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Well, I am home, real home for a couple of days. I nearly got knocked down at the door by Oxbridge and puppy. Oxbridge got dibs. I love my puppy, but she gets no smootchies. I know perfectly well where that cute snuzzle of hers has been. xp

Salt Lake City is an odd town, with none of the usual snipes about the dominant religion meant here. It looks like a large city nestled between the desert and the mountains, which would be surreal enough on its own. But it just doesn't feel like a city. It's like some sort of alien interpetation of what a city ought to look like. The streets are all a bit too wide, the traffic not heavy enough, the people not plentiful enough on the streets. I thought my hotel was downtown, but wandering about I couldn't really find what I would consider downtown. It was more like a scattering of shops, separated by hundreds of yards, with occasional restaurants. I like walking randomly, but it was got dark (100 F weather precluding daytime excursions) and I had this abrupt realization that I was all by myself at night in a strange city. Usually there would have been crowds, but heat or something else had created an odd sort of isolation.

Feeling just a bit like the Omega Woman, I made my way back to my hotel and a microwaved Marie Callender dinner. I can't say that I feel that I really know Salt Lake City. Perhaps I'll get to visit sometime when it's cooler.

Back in Gaia, Oxbridge and I put on our play for our first audience member, Cherry Wine (who I am beginning to think of as "mayor" of the City of Devious Gaians--that's our subdivision name). Turns out Cherry is actually a total drama geek, and had some great feedback. I must say, my hands were VERY tired after all that typing, but I think we're ready to take the show on the road. eek Maybe Monday. Later on, the three of us just hung out and chatted in our new "city". I totally lost track of time, until we all had one of those "OMG, look at the clock" moments. Got to bed about three hours after I had planned to. Gaia really is just like college in so many ways.

I half slept all the way to the airport, the hotel van radio blasting music from random time periods the whole way. I stared at the distant, presumably cooler mountains as the once young Monkees chirped:

Cheer up, sleepy Jean,
Oh, what can it mean?
To a daydream believer
And a homecoming queen....

Somehow everything made sense, right there and then. Maybe someday, I'll figure out why.