I couldn’t wait to leave my hometown.

It took me years to do it. Twice, I left and came back. Once, I planned to leave it for an even smaller town.

I was clearly insane.

When I moved to the Bay Area, though, I knew that I’d escaped. I’d visit, yes, but I’d never move back home.

Wyoming, as I’ve said more than once, is a lovely place to be from.

There are things that I miss, though. Lilacs. Oh, how I miss the lilacs in the Spring. (And never mind that Spring may not come until June – the lilacs are worth the wait.) The old brick buildings downtown. People who stop to help if your car breaks down. (Seriously – eight years of driving an old Bug in LA, and only a few times has anyone stopped. Once in Santa Monica, when I was trying to push my car up the California Incline; once just a few blocks from my house; and twice in Topanga. The time I ran out of gas on the 101? The Highway Patrolman who pushed my car into the breakdown lane didn’t even bother to ask if I had a cell phone before he disappeared.)

And when I’m stressed, I want to go home.

This morning, Sara, who camped across the street from us our first year at Burning Man, tweeted that she and Frinetik had “Just passed happy jack road and is stopping to look at the floating head of lincoln.”

“Hey,” I told her, “You just went through my hometown!”

And then I went to look at the Prexy’s Pasture webcam, on the University of Wyoming campus.

That statue in the middle is by the same sculptor who carved Lincoln's head.

And surprised myself by bursting into tears.

Today, I just want to go home.

An insistent, angry buzzing drew my ear. I turned around. In the windowsill behind me, I saw a black housefly trapped in a spider’s web. The spider – glossy, long-legged, dark brown – tested the strands, moved in closer, sank fangs into the vibrating insect. And then, from an inch or more away, another spider, no larger than the head of the first, scurried toward their prey.

“Bzzt, bzzt.”

The fly’s continued noisy struggles were too much for this smaller spider, who fled, crouching low to wait for his mate’s toxin to take effect.

The buzzing grew intermittent. Long periods of stillness punctuated the dying fly’s motion.

“Bzzt… bzzt… bzt… bz…”

It hung there, quiet and still.

The smaller spider approached it first, cautiously, then bit into its abdomen. The larger spider nibbled at its head, taste-tested the thorax, then moved around to the abdomen as well, hovering above the fly while the smaller spider fed from beneath.

First hunger satisfied, the larger spider bundled their prey down into the window frame. I can’t see them now, but I know they’re down there, feeding. I can feel the tension in the back of my neck. The vacuum is in the other room. I want to let them finish their final meal.