Music and driving goes together like Stove Top Stuffing and just about any other meal.  I find that when I am listening to music like Explosions in the Sky or Iron & Wine, I am getting passed by people in the slow lane (yes, I'm that guy). On the other hand, when I'm listening to Daft Punk or Ratatat, my foot gets swollen or heavy or something and I can't quite keep my car below 90 mph...

A couple of years ago I had to drive home in a really bad snow and I was forced to make one of the most important decisions of my life.  Do I put on Norah Jones' Greatest Hits? or do I put on something a little more upbeat?  Well, let's just say I wasn't about to listen to songs about rain falling on tin roofs.  I was going to listen to musical combinations that were going to run through my auditory cortex like lava through a fire hose.  Once I got out of the initial traffic, I was ready to rock, because as they say, "you're not hardcore, unless you live hardcore"  It didn't matter that I had to go to the bathroom most of the way.  It didn't even matter that an hour drive ended up taking six. It was just me, the music, and the snow............ and the car, and the road, and the other drivers, and... Never mind.

Cars parked all over the roads...  Big macho trucks stuck in ditches...  Drivers with 4-Wheel Drive weeping uncontrollably because they knew their vehicles could never perform to the level of my 2002 Nissan Maxima.  I contemplated stopping a few times to help tow people up hills, or plow large piles of snow that were blocking certain roads, but I was on a tight schedule and had to get home.  The music was pumping out the factory speakers and if I was any cooler, I'd be Mark Wahlberg. As one song fades out and Pandora is thinking about what song to play next, I press the pause button because my bladder is threatening to pop like a water balloon at a kid's pool party.  I stop my car in the middle of a back road since there is no one for miles.  I am unafraid of being seen because I am on a small road with downed power lines in 2 feet of snow in the middle of the night... so I unzip my fly and proceed to lose some water weight. It was the end to a beautiful night and that's when I knew I wanted to be an author...

...Not really, but I didn't know how else to end this particular blog entry.