what was

nothing changes here. this is cockle-warming and depressing at once. the only real difference: my world is somewhere else now.
i arrived in anchorage as the sun was setting. tis a damned homely place. i was grinning uncontrollably as i got off the plane. everything was tinted golden: the scant snow, the puny trees, the filthy pickup trucks on the road. being back prompts an eerie "well, of course" feeling- it's home in a very seamless and clausterphobic way, like the smell of a former lover's neck- you know it far too well and it's both wonderful and "get the fuck away from me"... anchorage is a former lover's neck. i should make bumper stickers.
my insomnia has followed me here. i do not recall the last time i slept more than 5 hours in a night. but here it is six-thirty a.m. and will be pitch black outside for hours, and i only just remembered whilst sitting here (in a dark room) that oh yeah, it's my birthday too. and thanksgiving. and the 44th anniversary of JFK's assassination. and one of the babies in an adjacent room just woke up crying.
*
we went to darwin's last night. of course. i saw so many people i knew, people i knew FROM THERE... people who were STILL THERE, nearly six years later, looking a bit aged... it was really fucking good to see some people, very stultifying to see others- most of the latter were s's friends anyhow, people i smiled politely at in passing, people who called me "bree". ike and tina on the hi-fi. the smell of popcorn. the remodeled bathroom where the position of the toilet forces my knees against the wall. a crushed can somersaulting down the alley in the wind. IT IS WARMER HERE THAN IN SEATTLE. i was complimented on my firm handshake. the very good thing about s having kids and therefore a curfew: we leave early and lucidly. responsibility? self-pride? the people i remembered who were there when we arrived were possibly still there when we left.
anchorage is a dirty, pathetic little town. i fucking left for many, many reasons. but i do love this place. i love the blue lights in the town square, the neighborhood by elderberry park, the murals behind the panhandler bar, the alaska zoo charity-things hanging all over the gas station i will always know as a mapco, the fucking amazing fries at peggy's with the stacks of pie boxes on the u-shaped bar, the sloppy back roads and the cars parked in yards and people's inherent effusiveness, that giddy feeling that i could possibly run into someone i know at any time, the proof of a past.