home sweet home

for better or for worse, getting married and settling into a wonderful house has seriously undermined my wanderlust.... although I can take 50% of the above (the spouse and the lust) with me when I wander, I do miss my home. Not like the old days, when there didn't seem to be anyplace I particularly wanted to be--at least not enough to outweigh the charms of a ruined Silk Road city or a sunrise boat ride on the Ganges.

Loopy seems quite irked to be back in the US, and she'll no doubt tell you all about it, but I confess I am very content. I loved the Detroit airport, even though--as always on a return from Japan--everything seemed dirty and broken, and--as always on a return from anywhere--the agents-formerly-known-as-INS* seemed to take precise and calculated delight in waving us through unquestioned, just to emphasize the intentionality of their insults to our swarthier fellow travellers.

But I loved:

• eating a bacon cheeseburger
  
• exchanging glances with confident dykes
  
• seeing women unapologetically in positions of authority (wearing uniforms that did not involve white gloves or pink neckerchiefs)
  
• having the waitress bring a coke instead of a sprite and not apologize as though she'd accidentally severed my hand

And, while this may sound odd, I realized I missed just being around Black people (hell, I miss that in friggin' Madison!).

There are many many things I don't love about this country, as you are all well aware. In case the immigration dudes weren't enough of a reminder, there was the CNN monitor blaring xenophobic racist bullshit across the airport.**

So don't think I've gone all soft on Amurrica now, or that I'm going to stop wandering off (already talking about a spring trip to Rome with our Kyoto fellow-traveler, who was very congenial).

All I'm saying is... well, I already said it.

Ah, I see that it's now 12:04, which concludes the 38 hours we've spent enjoying August 26th, our tenth wedding anniversary & twelfth year together--the longest anniversary day we're ever likely to spend. I've been trying to figure out all day how long a day lasts on planet earth--in other words, for how many hours is it August 26th someplace on the planet? But I'm too sleepy.

Anyway, I have been not-in-bed--in various places on the planet--for 30+ hours, and that's too long. I just needed to unwind a bit--you know how it is.

The last thing I'll say is that it was soooooooooooo wonderful to see Danielle at the airport after such a looooooooong and painful journey. She & hubby Mike kept our car for us while we were gone & drove us to & picked us up from the airport. They're so great.... we should spend more time with them.

Sorry for all the babbling....... soooo tired.....

---

*Did you know that "Homeland Security Agency" is a precise translation of the words whose acronym is "Gestapo"? I'm completely serious. Oh, wait, I just looked that up on Wikipedia and I'm completely wrong--Gestapo is short for Geheime Staatspolizei, "secret state police." Damn, I've been misleading people for years on that one. I'm leaving this in in case you were one of them. Shame on me.

** CNN outrage topics du jour: how can the Labor Board give jobs to FOREIGNERS??? and, how DARE a school board in Texas require principals of schools with large %s of Spanish-speaking students, to speak Spanish themselves? (you'd think those students might have something to say to the principal that s/he'd want to hear--of all the crazy things!) I honestly think a serious racist onslaught against Latinos is coming--already underway in many places, but seriously, something bigger is in preparation on a national scale. As evidence, look no further than the heaps of anti-immigrant junk mail on my dad's desk, or CNN again, which is full of xenophobic spew every friggin' day. But enuffa that....