It's good to be back in Misery. I've been home now for 8 days and the neurons in my forebrain are finally beginning to fire again, waking from the self-protective vegetative state they had slipped into during my extended stay in Oklahoma. I've been self-medicating with fine German hops and I feel confident that I will fully recover, but I can't help wondering how close I came to:



I spent the better part of 4 months in Oklahoma, but not in the wide open cattle country with town names right out of the Louis L'Amour books I read as a youth. No, I was living in a seedy part of Oklahoma City. An area with no sidewalks, but many pedestrians, people who walked in the street out of necessity, because they could not afford a car. Others drove old, smoke-belching heaps with trash bag windows and trunk lids held closed with rope. They drove on potholed, washboard roads and sent their children to failing schools. And yet, when asked about politics, they would invariably parrot the latest right-wing noise-machine talking points about how liberals are ruining this country and more tax cuts are the only solution to our economic woes.

After a while I stopped asking. Prolonged exposure to cognitive dissonance of that magnitude gave rise to a great weariness in me. Soul-sucking fatigue. It's much better now, but I'm not whole yet. I'm still dreaming in beige, the color of despair.