In the last 90 minutes, we’ve had clear blue skies, a blinding snowfall, sunshine with snow, and now mostly clouds–an appropriate place for someone who feels so different from one day to the next.
Yesterday an email message from a reader made my day:
Unfortunately my wife decided to divorce me if I move from Berkeley to Taos and the decision has been made. Plates have been broken, pictures torn apart, bank accounts are separated. She read your saga…
Now the question is this: Don’t you want to start a “lovebird connection service” in your site so I can get to Taos, and find a beautiful mate even before I get there? That would be awesome. Someone smart, politically correct, dark skin, black hair and doesn’t need to be a virgin.
Here I go: Brazilian, 50, very good shape, 175 lbs- 5′ 10″, business school, Brazilian jazz guitarist/singer/composer, trotskyite, atheist, honest, sexually active, broke, great cook, long brown hair, trilingual, plus some other great qualities. The victim just has to google _________ or my Brazilian jazz band ________.
Give me permission, amigo, and I’ll fill in those blanks. Always glad to help a fellow cliff diver! (Watch out, though: around here, holding your wallet while you jump is a cottage industry.)
[Excuse me, momentarily distracted by the above.]
Judging from his request, he won’t mind my quoting his email–which I dig for the attitude–and it sounds like we have a few things in common. Recklessness, perhaps. However, as I replied immediately (so as to catch him in time), “Remarkable. I’ll get back to you. But have you ever BEEN here???”
Compassion swells my high desert heart, because besides no ocean, no jobs, crappy expensive housing, and a level of weirdness that blots out the entire known world, I am reliably informed that most single women in Taos are lesbians!–the men, too, for that matter. I think it is the altitude. In any case, I look forward to his arrival and can point him toward a few lunatic guitarists or a bus. Heck, since he’s broke now, it’s like he’s already here. Oh, I kill myself. Fortunately, it is a good day to die.
None of this is my fault, you understand. Just like Obama, the inexplicable dearth of good American punk, and TEOTWAWKI. The only thing is, most people move here first and then get divorced. Oh well. But if that mountain calls, you’re just completely fucked, and something’s bound to happen. That’s the long and the short of it. Get ready, though: you might as well fall out of a plane over Uzbekistan, albeit one with a damned Appleby’s.
And now, back to grooving on clouds…
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The only thing is, most people move here first and then get divorced. Oh well. But if that mountain calls, you’re just completely fucked, and something’s bound to happen.
Telluride is exactly the same. That mountain called me many years ago and the man knew that when we married. I guess he forgot.
You’re right of course. I’ve only been to Telluride once a long time ago in the summer, but I’m sure you’re right.
It’s funny, but I don’t think we hear of people being “called” to cities in quite the same way, as in: “Sorry, honey. I just have Indianapolis in my soul and have to go there!” Hollywood, maybe, or the Big Apple. But people get called to mountains and the ocean.