Stateside, a gas station. I drank a frozen blue beverage too quickly, and was struck down by a punishment this entire nation knows, and accepts, and has named. The drink is called a slush. Ice, sweetness, and a blue that does not occur in nature. The day was hot. I was thirsty. I drank like a soldier at a river. The pain arrived in my skull like a war horn. Behind the eyes. Above everything. Total. I gripped the roof of my car. I may have made a sound. "Brain freeze," said the cashier through the door, with no urgency whatsoever. It has a NAME. The affliction is so common it has a household name, like a cousin. "Tongue on the roof of your mouth," called a man at the pumps. He did not look over. He prescribed the remedy mid-pump, casually, the way one mentions weather. I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. The war horn faded. The healer nodded at his pump, finished, and was gone in a Chevrolet. In my land, punishment follows crime by way of courts and seasons. Here, the sentence is instant. Drink with greed, and the ice strikes the mind directly. No trial. No appeal. Perfectly fair. And here is what moves me. EVERYONE has felt it. The cashier. The healer. Children. Elders. An entire nation united by the same small lightning, all taught the same cure, all passing it on to strangers at gas stations, free of charge. You cannot fully distrust a country once you know it shares one pain. The freeze does not punish thirst. It punishes haste. I finished the slush slowly, like a scholar. Blue tongue. Clear mind. Then at the door I forgot everything, drank deeply, and was struck down again. "Tongue, hon," said the cashier, without looking up. Discipline is a journey.

Suck Zone, or not.

Someone retweeted this article today on my feed. Reading it in hindsight is kind of insane...

Congratulations to the legalization movement, you've made every hotel in a legal weed state, no matter how nice, smell like Marijuana.

1. Guns N' Roses 2. Radiohead 3. Rush 4. The Pixies 5. U2 6. Tool 7. Vampire Weekend 8. Trampled By Turtles 9. REM 10. The Avett Brothers

Today in Rock History May 11, 2016 Def Leppard meet the Arkansas School for the Deaf’s football team after nearly 1,500 people sign an online petition asking the band to take a photo in front of the school’s football scoreboard. The team’s mascot is a leopard – a deaf leopard.

Hell yes! 👽

Sweep victory! 🧹 #HEYHEYHEYHEY

Shoutout and farewell to @SpiritAirlines, thank you for getting me from ORD to PHX post-COVID in 2021 when all the crew at @AmericanAir took a sick day at once and every flight was canceled. Nothing like swiping a credit card at the ticket counter.

The Z Man, a BBQ Sandwich as God intended. Doesn't get much better @joeskc

I am a magnet this year 🌪 🧲. Radar spin ups indicsting across the KC Metro. Gust front passage was gusty, but uneventful in the Liberty Triangle area of KC.

San Joaquin Supercell in progress with an observed tornado. It happens more than you'd think in California's Central Valley.

The Midwest saw over 100 tornado warnings issued during Friday's outbreak! 25 tornadoes touched down, including an EF-3 in Wisconsin! #MNwx READ MORE: weathernationtv.com/news/sev…

Yesterday was amazing, even more so that there were no reported injuries from tornado damage around Rochester. Nice job @NWSLaCrosse, @OlmstedSheriff, and all the spotters providing reports. I am not sure I will ever capture a better image than this one.

Bad, but could have been much worse just a few miles NW. SE parts of Rochester, much denser in population, would have been decimated.

Tornado as it entered Olmsted County and began to rope, moving east toward @flyrst #mnwx @NWSLaCrosse @KTTCTV @ABC6NEWS @KIMTNews3