not optional.

i can only assume that's scotland.  if so, this album cover (favorite ever) reconfirms my burning desire to get there as soon as possible.  when i was in seventh grade i wrote a  post-divorce short story for some 'gifted and talented' bullshit class (i also did a 'book report' on an 8ball & mjg album) about a lonely, unshaven dude stalking the nighttime streets in a big city.  a post-modern philip marlowe, i suppose.  i remember a specific passage in which our anti-hero "jumped out of his black tahoe, combat boots splashing in the rain-soaked gutter.  with the freezing rain stinging his face, he flipped is collar up, turned his back to the wind, and lit a cigarette.  then, like so many nights before and since, he stepped out of the streetlights and into the shadows."  something like that.  i've been told before that i'm still acting like i did when i was 13.  maybe so.

UPDATE:  i actually think that's the hudson.  still.