Mundane Turbulence

Have you ever met someone and thought, “this person has really got some things figured out”? If you haven’t, then you should visit Flagstaff, AZ.

Yet another island of conservatism within a sea of fascism?

In Flagstaff is a near-uncle of mine. Or…a goduncle? He’s my dad’s step-sister’s husband, so I’m not sure what that makes him. In any case, his name is Garry, and he rules. My dad’s step-sister, Tanya, lives in Cambridge, so Garry has to make friends locally in order to maintain his social sanity. Mind you, Garry is 67 years old; that age ain’t your typical “making new friends” period. So how does he navigate this issue? He chats people up in cafes and book shops and bars. Now, I know that my primary concern if I were a 67-year-old would be that I’d come off as the creepy old guy. I mean, I’ll be 30 this year, and I’m concerned already about my creepy old guy vibes. But this is what happened while Garry was showing us around downtown Flagstaff:

We were walking past one of the many pretty cool-seeming bars, when out runs a lady who looks somewhere around my age. “Garret!” She yells. ”I was just sitting at the window and saw you walking by, so I had to come and say hello – how are you!” (Or something like that.) Garry then introduces me and my sister to this woman, Andrea, who Garry tells us is getting her Ph.D. at Northern Arizona University in both Philosophy and Economics. Now, you may have a similar reaction to that focus as I did: namely, “whaaaaa?” Which is basically what I said in response. The whole idea, as Andrea explained it on the corner of an intersection in front of a bar, has to do with incorporating ethics into our economic policies by default, rather than as some tacked on bullshit in exchange for tax breaks. My reaction was…strongly positive: I’m pretty sure I got all kinds of gushy over Andrea’s interests. After I forced Andrea to go on beyond any reasonable length for a sidewalk elaboration of her field, she left for her bar, and we wandered to some others. But, this is Garry’s  life in Flagstaff: he meets random, cool, brilliant, and cute young people around town, and then they literally run out to greet him on the streets when he’s about. That…ain’t not unbad. Something to aim for.

Also, Garry lives here:

Stucco paradise, 7,000 feet above sea level.

In his stable, we played with these:

Amber and Moonshadow.

And we enjoyed this view from his second-floor porch:

Could be worse.

Then, the next day, our last leg of the journey:

Just a lovely little drive…through the Mojave Desert.

And Los Angeles was…awesome?? What a surprise that was. Granted, the unbelievable traffic really chipped away at the good will I’d developed towards the city during my one day stay, but…we ate awesome Himalayan food (this place rules), hung out at my extremely cool godmother‘s place with her extremely cool family, and, oh, caught the sunset over the Pacific Ocean:

Ariel reunited with her boy Devin, hanging out at Venice Beach.

And that was the trip, spent with my darling sister, visiting dear friends and relatives, and seeing some pretty fantastic things. I’m a lucky dude.