A surprisingly bad mood.
Most Saturdays are spent prowling South Street with my friends. However, I couldn't find any of them. I didn't want to prowl by myself (that looks suspicious). I was feeling depressed, as everyone online (E2, newsgroups, etc), seemed to think it was bash-Mary-day. I was depressed. I got in my car.
I drove without thought, without plan. I drove. I drove forty miles west of home, called west for reasons I don't entirely understand, and kept driving, even accidentally through a town I used to live in and hate, kept driving, until the shopping centers and housing developments faded behind me, kept driving, until suddenly I saw a lake.
I pulled over to the side of the road, parked my car, and walked about 100 paces through the woods, to a place where I could climb down onto the bank. It was rocky, no beach, just a straight drop and about four feet of rocks before the water. I sat there, spellbound by the silence, by the lonlieness, feeling not-quite-transcendent, but better. I sat, writing, writing a monologue for a play, gutting all of my emotions, my anger, my lonlieness.
And when I felt able, I climbed up, out, to the car, and east to home.