Racing the Orb

'...and you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking, racing around to come up behind you again...'

For a guy who loves to loiter, I sure do race around a lot. Down back roads and up interstates, through stupefied stoplights and on vanishing off-ramps, past lane-changing maniacs and slow-ass tractors … I plow through it all with one eye on the horizon and the other in the rearview mirror. No, I’m not sweating that speeding semi behind me; I'm curious if the fancycam (I think) I packed is indeed back there. Once I see its stubby antenna poking over the seat, I'll lean back into the steering wheel, count the molecules that make up the windshield or try to outguess my GPS. It doesn’t matter if I’m headed to a fruit stand or a fatal fire, I still drive like the cooler riding shotgun contains a beating heart, not just some dried up beef jerky and a warm bottle of Sprite. But that's how it goes when there's a station logo tattooed on your soul, when you're a field agent of the Fourth Estate.

Trouble is, I'm (still) a bit miscast. Whereas so many photogs are heavily-vested action heroes, multi-tasking Macgyers or just crusty road-dogs, I'm more of the libriarian type. Were it not for a job that required steady pursuit, I'd spend my days idling among the stacks, soaking up adventure from some dusty page, instead of wringing out some sweaty tropical shirt and wishing I were inside. Yes, this silly gig keeps me engaged in the human race, for it's hard to be a hermit when you're blowing past rush-hour traffic while draped in look-at-me logos. I just wonder sometimes what else I could have accomplished, if I didn't spend eight (or more) hours a day filling newscasts by the pound. So forgive me if I seem a little distracted, if I peer up into the midday sun and think about all that hasn't changed up there since I shot my first ribbon-cutting. It's probably the same look English Professors get when they peer out the window and fantasize of a life outside the classroom.

Maybe I should just stop listening to Pink Floyd...