not high art. high on art.

i was just thinking today about that book, i know why the caged bird sings by maya angelou. i was thinking about its title and how profound and beautiful it is. why does the caged bird sing? to make life worth living perhaps....

i read that book once when i was 20. i'll always remember because i was living in southern california at the time, and i was on a bus from los angeles to las vegas. i was going to meet my younger sister, christine, who just arrived at the university of nevada at las vegas, it was the first weekend of her freshman year, and it was orientation time, and no one else from our family besides me could feasibly be there with her. so i took the hours-long bus ride to be with her. i didn't mind one bit. i chalked it up to adventure, another experience to add to my list.

i'll always remember being on that bus for hours and hours, just driving through desert with literally nothing around, and then BAM, arriving in las vegas. you could see las vegas in the far distance, miles away.  all the land was flat with nothing around, so obviously you could see it coming for miles and miles. it was so surreal to be surrounded by nothing for so long, then suddenly to be surrounded by bustling city life, everything there so out of place and odd.  what a surreal fucking city.

and walking around with my sis. it was like walking around in an oven. the heat was almost too much to bear and it was DRY, man. i'd never experienced anything like it.