(no subject)

[usernamenumber]

Geez I'm travelling a lot lately...

Last week: NYC
This week: Tucson, then Raleigh
This weekend: Boston to do Second Shift recording and (hopefully) see choose_again
Next week: Charlotte
Next weekend: Pittsburgh to see my grandparents
Next next week: Philadelphia (hi, eruthros!)
Next next weekend: Boston
Next next next week: Technically back in Boston, but may take a class in Baltimore instead
After that: Back in Boston for at least a week. No idea after that.

I've had a pretty nice several months of traveling no more than once a month and now this. Yeesh.

Anyway, I'm really enjoying Tucson. Came out here to visit my friend Shawn, and while I normally don't do protracted amounts of time just hanging out with one person (with the possible exception of choose_again) the trip has been pleasant. We've geeked out, driven out to a nearby state park to look at the pretties and so forth. Basically, just taking some time to be uncharacteristically slow-moving and relaxed. Because of some medical conditions that Shawn has he sleeps about 12 hours out of the day, from midnightish to noonish. Since I tend to sleep from midnightish to 7:30ish, this gives me big stretches of alone-time in which I work, goof off and take the non-interactive time I need to retain my sanity. Every morning since I got here I've spent time just laying on my air mattress staring into space, not thinking about anything. I can't remember the last time I did that.

I love Arizona, by the way. Every time I come here I feel compelled to write about how drawn I am to this environment. I always felt the whole "what kind of biome are you" nature identification thing was a bit pretentious and corny, but as soon as I walk out into that dry heat and look at cacti and stone for as far as the eye can see I somehow feel immediately at home. I think I'm solar powered.

There's a simplicity to the desert at first glance. But every square foot can be zoomed in upon to reveal detail after detail. I think it's the flatness, the expansiveness of it all that really gets me. The landscape is not featureless by any stretch of the imagination; cacti, boulders and gorgeous red mountains decorate it in endless combinations. But none of these features upstage the land in the way that a forest or an ocean would. It is the land that makes me feel like I could walk across it forever feeling comfortably small, almost enclosed, within it.

Shawn pointed out that if I wasn't able to drive back home and get a drink of water I wouldn't have such a rosy view of it and I agree. But that's the beauty of the modern age. Humanity has pulled its self up by its bootstraps and done wondrous things. It's wrong to use that elevation to assume a posture of mastery over the land, but that's not all that our andvances are good for. Aquaducts, space suits and diving bells. Technology allows us to appreciate nature in a way that is difficult to do when constantly on the defensive.

Comments

[eruthros]

You should give us a call so's we can hang out! We can show you the most fascinating Philadelphia sites (... right). Or at least the best gelato on the East Coast.

If you don't have our cell #s, you can drop me a line at my username at livejournal dot com.

[choose-again.livejournal.com]

i wish we could agree on a biome. we need a home like martin sileneus.

also, i adore you. it was so nice to talk this morning. i love you in a big way. and i can't wait to see you this weekend!

from Shawn

[(Anonymous)]

Gee -- you didn't mention the 10 foot tall Saguaro cacti forests!! In addition to my comment about liking the desert from an air conditioned car and such, since I am a hydrogeologist, I also gave him so many sermons about how we are going to run out of water down here in the southwest, that I am amazed that I didn't scare him away!!

But it was great to see you, Brad!!

-Shawn