I am currently sitting in gate sixty-eight at the Salt Lake airport. I can't help but recognize how far away I am from the city I used to know here. The advance in time, and the advance in my own time, have made it impossible to touch that place I knew so very well only a decade ago. It does not exist. But it did, and I can still taste the hungry dust in my mouth from the summertime on those filthy streets next to the mission.
Pioneer park is now a place people take their kids. The district that used to be crowded with desperate people selling cocaine, heroin, and sex has transformed into a place filled with dispirited people pushing lotions, khaki's, and fried foods.
A man just sat next to me on the terminal bench and caused me to bounce a little. This happened right as I typed the word fried.
When I was last in California, I got a chance to ride a bus in to San Francisco from Santa Rosa. Also riding the bus that day was my best friend Jared, and a dwarf bull-dyke. She was quite friendly, but had a homeless odor about her and seemed full of misinformation about the bus schedule. It was difficult to show her appreciation for her accommodating nature, while not encouraging her to continue to keep talking to us. These are the experiences I remember.
A friend of mine is having trouble breaking up with someone who is not really in a relationship with her. I suppose he has convinced himself that he is through wishful thinking. Things like that happen. I recently broke up with someone I was not in a relationship with. The difference is that both of us knew that. In retrospect I wonder why we took the energy to break up. Closure is comforting.
I will be in Bozeman today. I have never been there. I am mildly excited.