What a weird day.
Didn't end up replacing my phone, the Apple Genius Bar people ran diagnostics--there is in fact some hardware defect with it, no fault of my own, their staff had a backroom debate over what the right course of action to take was, repair wasn't possible given my phone was a US phone and the parts weren't modular per country, they ordered an international phone which obviously was not available before I left to the Northern Territory, but came while I was actively on the plane to Alice Springs.
The place I booked in Alice Springs, Desert Palms Resort, was not actually in any way a resort. The villa was gross, there was a mouse on the patio, what I suspected was a shed exoskeleton of a bed bug, a dead roach on the wall... I ended up next door at the DoubleTree. It reminded me of when I ran the NYC Marathon and was bothered by my hotel room being too noisy and ended up booking a second location, a room in midtown that ended up luxuriously fancy at a low cost, spacious, but the vibes were way off. It had this weird maritime theme, the lobby was dark and felt like it was run by the Russian mafia. And now this place, even though it's right next door... has a similar vibe... not run by a Russian mafia, but like something bad has happened here and I don't know what, and it was more expensive, but it wasn't even a question at that point, the ick I got just standing in that room for 10 minutes.
I then went for a walk and ended up at the Olive Pink botanical garden where I learned about the Arrernte people's relationship with caterpillars and then crossed paths with a very jacked, swole wallaby that seemed to freeze as I got nearby.
I took a 3 billion year old piece of quartzite from the ground, not because I'm an earth kleptomaniac, but because something grounding about this rock wanted to sit literally close to my heart and I can't even explain that, and I know it's stupid.
I then walked to a place in town that was "popular with the locals," and immediately felt like I was an invasive species in the room. The restaurant was a bar, it was run by a couple that were probably west Asian. The place had a few barflies that were aboriginal disabled folks with alcohol dependency, bartering for cheap beer, as I asked for a food menu. I ordered chicken karage and drank an IPA as I felt this uncertain threat in the air, yet nothing came of it.
A high chair functioning as a lighting tripod sat near a makeshift stage, where a group of people who looked like human cockatoos showed up to set up their band equipment. One of them was a man who was wearing swim trunks, a white dress shirt, and a fancy embroidered suit jacket.
A skittish orange cat entered the bar.
I walked back to the DoubleTree and noticed every white woman by herself was weird like me, in an unstable kind of way. And I wondered if the perception of me was merely a question, how did she get here, did she stumble through some sort of portal? She doesn't belong here, but not in a mean way, just in a way that says her presence is statistically very, very unlikely.
