Hey, am I alone in believing that, following Sexus, Nexus, and Plexus, Henry Miller should have a written Texas? It seems to me that our cosmic cowboy from Brooklyn possessed a far better mind to tackle the grotesque complexities of the Lone Star State of mind than James Michener. Michener...good God.

Now this

plus this

is more like it. Yes indeed.

My parents just went back to New York. They visited for a couple of days. I miss them. On the last night my Mom and sister took the tram up to the top of Sandia Crest. Over 10,000 feet up, it was excruciatingly cold on top. The temp was 16 degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind felt like it was gusting to at least 20-30 mph. What does that make the wind chill? I have no idea. I do know that I could feel the skin on my face freezing as I stood there on the tram platform pondering the million twinkling lights of my high desert town. 

(You have to visualize the darkness...)

Tonight on the phone my Mom said she misses being in a city. Safely back in their suburban hell, I can well imagine what she's talking about. I grew up an hour from Manhattan, but I may as well have been in rural Vermont. Well, not quite. Suburbia, however, is for some reason an unrivaled breeding ground for demons. I direct the reader to that great Hollywood triptych: "American Beauty," "The Virgin Suicides," and "Donnie Darko."

More could probably be included (e.g., "Welcome to the Dollhouse"), but then it wouldn't very well be a triptych, would it? Besides, Dollhouse is a great film but it noticably lacks the darkness that draws those other films together and makes them of a piece.

Or so it appears to me.

For New Year's my wife and I went out to Bennigan's. Told New Mexico ghost stories on the way home and saw fireworks flaring at various points on the horizon. Got home and didn't even realize it was 15 after midnight and we'd missed the Times Square Ball-drop. I think that's the first one I missed since I can remember. Bah. A paltry thing to regret. There are far, far better things than that.

Over and out, sports fan. Take it easy, but take it.

OK, I'm back. But I must warn everyone from the outset that I left in the first place because I had nothing else to say. And now, all these months later, I'm not sure that much has changed. 

What the hell.

SO...I started my job with that famous-ISP-whose-name-for-some-asinine-reason-I-am-not-allowed-to-mention-when-online last spring. Most difficult thing I've ever done--in the workforce, that is; nothing compares to getting my BA in lit oh so long ago. We do DSL and Satellite technical support, and only now, almost eight months into it, do I feel even remotely competent. (I don't get paid enough for the shit I have to deal with--but who does?)

(This is not me, by the way. Well...MAYBE late on a Friday night.)

But tech support really is fun if you have the patience and sense of humor for it.

"Mr. Computer Man...my foot pedal stopped working!"

"Huh?"

"That mouse-y thing with the two buttons...the thing I step on when I want to click on things..."

* * *

"Okay, Mr. X, what I'd like you to do now is double-click on the file that says 'setup.exe'."

"Nothing's happening!"

(sound of pen clicking furiously on computer screen)

* * *

Etc.

Yes, I'm descending helplessly into geekdom... Truth be told, I have been for some time now, but this job has definitely accelerated the process. The guys I work with argue about Star Wars and the finer points of decompiling Windows XP on smoke breaks.

Other things:

My birthday was this past October 8th. I turned 23. I don't want to talk about it.



My wife has embarked upon the venture of getting her art out to the masses. I am intensely proud of her.

My marriage has weathered a real motherfucker of a trial this past year (excuse my Francaise) and come out the other side to something resembling daylight. It's all still a little too close to home to talk about here, but suffice it to say that I spent many nights studying the ceiling as well as finding myself in the kitchen at 3am wondering how many Tylenol PMs would constitute a lethal dose.

Not a good time, kiddies!

"Did she make you cry?
Make you break down?
Shatter your illusions of love?
Is it over now?
Do you know how
To pick up the pieces and go?"

No, Stevie, I didn't and--God help me--I still don't. May have been my problem, may have been what saved me.

Oh.

Found God for a brief moment there in early summer. He was by the magazines just after midnight in the Wal-Mart down on Carlisle. Reading the latest issue of "Low-Rider", I believe. Or was it one of those Louis L'Amour paperbacks with the gaudy covers of brave and stoic pioneers? Be that as it may, it didn't last. I soon returned to my current state of blissful confusion.

One of the big adjustments I've had to make since coming to New Mexico is finally living in a place that I actually like. I will never, ever, EVER return to Texas. If they come for me I will hide out in a canyon somewhere along the caprock east of here...or in the labyrinth of cane cholla that blankets the foothills of these mountains. (That's cactus for you Easterners.)

I just wish everyone reading this could make the hike to my favorite place around here--Pino Canyon. It's only twenty minutes from our apartment, but from there, almost 6,000' above sea level at the mouth of a nationally-designated wilderness area, you would be able to see for at least 80 miles in all directions. You would understand why the desert really is the sea. You would see why nothing is more something than damn near anything else.    

Still, things have not been quite the same since coming to this strange and dry land. Donnie Darko was right. (For one thing.) Maybe what I'm experiencing is something shared by many. Maybe I'm just cracking the fuck up. MAYBE it's some sinister post-post-9/11 panic-disorder. Who can say?  

(Is it me or does all this "Office of Homeland Security" stuff sound a little fascist? Just wondering if anyone else has picked up on that. I'm waiting for the Kulturkampf to come next.)

Hey! Get out of this blog! No one invited you...

Anyway...

I can think of no better place in which to get hopelessly, desperately, metaphysically lost than the desert. The blessed desert, mi vida (among other things).

Ok, I'm not really back, but Misti wanted me to make mention of a bitchin' new quote she came up with today. So here it is: 

Threw God; everything is possible.

Get it? It's pretty good. We've escaped Texas but to get out of Christian Fundamentalist Guilt-trip range we're gonna have to go a bit farther... Alaska? The North Pole?

It hit 90 today in Albuquerque. The arctic doesn't sound half-bad.

Freedom is a Place

We're back from our fabulous road trip. Drove into brightest Albuquerque a couple of hours ago.

My God those millions of lights look gorgeous from way out in the desert. After spending two days in the outback, our home city seemed like a veritable oasis of civilization of culture, which, in a way, it is. A good thing? Not necessarily.

First we drove out on I-40 (formerly Route 66) and spent a night in Gallup, a nice, seedy, run-down little railroad town on the edge of the Navajo Reservation. I like it there. We got a room at the Best Valu Inn (price was right) located right in the heart of cosmopolitan West Gallup (adult bookshops, liquor stores). $26.00 a night.

The road is still called "US 66" as it runs through Gallup, and those of you who've seen "Natural Born Killers" might remember that Olive Stone featured it prominently in several scenes. In fact, the Log Cabin Motel, which was also used in the movie, was just a stone's throw from where we stayed.

I've had some bad experiences in Gallup involving Native Americans and alcohol in the past, but everything went smoothly this time. While my wife took a nap back in the room I browsed the downtown stores, famous for their selection of Indian jewelry and crafts, totally unmolested. Of course I couldn't actually buy anything this time around (we did this little trip with just enough money for food, motel, and gas), but it was fun to look. I did manage to find a nice little Kachina doll for my wife, though. I think it's Zuni. I neglected to ask.

Kachinas are wild, amazing-looking things. Back in Texas they'd no doubt be considered more than a little Satanic. But that's why Texas is Texas and this is New Mexico--and why we're here and not there. But that's a whole other can of worms, and I'm hardly in the mood right now for fishing.

On the agenda today was Canyon de Chelly National Monument. Actually, that's not true. It wasn't on the agenda. But as my wife and I were driving down the main drag with the intention of beating it back to Albuquerque, we happened to turn on the radio and hear an announcer reading a commercial for a truck dealership in Navajo. My wife had never heard that before. What country were we in? We headed for the Rez.

The Canyon was another two hours from Gallup, and through some of the most extraordinary country I've yet seen in the Southwest--the Defiance Plateau, Navajo National Forest, an infinity of red rock and sagebrush plains and high, achingly high, desert. Going up into the forest our ears popped. "This is like Georgia," my wife said. I couldn't believe what I'd just heard. "Do they have pinon and ponderosa pine and elk in Georgia? Huh? Huh??" Then the forest fell away and it seemed like we could see all the way to Utah.

Am I alone in wondering how in hell did they do that?

Probably. Anyway, I used to watch the Patty Duke Show obsessively the summer after I graduated from high school. In the wee small hours of the morning. Had a crush on Patty. Thought she was a hottie. No, I didn't take any drugs in high school.

Went to the --- orientation today. Got my badge so the security guards won't interrogate me anymore when I go into the building. It's a good job. I'm lucky. Totally different caliber of people from my last job in Texas. Tech heads, mostly. Oddballs. Computer geeks. Cool people through and though.

Talked with a guy on smoke break who moved here from El Paso. Said he went into the Courthouse one day and saw that a Mona Lisa was on display--with a sombrero. It was then he knew it was time to leave.