"the client," by john grisham

+ and i happened to bring a number of books with me to reno, in april. i started a series, reading the first chapter or so, on the first legs, vancouver to seattle and seattle to reno, and i settled on "an empire wilderness" by robert kaplan, a history and analysis of the american west as told through travelogue. a road-trip book that wasn't really about the road at all.

the most important lesson is that the american west, more than any other region, owes its existence as an extension of the empire to government money, first and foremost. huge piles of federal cash, thrown into canals and aqueducts and highways and all manner of maps are all that still allow this sprawling bastion of individualism to blossom and maintain some strange thrall over our identity as a continent.

a weekend, in a hotel room, i read for several hours and then left, i left to drink beer and watch americans watching basketball and to keep reading, in the bar and on the bus.

on my boarding pass, to come back, it said *CHECK ID*, just like that, with stars. i hid, on the plane, i kept reading to hide from the two endodontists on their way to the endodonics convention.

+ i saw "the client," by john grisham, on the seat of a car in the safeway parking lot. walking to work, to the skytrain that would take me to the coffee shop next to where i work.