Highway 57, Mexico. Jackie. Long straights, cruise control, droning music, blasting through flat beige landscapes that never seemed to move no matter how fast we went. Highway hypnosis. I was thinking about home. About West LA and what I missed: Japanese food. Frozen yogurt. Zankou Chicken. Maybe I was just hungry. But there was also my apartment. Melissa, my stupid roommate who always left dishes on the floor. On the floor, Melissa? Really? My couch and my TV. Binge-watching Kids in the Hall and practicing all of the voices. I missed getting on stage—even the small, dimly lit ones in the basements of comic book shops. And making the audience laugh—even if the audience was a dozen dorks just killing time until some guy who shades Batman took the stage. I missed the beach. We’d been bombing around the butt crack of the Southwest long enough that you’d think I’d be sick of sun and sand. But it’s not the same. The sand here is too coarse. It doesn’t run between your knuckles like silk when you pick it up.
