This ain't my first rodeo, ya'll.
Fine, it was my second. That made me something of an expert, at least compared to my Bostonian friend. I am not sure she enjoyed the rodeo. I did, though, enough that I am now listening to Garth Brook's song Rodeo. I suspect that the facts that: 1. I grew up - partly - in a smallish city in the Midwest, and 2. I listen(ed) to country music, make me much more able to get the rodeo world. In fact, I like it. It feels like a fair, and what is not to love about a fair? I have only two words to say about a fair: elephant ears. And the same goes for a rodeo.
So yes, the rodeo. I like a good rodeo. I like the cowboys in their Wranglers and chaps. (All men should wear chaps now and then, yum. That is actually how my friend sold me on the rodeo idea the first time I went: "Wrangler butts," she said. "That's why we go to rodeos.") And it's funny, because going to a rodeo, as opposed to hanging out with overly-educated, quasi-urban people exactly like me, made me really miss that world.
"I've been missing Michigan lately," I told my rodeo 2 friend.
"Yes, but if you moved back there, you would miss [this state] too much," she said. "[Gone West], at least."
"My whole life is missing places," I said. "I will never be able to live anywhere without missing other places."
Every place forms you, but it takes a part of you, too. I wouldn't take those parts of myself back, not even if the places were offering, but I wish I could visit the pieces more often.
Nothing makes me feel more longing than fireworks, and this is a bad weekend for that.
Fine, it was my second. That made me something of an expert, at least compared to my Bostonian friend. I am not sure she enjoyed the rodeo. I did, though, enough that I am now listening to Garth Brook's song Rodeo. I suspect that the facts that: 1. I grew up - partly - in a smallish city in the Midwest, and 2. I listen(ed) to country music, make me much more able to get the rodeo world. In fact, I like it. It feels like a fair, and what is not to love about a fair? I have only two words to say about a fair: elephant ears. And the same goes for a rodeo.
So yes, the rodeo. I like a good rodeo. I like the cowboys in their Wranglers and chaps. (All men should wear chaps now and then, yum. That is actually how my friend sold me on the rodeo idea the first time I went: "Wrangler butts," she said. "That's why we go to rodeos.") And it's funny, because going to a rodeo, as opposed to hanging out with overly-educated, quasi-urban people exactly like me, made me really miss that world.
"I've been missing Michigan lately," I told my rodeo 2 friend.
"Yes, but if you moved back there, you would miss [this state] too much," she said. "[Gone West], at least."
"My whole life is missing places," I said. "I will never be able to live anywhere without missing other places."
Every place forms you, but it takes a part of you, too. I wouldn't take those parts of myself back, not even if the places were offering, but I wish I could visit the pieces more often.
Nothing makes me feel more longing than fireworks, and this is a bad weekend for that.
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