badgerbag: messy, surly, full of books: The pace of visitors

Visitors for the past few days which makes you attempt to see your life through someone's else's view and of course that's a funny balance because visitors change the way you do things. I notice over time that Rook and I have our standard "Joys of Deadwood City" tour we offer to visitors; the walkable downtown, the handy Food Hole grocery which means you can stroll to it once a day and have nice fruit and bread and things like that; Buck's; the cafe. There is not really much else! I'm not up for H4ndley Rock, and Bore "Island" is really just a marshy landfill which is only charming if you like the remnants of industrial waste and highway and undiscriminating waterfowl who need a place to stop over on the way to Venezuela. A person who had their shit together might go to the Little F0x or the big F0x theater.

After those limited Joys are sampled it is a matter of lather, rinse, repeat. Sleeping, reading, lounging on couches, baking, and board games punctuate the suburban bliss. Abundant parking may also be savored by the urban visitor, as a sort of grace note in the symphony of slack.

Anyway! I think Zond-7's mum and nephew are over their jet lag and eager to move on to the Big City, tomorrow! His nephew has also made friends with bank tellers, homeless people, record and game store owners, the supermarket checkers, and the "Buddhist" cult around the corner in the old Salvation Army church: being a gregarious soul and inquisitive about gang colors, pancakes, and other Americana.

Speaking of gang colors! I noticed for the very first time in Deadwood, some blue 13 sureño tags - big and bold right under the J3fferson overpass! Holy crap! I was pretty shocked and wonder if it will have some repercussions. For 8 years I have lived here and it is all XIV all the time. I don't know dick about it all, other than noticing the colors & symbols and decoding a little bit. And... oddly... feeling a bit patriotic of the norteños since I do live here. Anyway, the main thing is that I worry that this means new conflict. Though the tags mostly seem to be kids dabbling or fooling around, in this neighborhood.

I have cut Zond-7's hair, and his nephew's which was hacked bald in places since he is the sort of person to let small children cut his hair (and who is going Out for a Run about once an hour, in the rain, on the edge of manic) and we have lounged and loafed and walked (rolled) and eaten enormous brunch. Zond-7's mother is hemming his pants.

Last night most of us went to Squid's place with Indian food. Iz told me about Cambodia, and Moomin read Polly and the Pirates which I swiped from him later and which was EXCELLENT, and SJ was there. I was exhausted (from having take his mum to the mall which I am still not sure if she wanted to do that for an authentic American experience or she just wanted to buy things). The mall trip was hilarious. I think from having raised a couple of butchy punky superfeminist strongminded daughters she knew just how to manage me so that I didn't mind. I would balk, suggest leaving the store, act disinterested and attempt to direct her to things she might want, or say harrumphily that I refuse to even look at clothing with fake pockets... and where my mom would argue the point and despair, she just blinked slightly, nodded in understanding, suggested the boys' department, rifled through it, swept me to a completely different area, and like a kindly librarian matching me with the Book of Gold she found me a magic selection of suit jackets with functional pockets, sleek with no frilly crap, including *the perfect jacket of my dreams* and corresponding white dress shirt. In it, I scare myself, I'm so handsome and sleek and foppish. So, that's how I went to the mall for the first time in ages, and came out feeling triumphant.