I think I am an American

One of these days I'm gonna go visit Binghamton, NY. I was a loyal little Latham-Albany-New Yorker when I was eight. And I hung out with Ph.D.s in bars in my mid-twenties, and thought about Italian and Irish and Greek diners, and Cixous and Christine and crumbling architecture. Messed up medievalists who liked drugs. Less messed up people who lived with gospel musicians. And I rode carousels all summer, and didn't sleep until 4 a.m. because that's when the apartment finally cooled down. And I drove to wacky little places that I sometimes didn't even know were actually in "Pennsyltucky." I could have lived there, actually, for longer. But I didn't. And I'm going to go back to Chicago, too. Most recently I saw Sedona. And L.A.'s suburbs. I passed little houses with Mexican music emanating from them on the way to a grocery store with a counter that sold foods like "lengua" and neighbors wished me "Happy New Year" and also I saw fake grass and palm trees and saguaros and solar wind farms. And "In and Out."