Something close to nothing.

So I drove to Birmingham last night. Actually, I drove to this suburb of it called Irondale. And I rented a hotel room. And I typed the blog entry saying that I drove to Birmingham. And I went to sleep. And I woke up once when my cell phone rang. And it was Old Navy calling to ask me to do a check-by-phone, so I verified that. And no one else called me. So I took a shower. And I checked out of the room. And I called Doug, who answered his phone, and I told him that I was in Birmingham until noon. But Doug had to go to a voter registration drive. And Black didn't call, which is probably completely understandable. Either he didn't get my messages. Or he didn't know how to deal. I didn't make up some bullshit reason for going to Birmingham in any of my messages, and that, for some reason, struck me as the right thing to do.

I was in Irondale, Ala., when I woke up this morning. That, in and of itself, seems like something of an adventure, even if I didn't come anywhere near close to actually seeing Black or having much time to put any effort into it.

So I drove into Birmingham, looked at it - just to say I saw it - without getting out of my car once, figured I could get home early and started the drive back on I-20.

The drive back was actually fast and kinda fun.

I ate at a Wendy's in Bremen when I crossed the Georgia border, for instance, and, maybe because I was actually in a good mood, it felt like a quaint version of tacky.

I enjoyed the time to myself, even though I did call some friends on the phone to tell them about my silly, little adventure - where I did something that was actually fun and spontaneous with a block of time that I could've used to lay on my couch and watch DVDs.

That said, I watched a DVD and laid on my couch when I got home around 3 p.m. I got to my shift at the bookstore early, and I had a tired, mostly uneventful day.

If Black hasn't checked his messages in a day, he might be scared out of his mind to find out that I was in Birmingham, though I don't want to scare him.

He wasn't the reason for the trip. I was. Instead of just thinking about it, I got outta town.