There are a few places in this city where I think things can't get any worse - in high school the approaching of places used to make me dizzy, just rounding the curve of a particular building at night, but now that sweep of unfamiliarity comes mostly with imagining dreadful lives. Last night I went to the fair with Kyle, Arlo and Ashley, and I didn't really get this feeling, oddly enough. In distance it's not too far from where I live, which is part of that bewilderment - the sense of geographical estrangement, the fact of being unable to get home without some effort. I felt indifferent to the carnies, to the juggalos and other denizens I saw. Because it was pleasant! Even lightly masked with pageantry, grit loses its vitality. We paid $2 each to be allowed into, heh, the tent of "natural attractions." Images of the "world's fattest man," and a 200-pound tortoise, a Mongolian hissing beetle festooned the tent! We went inside and there was in fact a tortoise. Also a "devil woman" and a rack of deformed fetuses - replicas in fact - in jars. I think the chupacabra had escaped already. The tortoise was pretty sad to watch, breathing in a fetid kiddie pool.

still wish we'd paid a buck to see "the world's smallest woman."