April 5: Tuscarora

Driving instead of flying means you can bring more than one carry-on.

I spent some time in the last few days thinking up new names for the blog. "Paul Festa's Inability to Commit" was one; "Paul Festa's Sporadic Contribution to the Global Problem of Information Overload" was another. I was trying to think of a way to avoid boxing myself in to a commitment as foolhardy as "giving you fever every Monday in 2011" and finally decided it would be easier to just update the blog than to rename it. As it happens the archive is brimming with new material, thanks to the recent travels that prevented me from updating this in the first place. New blog resolution: keep it short, screw Mondays.

First stop (April 5th) was Tuscarora, NV, where I stayed up late with the painter Ron Arthaud reminiscing about Juliette. As the evening wore on I began feeling a little woozy and went to my bed downright feverish. It was a strange fever, which felt concentrated in my muscles so that if I stretched very hard the feeling was relieved, somewhat, so I stretched this way, and that way, arms and lower back and neck and hands and legs and then I started over again, because every time I stopped stretching that feverish feeling became oppressive, like it was tightening me up into an undifferentiated mass the size of a billiard ball. If I wanted to remain differentiated, I had to stretch. So I stretched, and kept stretching, until finally, about 90 minutes into this, I realized, darling, Scribble, you're not stretching. You're writhing. 

Tuscarora Community Center and Tourist Information Office

Greater Tuscarora

Leaving Tuscarora - view of Wheeler Mountain (?)