of the kind of beautiful that only happens when you are saying goodbye.

But I'm still here! I ate Mexican food with my parents, and here I am now. That's awesome. Am I really allowed to have as much of that as I want?

12:11 a.m. 2003-07-21�