By the power of Greyskull, here’s the update. At least, the first of the updates I thought would hap­pen. This trip’s been a litany of better-​​than-​​no-​​time-​​at-​​all con­ver­sa­tions and dri­ving, brain­mush and dri­ving, unsea­son­able weather and driving.

As my friend Erin would say: Right. That was a thing that happened.

By Day 3 I thought I was past the hard­est of it. I left Mass­a­chu­setts. I left Rhode Island, my mom, my sis­ter (in for the hol­i­day) and Jen, whom the inter­nets don’t much know I’m in love with. Drove to the Mashan­tucket Pequot Museum, then Bal­ti­more and crashed on my wise, adven­tur­ing friend Barb’s floor. Vir­ginia Beach, and my anar­chist orga­nizer brain-​​on-​​wheels friend Maxwell Despard. Asheville, NC, and my age-​​old car­pen­ter friend Tom Gib­son. Colum­bia, and my brother artist THE Dub­ber. Atlanta, and Karen Garrabrant, who knows how to smile and hug bet­ter than near any­one, and sent me off with a bag of dubi­ously healthy road snacks. Nick Fox and his very friendly ladyfriend Corin, and their intox­i­cat­ing third, New Orleans. Now Austin, Phil West’s couch, a detour through Mike Henry’s lov­ingly suc­cess­ful ND bar. While my beloved Corol­lita gets its oil changed (and the power steer­ing basin replaced…), there’s time to clean this thing up and lob it out the door.

I’m tend­ing a lot of raw wounds. Each clam­ors in my head to be the big griev­ing focus. I’m becom­ing smarter about griev­ing: it’s self­ish. The best way to fail at it is to indulge every­one who wants your sad­ness. Last week I was prone to falling out of con­ver­sa­tions. This week I’ve fig­ured out I can’t be trusted for cogency after step­ping out of the car. I fan­ta­size about seven hours with a bot­tle of whiskey and a campy 80s teen com­edy marathon.

The Hot Club of New Orleans does their thing. Their thing is very, very sexy.

The kind­nesses my friends have shown me on this trip have been aston­ish­ing. Din­ner. Road grub. Friends sleep­ing on the couch so I could take their beds. One took me on a city tour after work – city tours. These words here might sug­gest I can artic­u­late my grat­i­tude, but you can’t truly thank some­one until you truly know what she did. And I’m a mess. I got only a hint of how my friends are repair­ing and pre­serv­ing me. Thank you each and all. I couldn’t have asked for this.

The friend­ships I formed and deep­ened, James’s safety in Berke­ley, and the deep­en­ing rela­tion­ships I’m find­ing with my fam­ily these seven months bal­ance the hor­ror of all-​​scale fail­ure in my heart. I’m pro­cess­ing a hell of a lot. My phone’s spell-​​check keeps sug­gest­ing my ex/​baby mama’s last name when I start typ­ing “grief.” Thanks, iPhone. Good to know where your alle­giances stand.