Why is it that I hit my lowest and Casey's so happy. Then, a few days later, I feel better and she's all kinds of depressed? Well, at least we should find some middle ground this weekend.

This weekend - New Orleans! It will be a quick trip, a three-day visit with a high-school friend of mine and her husband, both of whom happened to graduate from the same college as Casey, only two years earlier. And Casey's childhood friend, and Mustafa, the origin of his relation to Casey I'm not sure. We'll leave early - insanely early - Saturday morning and return Monday night. Three full days, two nights, in the Big Easy. Nawlins. NoLa. Whatever it is, it will be nice, only I wish it could be like this:

It was drizzling and mysterious at the beginning of our journey. I could see that it was all going to be one big saga of the mist. "Whooee!" yelled Dean. "Here we go!" And he hunched over the wheel and gunned her; he was back in his element, everybody could see that. We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, move. And we moved! We flashed past the mysterious white signs in the night somewhere in New Jersey that say SOUTH (with an arrow) and WEST (with an arrow), and took the south one. New Orleans! It burned in our brains. From the dirty snows of "frosty fagtown New York," as Dean called it, all the way to the greeneries and river smells of old New Orleans at the washed-out bottom of America; then west.

Ah, Jack, the man who knew how to have fun and nearly nothing else. Kicks, that was what it was all about. I haven't read On The Road in more than a year, and I decided that on March 12, his birthday, I'll try to read it in a day, one marathon reading. Maybe I'll hit the road - I'll wake up, read some while I eat breakfast. Then I'll shower, then take the book and head out on the New Jersey roads. I'll stop at a diner for lunch, and read more there. Then continue on, stop in a park to read, find another diner in the evening and read more. Sit at the counter, order some apple pie, and read about the Road. Maybe I'll come back and take a bus into New York and find a coffee shop and finish it there.

I found a weblog of someone who lives near St. Petersburg, Fla., where Kerouac died. He's been to see Jack's house there, and he's passed the address on to me. I'm hoping to take a drive down from Clearwater when I'm there next month for spring training. I'll cruise down those sunny Florida highways and search for Jack's place, maybe stop by the bookstore he used to visit and complain when there weren't enough of his books on the shelves.

I just need to get away for a little while. I need New Orleans, I need it with Casey. And I think I need just a little time for myself. A week in Clearwater might be too long, but it's something; it's something I need.