Missoula

It's almost 11 p.m. Mountain time. Driving through the town tonight we saw at least 3 men wearing John B. Stetson cowboy hats. I also saw homeless drug addicted men, and wondered where they spend their days when the weather turns cold.

Here in deeply red Montana, where Fuck Biden flags compete with velvet paintings of solitary wolves howling at the moon as top of the schlock, one wouldn't expect a bevy of pot shops. One, me, therefore was quite surprised to see no fewer than three dispenseries within two blocks on what I believe are the outskirts of downtown. I sense a disturbance in the farce that is the right-wing Christian "rigorous" moral code; an abandonment of pretending to just say no to drugs. If the homeless drug addicts that we see all around us in big city and small
hadn't  already made it evident, the pandemic of addiction doesn't check political affiliation at the door. Life, it appears, is a gateway drug.

We drove through some pretty wild thunderstorms.today, although nothing like the he'll Abby and I went through 2 years ago in Western Mass on our way to look at Bard College. What made it particularly unnerving was the 80 m.p.h. speed limit in the driving rain,

the standing water, the constant narrowing of 4 lane miles of highway to 2--using one of the two westbound lanes for eastbound traffic, the road divided only with plastic stanchions, and standing water across all lanes. Moreover, you are more often than not barreling down mountain passes with steep grades, endless curves, narrow lanes, speeding cars, and shitty truck drivers who drift into your lane with some regularity.

I am exhausted.