utah in Songs

I’ll say I’m slow for starting the day, but I’ve already sent out two different documents for review. I’ve also finally looked up the site where I’m supposed to buy some framing pieces and stretcher bars from. My to-do list this week both at work and at home are pretty sparse, but I don’t want to slack. One of my to-do list items really should be to outline the trip I just took to Utah! Let me have a go at it here before I get my coffee and start hunkering down to some necessary busy work.

Day 1, Saturday, arrival- I traveled with John Henry and his family, his dad, mom, and brother Nate and I slept most of the way with a scarf curled around my glasses. When finally landed in SLC first things first we went to an In-n-out and ate burgers and fries, the thing you do when you arrive in the west. John Henry’s parents left to Cedar City and his brother, him, and I to the air bnb and were soon off again to a coffee shop, where we met with Kate who drove us to Antelope Island.
Goddamn it was beautiful. The sun was setting and the water looked like mirrors, beautiful mirrors. We saw buffalo, a coyote, and what we think were antelope in the distance. We gave up pretty fast trying to climb the giant hill fast enough to catch the sunset, especially since staying overnight in John Henry’s childhood bedroom gave him a case of asthma and me a case of hurt lungs (who knew a place could be that dusty?). Even still we saw thunderstorms and lightening coming in from both sides of the hill. I went to look at my radar app on my phone to see how far out they were, and came to find that my phone had been bent in half, the screen now completely unusable… within hours of landing!! It’s ok I’m on vacation…
We were pretty zonked so Kate drove us to our airbnb, stopping briefly at her house so John Henry could borrow her laptop for a work related task.

Day 2, Sunday- Started out again at the coffee shop and Kate met us there, drove us to a Walgreens for travel size toothpastes, suntan lotion, some body spray, and some cream to put on my burn that was still healing. She then drove us to a sculpture garden that was alright, lots of nice plants, and I started to like it more after Kate outlined the ways in which it was a subversive commentary on the latter day saints. From there, Kate had to go to hang with her mom for her mom’s birthday. Nate, John Henry, and I from there went around riding buses and trains and walking the city throughout, stopping to check out the public library (amazing) and to get a burrito (turns out you have to specify wanting rice and beans and whathave in there, otherwise it just comes a giant tortilla roll of meat!). After a very full and tiring day of that, we ended up at a pretty cool bar called ‘X Wifes Place’ which had a row of 5 shitty pool tables where we played pool with a regular chiming in regularly to tell us how we weren’t following tournament rules. Kate got us from there and we spent the rest of the night hanging at her house with her roommate and their puppy golden doodle, getting del taco, and eventually getting Ubered back to the airbnb.

Day 3, Monday- Coffee again from the same shop! John Henry and I had slept in pretty late so by the time we were up and atem we also walked to a nearby local diner. I had biscuits and gravy and constipation! Kate was texting John Henry (as I was phoneless) upset that she wouldn’t be able to take us to spiral jetty, that her class was actually going to be 4 hours long. I called her and told her it was no thing, and John Henry arranged for us to rent a car. We walked to walgreens for some ibuprofen (constipation and oversleeping headache), and then ubered to the car rental. The guy there was a typical sales nut and the place reeked of caesar salad dressing as he upgraded us to the most giant SUV ever, the Yukon. “Do you have any compact cars? Or anything smaller?” The answer was no and I went ahead and drove the behemoth luxury car for 4 hours that day, 2 of which were on a bumpy dirt road. It’s sort of a shame, I really loved it! Goddamn those vehicles!!
Spiral Jetty was really something. As for the jetty itself I don’t really know what to say, it was fine. I mostly credit it with the fact that it brought us far out of the way of anything to a
glorious and beautiful spot on the northeast edge of the Great Salt Lake. The lake was pink and the wind was kicked up and chilly. We were the only people at the site and we walked all the way out to the lake then back past the Yukon and up a mountainside to all sit on separate rocks and take in the sound of the wind through the dry grass, the yellows, blacks, greens against the greys, blacks, blues, against the pink. On the way back down the mountain I stopped and collected a bouquet of flowers and pungent weeds.
On the way back to SLC we stopped in Ogden at a Smith’s to get grocery grade dinner… Some sushi, krab salad, a garden salad, and a diet dr. pepper for me. In SLC we hung out with Kate again in her backyard, kicked back a few more of those low alcohol Utah beers, and eventually had Kate drive us home where I gave her the bouquet of spiral jetty flowers and we said goodbye.

Day 4, Tuesday- Setting out extra early to pack up and walk to the train to the airport so we could catch the shuttle to Cedar City. I was constipated still and bought some aloe drink at the gas station we stopped at along the way.
Before I narratively leave SLC, I gotta comment on 1. The houses are adorable there! No row homes, all separate homes with yards and unique structure and 2. It seems everyone there is a horticulturalist or something, such a variety and quantity of flowers and plants. Everyone at least had a giant bush of lavender.
We got the train around 8:20 and got to the airport around 8:45, then the shuttle at around 9.
At one of the first pit stops of the trip I got out of the shuttle to eat some sandwich, and 2 minutes before departure decided it’d be a good time to pee. I went running for the convenience store toilet and on my jaunt thought I saw someone I knew (they live in New Mexico now so it wouldn’t be that far of a stretch really) and I stared them down after I passed them, my head turned the opposite way of the direction I was running and so of course I tripped over a curb and went flying. My hat fell off, I bloodied up my knee and elbow and hand. Of course the toilet was all gross and nonfunctional and when I got back the shuttle was taking off without me. I ran and yelled and it stopped and I climbed in and the driver was all like, “we were just gonna pull around to pick you up” and here I was thinking that my boyfriend didn’t even say that they were going to forget me.
It was with this kind of build up that I had a real cry fest once we got to our hotel in Cedar City. I was just starting to relax finally when John Henry decided I was being too much of an asshole when I was arguing that the idea of a work ethic being able to make you class mobile was a myth. I swear it’s like the guy doesn’t understand the concept of treating a person with kids gloves when they’re having a bad day. I don’t even think he thought I was having a bad day! Still constipated, humiliated and bloody from a bad fall, oh, and on the shuttle soon after my fall, the guy in front of us had a can of Monster explode on his seat so that it leaked the entire thing all over my shoes and bag. When I tapped the guy on the shoulder to confront him, he acted like I was being an idiot and he didn’t know what I was talking about. Bad time!
Anyway I cried for about forever and John Henry was insistent that I shouldn’t yell so much when I’m arguing and then I had to go and meet his extended family. I put on my best makeup and it was fine, whatever, we had salad at a pastry shop. After that we went to see Romeo and Juliet at a Shakespeare festival where I was deeply and uncomfortably constipated, and also feeling very uncultured and dumb because I never really read Shakespeare and honestly have a real hard time wrapping my head around mid-century English and Shakespearean verse. My contacts dried out and the play finished and we went back to the hotel with a bunch of snacks. Watched tv, slept in separate beds.

Day 5, Wednesday- At the breakfast buffet I had some sips of coffee because I was tired of being constipated. Then we set off for a hike with the family. Really nice. Got some Subway sandwiches beforehand. Some guy had a covered wagon that he trudged up the hill using some mules and the wagon had JESUS SAVES sprayed all over it. After all the hiking we went to the grandparent’s house for pizza, then the hotel for some hot tub time, then went to see Detroit which was really fucking horrifying.

Day 6, Thursday-More coffee in the morning. More hiking. Got some sunburn. Saw some prairie dogs. Came back and ate too much at a diner, then had a lot of diarrhea that lasted a long time. Made John Henry wait for me outside of the University’s bathroom. Then we went to a bar and played some pool and watched some locals do karaoke.

Day 7, Friday- Went for a walk into town. On the way I bought some things at a thrift store before being rushed by John Henry who kept telling me he was hungry and we needed to get out of there. Kept walking and had some tacos and a burrito place. Saw John Henry’s mom and brother there. Kept walking and went to a coffee shop John Henry knew. Read a little bit before passing out in the chair, napping for what turned out to be an hour. Woke up grumpy because John Henry had been inconsiderate all day (really all trip) and I told him so, and he apologized but then later commented on how grumpy I was after I napped.
It was his dad’s birthday and we went to the grandparent’s house and ate beef stroganoff and chocolate cake. I gave his dad a rock and it was politely received but I felt pretty lame about it. But with the gifts coming in that day it was pretty obvious that he’s not an easy guy to shop for anyway. We talked for a long time and then departed to the hotel to pack our bags for an early flight the next morning.

As you could maybe tell, I’m not feeling so great with John Henry lately. He’s seemed distant for months but I think it’s mostly because he’s pretty damn self centered and doesn’t consider me. I’ve been pretty stand offish because I’m realizing that this relationship is mostly made of my efforts and labor and affection, and that bugs me. He’s been pretty confused it seems, thinks I’m angry (which I kind of am), but I’m only treating him how he ever treats me.
It might pull through as a good thing, all this. Keeping my attention off him I have a lot of energy to do other things. I trellised our cherry tomatoes yesterday, they look great. I’m going to do the rest of the tomatoes this week. I have a lot to do, so I guess I’ll just do it. Solar eclipse and merc retrograde huh? I try not to attribute things to the stars, but sometimes the horoscope is uncanny.