Because They're Burning Bricks

Posted By Sika on May 8, 2007

So I started to write this on Saturday, and I’ve also written stuff up until yesterday, but Shannon and I need to get on the road, and so hopefully I’ll have it all up not too much later than today. Anyway, here we go:

It’s strange how I always seem to be doing these things on the weekend, when no one is online to read it, and obviously I want it to be read, or else I wouldn’t be posting it on friggin’ LJ. I’m writing this out beforehand on word because I don’t have consistent internet access here, in the yoga studio my Aunt Lizi, Shannon and I are staying in here in Sedona. Also, I think if I waited to download my photos to my computer, improve them, and upload them to flickr, I will have forgotten everything I want to post about instead of nearly everything. This way I can write while everything is semi-fresh in my head and yet still post an actually completed post. YAY! (Ok, obviously that is more me being anal than anything else.)

Note: When one is going to go hiking on Granite Mountain and one does not want to pull one’s hiking boots out of one’s suitcase, it is a good idea to actually check the tread on one’s shoes to make sure that it is as good as one remembers, or else one might slip and fall, scratching up one’s leg and bruising up one’s ankle—y’know, just as a hypothetical.

Friday Lizi and I um, err, hypothetically hillwalked on Granite Mountain. We didn’t get all the way to the top, largely because we stopped for a break and stared talking about themes like my Aunt Gigi’s death; her memorial this weekend, to which I will not be going; wills and power of attorneys and living wills; mortality; my fears of and hopes for my Peace Corps service, etc., etc. We were a bit concerned about how comfortable it would be to make the hike because of the heavy wind, which didn’t end up being much of a problem except when we were chatting and I had to pin my jacket under my knee to keep it from blowing away.

And also when we were walking back along trail and came across an enormous swathe of wreckage from a dead tree that was knocked over in the winds. Which was not nearly as much trouble as it would’ve been had we been under that tree when it fell.

That night Shannon and I went with Lizi to the Raven Café—which was not the same Raven store where I bought stationery, a new journal, and a fountain pen the other day—to see some of Lizi’s friends do some improvisational jazz. We had some “honey wine” (read: mead) which Shannon liked because she didn’t get drunk as quickly, and I liked because it doesn’t contain sulfites. And also it came in a pretty bottle. We met some of Lizi’s friends—boy is she popular. It seemed like everybody knew her and everybody wanted to sit or dance with her (I may be exaggerating slightly. Possibly.) Shannon and I got nice and toasty (oh crap, I forgot to teach Cristian that word when I was teaching him synonyms for being drunk) and Shannon said many inappropriate things that she swears she would’ve said sober, and she’s probably right about that. I danced some and Shannon refused, even though Libby’s boyfriend was trying to beguile her. There was one song that I really could let go and dance to, and Lizi later told me that Libby had said she could tell I was Lizi’s niece through my dancing. Since I feel as though I owe most of my eclectic style to the things that Lizi and Ocheami taught me, the comparison was perfectly all right by me.

Categories: Roadtrip
Tags: Arizona, dancing