That is all.
I have this penchant for natural wonders. Every trip I've gone on in the last couple years has included visits to some sort of spectacular sight: Lake Michigan frozen solid, Yosemite National Park, and, this year, Arches National Park.
Arches is a small park, as they go, and we wound through it quickly because we had about four states left to traverse in less than two days. Not to mention that given the choice between looking at the pretty rocks from the nice, air-conditioned car and hiking out to them in the withering heat of noon in the desert, well, we chose the car.
Laziness and haste aside, we still saw lots of things to say "ooh!" and "aaah!" about. And here are a few.
The view from one of our first stops.
I think that formation on the right is called Sheep Rocks, but M. took the maps and I can't recall for sure.
On the left there is the Balancing Rock. You can walk all the way around the base of it, which we did. The contrast in this photo hides how amazing it really is -- a giant boulder perched on a little stone pedestal.
The formation on the far left is called the Delicate Arch. Many, many photographers have shot it at all hours of day and night; there are reams of their pictures in the Moab shops. You can hike out to it, but as I said, it was hot, and we were lazy.
We did hike out to this arch. The rocks framed a peaceful little basin filled with sagebrush. It was dead quiet out there. We could have gotten closer, but we passed this suspiciously round hole by the path, and after all the ranger talk about rattlesnakes (plus this story I read about a horde of them encircling some girls on a hill in Montana), I was damned if I was gonna walk by it and have a snake pounce on me and gnaw on my bare ankle.
A close-up view of the arch.
Friday, August 6
It's a complicated fear that grows with every year
Lately, I've been suffering from a case of existential angst.
I don't know what brought it on. There was no epiphany, no disaster. Just an accumulation of small realities.
Like realizing that my best friend, who's six days younger than me, has been happily married for five years and is going to give birth to her second child any second. Whereas I have been single for virtually my entire life.
Like being surrounded by people dating, planning weddings, having kids. See reference to my perpetual state of singlehood above.
Like failing to make a single friend outside work in the two years I've lived here.
Like knowing I have significant career decisions looming -- and no inkling where I want my career to go.
The heart of the matter is that my life feels hopelessly incomplete. The problem isn't really that I want to be married and have kids. What I want is to stop feeling like a freak -- to stop fearing that I can't love anyone and no one will love me. I want to stop being lonely. I want to know I'm making the right career decision.
I just want something, anything, I can be sure of.
Song: Ben Gibbard, "Farmer Chords"
Wednesday, August 4
Does anyone out there know of a reputable free Web host where I could house my blog with fewer or no ads? Angelfire wasn't so bad when I started, but they've gone overboard with the ads now, and it makes me angry. Alternatively, if someone wanted to host me, that would also be exciting. I'm just going to cut the site back to my blog, because it's all I ever touch anymore, and since I don't post more than an occasional photo, the file size is pretty small.
