Wi[sh]consin

I'm vaguely fresh off of a visit to the rurals of Wisconsin. And I'm super fresh on wanting to vomit on the married couple seated across from me with their, as I see it, forced affections. The same couple was here yesterday, and one of my favorite moments was when someone went to sit next to this girl or, I guess, woman, and she said, "Oh, sorry, my husband is sitting there." He hadn't been there for quite some time and I rather liked the idea that he was imaginary, but it's funny to me the way that, it should be natural to say my husband because of course he was her husband and yet it still came across as forced to me. Just maybe I kind of have problems. In fact, that's as much the point of this blog as anything else, an ongoing chronicle, stored freely by google, of my association with the world around me and my willingness to share certain thoughts with the knowledge that, of course, it might be searchable and read.

My favorite recent search to land a stranger here: "why deaf people are assholes."

Have I mentioned yet I need to rework the color scheme in here? It's amazing that if you go back and read certain entries where I reference things like this they will one day make even less since since, by then, I may actually have changed them and yet you won't know unless you are diligently following, in which case you will just think that you do or don't like the colors, which is exactly the same situation as now.

But let's talk 'Consin 'cause it's on my mind. I am going to not name the town I was in, to both preserve it's relative untaintedness by strangers like me, and to protect it's identity in general lest anything negative seem to come out. It shouldn't, because this town kicks ass. It's on Lake Michigan and a good ways from Chicago, which is a reminder if I ever needed one of the enormity of Lake Michigan. No really, this lake is enormous. I had to clip an f-bomb there. Sometimes I curse too much. We were outliers there, it's true, and yet we were quickly made to feel at home and it doesn't have to be that way. I am skewed in general by my own liberal upbringing and exposures and while I know very conservative individuals and groups exist, it doesn't mean close to the same thing if you aren't standing next to it.

So I just realized that by keeping this vague I risk making this exceedingly bland, but I didn't want to not give a shout out to how grand this place is. Double negatives can be great. OH MAN I WANT TO STAB THIS COUPLE. It's weird, by the strange nature of their interactions, a bizarre formality and forced (again, as I see it) affections, they seem like robots.

But this Wisconsin town. It's small. Everyone knows everyone, but that doesn't mean everyone likes everyone, and yet it has a safety to it, a regularity in the way everyone attends the few bars in town. I used to live in a small town, not for long, but up here they seemed to get it much more right than where I lived, even though my former residence was much more a known quantity. Guess that makes sense, as when the secret's out, the magic can get lost a little. And so I'll preserve the sanctity of this little town.

Hell, every place I stopped in Wisconsin on the way up and back was so different from what I'm generally used to. I tend to have a short memory for a lot of things. But it made me glad. Glad I can still be surprised by things, glad that not everywhere is the same, and maybe even glad I don't live there. Because maybe the magic wears off, and maybe not, but magic is just unexplained occurrences of real life that you find amazing. You don't always need an answer. Just enjoy. Thanks Wisconsin. Thanks friends.