I’m one of those people who’s personalities became established very early on in life, for better or worse. Thinking back on events during my childhood, I fondly recall some of my antics, and think, “boy, I was completely right. My dad was being a total dick about that, and it was not a character building experience in the slightest. I learned nothing from that experience except how totally sucky it was.”

That is just one example of how I was right, but I look back on it fondly, reveling, years later in how very right I was. I feel like I should elaborate and tell you a story about myself. The story goes like this: we were on a cross country road trip, something we did a lot of when I was a child, (it’s the great American something or other, after all), and we had gone up to Colorado then down through New Mexico and across Arizona, where I think we gave up and turned around. This may have been the same iconic road trip where we saw the Grand Canyon, or perhaps my adult mind just groups all of the road trips into one massive, unending car trip spanning many years, and always at the height of summer. keep reading »