I'm sitting in a bar in the Cincinnati airport with most of an hour to kill before my flight to Las Vegas. I guess I'm about 90 miles from home.

The strange thing is that this is plenty far enough. I have no need to go any farther. Oh, I certainly want to go farther. I've been looking forward to this trip for a long time. But, and this is something that I've had pounded into my brain for the last few months, wants and needs are two different things. Sometimes they are two very different things. Sometimes they even oppose each other. They face off across the field of my life, prepared to battle. To the death if necessary. To my death if necessary.

Fortunately that's not the case with me here and now. Here and now what I need is a logical subset of what I want.

I want to go to Las Vegas. I want to drink some good beer. I want to see PictureGirl. I might even want to do some gambling or maybe take in a show or two.

But what I need, what I need is to get the fuck away from Southern Indiana.

So this is an unusual trip for me. I've always been pulled before. This time I'm being pushed. I guess Las Vegas is a pretty good place to end up.