Gone fishin’ again
Well, not really. But I am out of town and I’ve turned off the cellphone and I’m not checking email. If I had more time, I really would have gone fishin’ — at one point, I visualized my passport in hand and checked out going to Mexico or further south of the border, but I don’t have time. (Too many pressing obligations — writing-oriented and otherwise — next week. Plus there are those pesky classes I teach.) So instead I took off for Las Vegas, where so far I’m doing nothing but reading, watching angry talking heads on Fox News, and dining at the hotel oyster bar. For me, this equates with relaxation.
I would have gone to a favorite spot for brief getaways: a remote strip of beach near one of our state’s fine, fine prisons. Last time I went there I sat out by the surf for eight hours smoking cigars and drinking drinks and writing and during the course of that day never saw another person. After five weeks without a day off and lots of talking and writing in there, you can imagine the attraction this deserted beach option held. But it’s been cold lately and I wanted to go as hassle-free as possible, and the idea of round-the-clock room service called to me. (Not that I’ve called it, yet.)
I just now came back up to the room from the latest trip to the oyster bar. Most enjoyable moment so far: watching a Japanese couple photograph their food as it arrived. She ordered a rib-eye steak and he photographed it. I’m not mocking them — my friend Stefan did the same thing when he went to Japan — but it was a reminder that one’s rote experience is often novel to others.
Okay, that’s it. I have to go back to reading about “The Third Reich in Power,” because I’m once again interested in the insidious ways evil people assert themselves. Then I might actually go, I dunno, walk around or something.