In August 2020, my boyfriend and I embarked on a road trip from Chicago to Berkeley “to pursue a new life” in the Bay Area. And by that I mean: he’s getting his MBA at UC-Berkeley, while I write copy & make TikToks. (Who’s better? It’s a toss-up!)
Anyway - we drove a 16ft U-Haul for 3 days with no music system except for our bluetooth JBL speaker, which was—you guessed it!—absolutely miserable, but it did give me a good amount of thinking time. And now, for better or worse, I’m sharing those thoughts with you in poem/musing form.
MUSINGS FROM I-80
Driving across the USA
Which unfortunately means
I am bound by law
To consume 64oz of Coca Cola
Thru a plastic straw
Is it just me
Or does driving across the country in a U-Haul
For 3 days straight
Somehow feel
Really straight
Do I like women again?
I use Apple Maps
Because I have no idea where I’m going
But apparently want to see
If I can make it worse
I think it should be illegal for semis to drive
Next to
Ahead of
Or even behind me
My concept of the world is saying things like
“Let’s just get past that cloud”
And then we never do
As it turns out
“Are We There Yet” was a bad movie
But a fair plea
Emails are fun
Cuz they’re like rly long text messages
That decide your career
When gas pumps are “out of order”?
#same, girl!
Am I the only one getting turned on by masks?
Not the surgical ones—
The hot, patterned ones, I mean
Casey’s convinced he saw a gazelle
"Or maybe a cantaloupe”
Which I quickly pointed out
Is actually a fruit
Is it Nebraska? Or no-mask-a?!
(No one in Nebraska is wearing a mask)
Well,
I have a warrant out for jimmy dean’s arrest
For causing irreparable damage to the roof of my mouth
Because of a scalding hot breakfast burrito
That contained the ingredient “stabilizers”
Sometimes u just need to get a breakfast burrito from a vending machine
To bring u back down to earth
And remind you
Things really could be worse
Without this JBL flip
I’d flip out
