Pass me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat

I wonder at myself sometimes and my triggers. Not just the obvious ones, for food, sex, sleep, anger. Lately the triggers that interest me most are the prompts for baseless sentiment. Why is it I should be so moved by the line "Michigan seems like a dream to me now..." I've never even been to Michigan. My most recent romantic entanglement notwithstanding, I don't think I've ever been tempted to go to Michigan.

And yet, every time I hear that song. Every time Paul sings that line, the tears rise and I weep until "we've all gone, to look for America"

It is a line referenced in one of the most important pieces of literature in my life. I suppose that adds a certain degree of resonance. In The Waste Lands, as the three Gunslingers from New York muse on their bizarre new circumstances, Eddie mutters the line. And it struck me then. But I suspect I was already under the sway of whatever evocative power the phrase has over me when I read it. Because I remember feeling like a bell was tolling when I let the words sink inside me.

And maybe there is no answer. Maybe my tendency for baseless sentiment is an end unto itself, but I am curious about it nevertheless. And of course I know I'm not alone.

I wonder what makes other people experience this same inexplicable sentimentality....