talking lunch.

"I leased a horse last year on the other side of the alex fraser. It reminded me of my dad."

"...if you can't afford therapy or spiritual growth, fly to Costa Rica."

-overheard, Agro Cafe, Granville Island.

"They just don't make hips durable enough. They only last for ten years!"

-two men on the bus

- And apparently it was quite fashionable during Luis 14ths reign to claim to have gout, as it proved you could afford to eat meat. So the peasants who ate roots, vegetables and eggs that worked were obviously not up with the Jones's.

Gout

baroque breakfast

streams of continental foodstuffs for breakfast, endless abundance.
Met my uncles mom, and drove around las cruces witnessing several mural sized stained-glass windows she has produced. from the smells of the science and engineering wing at the university, to the smells of a hospice, we saw her grand, awe-inspiring, murals of new mexican landscapes and iconography. drove to old mesilla, where billy the kid has laid some ground. found a dilapidated house with pomegranate trees in front. wondering the streets of this old town was a lone native american dressed the part, playing a flute, and when I heard him, I knew I was somewhere far, far away. I had distanced myself from the usual glimpses of culture and society that I have become somewhat desensitized in witnessing.
Went to Dripping Springs and found a pasture, pasture? rolling expanse, filled with cacti that grow prickly pears, I cut one open and the bright purple fruit dripped all over the tan ground. Tasted horrid.
For my uncles birthday we went to the Double Eagle restaurant, a time warp back into the renaissance. Huge portraits of strangers with gold frames 10 inches thick, chandeliers the size of cars hung from a silver ceiling, everything floral, mood-lit, garish and old. good food.

black mercedes in the black shadows of smoke.

drove through the jemez mountain region to a secret city, where both nuclear bombs dropped on japan were manufactured, the atomic city of los alamos.
a small major street ties the town of mushroom-cloud stenciled buses, "the atomic city" slogan, and a secretive history together. Went to the Bradbury Science museum to see how the usa ranks in terms of its nuclear, chemical, biological, thermal, geothermal, cyberwar, psychological, guerilla warfare, and lastly how its dealings with eschatology.
The los alamos natural history museum, one of the best museums I have seen, included a walking tour of bomb shelters, the secret city, dorthea lange photographs of the depression, and ironic musical hits based around the atom bomb, available to buy in the gift shop.
Los Alamos - basically the government ordered all the native americans out of the area and they transplanted a group of white german scientists and americans (with their wives) in complete secrecy and isolation to devise and construct the nuclear bomb, classified as the Manhattan Project.
Now los alamos claims to have the highest number of PHD's in the country.
Drove back to Albuquerque to the University Lodge.
went vertical for a while on the king bed and turned on the tube: a blizzard in new york has halted trash pick up for two weeks during the christmas consumer-garbage week. piles of trash some 7 feet high looks like make-shift dykes, possible preparation for flooding throughout downtown manhattan. A man wanting to commit suicide, unable to pay rent risking being evicted, jumps 3 floors out of his apartment, but is saved by trash heaps.
wake up itching around 1am, fucking bed bugs. bolt to the motel manager with three dead bedbugs in a beer bottle cap, demanding my money back.

what is to follow is a muzzy, delirious, disjointed and cold night:
24 hour dennys, mcdonalds drive-thru, airport plane viewing area, wafflehouse for a large glass of milk, biscuits and gravy and coffee, downtown albuquerque on the side of the road trying to sleep in the car, turning the heat on every 20 minutes as to prevent freezing, as people smoke what seems like crack in the pickup ahead of us, go into the train station: techno music blaring from the toy claw machine, lost souls sleeping on metal chairs, a homeless man who seems to be on a mission within a 5 feet radius spinning and turning once he hits his five foot parameter, to a wal-mart at 5:45am, to be the only shoppers in an area the size of 3 foot-ball fields, huge Zamboni's that are floor polishers oozing around the store, as a myriad of workers surprisingly wide awake, frantically stock toilet paper, pears, orthotics, and canned pig snouts. Killing time until 10:30, I think we sleep in the car behind some sort of factory somewhere for half an hour. Go to the airport and wish caitlin a good trip, and hope to see her soon.
knowing if i sit, I will inevitably pass out so I peruse albuquerque somewhat incoherently until 5pm drinking coffee and orange juice.
Get to the bus station to catch a mexican bus called Los Americanos headed to Juarez, myself being the only gringo on the bus that is alive with parakeet chatter of another language, balloons, candy, perfumes, and large cartooned (eagles, sponge-bob, flowers) velvet blankets.
Drive through truth or consequences, and countless Sonic's to arrive in Los Cruces at an abandoned Chevron Station off the highway. Women with babies, men with luggage, cigarette smoke coming from shadows in the cold, caution taped pumps, this is the bus station. These people are in a dead-zone waiting to go either here or there, to LA, or to Texas, but does it really matter? I line up amongst them, sleep deprived, peering out onto the highway, I am part of this Chevron station, a package of hostess cupcakes lying on the floor, shelves overturned, spilling its contents, maps, sunglasses, potato chips, yet these consumer goods are inside, they have shelter.
A few moments later of thought, a black Mercedes pulls up, I get in, and take off down the highway, leaving the travelers behind, knowing full well, I have to do laundry to get rid of the bedbugs.