Bandolero by Day

Oops! It wasn't a bush I left my lizards under, it was a cactus. A prickly pear, precisely.

Just past one wash, then another wash, then at the trail head with the saguaro next to the nursery plant and a smooth sedimentary rock embedded in the middle of the trail just barely bigger than my ass (IT IS MY SITTING ROCK) you'll find the three amigos: a cholla, an ocotillo, and a prickly pear. That prickly pear is their cactus.

The desert is (vast? beautiful? awe-inspiring?) rad.

At that particular spot I'm pretty sure the wind is never still. When it blows through the saguaros it always sounds like an approaching car, and it never is, and that's when you realize you're about as alone as you can possibly get while still being withing walking distance of a paved road.

(Well, possibly you could be more alone in Wyoming for example, but, man, shut up Z you are ruining it.)


Thank you for the condolences re: my wee lizard. It made me think of something the wise philosopher Relia once said: "I think what we do, when we say things like this, is to want other people to find some way to love our lost loved one the same way we do. We want the world to know how deserving our loved one was, how wonderful and precious and valued. We try to make friends for them even after they're gone." I still think of that quote every time the subject of death comes up.

Man, since Rel skipped Internet Town I can praise her all I want here and she'll never know. RELIA IS A MASTER OF WORDS AND SHE SMELLS LIKE MAGIC SHAMPOO MARKETED SPECIFICALLY TO UNICORNS. NEW JERSEY IS THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE. I WILL GIVE RELIA 1/10 OF ALL MY EARNINGS FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. TRA LA LA!


Okay, I think the best way to end this post is with baby bearded dragons, because CIRCLE OF LIFE.

I am in my new apartment in Tucson now! It is shaping up to be pretty swank for a studio apartment. I can see downtown Tucson and the Tucson Mountains from my window. V pretty. Still only two blocks from the school. My legs hurt from moving. More on this story as it develops.

Internet access will be spotty until I beat someone up and steal their wireless network password.

As an apartment-warming gift, my parents got me a new laptop, which is great seeing as how my old one died yesterday. It's a notebook, and it's lightweight and sexy and shiny, and also unfortunately host to Windows Vista.

Let me tell you how Windows Vista came to be: Windows was sucking off Google (after Google spent an hour in the bathroom injecting steroids into its dick) and Windows took it - BAM - right in the eye.

If that description disgusted or creeped you out any, then you have a good approximation of my current feelings for Vista

If that description aroused you, then you need to not comment here, and maybe shut down the computer and step outside for a while.

THE APARTMENT'S GREAT, THOUGH.

LAST WEEKEND

Chest x-rays: DONE. No blood clots. That's just super. It's hard to stretch out like a ballerina when you're wearing a lead apron.

Hair: CUT. Picture to follow below. My barber Rex was impressed by my grades and tells people that I'm going to be a rocket scientist. He is a doll.

Sunday: CHARITY. I wrangled in shinikius and sakibombshell to come with me, but not mko for she had the plague. We got to my office at 7 a.m. where I showed them my desk of misery and my snowglobe pen of not-misery and my GIANT INBOX THAT IS ACTUALLY LARGE TABLE COVERED IN PAPERS. I win for biggest inbox.

The actual charity event was rather poorly organized, and it seemed like we did a lot of sitting around. I mean, there was actual physical labor on our part, but the whole event was largely too many volunteers and not enough direction. Shinikius says that this is what working for the Salvation Army during the holidays was like. I suggested we all do a soup kitchen next year instead.

I discovered at the event that all volunteers were required to wear a red shirt with "Jesus is the reason for the season" printed on it. I take the fact that Sakibombshell and I did not burn to death when we put the shirts on to be proof that God loves heathens. WE EVEN HAD SHINIKIUS SNAP A PICTURE OF US SAYING "CHEESE-US", AND NOTHING. I think I will create a new proverb for Miscellatheism that states "What humans call blasphemy, God calls comedy".

Post-charity: THE HISTORY BOYS. I think the movie was trying to communicate two things: 1) Oxford and Cambridge are overrated, and 2) all British schoolboys, past and present, are either gay or bi-curious. A good movie, though. It made me want to see the play, so apparently I must have enjoyed it.

THIS WEEKEND (SO FAR)

Ballet: THE NUTCRACKER. (or as my mother called it, "The Man-hater") The tickets were my gift for Shinikius and Sakibombshell and Mko (who did not have the plague this time!), and we went to a matinee showing at Phoenix Symphony Hall. Even though we were last row center, PSH is such a well-constructed venue that we still had a fantastic view. I wish I could describe how beautiful the costumes and the sets were, but all I've got is "It sure LOOKED like a $1.8 million production".

I want Russian Trepak dancer action figures.

When we left the venue at about 4, the bells at St. Mary's Basilica were playing "Noel". The combined force of the bells and the ballet were enough to kill the Scrooge in me for a little while. I wasn't ready to go home (which means that no one else was either, at least in my mental universe), so we strode off towards the basilica, which has a gift shop. I never noticed the gift shop before. For that matter, I never noticed all the bronze statues of dancing nudes in front of the Herberger Theater before. I commented on the fact that most of the statues were female, and Mko suggested that this was so that the sculptor wouldn't have to mould too many bronze penises. A good point. I'm glad that the bronze statues of Pope John Paul II, Mother Theresa and St. Francis at the basilica were fully clothed.

We went past the basilica to Heritage Square because I was hoping to stop by the Teeter House, but they were closed. Way to not put up any "closed" signs during your regular hours of operation, Teeter House! If you did not have the greatest chicken salad and strawberry shortcake and chocolate espresso tortes on the planet, I would SO be boycotting you right now! WHY WON'T YOU LET ME LOVE YOU???

So we walked back towards the PSH and ate at The Matador. It's a damn good thing alliath came to visit in October, or else I might have passed up The Matador and gotten stuck with Pizzeria Bianco instead.

Oh, and I gave Mko the Jesus shirt. She doesn't like the slogan so much, but she's a big fan of the J-man, so I think she'll appreciate it more than me.

Arizona has a lot of cool town names, names like...

Snaketown
Cactus Forest
Fort Misery
Coffeepot
Catfish Paradise
Santa Claus
Tin House
Hookers Hot Springs

...and so on.

Then I notice on the map that there are little town-sized points for various hoity-toity housing developments that people build fifty miles outside the Phoenix Metro area for the rich and affluent who don't want to live in the city with the common folk and then bitch about the long commute they have to make back into the city to work or get Starbucks and I want to STAB STAB STAB the map and not even Hookers Hot Springs can make it better.

Grr.

Whatever happened to URBAN development? You know? Building and rebuilding inside the city instead of building on all my good hiking land?

ANTHEM IS BUILT ON UNSTABLE CLAYBEDS YOU FUCKERS. When your foundation goes to pot, I WILL LAUGH AND LAUGH AND LAUGH.

Okay. It is mid-to-late November, I am in the northern hemisphere, and yet I am sitting here in a tank top and shorts, windows open and fan on. I am not sure if I am annoyed or happy.