I’m riding in the backseat of my parents’ car across the excessively curving West Virginia interstate to perhaps the tiniest airport that Continental drops its planes into.

My sister is flying back to Cleveland later this afternoon and I’m crashing with my folks so I can slice some time off my pre-dawn drive to D.C. tomorrow.

But that’s later.

Right now, I’m trying to keep my lunch securely in my stomach as we whip around these unholy mountains. The only thing keeping me from blanketing my dad’s Road Atlas with partially digested chicken salad? Watching Bill Rieflin’s handsome face during this iPhone-sized R.E.M. concert, taped last summer in Athens.

If I ever meet Mr. Rieflin again, I’ll absolutely tell him about this one time when he kept me from getting car sick. I’m pretty sure that’ll work as an opening line.