Contiguity

Since leaving Nebraska in the fall of 2002, I've not felt a desire to return permanently. The state remains at the center of my mapa mundi, the point around which, in my mind, the rest of the universe revolves. But I haven't wanted to come back. I blame the cosmopolitan east coast, or even moreso a year in Oxford during college. Once I began to move in those circles, I didn't want to leave them. People would ask me, "do you think you'll move back someday?" And I would answer: "I don't really know," while suspecting that the real answer was "probably not."

So I was caught off-guard when, upon returning to the state for a couple of days after a month of cross-country travel, I discovered that I saw my motherland differently than in recent years.

My view was from the balcony of a friend's apartment in Omaha. She lives at the western edge of the city, looking out over a fresh six-lane road with new developments on one side and alfalfa on the other. I arrived at the bottom of the magic hour, that thirty minutes or so after the sun has slipped below the horizon but the sky retains its sunset glow. Because there were no clouds that evening, the sky was a perfectly blended strata of colors, from dark purple overhead, to midnight blue, to muddy green, to yellow, to reddish gold right above the horizon. Sparse tree branches and power lines cut tangled black silhouettes against this backdrop.

In that moment, Nebraska did not seem like a parochial, sealed place to me. It seemed to be a place, a distinct place, a place where I am from, but one that bled into the wider world to the east and to the west.

Sommerset

Thought I'd try to use Paper Logic as a travel blog for a bit.

After just over a month on the road, with adventures to Hawaii, Maine, the Pacific Northwest, Texas, Memphis, North Carolina, DC, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, New York again, and DC again...I'm now in a Starbucks in Sommerset, PA.

After a quick look around, I opted against pitching a tent at the Woodside Campground, and instead checked in at the A-1 Budget Motel. My room is off of what looks like a greenhouse for entirely artificial plants. Kathy, the front desk worker is exceedingly friendly and helpful. It was her promise of free waffles for breakfast that really drew me in.

In giving advice about restaurants in the area, she plugged the Pizza Hut. But she also noted the Ruby Tuesdays down the road, "which, as you know, is a more upscale restaurant. They usually don't build them in towns like this--only 5000 people or so--but they did so because we are located right off the Turnpike, so they do well."

Sadly, the wi-fi did not work, despite Danny's, the Indian maintenance man's, best effort. He wanted to know why I got an Apple. "They're the most expensive computer on the market. Did your family tell you you would get no viruses? My friend who has a new Apple paid $3000 for his. For that, you could get a giant-screened PC. The Dells, the Acers, the Gateways are so very, very cheap."

I've been kicked out of Starbucks. The nice girl who was happy to describe to me all the different flavors of tea--"since I've basically had them all," she confessed--and her manager, who might be her mother, informed me that it's time to go. And so it is.