Arizona: Still a Bitch

I miss home. Wow, what a baby, you’re thinking. But no, hear me out. Really, what I miss is Utah. Weird, I know. Most people in Utah are saying stuff like, “Man, I hate this place. I can’t wait to get out of here.” I heard that from nearly everyone in Logan (northern Utah, where I went to college … for 8 years. Lots of people go to college for 8 years. I know, they’re called doctors) and everyone in Salt Lake too. Well, except for all the people who have moved there from New York and whatnot. They love it there and from them you only hear stuff about how oppressed they are because of the Mormons running the state and blah blah blah.

Secretly, I usually think they can just go to hell for all that complaining, because it's annoying and rude to whine to me about it. They moved to Salt Lake from crappy, high crime places like New York City and Detroit and whatever because Utah has wide open spaces and less crime and in general, a great feeling to it because of all those oppressive Mormons who are into, more than anything, being with their families and being honest. Sure some of them are weirdos, I’ll admit it. But there are fewer weirdos there than in somewhere like Detroit or NYC (mainly due to population differences).

But for all their complaining about Mormons, they rarely say they hate the place. They actually say, usually, that they love it and they moved there because it’s a beautiful, clean city, and they moved there so they could ski all winter, or rock climb or have a ranch and a horse named Ms. Kitty, all just a short drive from the city.

I moved here to be with Stoker. When we first started dating and he said he’d be going to school down here, I thought to myself, “Holy crap, this boy is amazing. I’d go to Arizona to be with him in a heartbeat. Yeah, no problem.” And I envisioned the sacrifices I’d make to be down here with Stoker. One of the sacrifices I envisioned was what an acquaintance of mine’s girlfriend/wife did when he showed up in Logan to get his master’s. And that was ending up working at Wendy’s. But I don’t want to work at Wendy’s. Back when Stoker and I began dating, the idea was just a romantic thought, a sort of, hell-yes-I’d-walk-across-the-desert-
to-find-you, kind of thought and I imagined myself handing a to-go-sack of $.99 bacon cheeseburgers out the window with my little drive-thru headset on, saying, “Thanks for coming to Wendy’s. Come again.” Now that it’s really here, I’m saying, hell no. I’m not working at Wendy’s. Unless of course, they pay me $15/hr, because you can’t beat that.

Anyway, what I’m saying is, I miss Utah. My friends call and talk to me and ask me how I like Arizona and I say I feel out of place, I hate it here, I can’t get a job, I feel like a foreigner because they are so many Mexicans and all. Not that I have a problem with Mexicans. I love Mexicans. All of them. No seriously, I don’t have a problem with Mexicans. But I do feel like I’m in Mexico here. Everything is in Spanish and English. I wish I spoke Spanish, I really do. Because part of the problem with having so many Mexican people is that I don’t understand Spanish and that creates, in me, a feeling of alienation when there’s a group of people speaking Spanish. And a little fear, to be quite honest. Anyway, the good thing about all the Mexican people is obviously the Mexican food. I absolutely love carne asada tacos. Authentic Mexican food is, as we all know, the best. Veronica, my cousin’s wife (who is Mexican), taught me how to make authentic enchiladas. They melt in your mouth. If only I could make them like she makes them.

So, aside from the phenomenal Mexican food, I just don’t love Arizona. It’s still being quite bitchy to me. No job yet. Nothing. I mean, I’ve had a few interviews and I just don’t have the endurance to be out of work this long. I feel like I’m emailing my résumé’s to the void. Bastard void. Everything is SO hard. How can it be so difficult? I’m trying to get on with substitute teaching, but even that’s murder. I have to get my fingerprints done, I have to get my rubella shot, I have to jump through this hoop, jump through that hoop, jump through this flaming hoop, oh, now jump through the flaming hoop WITH the pool of crocodiles underneath it. Aww, the crocodiles got her. Too bad. Next substitute victim!

Okay, but really my problem is my driving pessimism. Just joking. I’m not a pessimist, I’m a realist.

So, what I’m really longing for, I guess, is comfort. I’m out of my comfort zone here and flailing like a fool. I miss the familiar things about life back in Utah. I miss the linear aspect of the Wasatch Front. How the mountains are always on the east and I-15 runs north and south and if you want to get to Logan, you just get off I-15 in Brigham City and follow the road through Sardine Canyon, past Mantua (pronounced, for who knows what reason, “Man-a-way.” Indian word, I guess), and drive out of the canyon onto the foothills of the Wellsvilles (steepest slope, from base to peak of any range in the U.S., I think) and there, Cache Valley unfolds all pastoral and beautiful in the summer dusk. In the spring everything is green and lush, in the fall everything is red and yellow, dusty golden in the autumn twilight. Magical.

All glum things aside, the best thing that’s happened so far is that the little gray cat decided to move in. She showed up the other day at the door with her suitcase full of a cat litter box and a feather-mouse-bell toy. We let her in because how could we resist? She’s fluffy and adorable and completely house-trained. Deciding on a name has been tough. We’re leaning towards Bastet because of the beloved (by me, anyway) Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters.