2001-10-15 || 1:21 p.m.

|| yosemite ||

we are traveling up a winding road in the darkness, in silence. the exhilarating threat of running out of gas and the travel games and the crackling pop of the car stereo have given way to silence and cold air whistling through windows and a distinct sense of nausea. i am leaning my head against the back seat, holding my breath and looking up at stars through the back window. this cannot be the same sky. this sky is bigger and colder and echoes back secrets when you talk to it. this sky holds life and gravity and all the answers to all the questions, written in cursive on planets and stars and silvery threads of galaxies and nebulae.

there are seven of us in various stages of outdoorsy preparedness. two of us don't have sleeping bags and none of us thought to bring a flashlight. we have too many cds and no working stereo. we haven't brought enough warm clothes and we are sitting on rocks in 40-degree darkness, shivering in our hoodies. we don't know what is supposed to be stowed in the bear locker. pixie sticks. vanilla lotion. toothpaste? we are eyeing the thirty-six cans and bottles of beer lining the tent floor. what about beer? cigarettes? do bears like cigarettes? s swears he sees a cat-like creature by the restrooms. the man in the tent next to us is snoring. we can hear people a few tents down having sex on a particularly squeaky cot. we all feel bad about smoking, what with extreme fire danger warnings and clean clean air and dead leaves and kindling everywhere and very upstanding healthy outdoorsy types doing calisthenics and high-fiving, and hold on to our extinguished cigarette butts in clenched fists. it is very dark. and very cold.

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