A year ago, this was the album I constantly played as I worked my last few weeks at the hospital. My office was stripped bare, my speakers were turned up to a bold volume, and I counted the days until I left for the museum, a gig I couldn’t wait to start.

Six months ago, this was the song I rediscovered after I heard a segment on NPR praising the album. I had just gotten back from my first real web development conference and was filled with so much zeal for my job I didn’t know what to do: I ate, drank and breathed web development day in and day out.

Two days ago, I heard this song while browsing a mall with my brother, at a store that sold overpriced, pre-distressed jeans. I sat down at my desk today and stared at my monitor, unsure what to do. So I tore my desk apart, rearranging, cleaning, rewiring, until it was arranged exactly as it was a couple months ago, the last time I felt something akin to excitment for my job.

Okay, so clearly this whole calling on the phone thing is not going to
work at all. Nevertheless, I miss talking to you, so indulge me this
fairly lengthy communiqué.

18 hour drives can only be described with words like ‘hellish’, and
‘suffering’ and ‘near-death experience’. Matt and I left Tampa at 9am
and staggered into Urbana-Champaign at 2am Central Daylight Time,
barely able to keep our eyes open. I’m never, ever doing this drive
again, for any reason, especially not during the winter when there’s
ice and snow to worry about. We weathered… well, incredibly inclement
weather, an unbelievably brilliant and spectacular thunderstorm in
Kentucky, waded through some terrible traffic in Nashville, got to see
some amazingly beautiful foothills and valleys in Tennessee, and ate
some pretty fantastically unhealthy food.

For dinner, Matt and I split 12 Krystal Burgers. Have you ever been to
Krystal before? It’s a lot like White Castle, tiny burgers and all
that. I half-seriously asked Matt if I should bring my laptop in;
maybe they have wireless access, I said. He laughed and scoffed at the
idea. “Wireless? At a Krystal? Are you joking?” The next morning, I
came across a popular technology website. The lead article reported
that as of the previous day, Krystal had rolled out free wi-fi to all
252 franchise locations. My vindication was bittersweet.

Reese was especially cranky—to show her displeasure at having to ride
in a milk crate all day, she just absolutely unloaded in the towel
lining the bottom, an explosion of poops unlike anything I’d ever seen
before. Poor thing. I guess you use whatever you can to get your point
across. Since arriving, she’s been cuddled, doted upon, and generally
admired by a small group of guinea-pig owners here who have officially
dubbed her ‘beautiful’, as if I didn’t know that already.

…

I have a  confession to make: I absolutely cannot get enough of the
new Hilary Duff song, “Wake Up.”  My better judgment is rocked to the
very core at this shocking display of poor taste, but my reptilian
brain savors the candy-sweet hooks and trite teenybopper lyrics. I
leave it on repeat in iTunes, I sing along to it in the car, I catch
myself humming it in the shower, I hear it in my dreams. I hope we can
still be friends despite this. I know I would have difficulty making
such promises were somebody else to make the same admission to me.

Then again, Kim is currently listening to orchestral arrangements of
Enya songs, so perhaps it’s just something in the water.

…

We’re driving up to Chicago tomorrow. Keys, moving, cleaning, setting
up, Chinatown for dinner, perhaps a walk downtown or at Grant park at
night. It’s incredibly good to have Matt and Kim around; they do an
amazing job of keeping me centered and contained and… at that place
where I experience and take things in, as opposed to try to grab a
hold of or attempt to control. They’re a firm anchor to the past,
invaluable during this time where I feel particularly windblown and
rootless.

I know I say this a lot, and perhaps it loses something in repetition,
but I miss you.

Kim has hot tea waiting for me, so I will stop here. I have no idea if
you have any internet access where you are, and thus no idea when
you’ll read this, but whenever you do, I’d like to hear from you.

Take care,
David

I was a much better writer back then.

Inside was this dedication —

I wonder whatever happened between them.

The book is great, though.