/ You happen to me

From the plane, the earth out west looks like the shaved head of a dying old man, all his years visible as furrowed brows, and you want to ask the pilot to rise a little higher, see if you can make out his entire body, or at least his fists, shaking at the sky for all these fronts and occlusions. Dearest Denver, people come to you for all the wrong reasons, and yet you still happen to me, every single time, and I can now definitively assert that no town in the world plays The Eagles quite so often as your mile high radios. But I am seeing another town, shortly, the original gateway to your very existence, packing my bags for St. Louis, where growing up I would sneak away for ball games, and hopehopehope Ozzie would do another flip on his way out to short stop. Praypraypray no one would throw the ball to Guerrero.

I am hopefully going to be meeting people I haven't seen in too long, in one case, NEVER. And as we're lifting off from SeaTac, I will laugh out loud, remembering that old saying about how you can never run away from your problems. I will be kicking in place at my seat.

Directly off the plane, my most recent problems at least a time zone away, Minneapolis called and requested the pleasure of my company, as well, and as long as I'm in his neck of the weeds, I might as well get those new running shoes I've been itching for, and I might as well get that new liver, too, since the old one is very likely the source of the itching in the first place. I want to get another look at that old man from the sky, I don't know why. But I suspect it is a variation of childhood head trauma.