Entry, Phoenix

It’s difficult to write anything coherent about one of the most visually beautiful days of my life when I have a camera full of photos that I can’t show you. Silly computers. They promise us a world of information, given and received, and then sometimes snatch it away from us when we least expect (or want) it.

Silly computer doesn’t want to recognize my card reader. Without that, I have a memory card full of photos, and no way to move them onto a hard drive. Grr.My time in Phoenix is rapidly drawing to an end. My watch says it’s Sunday, though only by the slimmest of margins. Back East, it is already Monday. It is a typical night. Jody and Chris are online. The gossip ranges from how difficult our families think we are to buy Christmas presents for, to potential hotel plans for next year’s dragon*con.

I didn’t feel that I was really over 1500 miles away from home until we arrived at the Grand Canyon. Up until that point, some unreasonable portion of my mind half-wondered if maybe I’d just changed rooms or changed houses, and forgotten about it. It’s hard to rationalize the concept of distance when you climb into an airplane’s cabin, sit there for several hours, and then when you take another twenty steps you’re supposedly on the opposite side of the country.

It became real as I was sucking air at a ferocious rate, trying to walk at my usual pace around the Grand Canyon and pretend that the altitude wasn’t getting to me.

Oh yeah, this ain’t home, kiddo.

Tomorrow we tend to final things. Post office, for mailing Round One of postcards. One last stab at finding a good Christmas ornament for my mother’s collection. Picking up photos of Danny. Attending Mass with Kara - though I don’t know yet if we’ll be attending a Spanish- or English-language service. (Tomorrow, Monday, is apparently a day of obligation for American Catholics. I don’t really know what this means. Any Catholics reading this site who can explain?) Wash clothes. Begin packing.

On Tuesday afternoon, I change houses. Hello, Planet Los Angeles, here I come.

More details when I have photos. Promise.

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