Phoenix

Day 1

Phoenix is a Panera bread bowl paved with concrete. Mountains surround the city, providing the only ambiance.

It's the first morning of my new life. I've got the keys to a freshly detailed Prius, a menstrual cup I've never used, and the coordinates to Desert Vista Trailhead. The trail is steep and rocky, and cacti reach their fingers in every direction, begging for water. Teddy bear cholla crowd the distance, standing upright like bouquets of white dahlias. The dead ones look like thneeds.

Three miles in, the trail branches into a path to summit Dixie. I climb about 300 feet and yell "ACAB!" to say something significant. After the hike, I stop for coffee and ask the barista the best thing to do in Phoenix. "Uptown," she says. So, basically, alcoholism.

I return to Alex's apartment. I've bled through my leggings. We go to Aldi, and then watch the Princess Bride. Alex's roommate Amr smokes hookah and the apartment smells like my freshman year of college: tobacco and vermiculite. He swears the hookah doesn't have nicotine, but I feel second-hand high.

I'm grateful to visit Scottsdale purgatory. Caution, reader: there's an active bee in the area. Queen Bee. That's me.

Day 2

Amr is the Egyptian version of Jason Momoa. We spend a good portion of the day playing Elden Ring and bashing his ex-girlfriend of nine years who broke up with him 30+ times.

We shop for cars. Turns out even the local car dealers hate Phoenix. One dude recommends I move to Oklahoma City, and considering the last person I knew from Oklahoma went full goth, I'm down. Alex finds his dream car, a leather-seated charcoal hatchback. The immortal Honda Civic.

I love dealerships. It's like reverse rejection therapy: you deliver all the bad news. The dealer fakes frustration and introduces you to the manager and says, "This is Alex and his soon-to-be-fiancée," and you laugh and laugh. They know nothing.

Day 3

The Fitness Gram Pacer Test is a multi-stage aerobic capacity test where you compete with your peers and usually fail. I decide to run up the highest peak in Scottsdale. At the trailhead, a sign features two black diamonds and the phrase "Extremely Difficult."

I have a Celsius I purchased right before I learned of their class action settlement, so I'll be fine. (It is extremely extremely difficult and I am not fine.)

The uneven terrain requires meticulous descent, and my knees shiver each time I jump from a boulder. The sky reminds me of my middle school crush's eyes: pale blue and empty. A lesbian couple in their thirties thunder past me, stopping in an alcove to kiss, and I jog after them, desperate to prove I'm a lesbian too. Perhaps I should move to the Panera bread bowl...

Alex and I visit the Phoenix art museum, where the front desk lady says we're a cute couple. Running joke now. We visit the manga exhibit first, which is mind-blowing. The hyperpop panels are layered with every color imaginable, featuring girls with bubblegum hair and rubix-cube infested eyes and cats and rockets and ice cream cones. The canvases are eight feet tall and covered in pastel splatter paint. Beautiful.

In the modern wing, next to a sculpture made of hanging bits of charcoal, a dude says, "American Express!" and fist-bumps Amr. Amr is pissed. We don't talk about work outside work. We drive to a French & Mediterranean fusion restaurant and indulge in baguettes and beef & gnocchi stew. Listen to jazz. Play Tetris at an arcade. I am so happy.

Day 4

We go to a sex club.

Day 5

I sleep past 3 pm and watch a few episodes of White Lotus before the inevitable shopping spree. Alex and Amr live in a gray box with gray granite countertops and orange peel walls. Don't be fooled, the walls are gray. We hit up Joann and HomeGoods and IKEA, buy 3 fake plants for the living room, and finish with mocktails at Bitter & Twisted.

On the drive home, Alex says I have a "mercurial personality." He says it's strange how I attribute my personal growth to a collection of interactions. He means queer temporality. LJ introduced me to the concept last year: queer people experience time in snippets rather than linearly. That's why Virginia Woolf writes the way she does, and JoJo Siwa expresses herself through TikTok.

I'm awed others see us beter than we see ourselves.

Day 6

We rise at dawn. Alex and I pass several wrecks on the way to Sedona, and count the ways we would die of exposure if we lived in the 1500s. Dysentery. Dehydration. Hemlock poisoning. Oxen kick to the head.

Sedona's horizon is gorgeous, the red sandstone canyons glowing against the blue sky. I decide to move here, and then check Zillow. 1 million minimum. I will not move here.

We park at Deadman Trailhead, and take Mezcal a mile in the wrong direction. The trail is muddy from melted snow and mountain bike tracks. We turn off to investigate a nook in the cliffside, scaling steep planes of rock, and then trek across Deadman and Long to our OG destination: the Birthing Cave.

If I ever give birth, which I won't, it will be here: a screeching spectacle for the dozen lesbian couples who populate the cave at any one time. Alex is mauled by a cactus. I keep asking him if he's okay (he's scared of heights). We scale a triangular crevice, which opens into a gorgeous sloped vessel with ridges and shelves like a vaginal canal.

I climb to the top because I'm white and lack self-preservation.

We eat Tex-Mex and visit the Tlaquepaque art district. The village reminds me of Vail, Colorado with its quaint cobblestone streets and numerous bronze statues. We explore galleries and a cozy wine tasting joint hosted by famed Printmaker Jerome. Alex buys three of his prints, and I drink dry reds and crash hard.

Here's a secret: I'm afraid of Europe. London is like the ocean, cold and foreign and teeming with life. There is everything to fear, but fear is useless. Better jump.