weirdness. es.

Santa Fe seems weirder and weirder to me every time I visit. This particular visit, maybe some of the weirdness was amplified by 7 nights in an Airbnb casita way out in Eldorado. One or more daily trips into and out of town meant that I was never immersed in the weirdness, but reminded of it afresh each time. I think it's also the case that my many years in Phoenix have made Santa Fe seem more and more surreal. Phoenix is in some ways just plain old America. Santa Fe not only feels like it is not part of the United States, but also not exactly on Planet Earth.

I rarely hang out in downtown Santa Fe during peak tourist season, so I think that's part of it as well. These past few days, the plaza and the entire downtown area have been swarming with people visiting from all over the world. I stood outside Cafe Pasqual's the other night, people watching, and people from Germany, Japan, Belgium, France, the UK, Mexico, Iowa all came up to read the menu. Many decided to go in, only to come right back out muttering about the 90 minute wait. Some of the visitors gave off a content enough vibe, or had that sense of adventure about them. Most, however, and of course I could have been projecting, looked flatly miserable. I suspect some people come to Santa Fe with a certain budget in mind for their visit and slowly begin to realize they should have doubled it. Many people look anxious, harried and disappointed. I talked briefly with a couple on the plaza yesterday on their honeymoon, from Edinburgh. They asked me to take their picture. I congratulated them on getting married. "Oh we got married 4 years ago and have been saving up for this." Nice, where are you staying? "The Inn of the Anasazi, around the block there. $450 a night! It's very nice though."

A superior king room at the Inn of the Anasazi. $520 a night. 

I had a spectacular dinner with the loml at Sazon the other night. (A friend recently messaged me and asked, "What is the loml?" "The love of my life. Sometimes the lomfl. The love of my fucking life." "Oh. That's cute.") Another great dinner solo at La Boca. The food here in town seems to be getting better, if anything, and it's always been a solid food town. Traffic is awful. People drive like idiots. 

I think what has also happened, quite strongly, is a definite fissure between old tourist Santa Fe (which started feeling like a facsimile and than a facsimile of that facsimile in the '90s) and real Santa Fe, where real people live. It was always thus, but with the advent of Meow Wolf's House of Eternal Return and some other diffusion of culture, it feels more like two distinct towns now. I love the fact that it feels especially like a whole town has risen up for younger people. Because old tourist Santa Fe is absolutely not for younger people, judging from the people watching I have been doing. I don't think it ever was. 

I had been hoping to hike extensively up in the National Forest, but it's closed. It was unseasonably 91 degrees the other day. Some soft rains rolled in yesterday though and took the edge off. 

It's weird to have lived here for 30 years, on and off, and to be a visitor now. Since roughly 2009 or so, I haven't longed to return the way I did every other time I left. It just feels like it is too difficult to live here, realistically. The low cost of living in the Valley of Hell is a marked contrast with here, and I always struggled desperately here, financially. This was often just because I am terrible with money, and I was an active alcoholic here for years, but it is also because the town is financially challenging. Low salaries, high cost of living, low job security. And the music scene is very hardscrabble here, and had become quite insulated by the time I left. The same people playing the same shows with the same audiences, over and over. 

An old friend of mine here bailed on education about a decade ago and became a plumbing apprentice. He's a licensed plumber with additional HVAC certification now and he makes six figures. Of course he works 90 hours a frikkin week. But I think, if one isn't a financially successful artist, trades are another way to make this area work. It's hilarious regarding me though, since if I merely get a wrench out of a tool kit, I break something. I have no acumen for successful interaction with the mechanical world. I do romanticize being blue collar though. Especially after 4 years of a PhD program. 

This has been a great visit. Extremely anti-social. The only other human being I've seen is the loml, pretty much, and that has only been for a couple hours at a time. I hope to return in August, when I may have a free place to stay, and get out more.