Every time I checked the dryer both of my work shirts were in today, it was off and the clothes were still soaked. This happened three times before I decided to wait in the laundry room to find out what was going on.
After about ten minutes a Bulgarian girl walks into the laundry room and opens all three dryers to check if the loads are dry so she can put her wet clothes in. She opens a dryer, then closes it, then moves onto the next one. Do you detect the missing step in this process?
"Are you going to turn those dryers back on?" I ask her.
She turns around. "It is automatic," she says.
My eyes get big and I smile in disbelief. "Noo, it's not." I walk over and show her.
"Oh!" she says and laughs. "Sorree!"
Friday, June 29
Wednesday, June 27
Harley and Shauna
In town I see Harley.
I start my day with a white chocolate mocha from the lodge, then have my free meal from Twister Creek. I choose artichoke fritters and a chef salad and two pints of their sour beer of the week. The sour beer tastes like apple cider vinegar but gets me buzzed. The chef salad is an homage to my sister, who ordered them at McDonald's when we were kids, when I always ordered like a chubby happy American the cheeseburger Happy Meal with an orange soda.
I am alone on the deck in the sun, reading a book I ordered in the mail called Rat Girl by Kirsten Hersh, the lead singer of Throwing Muses. It is a good book, a memoir that prompts me to write notes in its blank endpages. Probably also the combination of caffeine and alcohol prompts me to write my thoughts down.
Harley leans in toward some flower boxes next to me and says, when I look over, "These are poppies!" He's talking about a tall red flower. I nod encouragingly. "I've never seen poppies in real life before!"
I laugh and say, "Really?"
"Yeah." He stares at them some more than says, "Dozer! Come here!"
His bully-breed dog has wandered onto the deck and is nosing around the tourists and their food, hoping for scraps.
I am familiar with Dozer, whom I have mistakenly called Bowser before. (Blame it on too much Super Mario Bros. 3 as a child.)
I met both Harley and Dozer down at the river at the start of the season. Harley is twenty, sells drugs. He's on meth and LSD and pot all at once. He's a loose cannon who plays the guitar. He's desperately alive, which is something I understand, but he said the night I met him, as I was walking away with a gay friend of mine, "I hope she's easy!" Harley is not my ally and yet I recognize him.
The gossip in town is that he slammed his dog's head into the street when it was bad. That he brought his gun down to the river one night and was shooting it off wildly, and people asked him to stop, and he wouldn't. He throws stones for Dozer to fetch, which must be bad for Dozer's teeth. Harley's mom works at the pizza place and last month she had a black eye.
I heard there was going to be a town meeting about him, which is what happens in a town of 800 without a police force. I don't know if the meeting ever happened or what the results were. People are concerned. I see him driving his four-wheeler around drunkenly with an underage girl hanging onto his waist on the back of it.
I am not pro-Harley. I think he is dangerous and someone to stay away from. If I had been at the river when he was there with his gun, I would not have been one of the ones to plead with him to put it away. I would have left immediately.
However. If someone is taking delight in a flower, it is my birthright/heritage/duty to let him know that I dwell in the shell-shaped Venn Diagram of flower-delight with him.
Whatever Venn Diagrams I share with Harley, I know that he is doomed. I am not the underage girl hanging onto his waist for dear life as he careens drunk around town on a four-wheeler. If I were to stretch out a hand to him he'd pull me down off a cliff.
He makes me think of Shauna from elementary school, who was also doomed.
One Father's Day we were making construction paper ties on plain white paper shirts with appreciative things written on them. This is akin to Southern Californian kids making snow-themed winter crafts, which we also did. Our blue-collar fathers wore light blue collared shirts with embroidered nametags ironed onto them. Most of us had never seen the snow.
The day we made the ties and shirts, Shauna told everyone her dad was Rambo and threw her in the street.
She lived with her grandma, along with her older sister and older brother. I think she probably never met her dad.
Once I brought, for Show and Tell, a paper from Hong Kong with my name on it in English and in Chinese characters, with a quick-stroke painting of a flower above it. My grandma got it for me on one of her retired travels. I left it in my desk and after recess found it torn on one side. It was kept in plastic and someone had torn the paper through the plastic, so the plastic was bent and stretched. Upset, I showed it to the teacher, who knew it was Shauna. She was made to confess and say sorry.
Once I was talking with a friend of mine about a Helen Keller biography for children we'd both read and loved. Shauna, nearby, said, "I read that too."
We exchanged glances, knowing she hadn't read it. "What's it about?" I challenged her.
"Um... it's about a girl... and her dog..."
My friend and I laughed. The cover of the book was a painting of Helen Keller hugging a dog. Of course if Shauna had read the book she'd say right away it was about a blind and deaf girl.
Once I overheard some PTA moms discussing Shauna. "Those brown eyes... it's eerie. It's like she knows what you're thinking."
I noted this jealously, wishing they were discussing me, wishing they were talking about my blue eyes knowing what adults are thinking. On long car rides I used to pretend to sleep, hoping my family would discuss me as if I were not there, wanting to know what they really thought of me.
In third grade I befriended Shauna briefly. We had a therapist-patient relationship, although that sounds absurd when you're talking about two eight-year-olds. I don't remember what I said to her. I only remember her periodically reporting to me, "I didn't lie at all today!"
Or, "I lied once and it felt bad!"
I remember nodding approvingly and encouraging her to keep trying.
I remember an unusual amount about my early childhood. I remember the first and last names of most of the people in my elementary school classes. I remember anecdotes about each of them. This has prompted me to Google random ones of them throughout the years.
I Googled Shauna a few years ago and found her on a website called Jailbabes in California. Her picture was uploaded. She had the same knowing eyes. She was in prison for an unspecified offense, seeking male penpals. I thought about writing to her but didn't. I have always been ambivalent about my weirdly good memory - embarrassed about it at times, like it indicates I have no life, like nothing noteworthy has supplanted my early childhood memories.
I right-clicked her picture and saved it to my computer. I wrote her an email in my head that I never sent. I forgot about her for another couple years.
Then I saw her older sister at the library where I was working in my hometown. I asked, "How's Shauna doing?"
Her sister gave an embarrassed laugh. "I don't know. Usually when people ask about Shauna it's because she owes them money, or screwed them over somehow. I don't know where she is now. Last I heard she was in prison."
I wanted to ask what for but knew it would be nosy, so I changed the subject and asked about the toddlers she had with her. She was checking out a tall stack of picture books for them. She looked stressed-out in the way of mothers with young kids, but basically happy. Her kids also seemed happy. She was relieved to talk about them instead of Shauna.
I befriended her, the older sister, on Facebook. A few months later she posted information about Shauna's memorial service. Shauna, born the same year as me, died on Thursday, March 11, 2010. I copied and pasted the information into a Word doc and saved it. I Googled around a little in vain, trying to find out how she'd died. I thought about her all that afternoon and night, and the next day sent her sister a Facebook message.
"I see that Shauna passed away, and I want to tell you I'm sorry to hear it. When I heard about her passing, a memory sprang to mind I want to share with you. Once in 6th grade we were all playing Truth or Dare and someone dared her to kiss Stuart Johnson on the cheek. Nobody thought she would dare to... we were all like eleven, and that was totally scandalous... also, he was the 6th grade hottie... but she went up to him, said she had a secret to tell him, and when he leaned in to hear it, she kissed his cheek. He turned bright red and everyone just howled with laughter. I remember her grinning, totally pleased with herself.
I hope you and your family are doing well and remembering Shauna happy."
She answered my message the next day.
"Thank you."
I start my day with a white chocolate mocha from the lodge, then have my free meal from Twister Creek. I choose artichoke fritters and a chef salad and two pints of their sour beer of the week. The sour beer tastes like apple cider vinegar but gets me buzzed. The chef salad is an homage to my sister, who ordered them at McDonald's when we were kids, when I always ordered like a chubby happy American the cheeseburger Happy Meal with an orange soda.
I am alone on the deck in the sun, reading a book I ordered in the mail called Rat Girl by Kirsten Hersh, the lead singer of Throwing Muses. It is a good book, a memoir that prompts me to write notes in its blank endpages. Probably also the combination of caffeine and alcohol prompts me to write my thoughts down.
Harley leans in toward some flower boxes next to me and says, when I look over, "These are poppies!" He's talking about a tall red flower. I nod encouragingly. "I've never seen poppies in real life before!"
I laugh and say, "Really?"
"Yeah." He stares at them some more than says, "Dozer! Come here!"
His bully-breed dog has wandered onto the deck and is nosing around the tourists and their food, hoping for scraps.
I am familiar with Dozer, whom I have mistakenly called Bowser before. (Blame it on too much Super Mario Bros. 3 as a child.)
I met both Harley and Dozer down at the river at the start of the season. Harley is twenty, sells drugs. He's on meth and LSD and pot all at once. He's a loose cannon who plays the guitar. He's desperately alive, which is something I understand, but he said the night I met him, as I was walking away with a gay friend of mine, "I hope she's easy!" Harley is not my ally and yet I recognize him.
The gossip in town is that he slammed his dog's head into the street when it was bad. That he brought his gun down to the river one night and was shooting it off wildly, and people asked him to stop, and he wouldn't. He throws stones for Dozer to fetch, which must be bad for Dozer's teeth. Harley's mom works at the pizza place and last month she had a black eye.
I heard there was going to be a town meeting about him, which is what happens in a town of 800 without a police force. I don't know if the meeting ever happened or what the results were. People are concerned. I see him driving his four-wheeler around drunkenly with an underage girl hanging onto his waist on the back of it.
I am not pro-Harley. I think he is dangerous and someone to stay away from. If I had been at the river when he was there with his gun, I would not have been one of the ones to plead with him to put it away. I would have left immediately.
However. If someone is taking delight in a flower, it is my birthright/heritage/duty to let him know that I dwell in the shell-shaped Venn Diagram of flower-delight with him.
Whatever Venn Diagrams I share with Harley, I know that he is doomed. I am not the underage girl hanging onto his waist for dear life as he careens drunk around town on a four-wheeler. If I were to stretch out a hand to him he'd pull me down off a cliff.
He makes me think of Shauna from elementary school, who was also doomed.
One Father's Day we were making construction paper ties on plain white paper shirts with appreciative things written on them. This is akin to Southern Californian kids making snow-themed winter crafts, which we also did. Our blue-collar fathers wore light blue collared shirts with embroidered nametags ironed onto them. Most of us had never seen the snow.
The day we made the ties and shirts, Shauna told everyone her dad was Rambo and threw her in the street.
She lived with her grandma, along with her older sister and older brother. I think she probably never met her dad.
Once I brought, for Show and Tell, a paper from Hong Kong with my name on it in English and in Chinese characters, with a quick-stroke painting of a flower above it. My grandma got it for me on one of her retired travels. I left it in my desk and after recess found it torn on one side. It was kept in plastic and someone had torn the paper through the plastic, so the plastic was bent and stretched. Upset, I showed it to the teacher, who knew it was Shauna. She was made to confess and say sorry.
Once I was talking with a friend of mine about a Helen Keller biography for children we'd both read and loved. Shauna, nearby, said, "I read that too."
We exchanged glances, knowing she hadn't read it. "What's it about?" I challenged her.
"Um... it's about a girl... and her dog..."
My friend and I laughed. The cover of the book was a painting of Helen Keller hugging a dog. Of course if Shauna had read the book she'd say right away it was about a blind and deaf girl.
Once I overheard some PTA moms discussing Shauna. "Those brown eyes... it's eerie. It's like she knows what you're thinking."
I noted this jealously, wishing they were discussing me, wishing they were talking about my blue eyes knowing what adults are thinking. On long car rides I used to pretend to sleep, hoping my family would discuss me as if I were not there, wanting to know what they really thought of me.
In third grade I befriended Shauna briefly. We had a therapist-patient relationship, although that sounds absurd when you're talking about two eight-year-olds. I don't remember what I said to her. I only remember her periodically reporting to me, "I didn't lie at all today!"
Or, "I lied once and it felt bad!"
I remember nodding approvingly and encouraging her to keep trying.
I remember an unusual amount about my early childhood. I remember the first and last names of most of the people in my elementary school classes. I remember anecdotes about each of them. This has prompted me to Google random ones of them throughout the years.
I Googled Shauna a few years ago and found her on a website called Jailbabes in California. Her picture was uploaded. She had the same knowing eyes. She was in prison for an unspecified offense, seeking male penpals. I thought about writing to her but didn't. I have always been ambivalent about my weirdly good memory - embarrassed about it at times, like it indicates I have no life, like nothing noteworthy has supplanted my early childhood memories.
I right-clicked her picture and saved it to my computer. I wrote her an email in my head that I never sent. I forgot about her for another couple years.
Then I saw her older sister at the library where I was working in my hometown. I asked, "How's Shauna doing?"
Her sister gave an embarrassed laugh. "I don't know. Usually when people ask about Shauna it's because she owes them money, or screwed them over somehow. I don't know where she is now. Last I heard she was in prison."
I wanted to ask what for but knew it would be nosy, so I changed the subject and asked about the toddlers she had with her. She was checking out a tall stack of picture books for them. She looked stressed-out in the way of mothers with young kids, but basically happy. Her kids also seemed happy. She was relieved to talk about them instead of Shauna.
I befriended her, the older sister, on Facebook. A few months later she posted information about Shauna's memorial service. Shauna, born the same year as me, died on Thursday, March 11, 2010. I copied and pasted the information into a Word doc and saved it. I Googled around a little in vain, trying to find out how she'd died. I thought about her all that afternoon and night, and the next day sent her sister a Facebook message.
"I see that Shauna passed away, and I want to tell you I'm sorry to hear it. When I heard about her passing, a memory sprang to mind I want to share with you. Once in 6th grade we were all playing Truth or Dare and someone dared her to kiss Stuart Johnson on the cheek. Nobody thought she would dare to... we were all like eleven, and that was totally scandalous... also, he was the 6th grade hottie... but she went up to him, said she had a secret to tell him, and when he leaned in to hear it, she kissed his cheek. He turned bright red and everyone just howled with laughter. I remember her grinning, totally pleased with herself.
I hope you and your family are doing well and remembering Shauna happy."
She answered my message the next day.
"Thank you."
Tuesday, June 26
Every Little Thang
At the Roadhouse the cashier is a pretty young woman whose lips don't lie flush against her teeth, which makes her look French. She has a bright red hickey on the front-side of her neck the size of a half dollar. She doesn't smile at me, probably because I am openly checking out her hickey. To the old man in front of me, though, she says "How's every little thang?"
I finished my quiche quickly, with still a lot of tea in the silver kettle on the table next to my mug, so I carry my mug and Harper's and purse over to the other room, where you can sit by a gas fire and chill.
I am chillin when a guy I know from the lodge walks up with a stroller and sits next to me. He is twenty-two and has a two-month-old baby. He reads his newspaper quietly and I read my Harper's, and pretty soon he says, "Ever seen one of these?"
He shows me a black-and-white picture the size of a postage stamp in the Classifieds section. I look at it closely. "It's an Ultralight," he says. Beneath the photo is printed "Ultralight Aircraft Trike."
"No," I say, in a way that invites hearing more.
"An Ultralight's like a cross between a motorcycle and a kite."
"What!"
"Yeah. They're pretty unsafe. I think the rate of death in owning one is the same as a smoker's - something like one in three."
"Holy shit," I say, and look at the picture even closer. "I'm surprised they're legal."
"They barely are," he says. "I went up in one with a buddy of mine about ten years ago. It was pretty fun. We went up about a thousand feet, which is the highest you can get without needing oxygen, and then spiraled down in circles for about twenty minutes until we were close enough to touch down on the Talkeetna air strip."
"Oh my God," I say. "That sounds really scary, but really fun."
"Yeah."
Companionable silence.
"Have you ever been up on a glacier?" he asks me.
"Yeah, last summer I landed on one. This summer I flew up around the mountain but we didn't land. It was fun."
"Yeah," he says, nodding, "It is fun. One Fourth of July we went up and had a picnic at Base Camp."
"That's cool."
"Yeah, but don't ever smoke a cigarette if you're up that high. I got altitude sickness really bad."
"Ugh."
"Yeah. Lack of oxygen. I got real nauseous, a headache. It took like twenty minutes to go away."
"You don't smoke anymore, do you?"
"No," he says. "Or drink. If I drink I want a smoke. And I don't have self-control when it comes to drinking, so I know I can't do it."
"Well, that's good you figured it out so young. What are you, twenty-two?"
"Yeah. Well really my body figured it out for me. My senior year of high school I was drunk every night. Finally a couple days after graduation I couldn't walk, so I went to the doctor's and they said my appendix had burst."
"Oh no!"
"But then they couldn't find it when they opened me up. But they saw that one of my kidneys had died, and so they took it out, and also part of my liver."
"Oh my God!"
"Yeah. And then my intestines were swollen and pushed my stomach up to where my lungs were, and my lungs up into my rib cage, and my ribs punctured both lungs."
"Wait, what happened to your appendix? Is it still floating around in there somewhere?"
"No, it just disintegrated. They vacuumed it out in little pieces. Actually the surgeon went on lunch and they brought the janitor in with a mop to clean it out."
I laugh.
"So then they didn't staple up the incision in my stomach very well and it came open. It looked like a vagina."
I laugh.
"I wasn't the first one to think that, either. My friends saw it and they were like, 'Dude, that looks like a pussy.' So I went to the doctor's and they said they wouldn't sew it back up again because they didn't want to trap infection in. So I just had to let it heal naturally."
"Oh my God. That's like Alien. Good thing it did."
"Yeah. You want to see it?"
It is not every day a young man asks me if I want to see the vagina-scar on his stomach. I did want to see it but felt shy to say so. "Do I?" I asked, instead.
He lifted his shirt. It looked like nothing, like a patch of skin where hair doesn't grow on an otherwise hairy stomach. "Oh, that's not too bad," I said.
"Yeah," he said as he dropped his shirt, sounding disappointed.
"You should go visit high schools and tell this story so kids know not to drink to excess."
"They wouldn't listen, though."
"Yes they would," I said. "That's a horrifying story."
"I really wasn't taking care of myself. I was living on alcohol and Hot Pockets."
He's covered in mosquito bites
"How's your chubby baby?" I ask the morning restaurant supervisor. I met him a month ago when he was six months. He had the chubbiest baby legs I had ever seen. I only held him for a couple seconds before he got fussy and started kicking his chubby little legs around. It was almost unbearably adorable.
You can only say that about a baby. For the record she grinned when I asked that question.
Questions that would not make a person grin:
"How's your chubby boyfriend?"
"How's your chubby wife?"
"How's your chubby daughter?"
"How's your chubby dog?"
"How's your chubby uncle?"
"How's your chubby life?"
You can only say that about a baby. For the record she grinned when I asked that question.
Questions that would not make a person grin:
"How's your chubby boyfriend?"
"How's your chubby wife?"
"How's your chubby daughter?"
"How's your chubby dog?"
"How's your chubby uncle?"
"How's your chubby life?"
Sunday, June 24
:|
So far any time I have tested the theory that not smiling, as a woman, leads people to believe that you are powerful and deserving of respect, it has proven true.
However in most situations in my life it is more important to me to be friendly/ make friends than it is to hold a position of power. So I still smile often.
However that is a useful thing to know. And by "know" I mean it is a useful thing to have proven to myself several times over. Which means I can do it - not smile in a situation where I am expected to smile - without thinking about it, without the anxiety of breaking a social rule.
However in most situations in my life it is more important to me to be friendly/ make friends than it is to hold a position of power. So I still smile often.
However that is a useful thing to know. And by "know" I mean it is a useful thing to have proven to myself several times over. Which means I can do it - not smile in a situation where I am expected to smile - without thinking about it, without the anxiety of breaking a social rule.
Here is a thought experiment for you: the next time you read something peppered with / punctuated by smiley faces, mentally change the smiley faces to neutral faces. : | Then read it again and mentally change them to sad faces. :( Then consider what this reveals about the function of smiley face emoticons in writing. Bonus points if you consider how use of the smiley face emoticon is gendered.
Sunday, June 17
FYI
If you have a wedding and reception at a hotel in rural Alaska, the hotel employees will eat all of the leftover food and cake afterwards as if they are feral children and/or Oliver Twist.
P.S. When I thought of Oliver Twist I tried to think of the Artful Dodger but instead the phrase that came to mind was "Grateful Dodger," which then made me think of like a Grateful Dead cover band that wears Dodger baseball shirts and hats and pickpockets their fans. Also, half of the band members were wolves and half of them were foxes, for some reason, but they were human-sized. Probably because I just typed "feral children," and I think if you're going to be a feral child, the two best species to have as parents would be wolves and foxes. Ideally your mom would be a wolf and your step-dad would be a fox, but I guess that's unlikely.
P.S. When I thought of Oliver Twist I tried to think of the Artful Dodger but instead the phrase that came to mind was "Grateful Dodger," which then made me think of like a Grateful Dead cover band that wears Dodger baseball shirts and hats and pickpockets their fans. Also, half of the band members were wolves and half of them were foxes, for some reason, but they were human-sized. Probably because I just typed "feral children," and I think if you're going to be a feral child, the two best species to have as parents would be wolves and foxes. Ideally your mom would be a wolf and your step-dad would be a fox, but I guess that's unlikely.
Utah Teen Seeks Agoraphobic Girlfriend
Tonight the guy who runs the taxi (who recently asked in a sincere tone if anyone had any firecrackers, M80s, anything like that, and when someone said "Why," he said, "Because I'm thinking I'm just going to park all the taxi vans in a circle, pour gasoline all over them, and then light a bunch of firecrackers in the middle") (it is a stressful job) asked if I wanted to drive to Anchorage tomorrow at 10am.
"Umm..." I said. I work tonight 10pm to 8am. I work tomorrow night 10pm to 8am. If I really needed something from Anchorage I'd do it, but otherwise... "No, I don't think so. Sorry, I have to sleep."
"That's cool," he said. "Also, you'd have to pull the trailer behind the van." I guess for the passengers' luggage.
My last Anchorage run was a fun adventure of cultural stereotypes that turned out to be true, sandwiches that turned out to be garbage, me pretending to talk to Laura Ingalls Wilder while pretending Joni Mitchell was in the passenger's seat pretending to talk to Amelia Earhart.
But if I'd said yes to tomorrow's I feel like there would have been too many foreboding elements - it's supposed to rain, I'd be running on zero sleep, I just got over a horrible flu, I'd be pulling a trailer, and who knows whether any of the passengers would Canada me through it. Sorry. I know I would've had good stories for you, had I said yes and survived it.
---
In other news, I have two new neighbors, who are boys from Utah who look like they're twelve. They listen to emo music. All the time. Really loud. And sing along. All the time. Passionately.
Do you know what emo music is? It's inanely repetitive chord structures behind whiny-voiced guys yell-singing about their emotions, who all have this weird pronunciation with their vowels where they change "y" sounds into "oi" sounds. So like, "goodbye" would be yelled through the nose as if on the verge of tears and pronounced, "good-boiiiy". I don't know if that explains it. You are probably already familiar with this genre of music, dear reader. Somehow I've escaped it til now. Maybe because my neighbors back home blast either hip hop, R&B, or mariachis.
Hmm. How is it possible that when my neighbors back home blast those genres of music, I am annoyed the way you would expect a white woman who does not listen to those genres to be annoyed; HOWEVER, when I am in Whiteyville, USA and my neighbors blast emo music, I am as annoyed as a Mexican woman who listens exclusively to hip hop, R&B, and mariachis? I am the worst of both worlds. In this sense.
When I was a teenager back home I would sometimes do the music-war thing where I'd crank up K-Earth 101 (bubblegum pop oldies station) in response to the wall-thuddingly loud basslines of my neighbors' hip hop music. Which gets the point across in a non-confrontational way. Bubblegum pop oldies is one of the least aggressive genres of music. The point it gets across is, "I find your music as annoying as you find this music, so let's not do this."
However I don't know what the opposite of emo music is. Metal, or something? I don't like metal either. In response all I do is turn my music on at a normal volume, which drowns their music out. Because ultimately what I care about is that there be peace in Southcentral.
Just one more thought though: the other day one of the lyrics of one of their stupid emo songs was, "I want a girl who doesn't leave the house when I'm away." I snarled at our common wall in response.
"Umm..." I said. I work tonight 10pm to 8am. I work tomorrow night 10pm to 8am. If I really needed something from Anchorage I'd do it, but otherwise... "No, I don't think so. Sorry, I have to sleep."
"That's cool," he said. "Also, you'd have to pull the trailer behind the van." I guess for the passengers' luggage.
My last Anchorage run was a fun adventure of cultural stereotypes that turned out to be true, sandwiches that turned out to be garbage, me pretending to talk to Laura Ingalls Wilder while pretending Joni Mitchell was in the passenger's seat pretending to talk to Amelia Earhart.
But if I'd said yes to tomorrow's I feel like there would have been too many foreboding elements - it's supposed to rain, I'd be running on zero sleep, I just got over a horrible flu, I'd be pulling a trailer, and who knows whether any of the passengers would Canada me through it. Sorry. I know I would've had good stories for you, had I said yes and survived it.
---
In other news, I have two new neighbors, who are boys from Utah who look like they're twelve. They listen to emo music. All the time. Really loud. And sing along. All the time. Passionately.
Do you know what emo music is? It's inanely repetitive chord structures behind whiny-voiced guys yell-singing about their emotions, who all have this weird pronunciation with their vowels where they change "y" sounds into "oi" sounds. So like, "goodbye" would be yelled through the nose as if on the verge of tears and pronounced, "good-boiiiy". I don't know if that explains it. You are probably already familiar with this genre of music, dear reader. Somehow I've escaped it til now. Maybe because my neighbors back home blast either hip hop, R&B, or mariachis.
Hmm. How is it possible that when my neighbors back home blast those genres of music, I am annoyed the way you would expect a white woman who does not listen to those genres to be annoyed; HOWEVER, when I am in Whiteyville, USA and my neighbors blast emo music, I am as annoyed as a Mexican woman who listens exclusively to hip hop, R&B, and mariachis? I am the worst of both worlds. In this sense.
When I was a teenager back home I would sometimes do the music-war thing where I'd crank up K-Earth 101 (bubblegum pop oldies station) in response to the wall-thuddingly loud basslines of my neighbors' hip hop music. Which gets the point across in a non-confrontational way. Bubblegum pop oldies is one of the least aggressive genres of music. The point it gets across is, "I find your music as annoying as you find this music, so let's not do this."
However I don't know what the opposite of emo music is. Metal, or something? I don't like metal either. In response all I do is turn my music on at a normal volume, which drowns their music out. Because ultimately what I care about is that there be peace in Southcentral.
Just one more thought though: the other day one of the lyrics of one of their stupid emo songs was, "I want a girl who doesn't leave the house when I'm away." I snarled at our common wall in response.
Monday, June 11
The State Dog
The worst is when I am at work by myself and idly scratching the two mosquito bites on the left side of my scalp when all of a sudden I look over and see the mosquito flying near my head, and I know it's THE mosquito because when I kill it, bright red, fresh blood spurts out of its tiny smashed body. And I stare at it, because it's my blood.
Sunday, June 10
This Here Gun Says I'll Take My Love to Town If I Want (or, How to Make Me Giggle)
The security guard walked through the lobby last night swinging his radio and singing, "Janie's got a gun," (Aerosmith) except with my name instead of Janie.
He walked through the lobby again this morning and sang, "Janie, don't take your love to town," (Bon Jovi) except with my name instead of Janie.
He walked through the lobby again this morning and sang, "Janie, don't take your love to town," (Bon Jovi) except with my name instead of Janie.
Baby Cats
I have just met the new shuttle driver, and she is telling me about her son who also works at the lodge, and his fiancee Jolene, and their new baby. The son and his fiancee are in their early 20s. I ask the shuttle driver how they met.
"Well it's a funny story cause Jolene was actually married to someone else when they first met," she begins. I immediately switch from listening out of politeness to listening out of genuine interest. "Her husband now, he worked on the Slope, so he'd be gone weeks at a time. And then when he was home he didn't do nothing with her, and Jolene's real active, she likes to go out and do stuff. So he appointed Forrest as her substitute husband, because he was willin to go out and do stuff with her. Sure enough, one thing led to another..."
"And they fell in love," I say. That, right there, is why people tell me shit. I didn't finish her sentence, "And they started having unprotected sex," or "And she started cheating on him." I (outwardly) assume love.
"That's right," she says, nodding. "But they didn't get together til after she and her husband broke up."
I nod, like, of course.
"And the thing is, she asked him to get her a dog. She woulda been happy with a dog to take her on walks. Jolene loves walks. But her husband just kept bringing home all these baby cats."
I shake my head in dismay. Baby cats? For Jolene?
"What's Jolene gonna do with a buncha baby cats? They can't take her on any walks. She needed a dog."
I nod again.
---
Thoughts:
1. I really wish more strangers would tell me intimate gossip.
2. If you name your child Jolene she will become involved with adultery.
3. As someone who needs more Alone Time in a relationship than the average person, and who adores baby cats, I think I should try to track down Jolene's first husband and see if we can give it a go. Added bonus: most guys who work on the Slope make around $40/hour.
4. I really want to meet Jolene. Her mother-in-law painted such a vivid picture of her. Fingers crossed I run into her someday, and fingers crossed she's not a self-googler (although I feel like if you are willing to tell strangers intimate gossip you can't get mad when they put it on the internet, so if she should be mad at anyone for this blog post it's her mother-in-law).
"Well it's a funny story cause Jolene was actually married to someone else when they first met," she begins. I immediately switch from listening out of politeness to listening out of genuine interest. "Her husband now, he worked on the Slope, so he'd be gone weeks at a time. And then when he was home he didn't do nothing with her, and Jolene's real active, she likes to go out and do stuff. So he appointed Forrest as her substitute husband, because he was willin to go out and do stuff with her. Sure enough, one thing led to another..."
"And they fell in love," I say. That, right there, is why people tell me shit. I didn't finish her sentence, "And they started having unprotected sex," or "And she started cheating on him." I (outwardly) assume love.
"That's right," she says, nodding. "But they didn't get together til after she and her husband broke up."
I nod, like, of course.
"And the thing is, she asked him to get her a dog. She woulda been happy with a dog to take her on walks. Jolene loves walks. But her husband just kept bringing home all these baby cats."
I shake my head in dismay. Baby cats? For Jolene?
"What's Jolene gonna do with a buncha baby cats? They can't take her on any walks. She needed a dog."
I nod again.
---
Thoughts:
1. I really wish more strangers would tell me intimate gossip.
2. If you name your child Jolene she will become involved with adultery.
3. As someone who needs more Alone Time in a relationship than the average person, and who adores baby cats, I think I should try to track down Jolene's first husband and see if we can give it a go. Added bonus: most guys who work on the Slope make around $40/hour.
4. I really want to meet Jolene. Her mother-in-law painted such a vivid picture of her. Fingers crossed I run into her someday, and fingers crossed she's not a self-googler (although I feel like if you are willing to tell strangers intimate gossip you can't get mad when they put it on the internet, so if she should be mad at anyone for this blog post it's her mother-in-law).
Nacho Cheesier
I drove five guys to Anchorage on Wednesday.
But let's back up a minute: on Tuesday I drove the taxi from 4pm to 4am. Then I slept from 5am to 10am Wednesday morning. Then I drove the taxi back to town where it belongs, and saw the guy who runs it.
"We've got five climbers who want a ride to Anchorage. Three Russians and two Canadians. They need to leave in ten minutes. You'll have to take the 15-passenger van. You want to do it?"
"How much of the fare do I get to keep?"
"A hundred. And whatever they tip you."
My phone was on its last bar of battery power, I hadn't eaten breakfast, and I didn't remember how to get to Anchorage.
"Okay."
But let's back up a minute: on Tuesday I drove the taxi from 4pm to 4am. Then I slept from 5am to 10am Wednesday morning. Then I drove the taxi back to town where it belongs, and saw the guy who runs it.
"We've got five climbers who want a ride to Anchorage. Three Russians and two Canadians. They need to leave in ten minutes. You'll have to take the 15-passenger van. You want to do it?"
"How much of the fare do I get to keep?"
"A hundred. And whatever they tip you."
My phone was on its last bar of battery power, I hadn't eaten breakfast, and I didn't remember how to get to Anchorage.
"Okay."
Friday, June 1
Overheared
[Southern accent]: Naw, don't guh that way! Yull havta hike stairs!
---
Update: that same person just asked me if there is a shuttle to the main lobby... which is up two stories in the elevator (no need to hike stairs!) and down an (admittedly somewhat long) hallway. In the same building. Maybe we should just go ahead and get Segways for all the guests. Then, like the CEO of Segway, they can accidentally ride one off a cliff. Or those durn stairs.
---
Beneath this sweet, helpful exterior... just past that thar veneer... lies what lies beneath all veneers. A filed-down jagged stump-tooth. That is claustrophobic and wants out. That blogs.
---
Update: that same person just asked me if there is a shuttle to the main lobby... which is up two stories in the elevator (no need to hike stairs!) and down an (admittedly somewhat long) hallway. In the same building. Maybe we should just go ahead and get Segways for all the guests. Then, like the CEO of Segway, they can accidentally ride one off a cliff. Or those durn stairs.
---
Beneath this sweet, helpful exterior... just past that thar veneer... lies what lies beneath all veneers. A filed-down jagged stump-tooth. That is claustrophobic and wants out. That blogs.
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