there's a new normal. i work a lot, door-dashing. my job takes me around town and to knoxville, and sometimes wataga or alexis. i see the town and countryside. already i recognize some of the homeless.

i prefer to get done with it as soon as possible, but ironically door-dashing is inversely more productive the longer you wait. tonight i got as much in a single hour at dinner time than i got in the entire day of hanging on my phone and running out there when i could. morning, spotty, noon, a little better, afternoon, spotty. the evenings are really hot but i suspect the kids have moved in to take all the good spots because often i can't even get on there and dash in the evening.

i see a lot of the fast-food places. i've been in wendy's maybe a dozen times. today i hung around perkins for a half-hour - it was as good as hanging around eating something. having set foot in these places i'm getting a better sense of which kitchens are producing the good stuff.

i've always liked this about galesburg: it's large enough to be self-absorbed, but too small to really amount to much. on the surveys they ask me urban? rural? suburban? it's definitely not suburban but it's a close tie between the other two, and i actually fluctuate; they probably think i'm bogus. when i got here i considered it urban. the more i know the more i consider it rural. the country starts just out every edge. then it's corn and beans for miles.

the job connects me with a chunk of youth that i spent out on the roads, in that the constant movement and failure to stay anywhere are somewhat comforting. sometimes i feel like stretching out in my car and taking a big nap, with the sound of the highway right out the window, and letting the feeling of world-going-by give me peaceful dreams. we are not far from a major interstate and sometimes my siri tells me to get right on it and go down the road to knoxville, a small town near galesburg. knoxville is very friendly and very pretty, and i've come to enjoy it when i'm dashing out there. the dash will swat me around out there for a while, going from place to place, and if i finish out there i take the slow road back to galesburg across the fields that of course are beginning to show a little green. it's all very springtime out there.

then, in the sports bars like buffalo wild wings or applebee's there are the hawkeyes on television, and soon it will be the ncaa's so i'll have to have a bracket. i'm also putting some time into the front yard because i'm coming and going from the front a lot more.

in general, another season, a fresh start. it's good to be alive, though working makes me a little sore.