Vermont

"Oh, Vermont! My husband and I love Vermont," exclaimed the woman with the costume jewelry and the cheese croquettes, touching my hand. "We love how contrarian it is! Whatever the nation does, Vermont does the opposite!"

A moment later her husband came over, and she introduced me as Eric from Vermont. "Oh, Vermont!" said the husband, smirking. "Let me tell you something, Eric — we always say that whatever America does, Vermont will do the opposite!" and he started to laugh and we all laughed together, but each for different reasons, and the woman went to fill up on cheese croquettes and meet somebody else.

It was a cocktail party to honor the Yes Men, who play clever pranks on large corporations and make movies about it, and who are in Santa Fe to give a screening. The Board and benefactors of the Santa Fe Art Institute had gathered to exchange double-cheek kisses and ask how is the wine, and there were some local Hispanic kids break-dancing, allowing everyone to do some head-bobbing in that earnestly empathetic Caucasian way.

"You must have a big closet!" I said to Edgar, who was the coolest kid, all in purple, with matching shirt and scarf and shoes, and who got the most applause for his moves.

"Yeah, I do!" he said, grinning. "Purple is my color. Well, actually it's my clothes color, not my overall color."

"What's your overall color?" I said.

"Well, I guess purple is a mix between red and blue," he said, and showed me his phone. An email survey was going around, asking what color you are (red = sexy, blue = beautiful, yellow = fuckable, etc.)

"See what I mean?" he said, and giggled.

He showed me another survey, which you send to your friends so they can rate your kissing ability from 1 to 10.

"Are you and your friends really making out already?" I asked.

"Nah, we just imagine," he said, but I knew it wouldn't be long.

"So, do you use a computer anymore, or is everything on your phone?" I asked.

"I have a Yahoo email, and sometime I use the MySpace," he said. "But since I got my phone I haven't used the computer for a couple of months. And when that new Apple notebook thing comes out, man, that'll be crazy!"

As he said it, I thought how the web browser world is going to be washed away by demographics and kids who like to move, and that's pretty much how worlds always end, and how adults become irrelevant.