"Get me away from here, I'm dying..."

I haven't update this thing in forever, something for which a bigger writer would apologize.

I'm in RI as I write this, a day and half away from my flight home and the end of some extensive travels, as of late. I spent the last weekend in May (um, I think it was the last weekend in May) in New York, kickin' it with friends. It was a typical whirlwind around my hometown and, as always, the city healed all the ills that was ailin' me. As I strolled through the newly renovated Washington Square Park on my first morning in the city, I bumped into my freshman year composition professor -- one of my first and most influential mentors who left a distinct thumbprint on my innerself. The memory of our quick conversation turns my knees to water; knowing him is a truly life-affirming experience. I'm not sure there's a higher compliment. Anyway, I walked around the village taking pictures of things, absorbing the city around me, fighting fatigue to experience every block as fully as possible. Living in New York is not within our current realm of reality, but it's still something I cannot function without.

A week and half later, Sean and I headed for the Grand Canyon, via Las Vegas. We spent one night in that nuclear disaster of a city, confirming all the worst suspicions I'd harbored about that tasteless monstrosity. I really fail to see the point of it. If you're going there to gamble, well, that's just sad. (Not my dog just died sad, but watching an old woman in a housecoat wander around a liquor store at 9am filling her basket with gallon jugs of grain alcohol, sad.) So, if one doesn't feel the need to let the casinos treat them like assholes, taking all their money, one could spend her time drinking. But, why there? The strip is not exactly pedestrian friendly and, honestly, you can run around binge drinking in any city worth its salt -- why bother with a fake city like Vegas? Are these people afraid of real cities? In real cities there are also restaurants, as in GOOD restaurants, not just restaurants to make the tourists feel like they're eating at a fancy Denny's, and you can see any number of vapid musicals, has-been comedians, or whatever frightening Cirque de Soleil act happens to be showing. So Vegas was a big "what the fuck?!" for me.

Here's a photo of the scary crackhead motel across the street from our degenerate Vegas hotel.













We left Vegas and drove to Zion National Park in Utah for a quick bus tour to some of the more accessible sights and then headed straight to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Please realize that there is no good way to explain the geography we experienced. Zion places you next to soaring red walls of rock and the drive to the Grand Canyon brings you through the most delicate and lovely national forests imaginable. We ended up exploring both the North Rim and the South Rim, with a stunning drive through Pueblo country and it's vermillion hills in between.













The highlight of our trip was a mule ride into the canyon, experiencing every layer of rock as we descended.

And here I am, after three short days, in Rhode Island visiting family and wrapping my head around the high school reunion I went to last night. This event falls into the same category as cruiseline travel did for David Foster Wallace: "a supposedly fun thing I'll never do again." Don't get me wrong, it was refreshing to catch up with people who had fallen off my radar 14 years ago and in whose lives I was genuinely interested. But, to be honest, I don't really think any of us change, not deep down. An individual's consciousness may expand or (tragically) narrow, but the essence of any given person rarely goes untouched.

Being among people who I never really knew (my fault, not theirs), in a place I never at all liked, only reminds me of the worst parts of myself, parts I've worked to reconcile as years and experience took me to better places. I'm also perplexed by how few people left the region -- watching the local news tonight made me want to light myself on fire and run toward the sunset.

It's almost 1am pacific time as I end this post, a little afraid to fall asleep because I cannot dream when I'm here and dissatisfaction flavors my tongue like an hangover. Sister, there is no helping this and I want to go home.