and down in the texas of my heart

I'm not sure if I'm up for a full detailing of my trip to Flagstaff tonight (although apparently I am), but I can provide a few highlights and post some pictures since I'm apparently not going to be sleeping all that soon. I flew back last Thursday and didn't get in until night. I went almost immediately to bed; for some reason (altitude? stress? jet-lag? being outside in actual sunlight?) I was completely pooped at about 9:30 almost every night I was there. Anyway, I spent the next morning acting out the well-worn but highly enjoyable ritual of shopping with my mom, kind of hung out all afternoon, and then had dinner with my parents and my best friend from middle school and only remaining Flagstaff friend Emily. The next morning Emily and I had breakfast at Macy's (the best veggie biscuits and gravy EVER) and then went on an awesome hike on Wild Bill Hill. It's an old extinct cinder cone, so when you climb up inside there are all these really neat eroded rock formations (hoodoos). It was definitely one of the more fun hikes I've been on in Flag recently, so I took some nice pictures.

The path up

Emily!

Some nifty-ass hoodoos

Up close


Me looking dorky as usual


Emily again

The way home

So that was awesome, but I totally had to take a nap afterwards.
That night, we went out and saw The Man Who Would Be King at a kind of jury-rigged drive-through at the county fairgrounds. This delightful colonialist movie is one of Emily's favorites, so it was good to see it again. (The last time, I was 13 or so and I barely remembered anything.) It was fucked-up but fun. Then we went out to Zane Grey's, but everything was packed with drunk queers because it was Pride weekend. The next morning, my parents took me to get coffee at the much-touted new health food store, which was actually really nice. It looks a lot like a Whole Foods, and my parents are really proud of the fact that they buy organic meat and cage-free eggs there and that makes me really happy.
That night, Emily and I went to see the Ani concert at the new outdoor amphitheater, also at the fairgrounds. And you know what? It was awesome. I was afraid that it would be full of rabid lesbian Ani fans because of Pride; not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm somewhat past the rabid stage and I was worried about weird obsessive energy or something. But actually, it was really relaxed and happy and fun. The vibe was much more on the hippie side of things than on the edgy urban queer side, and mostly people sat around with their children/partners/friends on the grass and just kind of listened. She had a band with her, but it consisted of drumset, another percussionist (he played a lot of marimba but also other sundry things) and standup bass, so it was kind of low-key but backed things up nicely. Here's the setlist:
god's country
half-assed

*swim
78% H2O
*as is
millennium theater
here for now
napoleon
grand canyon
nicotine
new song about atoms being an awesome particle so messing around with it to produce energy is bad
new song about how her baby makes her re-evaluate her criticism of her face/self
*swan dive (solo)
reckoning
*both hands
in the way
Encores:
*little plastic castle
32 flavors

The asterisks are my favorites, and Swan Dive was particularly awesome. Although I wish she'd played more older stuff (I wasn't that fond of the last album and there was a lot of that on there) she hit some of my favorites and made me remember just how much I liked her and how much her music has meant to me. She seemed like she was having fun too; instead of being irritated when the audience yelled, she said we were "plumb crazy" and did this long crazy funny yell to demonstrate. So everybody seemed happy, and that was nice.
This morning it was breakfast at Macy's again and then the long trip home. But I'm happy with the trip; I got to see a lot of my parents and of Emily, I hiked and ate good food and enjoyed my Ani concert and that was all I really wanted.
It was hard coming back though, so I'll end this on a bit of a down note. It's depressing to come back to a home you'll be leaving behind within the week. We've both found places to live and somebody to take our old apartment, so this place has to be cleaned out by the 1st. So the end of my trip was bittersweet, but I'm still glad I got to go. Next up: Alaska.