It’s raining when I leave. A flat, stuttering downpour punctuated by half-hearted thunder. Always early to airports and movies, I sit surrounded by furious, inert midwesterners delayed by a lightning strike in Minneapolis.

My connection is through Detroit and then Memphis (and perhaps Anchorage for all I know). I’m taking the long way ’round to get to Los Angeles with no time for anything more than a mad dash to catch my connecting flights.

The woman sitting next to me in the lounge sustains a sotto voce, one sided conversation with her teen son, undaunted by his apparent and utter lack of interest in everything she is telling him. I can’t say I blame him. He’s got a fine future ahead of him, enduring the same through what I imagine will be a succession of wives undistinguishable from each other by anything other than their waist size — a infinite regression of demanding Russian nesting dolls enjoying their own disappointment too much to think of his.

No idea how my mood got so sour, so early in the day. I usually love to travel alone, keeping my eye peeled for incognito gods on the move.

But this is only Grand Rapids. There are no gods here.

But I’ve got high hopes for Memphis.