So Squire and I did a whirlwind tour of California/Nevada, did I mention? Started at my parents', drove down the coast, spent a few days in Disneyland, drove over to Las Vegas, spent a couple days there, flew to Sonora and visited friends there, and then left. Saw some great people. Drank some great booze. Ate some great food. Altogether a fine time.
We managed to catch the CSA bus on the way home; this is the bus that you have to stand in line to buy a ticket and then stand in line to get a boarding pass and then hope the bus hasn't taken off while you do these things, so catching it is kind of a miracle. On the bus the driver handed out our "complimentary snack"; I asked what kind of meat it was and he said "It's not meat, it's ham," and I laughed because it is what it is and it's good to be back in my first/second-world home.
Uhm, there are a lot of pictures here.
I wrote this in Disneyland:
In Disneyland I feel sad, the sort of sad that's like I have cancer and I'll never bring my child here again or see my grandchildren ride the teacups, and it's all terribly fragile and transient, and then I am weeping in Fantasyland except I don't have cancer and so in Disneyland I feel not only sad but also utterly ridiculous.
That feeling of heartbreaking nostalgia for the moment I was inhabiting was present for a lot of the trip, though I only had to pull the car over to cry once, I think.
I also wrote a long thing about Red Shirt Day, but I don't know if it interests anyone enough for me to transcribe. I didn't write, but thought a great deal about, the interesting differences and similarities among my friends, the nature of fear, and the inner battle between sparing someone pain and the need to let people learn their own lessons. And I thought about boomerangs.