Checking Out of Hotel California

You can check out anytime you like, the song goes, but you can never leave.

That's what scares me. 

I've promised myself I'll walk under different skies. I've promised myself another walkabout - with no end in sight - before the end of sight. 

Now that I've been RIF'd (Requiescat in Fuck off) I'm both at liberty and required to answer to that. 

Free at last, god almighty, free at last. After all that long gray corridor. Free, and with, against all justice, enough for food, shelter, and broadband. 

And places to go.

But it would be so easy just to stay; the faintly magical little penthouse apartment, the familiar streets, and play Civ V, then VI, then XIX, until it's time to walk on three legs to meet the sphinx.

Been here in Hotel California - standing in that shaft of light - but for the occasional year or so - since before Mario Savio publicly underestimated the gears of the machine.

Heard that tune for the first time waiting for a train out of Aguas Calientes, Peru.

You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.

So easy to stay. Sip that wine.

But the night man says:

We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty-nine.