Day 8: Flagstaff to Phoenix

My mood is tilting downward, I don't want to go home. I try to keep the frustration at bay and mostly succeed but get hit by sporadic waves of consciousness over the course of the morning. I hate my job, I think it's stupid to spend a life in this manner, I hate that that's the way it has to be. I try to forget how futile the hating is. I try to be funny but my audience, guy, is also a little edged and my lame jokes fall flat.

We pack up the car and head to Burger King and then McDonald's for a quick breakfast made of crap. It's only 10:30am and neither place is still serving breakfast. What the FUCK?! I yell. It's still MORNING!! That's FUCKING BULLSHIT!! I tell guy, who, fortunately, laughs at my hyperexcited vocal display. We decide to get burgers and head out on the highway for our next scheduled destination: Arcosanti.



Arcosanti is an "urban experiment" expressing the philosophy of Paolo Soleri, an Italian architect. He believes all homes, offices, stores, schools, shopping centers, etc should be contained in one giant enclosure, several stories tall. We are intrigued by internet descriptions of what we perceive to be a revolutionary and futuristic idea. We expect a well-executed, slick, modern collection of buildings but instead are greeted by what feels to be some lazy, new age, hippie, creepy, Soleri-reverent commune. There is literature galore about "workshops" and "succeeding in your workshop" so you can live there and "be chosen to work" in your "field of interest" which involves only a few categories including "maintenance." Ew. Ew. EW!

We opt out of the "tour" and leave in a slightly perturbed state of mind.



Onward to Phoenix. I take pictures of cacti out of the speeding car window. They make me feel funny. I laugh at their upright-ness. So blatant and unaffected, like an idiot savant. I feel like apologizing to them.



We turn the rental sedan in to the airport at 2:30pm and wait for guy's dad and stepmom to arrive to pick us up. We are going to spend 18 hours with them at their timeshare and another 6 at guy's cousin's house in Peoria. We sit silently in the Rental Car Building. I am feeling the sting of soon having to return to San Francisco and a seemingly pointless existence. There are no lounges in the Rental Car Building at the airport. I ask guy if he's excited, nervous or anxious about seeing his dad soon. He says, "No. I'm sort of neutral. I really just want to drink."

So do I.
Bored.
Yawning.
Writing, and not very well, I'm afraid. My inspiration is waning. Guy is tuned out, reading. I attempt more jokes and get nowhere. I hate waiting. It drives me totally cuckoo, frantic, hair-picking, leg-crossing, number-counting, chest-sighingly insane. Sometimes it even makes me cry. I lean my head back on uncomfortable Rental Car Building seating and it hurts. I ignore the pain momentarily and see pretty lines moving behind my eyelids. I look up, look around. Guy looks up, looks around. I tell him he should call his dad so we can know where they are. He says no, I don't want to. GRRRR. The waiting grinds. It's been an hour. GRRR. Maybe I should just get cranked on Coca-Cola.



2.5 hours later, guy's dad and stepmom show up. I am never mad when people who I am waiting for show up, it's such a blessed sight. We get a new rental car, the four of us, and we head straight to a store for liquor and snacks. Fortunately, we all have the same agenda. We get to the condo and chill with vodka mixers. They take us out to dinner. Afterwards, I smoke on the patio and later join guy on the pull-out bed in the palatial timeshare. We touch thighs and fall sound asleep.