The Day stupidity came home to roost

Yesterday was a holiday for me, planned in hopes of enjoying it, but with fears of hating it. So we know how that went. I woke up and my head was pounding, having turned to the whiskey as the news turned worse. I wasn’t holding out any hope when I went to sleep. But in the morning I couldn’t even turn on the television or look at the Internet. I couldn’t cure my hangover with sleep, because I couldn’t sleep anymore. So I had some breakfast, put on last night’s dirty clothes, and walked over to the DMV to get a new driver’s license. After all, waiting in line couldn’t possibly make the day any worse. In fact, there was something comforting in just sitting there, brain unable to wrap itself around the central unspeakable fact. Devoid of any thoughts, I just looked at the screen and waited for them to call my number.

It wasn’t until I’d turned in my old, expired Mississippi driver’s license—that photo of a stranger with a horrible haircut—and posed for a new photo, that I started to feel good about it. Started to feel, that except for my familial connections, I’d severed the last, vestigial remnant of that place I was born in, that place which has now exported it’s madness, paranoia, and hatred to the rest of America.

There are people I love there; but good riddance to Mississippi, with its fake outrage, its real hatred, and its misplaced fear. To hell with it. I’ll never live there again. Brooklyn’s the only place I’ve ever been that felt like home.

I even like the DMV.