Nothing matters and what if it did?
I still hold a mostly unjustified hatred for my job. I still have too much to do and not enough time to do it. I still haven't shaken off the malaise. But none of that matters, 'cause this weekend, I'm going racing.

NASCAR brings its loud screaming machines to my part of Texas this weekend, and thanks to some serendipity and a generous relative, I'll be there. I'm a sucker for NASCAR. Always have been, ever since I was 5 or 6 years old and saw Petty and Pearson and Yarbrough driving 'round the track. Back then, they drove cars that looked a lot like real cars, cars with chrome bumpers, Mercury Montegos and Dodge Challengers and Oldsmobile Cutlasses. Now all the cars are the same, no matter what manufacturer's name they bear, and they look very little like the actual cars they're supposed to represent. No matter. They go fast, they bump into each other every once in a while, and I love it.

The only major sporting event I've seen in person was the 1997 Daytona 500, which Jeff Gordon won under caution after Dale Earnhardt wrecked right in front of us on the backstretch with five laps to go. Earnhardt got out of the car, the ambulance came, Earnhardt told the ambulance to f--- off and he got back in the car and tried to start it to finish the race. I was genuinely saddened when he died behind the wheel, although I must concede it was a fitting way for him to go.

I lost my undying love for most sports a while back, and I'm not sure NASCAR deserves my undying love after some of the fallout caused by Earnhardt's death, but what the hell. Everybody's got to have a vice. I don't smoke, I don't drink a lot and I don't chase loose women. I might as well watch the racin'.