Ah, spring in New Mexico. It has snowed off and on for the last few days. Smells great. Everyone goes around saying, “We need the moisture.” But damn it’s muddy. I nearly got stuck in the Arroyo Seco cemetery today, after I drove in to take photos, and then saw the sign saying “Don’t take photos–violators will be prosecuted.” Lots of slipping and sliding, and furtive looks back over my shoulder as I tried to make a graceful retreat.

So I’m here in Taos (just as, I think, one of my favorite bloggers is here for her wedding…or just was). I hope it didn’t snow on her! It was beautiful in the days before Thursday, though.

To otherwise bring you up to speed:

On my first day on the road, some mountain men of the kind that I think exist only in NM–it’s the ponytails that do it–showed me a weird, dead critter. It was in the back of a pickup truck, which, I just happened to notice, had no license plates. Ah, lawlessness. Ah, critters (it was a ringtail civet, my brother wagers). Ah, hippie hunters.

The desert air is harsh, yo. I spent my first couple days crying, but not because I was filled with emotion over being on my home soil. (Though that particular breed of long-hair does somehow give my heart a little nostalgic twinge. “My people!” I can’t help thinking. Maybe this is as simple as the fact that my dad has a ponytail. He does not, however, have a giant beard, Carhartt overalls and an unregistered 1970s Ford pickup.)

In Santa Fe, I got to meet the fabulous Gwyneth Doland, one of my role models in food-writing style. Can I just say that it’s completely unjust that a woman as witty as she is is going unappreciated in Santa Fe because they’re too damn sincere there? It’s even more unjust that someone who has busted her ass writing for lo these many years (she even ran her own damn magazine, the lovely La Cocinita) does not have agents and editors fawning at her feet. Sure, I may have written 800,000 reviews of beachfront resorts, shrimp taco vendors and old adobe casitas, but I feel pretty damn slack compared with her portfolio of pee-yourself-hilarious columns, compiled over, what, a decade? Again, I’m reminded of the shit you can actually accomplish if you don’t eff around in grad school or your favorite bar-in-the-subway.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, in Santa Fe. I have some scribbled notes to myself in my notebook from two nights ago, but it devolves into such a rambling manifesto that I’ll put it in a separate post.

And, just in case you think I might not complain about my job, I do want to emphasize: Remember, I have to go to all the bad places too. That’s all I’m going to say, because this blog is already veering too close to Great Moments in Regurgitation.

But, wait, I can’t help myself. I’ll just leave you with the following advice: try, try, try to avoid throwing up green chile, whatever you do.