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9.28.00, 12:32 a.m.

My position papers keep getting put off for more immediate crises. It was the friends' wedding in Las Vegas, preparing a lecture in the professor's absence, the week before Maximumrocknroll  went to print, the interview with Andrew, Sean's last few days in San Francisco, the "communication" crisis with Third Woman Press, trying to decide whether or not to prepare a lecture because of the professor's bad cold, the Punk Planet deadline for columnists, and finally the APAture events of this coming weekend, including a panel on Asian Americans and the internet which I'm on.

Nevermind next month.

TWO WEEKS AGO: We take the off-ramp into Primm, just inside the Nevada border. (We are on our way to a wedding --not ours-- in Las Vegas.) The car's thermometer reads 111, 112. Mark is headed to a roller coaster he's seen out here before and I've got my reader spread across my lap.The casino is called Buffalo Bill -- pulling into the parking lot, I eye the plaster and neon sign rudely pushed up into the wide, open sky like a kitsch beacon for gamblers, loners and addicts of all kinds. It features a stereotypical Plains Indians headress, but beneath the feathers is the head of a buffalo. It is a weird -- replacement? An extinct animal to stand in for a murdered and hunted population? Climbing out of the car beneath its shadow, I am thinking about taxidermy and genocide. They are not unrelated, really.

It is the Wild West inside, a mish-mash of Hollywood cliches, wooden cowboys and Indians. In the general store are all the expected souvenirs: tin sheriff's badges, felt ten-gallon hats, plastic guns and branded sweatshirts. We head straight for the ticket booth and push our way through the gate to the platform, all grins and giggles. Sitting in the prized front car we ride the Desperado, the roller coaster that circles the casino and parking lot in a series of hills, careening through a fake mountaintop (beneath us are construction machines and pylons) and re-entering the building with a whoomp. (It's a bit of a let-down after a summer spent on both state-of-the-art and rickety-scary rides.) I half-heartedly scream, but the heat compresses all my internal organs, including my lungs. The operator (bored) offers us another go, but my brain's been shook loose and we clamber down the stairs into the arcade arm in arm.

We are walking back through the casino when Mark suddenly veers in front of me, almost obscuring (but not quite) a large, white man walking in the other direction, wearing in a black t-shirt that reads, "10,000 Battered Women And I'm Still Eating Mine PLAIN?!"

My jaw drops and Mark has to steer, pulling me by my elbow past the slot machines and fake "frontier" decor. That speech is an act is never so apparent -- the violence is palatable, physical. Sticks and bones may break my bones, but words will certainly kill me . (We know which words: Kill the queer. She deserved it. He's just a gook -- he's not human.) All the muscles in my body are tensed, coiled tightly. (I'm liable to go off any minute now.)"What do you say to a guy like that?" Mark mutters with disgust.

I wish I knew -- words to cut, slash, and burn alive.