New Mexico has gorgeous terrain and crisp mountain air. Don't know what it's like to live there day to day, but their "Land of Enchantment" slogan is not an understatement.

Also, I'm convinced that empty Dairy Queen and Applebees restaurants on the side of the highway in those in-between towns are in fact demon portals/hellmouths. And the strange, misshapen diners there are all cryptids.

Maybe. ALL of New Mexico feels inexplicably creepy in a way that Arizona doesn't. So many towns there just have a really odd off feeling..? (and not just because of the aliens) I can't explain it. It's an X-file.

Another x-file: Somewhere between Colorado and New Mexico there were several gas stations that all had 5+ orange cats lurking there. ONLY orange cats. (Kittens, too. So of course I had to sit in the middle of the parking lot petting them all while giving them water out of a paper cup) So I suppose it makes sense to assume that all orange kitties come from gas stations. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Spent a big chunk of my day looking into a microscope. Makes one feel all smart and sciency..

And big.

It's kind of hard to bend your neck that far down if your dick's under the microscope though.

You'd know.

Did you ensure that whatever you were examining now thinks you're some kind of god? If not, do so.

I've gotten very sick very quickly, my sinuses and chest took huge downhill dive over the last 24 hours and I think it might be due to black mold poisoning. Doc gave me a puffer and told me to come back in a week or two if it doesn't go away.

EDIT: On the bright side I may begin the process of getting my motorcycle license tomorrow.

I hope this is going splendidly.

New Orleans is good for three things, jazz, food and debauchery. There is no open container law. There are ads for free body shots on a stripper of your choice when you buy a high shelf bottle of alcohol. Bourbon street is designed to get you as f*cked up as humanly possible and make you regret your life the day after. The cool thing though is that literally a block away art art galleries and old people walking hand in hand looking at all the buildings. The food is amazing. I have charbroiled oysters and a shrimp/catfish po'boy from the originating place, Parkway Bakery. It was out of this world. The jazz clubs were great but it was hard finding one without a cover. Those, so I've been told, are in the more seedier neighborhoods and I had been drinking a lot so I figured it'd be best not to venture in. So if you want to drink your face off and pig out on amazing seafood, go to New Orleans. It's a dirty scummy fun city that I could only take a night or to of but it's worth a stop.

The caverns were the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I got emotional in there. I had never really seen the Earth be so beautiful like that before and it wasn't crowded so I had a lot of time to myself in there. Cathartic experience.

As for NM, I drove past a lot of those kind of towns but didn't stop much. I did however stay in Hobbs, New Mexico for a night and actually ate at a Chili's due to me having found a gift card in my room from God knows where. It was actually packed. Them people like their fast food disguised as actually cooked and prepared food.

So, SO much is happening. I'll try to be as concise as possible.

THE NEW GIG:

The new job is incredibly challenging. 13-hour days when you factor in the hours of my standing in downpours at 5 in the morning and again at 7 at night waiting for public transit. After all that I'm exhausted... but SATISFIED, unlike the crushing defeat and hopelessness I felt at the old job. The IT work is almost entirely email-based, so I'm not sitting on calls all day as I'd anticipated, but the real challenge is that the logic is exponential. Everything is an exception to the rule and I'm trusted to work out solutions for 700 offices around the US day in and day out. I'd felt tremendous anxiety as I'm so linear and process-based in my thinking, but in the first three days I'm making tremendous strides and have impressed the senior IT staff, which carries a lot of weight in the office. I think I just might pull this off. And best of all, I'm the least-skilled gent in the room for a change, which is fantastically refreshing. Here I have the opportunity to challenge myself and to grow.

THE DIVORCE:

I hit an emotionally-crushing brick wall yesterday when my wife informed me that she'd consulted a pro-bono lawyer who told her that all my work - the papers I'd drafted, notarized, and the hundreds I'd spent to file them, were incorrect and inadmissible. I'd potentially have to start from scratch all over again and have to re-pay the fees. Unlitigated divorce is treacherous territory for a novice, and it leaves you feeling helpless when you get this sort of news.

But I reached out to my resources and, long story short, the papers are just fine. I'm accepting a request of amendment by my wife which will require that I re-serve her, buying her another 20 days and which will require us to appear in court where otherwise it would have just been processed automatically. She needs us to appear to agree to waive on of my conditions, which I'm fine with if it gets the job done.

Crisis averted.