Salt Lake City

Coming to SLC tomorrow for a week. Aside from the suggestions upthread, what more should I do? Specifically, where should I wander around taking pictures while my host is at work? And what's the most compelling daytrip to take outside the city?

i kind of feel driven to express my strong dislike of salt lake to people in regular conversation, when we're just at that stage of talking about where we came from, and i think it takes people aback a little bit when i'm like "i hate that place." and i get to thinking about it more - why i dislike the city so much - and it becomes more of a feedback loop of something approaching broadly true cultural qualities and my own perceptions and experiences. all i know is that almost the entirety of my experience being in that city for 10+ years was like the feeling of someone prettier than you are smiling at you and then looking away and pretending like you don't exist when you smile back. i think a small part of it was me not wanting to be close to anyone while being there for fear of the city itself and what it represents culturally (in my own head at least partially but also not, considering how constantly present mormonism is in the background of the place) intruding and turning the relationship into something menacing and hurtful, which happened time and time again while i was growing up. in other words, i felt haunted there, which tended to spoil endeavors and relationships before they had a chance to take root.

but also i think there are some real things going on in the city that are more generally bad beyond my own particular pov: its gentrification feels especially absurd, its youth culture emptier than most. it's not a rich place compared to any big city but it has some protective mormon (and oil and gas) money that keeps things fairly vacuous and culturally bankrupt. the best parts of the city are the ones that deviate the most from the mormon settler axis - hispanic neightborhoods west of i-15, remnants of greek coal miners. but still you can feel the passive-aggressive edge of smile-at-you-with-empty-eyes judgmentalism and all the damage it's done wherever you are in that polluted cesspool of a valley.

so i guess i like to think of reversing the curse it brought me and aiming it back at the city and its inhabitants like a spiteful amateur witch. i no longer live there and hope i never will again and, honestly, fuck everyone i got to know there - i'm thinking of one or three people in particular who turned out to be horrible assholes - but also most everyone else, all of whom were at least a little bit empty and insincere and not coincidentally liked living there in the first place. to this day i don't trust anyone who chooses to make salt lake city their home. i hope it becomes more of what it is, sees its lies come home to roost and suffers for it.

wow i feel better having posted that lol

i live about 3.5 hours southeast of salt lake city in a small desert town. i drove up to the city last night to attend a party.

salt lake is notorious in the winter for its inversions, which trap all pollution at the bottom of the valley. most of it is car pollution. the inversions last for months. to me it feels like drowning at the bottom of a toilet bowl filled with liquid plastic.

right after i drop into the valley i'm coughing and my breath is short. after being at the party for an hour i realize i feel terrible. breathing hurts. my head hurts. everyone else seems fine, but i am not -- it feels like i'm being tortured and i need to get out of there as soon as possible. so i drive the length of the valley and as i go up the hill that leads to the mouth of the canyon that leads to the desert where i live, i sense a stream of clean air and it's like my whole body is gasping for it. most of the rest of the drive i had my windows down even though it was 20 degrees outside. clean air has never felt so essential and joyful.