Today’s soundtrack: to hear enough to miss
Today at 10:02pm: Somewhat lost


I lead a low-res life. Seventy-two dpi of an inability to relate to others, relationship failures, bad decisions and occasional good meals.

Every once in a while I approach a high-res, photorealistic life. Three-, maybe six-hundred dpi of love, passion, intelligent decisions and occasional good meals.

Right now I’m working on the most improbable love story of all time. The problem is I’m not writing it, I’m living it, and the story is slipping away from me. The only thing I’m sure of is the protagonist’s motivation. The love interest, the ending, the plot, the climax, all of these things elude me. It’s so much more painful than having an unfinished short story languishing on your hard drive.

On Delancey Street me and the taxi driver get into an argument about the best way to get to JFK. I’m pro-Williamsburg Bridge, he’s pro-Triborough Bridge. I can tell he’s wrong because he’s too emotional and emphatic in his arguments. Feelings won’t get you to the airport on time; logic will.

Then I think of her and get very calm and suddenly this thing with the taxi driver seems like a complete waste of energy. I’m thinking about what in life is truly important, and it certainly isn’t little silly bullshit like this. She made me a CD and I pull the player out of my bag.

“If you think the Triborough’s the way to go, then hit it,” I say, staring out the window, pulling the headphones on. Eventually New York recedes into the background.

Phoenix is a five-hour flight. Cramped and unremarkable, and I am surrounded by people who have all the grace and manners of recently released convicts. Even worse, one of them keeps sneezing.

The plane lands at 8:48pm, whatever the hell that means. Daylight Savings Time hit on the same day I had to go two time zones away, so now my body has no fucking idea what time it is. All I know is it’s dark outside and I’m in the desert.

I pull out of the Avis lot in a cherry-red Pontiac Grand Am with a fucking wing on the back. This car has four doors and no class. I am tempted to neutral-drop it at the stoplight but remind myself I am no longer a young man.

I’ve been to Arizona before and forgot that the desert is actually not deserted. Highways and low-rise housing developments flow in a steady stream out of Phoenix. It’s dark out and flat, with low mountains on the horizon.

An hour later I pull into the resort, which is no fucking joke. It’s a cross between one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces and a gargantuan adobo, lined with palm trees and exquisitely sculpted lawns. The parking lot is about the size of the one at Disneyworld.

I pull up to what must be called the Grand Entrance and am approached by two fresh-faced golf-caddy looking motherfuckers in spotless cream-colored polos. “Valet park you car, sir?” they ask.

I decline--I’m a self-service kinda guy--and they direct me back to the humongous parking lot, where I select my own space and carry my own bag.

On the walk back up to the hotel, I hear the damnedest thing coming from somewhere within the parking lot--swing music. Softly at first but it seems to get louder between SUVs.

Soon I realize there are little outdoor speakers planted at intervals throughout the whole lot. The strains of what sounds like early Sinatra serenade you up to the hotel proper. This is what I like to call a “real classy joint.”