Vive

It's amazing how much the twins have grown up. I only see them once a year, and each time I'm amazed by how much they've changed. They're ten now, and I can begin to guess their personalities. Gracey will end up living through computers and technology (though there is a slight chance she may end up a jock due to her athletic abilities), Aubrey will enter high school as a goth chick, obsessed with music and appearing un-obsessed with anything. We hiked across Red Rocks today, which was frighteningly green. As Wyoming is in a drought, Las Vegas is getting unusual amounts of moisture. It even snowed this year here.

Yesterday we went through the strip. The decadence and opulence was wonderful. It's nice seeing a place with an economy. I hold my breath at the thought of returning to Wyoming tomorrow, I completely dread it. I'll apply for some geo-jobs here, but I'm equally afraid of getting them as I am afraid of being rejected. It's so late in the year, I feel that any change of plan will come as a sign of betrayal to the Dinosaur Center. Part of me wants that, but my loyalty the museum curator keeps me from fully entertaining thoughts of a summer away. I'm convinced that the dichotomy here is not Love and Hate, it is Love and Happiness. I love the Dinosaur Center, but I have been miserable for a long time, fighting to keep my research going, fighting to keep the Allosaurus excavation from continuing. But with this Navy Seal trained, I could hand over excavations to him, and that would go unhindered. Frances would be working there too, I would have brought in two to replace me. But still, I just feel dread.

It's been an odd sort of paradise. My aunt and uncle are quite financially secure, and have spend quite a lavish bit of money on me these past two days. I've eaten three meals a day, I haven't eaten so much in years. I go to bet with a full stomach, and sleep like a rock. I had insomnia before coming out here, now sleep comes wonderfully and blissfully. I wake up in the morning, and there is no sick feeling in my stomach, no daydreams of shooting myself, it's just peace. And it doesn't feel wrong, I've been able to distance myself from the hell that's been eating at me. If I could work here, I just tingle while thinking about it. I could be happy. I can stress this enough, before this trip to Las Vegas I would lay on the floor for half an hour each morning, thinking about killing myself. Not in the "I need help" sort of way, but just vivid images of me shooting myself that I couldn't control. It would creep into my head at night before I went to bed, would be my companion in the morning. But it's not here, it's a memory here. I'm sure it will return when I'm in Laramie tomorrow, but it is absent here.

Oh, and one last thing. It is awesome to completely suprise people. My two little cousins had no idea I was comming here, and threw a fit when they returned from school and saw me sitting talking to there mother. Just absoulute serendipidous joy. I got to do it again yesterday, a friend of mine from Laramie was here for a conference (she had some of her photographs published), and happens to walk all the time. She was walking in downtown Las Vegas, and the car I was riding in just happened to pull up next to her do to a random stoplight. Think of the infitesimally small chances of meeting up with this friend, from Wyoming, in a city thousands of miles away do to pure chance. I had to call out her name. When she saw me (having no idea I was in Vegas), she flipped out. People really don't know how to handle such things. There is no reaction to it expressed in the media. It does wonders for your sense of cunning.

Hah, see? I don't sound pessimistic or depressed. Part of me wants it to stay that way. The rest of me lives in the real world, which is most certainly not a full stomach and Las Vegas. But one can dream.