Good morning, John.  At your suggestion, I am headed to a big ball. 

Not actually.  For clarity, I'm home in Montana, but my guess is that a lot of people right now wouldn't mind going on a bit of a road trip.  One frozen in time a couple of months ago, a road trip I went on before things got all hinky.  Like, just before, and I was going to upload this video months ago but then other things happened, so I was driving from your house to Albion College in Michigan, which took us basically right past an attraction that you have shared with me and that I've wanted to visit for about a decade so since we could probably all use a little change right now since maybe we want to get away from our places, let's go on that trip.

This feels like the part of the world where the biggest ball of paint would be.

The world's largest ball of paint is not like, anywhere in particular.  In fact, driving to it, you get the distinct impression that you are headed from nowhere to nowhere and the really wild thing is, as you get closer and closer and you see the little dot on your phone saying you're nearly there, it does not feel like you're getting anywhere closer to anything, to the point where as we approached I stopped believing it was going to exist.  

Where the heck--there's no sign.  

Katherine: This is not...this cannot be it.

Hank: C'mon, ball paint, what's happening?  World's largest ball of paint!

GPS Lady: Destination is on the right. 

Hank; That's the tiniest sign.  It's not open!  It's not open!!  

Yep.  We drove to the world's largest ball of paint and the world's largest ball of paint was closed.  Sad, sad, just kidding!  

He turned the light on!

Katherine: Did he?  Ah yeah!

Hank: The light just turned on.  

John, the world's largest ball of paint is very, very big.  Over 40 years ago, this guy had his son paint a baseball and John, this is that baseball.  

Michael Carmichael: It's been painted 26, 849 times.  

Hank: John, while we're talking to Michael about his big ball of paint, I cannot stop having this wild destructive thought that I want nothing more in the world than to cut this thing in half.  I know it's a terrible thought.  I don't want to destroy this perfect thing, but it's like standing on the edge of a cliff and wanting to step off.  I just can't stop thinking it!

But luckily, I managed to avoid saying that I want to slice this man's ball in half for long enough that something amazing happens.  

John, they just brought you up unprompted.  I'm making a video for him.

Michael: What I want to do is I wanna get a picture of him and put it up like I do--

Hank: Oh, who else you got up there?  

Michael: He gave the best speech on it that anybody I ever seen heard.  You know, as far as talking about it.  

Hank:  Yeah.  Yeah.

Katherine: Yeah.  

Michael: The best one.  

Hank: He's a big advocate of the paint.

We all influence each other, of course, but I don't think you would have had the thought that you might influence this guy enough that he would bring you up unprompted to me.  I kept telling him what a big fan you are and I know you can't go now, but when this is all done with, John, you need to go see Michael. 

Monica and I then painted the ball a little bit, but Michael told us not to paint the whole thing because he had heard that there were some people who were gonna show up, and suddenly, they did, these three nice young people and I felt a little like I was kinda no longer inside of my story but inside of theirs and that their road trip had this extraordinarily minor character that was me, the guy who painted the other half of the ball, and then I was thinking that you were in Michael's story and them and mine and maybe the real main character was the paint and we were all just playing bit parts revolving around it like a bunch of minor satellites in a place that is always there and is never nowhere and a place like any other and unlike anywhere else, but then it flung me free and we were on the road again, the stories shifting, but the ball always there, waiting, waiting for next time.  

John, I'll see you on Tuesday.