I am walking my blind dog in a public park. We are on one of those community tracks.

“I want to be a writer…” the email began. “I was sharing my work on social media but people kept leaving hateful comments. Sometimes I’d be left in tears."

I have been doing a lot of walking. More walking than I’ve ever done in my life. More walking than I thought possible.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The windchill is negative four and I can no longer feel my unmentionables. I’m about to play my fiddle and tell funny stories to a room of people at the community center.

Ads. Ads everywhere.Look at your phone. Ads. Turn on a television. Ads. Open a laptop. Ads. Scroll social media to make sure cherished friends and loved ones are still alive and actively posting angry political memes. Ads.

I am playing the fiddle near the swimming pool at my hotel in Dothan. I always play in the mornings. Routine. I’ve been on the road for 14 days, playing music and performing my one-man spasm in different states.

I haven’t always been a morning person. God knows. When I was a young man I was anti-morning-people. Morning people were insane. My mother was a morning person.

“I’m dying,” the older woman says. Her name is Honey. She is in the meet-and-greet line after one of my shows. She holds one of my books. White hair. Tiny frame. Maybe five-foot.