9.7.03
News This Week:
My cousin has married an epidemiologist, and therefore I went to Wyoming.
It's big, folks. It's very big.
And empty.
And big.
Did I mention empty?
And that's why I'm not going to write a witty and incisive travel piece on my trip.
It's not that I didn't like it there. I did. It's gorgeous. They have prong-horned deeer. I got to wander around in snow in my sandles. I ate like royalty (well, royalty that has forsworn everything but beef).
But I think if I tried to write that witty and incisive travel piece, I'd start using phrases like 'down-home' and 'salt of the earth,' and I'd start speaking about 'the simple rancher life,' and 'the majestic beauty of the mountains.' It would lead to a profound overabundance of adjectives such as 'big' and 'empty' (and 'small' if we're talking about the 'towns').
I have no desire to pander to a stereotype, and no illusions that I broke through whatever barriers there are between the tourists and the residents. From the phrases I just gave you, I'm sure you can all construct the gushing, deeply unfair two-dimensional picture I would paint.
Instead, here is some stuff that went on. I don't think any of it is particularly pertinent to Wyoming, but, well, it happened.
1. THINGS THAT WERE SAID:
(me, to my mother)
-- I'm worried. Dad says I look like Ozzy Osbourne.
-- Well, at least now you can marry Sharon Osbourne.
-- You think I should marry Sharon Osbourne?
-- I think at least one of us should.
(an eight year old, to me)
-- Your other cousin in the other room doesn't look very happy.
-- I don't think dancing's his thing.
-- (pausing, to consider this deeply, and shrugging) Well... he's not my cousin.
(my father, to the man at the ranger information point)
-- So, do you think this would be a good trail to hike?
-- Shit, I dunno. I've never been up any of 'em.
(my father, this time to the sixty-five year old lady at the ranger information point)
-- Do you think there'll be an internet cafe in Laramie?
-- What's the internet?
(a bed and breakfast owner, to anyone who would listen)
-- Well, it's home. I was conceived in what's now the breakfast room, you know.
2. THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
We set off approximately 1700 fireworks at the same time. I should say, he set off 1700 fireworks at the same time, and the rest of us stood back. Although most of us did help set the whole thing up, reasoning that if it didn't work, at least we could all tell our grandkids how we were involved in the Great Wyoming Fire of '03.
We went to a rodeo, got blessed in the name of Jesus and subjected to awful poetry by a preacher masquerading as a commentator, and then watched 17 men and 1 woman thrown off bucking bulls, each time before the clock hit 8 seconds. Depressingly, no bones were broken, and by the end of the hour, the audience still hadn't charged the field to kill the commentator.
At the my-family and not-my-family gathering (these things seem to happen when cousins marry epidemiologists), there were nine women. Only two of them were thinner than me, and one of those two was pregnant. Make of this what you will...
There was a break-dancing toddler who stole the dancing-hat and wouldn't give it back.
Lucy spent the entire weekend trying to teach the break-dancing toddler that her name was 'Aunt Lucy,' and not to run away from her when she said he could sit on her lap. "What's your name?" he asked me when we were playing catch. "Becky," I told him. "Kay, Lucy," he answered, and spent the rest of the weekend calling me 'Lucy.' I felt kinda bad for Aunt Lucy.
3. THINGS THAT I SAW:
A woman, profoundly overweight, with a lip-ring and lank hair. She was a dance teacher, and moreover, she taught hip-hop. When she moved, she had comoplete control over every roll in her body. She moved with more confidence and surity than anyone I have ever known, and when she danced, somehow, she got me to dance with her.
The windiest place on earth, except one spot in Russia. It wasn't very windy.
A book, melting.
Another woman, the opposite. Maybe 26 and looking maybe 14. Looking skinny, looking, more than that, empty. She wore a dress that clung to every hollow in her body, and bloody-red, bitten lips that made her skin look like milk-bone and wax. She was a recovering addict, her eyes said, even though she had never shot-up, knocked-back, or jumped once. Late in the evening, she was dancing, with her son. She was so short, he already came up past her waist, and she ran her red-tipped fingers through his hair. She handled him as if he was the most fragile thing in the world, and any minute, someone would be asking for him back, unbroken. She held him with the tenderness of a half-broke jeweler faced with the Hope Diamond.
My cousin has married an epidemiologist, and therefore I went to Wyoming.
It's big, folks. It's very big.
And empty.
And big.
Did I mention empty?
And that's why I'm not going to write a witty and incisive travel piece on my trip.
It's not that I didn't like it there. I did. It's gorgeous. They have prong-horned deeer. I got to wander around in snow in my sandles. I ate like royalty (well, royalty that has forsworn everything but beef).
But I think if I tried to write that witty and incisive travel piece, I'd start using phrases like 'down-home' and 'salt of the earth,' and I'd start speaking about 'the simple rancher life,' and 'the majestic beauty of the mountains.' It would lead to a profound overabundance of adjectives such as 'big' and 'empty' (and 'small' if we're talking about the 'towns').
I have no desire to pander to a stereotype, and no illusions that I broke through whatever barriers there are between the tourists and the residents. From the phrases I just gave you, I'm sure you can all construct the gushing, deeply unfair two-dimensional picture I would paint.
Instead, here is some stuff that went on. I don't think any of it is particularly pertinent to Wyoming, but, well, it happened.
1. THINGS THAT WERE SAID:
(me, to my mother)
-- I'm worried. Dad says I look like Ozzy Osbourne.
-- Well, at least now you can marry Sharon Osbourne.
-- You think I should marry Sharon Osbourne?
-- I think at least one of us should.
(an eight year old, to me)
-- Your other cousin in the other room doesn't look very happy.
-- I don't think dancing's his thing.
-- (pausing, to consider this deeply, and shrugging) Well... he's not my cousin.
(my father, to the man at the ranger information point)
-- So, do you think this would be a good trail to hike?
-- Shit, I dunno. I've never been up any of 'em.
(my father, this time to the sixty-five year old lady at the ranger information point)
-- Do you think there'll be an internet cafe in Laramie?
-- What's the internet?
(a bed and breakfast owner, to anyone who would listen)
-- Well, it's home. I was conceived in what's now the breakfast room, you know.
2. THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
We set off approximately 1700 fireworks at the same time. I should say, he set off 1700 fireworks at the same time, and the rest of us stood back. Although most of us did help set the whole thing up, reasoning that if it didn't work, at least we could all tell our grandkids how we were involved in the Great Wyoming Fire of '03.
We went to a rodeo, got blessed in the name of Jesus and subjected to awful poetry by a preacher masquerading as a commentator, and then watched 17 men and 1 woman thrown off bucking bulls, each time before the clock hit 8 seconds. Depressingly, no bones were broken, and by the end of the hour, the audience still hadn't charged the field to kill the commentator.
At the my-family and not-my-family gathering (these things seem to happen when cousins marry epidemiologists), there were nine women. Only two of them were thinner than me, and one of those two was pregnant. Make of this what you will...
There was a break-dancing toddler who stole the dancing-hat and wouldn't give it back.
Lucy spent the entire weekend trying to teach the break-dancing toddler that her name was 'Aunt Lucy,' and not to run away from her when she said he could sit on her lap. "What's your name?" he asked me when we were playing catch. "Becky," I told him. "Kay, Lucy," he answered, and spent the rest of the weekend calling me 'Lucy.' I felt kinda bad for Aunt Lucy.
3. THINGS THAT I SAW:
A woman, profoundly overweight, with a lip-ring and lank hair. She was a dance teacher, and moreover, she taught hip-hop. When she moved, she had comoplete control over every roll in her body. She moved with more confidence and surity than anyone I have ever known, and when she danced, somehow, she got me to dance with her.
The windiest place on earth, except one spot in Russia. It wasn't very windy.
A book, melting.
Another woman, the opposite. Maybe 26 and looking maybe 14. Looking skinny, looking, more than that, empty. She wore a dress that clung to every hollow in her body, and bloody-red, bitten lips that made her skin look like milk-bone and wax. She was a recovering addict, her eyes said, even though she had never shot-up, knocked-back, or jumped once. Late in the evening, she was dancing, with her son. She was so short, he already came up past her waist, and she ran her red-tipped fingers through his hair. She handled him as if he was the most fragile thing in the world, and any minute, someone would be asking for him back, unbroken. She held him with the tenderness of a half-broke jeweler faced with the Hope Diamond.
