What happens to expats? Do they drink themselves to death?
So yes, I spent three weeks in the bosum of my family. It was quite surreal, surprisingly enjoyable and has sparked a number of questions in my mind. First, a little background. I grew up on the coasts. First Virginia, then California, then Virginia and then California then there was a year in grad school in Virginia. However, my father grew up on a cattle ranch in the sand hills of Nebraska. As a child, I spent a few summers and christmases with cousins, amongst the windmills and the prairie dogs watching relatives exchange recipes for chokecherry jam and pickles. I learned to drink in Nebraska while trying to chase a local life guard (my cousin was successful, I got to date the amusing, more intelligent, receeding hair-line best friend. who wrote for a couple of years and gave me a blackhills gold necklace for christmas one year. I think the life guard was bit more fickle). I floated down rivers. I spent a lot of time at the library and in basements. But I can't say that I would ever consider moving to the midwest.

My parents though moved to South Dakota a couple of years ago, tired of the high tax rate in California, moaning about the heat in the summer and the cold in the winter (yes, and they chose to confront this by moving to SD). They went there because it was close to family. Rapid City was big enough to satisfy most of their needs and not a proper city. I have resisted visiting but could only hold out for two years.

So we the family (me, the H and the blessing) got on a bus. Went to Dublin. Got on a plane (2 hours delayed) and then ran to get from one end of Terminal 1 to the farthest gate in Terminal 4 at Heathrow. Another family on the Dublin flight were at the gate discovering that they didn't have individual passports for their children and would not be making the family trip to Denver. Anyway, there were more delays. Then there was a missing suitcase and then about 24 hours after we started, there was a bed. Have I mentioned I hate travelling? I get some interesting obsessive-compulsive stuff going on with documents and my insides tie themselves into knots and well this time I am still in pain from last summer's fall and don't like to sit for long periods of time. But all in all, the travelling wasn't too bad. The trip was good. I have agreed to go back.

But I have been away too long. The US is weird. It is a foreign culture. All the cars are huge. The news is crazy (I don't care about the missing teen in Aruba) and well, I was surrounded by right-wing family. You should have been there for the discussion on the deck about pedophiles and why weren't their photos on the internet. As I returned (more almost 24 hour travelling) I had three thoughts swirling around my head that seemed to crystalise the feeling of disconnect I had.

1. Why are American obsessed with cleanliness? What are they trying to protect?
This became apparent in Las Vegas as I was hanging around friends. One who never seems to use public restrooms and the other who always uses those paper toliet seat protectors. I just don't understand the point of it. You don't get the little paper guards in Europe. And you certainly don't get the push button operated electronic plastic rotating device that I found in Neiman Marcus. You had no option but to protect your tush. I was talking to one of my friend's about it and she remarked that I didn't use the little paper guards and that I must be brave. Then thought, perhaps I had experienced quite an adventure in toliets. I don't know that I have. Though I have fond memories of the H on a beach last summer followed by four little girls, only two clothed, to find a restroom. He found a public, enclosed, hole in the ground. They wouldn't have anything to do with them.

2. I don't get the music.
In particular I don't understand why The Killers had to create a new video for All the Things I've Done. What was wrong with the last video? Why the cowboy suits? Why the neon graeyard? I do not understand.

3. Whose bright idea was it to show The Day After Tomorrow on a plane? I mean, really. Particularly after a nice bumpy ride on a very little plane from Rapid to Denver. I did not need to watch that. And well I missed the end of Man of the House because the plane landed.

Later I promise to blog all about Las Vegas, strippers, and well men being manly!