mine is the loneliest of numbers
now is the loneliest of times
you're 19 days late,
but still I sit and wait
waiting and waiting
waiting and waiting
waiting on you
-Weezer, "Waiting on You"

"Driven by Words and Dreams and a Million Screams"
I have taken my grandmother to Newark Liberty International Airport on a number of occasions, and have found that Weezer's Pinkerton is the perfect CD for the drive back.

I think part of the reason for this is that Granny tends toward early morning flights, and loud songs I know the words to are just about the only thing that can keep me from falling asleep at the wheel; and partly because Pinkerton's just the right length for the trip from Newark to Teaneck. I seem to always pull into that cobblestone driveway amidst the last few apologies of "Butterfly"... and that's a good feeling.

So when I drove Granny to the airport this morning, I was expecting much the same. I was sorely disappointed.

I don't know how, but I got catastrophically lost on the way back.

I don't drive around too often these days, and -- with the exception of these trips to the airport -- I never hit the highway. It's a trip I've made three or four times. It's old hat by now. No way I could get lost... and yet, I did.

But you know what? Pinkerton still worked.

Because I'm pretty sure that the reason I got lost was because I was, in fact, tired... so tired (and spread so thin). And when I ended up on I-78 because I'd missed old reliable 95, I was actually pleading with the New Jersey Turnpike: Please, baby, say it's not too late to getchoo (uh huh). I couldn't believe what the NJT had done to me, because the next thing I knew, I was hurtling toward the Holland Tunnel.

Now, the Holland Tunnel's actually pretty close to my job, but there's no way I was actually going to take Granny's car to work. Why bother? It was just gonna hurt me. Where the hell was I going to park this thing way across the sea (or the East River in this case)? No money, man. And parking in the Big Apple's pretty pricey.

So I got off the highway, and started just driving around Jersey City, which I've never been to in my entire life. I just kept checking my mirrors, completly unable to believe what I saw. All these funky dudes were staring back at me, I felt broken and beaten down, and I literally couldn't even get around. But who did I have to blame for this?

Nobody but me.

And that's when I realized that I couldn't spend all morning wandering around like some fucking nomad anymore. I was just going to have to turn around. It was just time I went back, 'cause I didn't even know how I got off the track.

Well, to make a long, awkwardly phrased story short (and let you know the truth), I did, in fact, get the hell out alive, but by the time I pulled onto Tuxedo Square, Mr. Cuomo was cursing half-Japanese girls for a second time.

But hey it could have been worse. Imagine if I'd been playing Maladroit, right?

I might not have made it home 'til "December"...