Ed Ruscha and Joe Goode

The last thing I want to do is bury the cable, but I have to do it today, it's Wyoming and winter is coming and if I don't bury the cable the straw bale studio down below the cabin where I write might not have electricity.

The big lesson Wyoming's teaches is: DO NOT FEEL SORRY FOR YOURSELF! You can feel just about any other way--mean, ornery, which is a notch under mean, spiteful, cantankerous, sexy, dull, loving, generous, righteous, and so on, but permission to feel sorry for yourself is revoked the moment you cross the state-line.

There's Bob and Mary down the hill. He's 90 soon, she's 63. They live in a big 3-story house they built in 1988, the year of the Yellowstone fire. He's on oxygen support, hobbles around; she's got to do more of everything he used to do--get wood, haul out the trash, keep the guns oiled, fetch the booze. They should move into town.

And Monty, a paraplegic. Drives a new green Toyota Tacoma pick-up, shoots prairie dogs on a friend's ranch, drinks with the boys at the Irma Hotel, courts pretty ladies. I've yet to hear Monty utter a phrase that could even be considered remotely self-pitying.

The popularity of country western music in Wyoming is therefore something of a mystery.

Last night I had a dream about Los Angeles. I'd come back to the city where I'd lived for many years. A greeting committee met me at the city limit, which included the artist's Ed Ruscha and Joe Goode who were both wearing ten-gallon cowboy hats and Wrangler jeans with big silver belt-buckles.

I asked Joe how he'd been. "Just fine, he said, but Ed here is famous now and having to do a lot of things he doesn't want to do."

Ed shook his head, but I couldn't tell if it was in denial or agreement.