Weeping Along to Slim Shady

I drove teenagers around all afternoon Thursday, and they wanted to listen to Eminem over and over...and the songs they wanted to hear were the two that make me cry even in ordinary circumstances. I realized later on that it's probably sort of weird to be crying to Eminem songs, but after I'd dropped them all in their respective placements I played "Mockingbird" and sobbed all the way up 19.

My Beloved Sons had flown out that morning at six. They will be back in June, tickets are already purchased--but when they are not here, there is all this time, and all this quietness, and, like blank pages, I don't know what to do with it.