Free WiFi in the Reno airport. Nice job on that, fellas. Earlier today I had a nice walk to a Starbucks in that sharp, slanted light that lets you know you’re in an arid land—and the concrete goes on and on and on.
The impersonal they were running a photo this morning of the junior senator from Illinois going to Dunkin’ Donuts and getting coffee for his camapign workers, and aw jeez, COFFEE! I got to admit, it made me feel a little like Nikolai feels in War and Peace when he sees the czar. I had forgotten, until Fred reminded me in New York, that the 2004 election had made me write this (but if you’re going to browse that November, don’t scroll down to the stupid shit I wrote about politics; scroll up to Lord Kensington).
Airports used to treat me horribly because I always thought I was living in the wrong place—flying back to Iowa, I would want to get on the plane to Tucson, flying to Tucson I would want the plane to Portland. Only just now I saw that old Portland plane, and was happy it was doing its job, but felt no need to run after it—I have my boarding pass to Oakland and I have to get home, brothers and sisters, to the life we are making.
