It’s one of those nights here in AZ where you feel both a sense of longing and belonging. While the sound of rustling palms by moonlight is both easy on the senses and sentimental in tone, there is a strange loneliness about it – as if the seemingly endless repetition of hot days and warm nights they are enslaved to stretch out before them like a straight, hot, endless highway to nowhere. There is something strange and discomforting in the gentle sound they make – I think its because we have eight – count ’em – eight – neighbors within an easy pitching wedge’s distance, and the rustling of the palms is the only sound to be heard.

As congested as this area is, it still seems like Indian country.

Tracey is asleep, and my friend Paul (here today from Massachusetts for a weekend visit) has retired, exhausted from the long plane ride and the 3-hour time difference, so it’s just me, a cold Sam Adams, the rabbits, and this computer in the entire world. I throw some Bruce Hornsby on the CD player, and the words of “Nobody But Me” seem to fit the spirit of the moment.

Oh I wish I could laugh
When I look way back
To find out who stole all my dreams

Whoa I wish it was easy
To face the fact
There’s nobody there but me