So here I am back in New Mexico, land of enchantment (state bird: roadrunner; state cookie: biscochito), and I’m sitting in a cafe in Albuquerque using the wireless Internet, and I hear some guys next to me chatting. They’re both from here, but live elsewhere now–back for the holidays. They’re comparing the merits of SLC and Seattle and San Diego, and the guy who currently lives in Salt Lake says, “But you know, man, you have to come back here to die. Like an elephant.”
This does seem to be the case with every fellow high school alum–though most of them haven’t even left. This makes going to get my hair cut or buy shoes always a potentially awkward encounter. “Hey, didn’t you go to Manzano?” says the chatty snipper. “Yeaaaaah. [awkward cough, trying to distract from the fact that I can’t remember this person at all]” I hate chatting while I get my hair cut anyway, and it’s just so much worse when I have to sound excited and happy to hear this person now has three kids and has traveled as far as Deming to visit their runaway dad. I guess I should make up a similar hard luck story, just to be polite.
Adding to the alienation: visiting Taos as a travel writer. It’s sort of odd to go someplace you went to frequently as a kid, and that now looks completely different, and just cruise around like a tourist. Somehow I feel more entitled to all the cool stuff I find, more possessive of all the interesting facts I’m (re)learning about northern NM culture, even more interested in Maria Martinez, master potter of NM, whom I learned about _every year_ in school, and never saw the appeal of. I mean, _I grew up here_, man. I’m not one of those out-of-staters who shows up and gets all blissed out and stays. At the Sagebrush Inn bar, when this Taos Pueblo guy named Black Hill starts cracking jokes about the white man, hey, I’m on the inside track, right?
But no, not really. I’m just another chick in cowboy boots—that I bought in Indiana, even. And actually, it’s not too bad being a tourist. I get to stay in comfy B&Bs, and treat myself to nice meals because it’s my job. When we used to go to Taos, I just remember being cold a lot of the time, and once getting really excited about this spice-flavored gumdrops the people were visiting at the pueblo had out as part of their otherwise unappealing-to-an-8-year-old Christmas buffet (mmm, mutton).
The guys next to me here in the cafe are swapping tips on where to get the best green and red chile–that old conversation, sort of like which subway line to take in NYC. But of course I discreetly wrote down the places they mentioned.
Haven’t eaten chile here yet, for some reason, but brief food highlights since I left NYC: Japanese bowl of mushrooms and rice in a tiny room in the Japan Center mall in San Fran, while Patrick had the candylike eel; corned beef at Brennan’s in Berkeley, but I have to say Montreal smoked meat kicked its ass–fortunately Irish coffee made up for it, along with Indian sweets courtesy of AV around the corner in a place that had the ambience of the hot dog stand at Costco…but Indian; brunch at Zuni Cafe, which was way yuppie, but my egg/chickpea business hit the spot; the most insultingly soggy and expensive tuna sandwich in the San Jose airport, where I was trapped for four hours due to fog; delicious and cheap wine by the glass at Taos’s chichiest resort, along with some experimental yak dumplings (yak=overrated); and a great dinner at Antonio’s, a not-promising looking resto with no liquor license yet, which almost made us walk out–but then the perfectly spicy tortilla soup came.
Oh yeah–I’m in a telecom blackout at my mother’s house. Average connection speed: 43Kbps. Can’t dial long distance. Cell phone works in one corner. Even the ready availability of decent country music sung by guys who look like Kenny Rogers (at the Sagebrush, mentioned above) can’t make up for this serious flaw. Not, not, not coming back here to die. Hear that, you guys?