DUUUUUUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are in Phoenix. Arrived about 4ish yesterday. what a crazy wild trip it was. the weather alone. johnhenry and i waxed poetic at length yesterday about how many different weather patterns we drove through and how quickly it would change. we invented the term schizophrenic weather. just like the night before with the New Mexico blizzard out of NOWHERE!!!, we started our morning in Grants, NM cool, but blue sky, little cloudy, then flurries, then straight out massive winter weather and ice as we passed into Arizona. I have to admit, i had no idea that i would have to deal with winter weather this time of year in AZ and NM. i new i would in Flagstaff some, but this? but wait... we drive a little over an hour and it stops. blue sky, beautiful! Then we start to head into Flagstaff. Still not bad and then like something from the apocalypse, i can't even see the road once i turn on to I17 S heading down the mountain. i have a lot of this on video tape and as soon as i figure out how to post video or convert some of this or whatever i will. and yes, i was taping while driving. but i quickly stopped as our lives were hanging in the balance. i think some car must have gone off the side because a bunch of cops and news crews were blocking a scenic outlook off. people were honking at me and passing me. i stopped a couple times and contemplated calling for help. i am not going to lie, i was fucking scared a couple times. like i said before, me, whatever, my kids in the car, the rules change. and i wasn't ready for that much ice and snow. and i don't think they were either. they didn't have anything plowed. nada. needless to say, we made it down the mountain and johnhenry and i have a great tale to tell. then we had a great discussion how amazing it is to live in a country where one hour we were driving through a blizzard down a mountain and the next we had to crack the window because we were hot and he was naming all the cacti he had learned in social studies. what a crazy thing.

note about johnhenry. sweetest boy in the world. after my freak out during the NM blizzard, which the boys weren't really that aware of, the next morning in the hotel, he said to me "i wasn't worried about atticus or me, i knew you would take care of us. i was worried about you because i knew how scared you were for us and that hurts you and that hurts me." i am not making that up. what 10 year old boy says that? how did i get this boy? he truly is so special.

i have so much i want to say right now. so much i want to write about. so much has happened in only 3 and a half short days. so many stories. my head is swimming. like the character Richard in The Hours, which if you know me i am obsessed with that movie and book, he says to Clarissa, "i failed. i wanted to write about it all, the way the flowers looked in your arms just now when you walked in the room, the way this towel feels between my fingers, all thread bare, your smell. no matter how much you start out with, it ends up being so much less." i know that sounds depressing, but wait. there is so much to life. so much to do, experience, take in, sense, listen to, be, love and sometimes you want to do it all. i have wanted to do it all. but the truth is you can't. and maybe life is learning that that is not failing, it is just reality.

i want to tell the world the lady in the bathroom in amarillo telling someone on the cellphone their mother was dead and she was riding her harley back to new jersey to take care of the arrangements and don't worry, while i was trying to keep quiet and his pants were down and i couldn't get his diaper on. the cowboys in winslow AZ and the little boy with spurs that atticus kept calling woody and the family we met at the super 8 and the sunrise that made cry and all this stuff, how could you ever explain every second of all those moments? and that was just the last 2 days. let alone the last 37 years. dudes, i am all over the place.

the picture at the top is my bestest bud angie. we are visiting her in phoenix. she, like me, is out of work and trying to figure stuff out. we met in college, when my other bestest friend Amy and i were rooming together and angie lived on our floor. that was a long time ago. she doesn't have internet right now cuz she is cutting costs so i am at starbucks and the boys have been really good while i post this.

love and peace and learn to edit.