A man at the Teepee is good at pool. We watch him win against someone who's almost as good. No balls left on the table after the game - that's how you know it's an even match. To do a thing of no consequence well - to perfect a skill - like someone who cooks perfect eggs, someone who parallel parks in one fluid motion - to learn to do something well for the pleasure of doing it.
We watch him win and at the start of the next match he says,"Good luck." He has long hair and an old black t-shirt on. Someone snickers when he says good luck - and suddenly his saying it is conceited, but an earned conceit, but conceited. He pauses in chalking his cue, and says to the people on the bar stools, "I really mean it. I always say that at the beginning of a match."
Showing posts with label Things to Do In Talkeetna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Things to Do In Talkeetna. Show all posts
Friday, June 29
From the drafts folder
From cell phone reviews I read tonight:
"First off, we should all thank Alexander Graham Bell for inventing the telephone in 1876."
"I have the red version and my soul mate has the blue one."
"Please help, I washed my phone in the dishwasher when I was very drunk and now it won't turn on!"
---
At the park today a man had three little Toto dogs named Leia, Ewok and Chewbacca. They sprinted, crossing each other's paths like birds do, like they have a radar sense that prevents collision. Their owner kept saying their names and they kept ignoring him, and I found it comforting that the dogs have never seen those movies, that they will never understand their names, that they're immune to culture. Like maybe there are significances, meanings, that I will never understand but that nonetheless exist. Only instead of Star Wars movies I hope they're spiritual, and I hope when those dogs die they'll go to a heaven where they watch the series of films and understand them as spiritual allegories for what happened to them during their lives.
"First off, we should all thank Alexander Graham Bell for inventing the telephone in 1876."
"I have the red version and my soul mate has the blue one."
"Please help, I washed my phone in the dishwasher when I was very drunk and now it won't turn on!"
---
At the park today a man had three little Toto dogs named Leia, Ewok and Chewbacca. They sprinted, crossing each other's paths like birds do, like they have a radar sense that prevents collision. Their owner kept saying their names and they kept ignoring him, and I found it comforting that the dogs have never seen those movies, that they will never understand their names, that they're immune to culture. Like maybe there are significances, meanings, that I will never understand but that nonetheless exist. Only instead of Star Wars movies I hope they're spiritual, and I hope when those dogs die they'll go to a heaven where they watch the series of films and understand them as spiritual allegories for what happened to them during their lives.
From the drafts folder
The village is shacky. There is a tanning bed at the Tee Pee. I hear it is from the 70s. I hear customers have to clean it themselves. The Tee Pee is so named because it is an A-frame structure. It is long and narrow, and its only window is the door on one of the narrow walls - the long walls are windowless. It is dark inside for that reason. There are blacklights all around the bar. A dollar bill that has been through a wash cycle will glow. Other bills do not. A person who does their laundry incorrectly - throws the clothes in, then dumps the liquid detergent in, then fills the machine with water and turns it on - will have glowing streaks on their clothes where the detergent has stained it. A white bra beneath a dark cotton shirt will glow, in the holes between the weave of the cotton.
The bartender Simon does not like Bulgarians or drunk people. He claims to understand Bulgarian. He says Bulgarian women speak to each other incessantly about all of us, in a cruel manner. He says the women connive to catch a foolish man who will give them money to send home. He says the women brag about how proud their mothers are of them, when they have found such a man.
I believe some of them speak of us cruelly.
He's quick with a joke or a light of your smoke and there's noplace that he'd rather be. He empties ashtrays with regularity. He left Talkeetna for awhile but then came back. He controts his face sometimes in a mock-exaggerated-thoughtful expression. "Well now, let's see..." He looks upward, twists his mouth, widens his eyes comically. His facial expressions are a parody but I don't know why. He is nice and self-effacing.
The pool table means there is something to watch. There are two televisions as well, with closed captioning, but mostly people ignore them. Locals go to the Fairview in the afternoons; to the West Rib or the Latitude in the evenings. Perennials go to the Tee Pee. People passing through go to the Fairview in the evening.
I don't get hit on at the Tee Pee. (Getting hit on at the Fairview: "You look good." "Thanks." "You look real good.") I am there to watch people play pool and to have conversations with people I already know. To nod to people I recognize but have never really talked to. Around the pool table, against the walls, there are small cafe tables, elevated to the height of bar stools. It is nice to sit there and stare in the direction of the pool table, nursing a drink, holding a cigarette, and not feel like a social failure because you've got nothing to say.
There's a winding staircase I haven't had the balls to ascend. It's right near the door. There's a hallway where the pool cues are kept and beyond the hallway a room where I hear people used to play poker tournaments. I don't know where the tanning bed is kept. Officially the Tee Pee is a motel as well. The Fairview is too, and the Latitude. The West Rib is not a motel but it is the same structure as Nagleys, the general store. You can buy a ziplock bag of tampons at Nagleys. A postcard, a dusty box of cereal, some vegetables pre-cut in tupperware containers. Nagleys has a separate room full of alcohol. Barefoot wine costs more than ten dollars a bottle. There are local brews in glass bottles and an array of cheap beer in aluminum cans. The usual suspects: Natural Light, Miller High Life. And some ones I hadn't seen before Alaska - Keystone.
It is against the rules to say curse words in the Tee Pee, although the bartender will pretend not to hear you say them until you get on his nerves. Really the rule is a barometer, allows Simon to throw people out when they become too loudly drunk, too belligerent. If the rule is "once you are drunk enough to get on my nerves you will be kicked out," that is easy to argue with. But saying a curse word - that is an objective thing. Either you have said it or you haven't.
There is a white board where people write their names if they want to play winner. There is a Winter Pool Tournament list that has the names of men who were here last winter, who won games.
There is a half-assed Hawaiin theme at the Tee Pee.
The bartender Simon does not like Bulgarians or drunk people. He claims to understand Bulgarian. He says Bulgarian women speak to each other incessantly about all of us, in a cruel manner. He says the women connive to catch a foolish man who will give them money to send home. He says the women brag about how proud their mothers are of them, when they have found such a man.
I believe some of them speak of us cruelly.
He's quick with a joke or a light of your smoke and there's noplace that he'd rather be. He empties ashtrays with regularity. He left Talkeetna for awhile but then came back. He controts his face sometimes in a mock-exaggerated-thoughtful expression. "Well now, let's see..." He looks upward, twists his mouth, widens his eyes comically. His facial expressions are a parody but I don't know why. He is nice and self-effacing.
The pool table means there is something to watch. There are two televisions as well, with closed captioning, but mostly people ignore them. Locals go to the Fairview in the afternoons; to the West Rib or the Latitude in the evenings. Perennials go to the Tee Pee. People passing through go to the Fairview in the evening.
I don't get hit on at the Tee Pee. (Getting hit on at the Fairview: "You look good." "Thanks." "You look real good.") I am there to watch people play pool and to have conversations with people I already know. To nod to people I recognize but have never really talked to. Around the pool table, against the walls, there are small cafe tables, elevated to the height of bar stools. It is nice to sit there and stare in the direction of the pool table, nursing a drink, holding a cigarette, and not feel like a social failure because you've got nothing to say.
There's a winding staircase I haven't had the balls to ascend. It's right near the door. There's a hallway where the pool cues are kept and beyond the hallway a room where I hear people used to play poker tournaments. I don't know where the tanning bed is kept. Officially the Tee Pee is a motel as well. The Fairview is too, and the Latitude. The West Rib is not a motel but it is the same structure as Nagleys, the general store. You can buy a ziplock bag of tampons at Nagleys. A postcard, a dusty box of cereal, some vegetables pre-cut in tupperware containers. Nagleys has a separate room full of alcohol. Barefoot wine costs more than ten dollars a bottle. There are local brews in glass bottles and an array of cheap beer in aluminum cans. The usual suspects: Natural Light, Miller High Life. And some ones I hadn't seen before Alaska - Keystone.
It is against the rules to say curse words in the Tee Pee, although the bartender will pretend not to hear you say them until you get on his nerves. Really the rule is a barometer, allows Simon to throw people out when they become too loudly drunk, too belligerent. If the rule is "once you are drunk enough to get on my nerves you will be kicked out," that is easy to argue with. But saying a curse word - that is an objective thing. Either you have said it or you haven't.
There is a white board where people write their names if they want to play winner. There is a Winter Pool Tournament list that has the names of men who were here last winter, who won games.
There is a half-assed Hawaiin theme at the Tee Pee.
Thursday, September 20
Her Words
Monday, September 17
Ordinance
In Seward there's a law that there must be an equal or greater ratio of churches to bars.
There's a lot of churches there.
There's a lot of churches there.
To be known
At the Fairview bar I see a waiter from the Roadhouse. He points at me and yells, "Mushroom swiss quiche with bacon bits on top!"
We arrive at Mountain High Pizza Pie right as it opens, so the cook takes our order for two waters to start. He's getting the waters when the waitress walks by and says, "She doesn't like ice in her water." He dumps out the ice.
We arrive at Mountain High Pizza Pie right as it opens, so the cook takes our order for two waters to start. He's getting the waters when the waitress walks by and says, "She doesn't like ice in her water." He dumps out the ice.
Thursday, September 13
Too Bad Montana Gave That Kid Wine
The rooms in the employee housing up the hill have TVs in them. The channels are limited. It's not a normal cable package, it's a few chosen ones. A&E, HGTV, Fox News, HBO Family. The Alaska Channel, which is actually long advertisements for Alaska properties also owned by the corporation that owns the lodge.
There's an employee photo contest every summer, and this year someone put the photos entered on one of the static channels, along with a radio station that plays 70s songs. My friend and I watched it tonight and came up with ways each photo illustrated whatever lyrics were playing when it was shown. Like they were intentional music videos. ("I don't care what you say anymore this is my life;" a picture of a moose staring at the camera and not giving a shit.)
When he mentioned that the channel used to be just static, I was like "We could have had a public access show all summer." Wouldn't that have been fun? A side project for the restless employees, so they'd do something other than stack up three heavy wooden picnic tables and climb onto the roof, for instance. (I might have thought that idea up and encouraged others to do it, but let the record show I myself did not climb up onto the roof.) (Troublemaker.)
We imagined commandeering the channel somehow, wearing masks and holding up poster boards with a conversation written on them. It would have been like that season of the Real World where they had a public access show. Too bad neither of us plans to come back next year.
There's an employee photo contest every summer, and this year someone put the photos entered on one of the static channels, along with a radio station that plays 70s songs. My friend and I watched it tonight and came up with ways each photo illustrated whatever lyrics were playing when it was shown. Like they were intentional music videos. ("I don't care what you say anymore this is my life;" a picture of a moose staring at the camera and not giving a shit.)
When he mentioned that the channel used to be just static, I was like "We could have had a public access show all summer." Wouldn't that have been fun? A side project for the restless employees, so they'd do something other than stack up three heavy wooden picnic tables and climb onto the roof, for instance. (I might have thought that idea up and encouraged others to do it, but let the record show I myself did not climb up onto the roof.) (Troublemaker.)
We imagined commandeering the channel somehow, wearing masks and holding up poster boards with a conversation written on them. It would have been like that season of the Real World where they had a public access show. Too bad neither of us plans to come back next year.
Monday, August 27
Monday, August 20
Who came up with the name Walkie Talkie? Should I start calling my laptop Sittie Typie?
A fun thing to do is look at the security guard across the lobby, and then use the walkie talkie to tell him something, and when he just raises his voice slightly to answer me I pretend like I can't hear him unless he uses the walkie talkie too.
I woke up feeling like a million bad-breathed bucks.
I decided to eat three cloves of raw garlic before taking a nap today.
Secret Room Sects
There's a secret room in the hotel. If you push on a wooden panel in the wall in one of the lobbies, it opens into a small room, maybe more of a closet, that's for some reason very hot. Actually the reason it's very hot in there is that it's a portal to hell.
Who loves secret rooms? I love secret rooms. My best friend in elementary school lived in a house with a secret room for awhile. You'd open the hall closet and push past all the jackets to an alcove beneath the stairs. When her brothers ran up and down them it sounded like thunder.
---
Someone left a book titled The (New, Illustrated) Great Controversy in the lobby. It's written by Ellen G. White and is the basis of the 7th Day Adventist sect of Christianity. It's kind of interesting that this book and the book that is the basis of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, were both written by women. Should I write fanfiction of Ellen G. White and Mary Baker Eddy as friends? lovers? enemies? Spies who frequent secret rooms in hotel lobbies and coat closets?
Let's see: Mary Baker Eddy was born in New Hampshire in 1821. Ellen G. White was born in 1827, in Maine. That would totally work. Stay tuned!*
---
*I will never actually write this.
Who loves secret rooms? I love secret rooms. My best friend in elementary school lived in a house with a secret room for awhile. You'd open the hall closet and push past all the jackets to an alcove beneath the stairs. When her brothers ran up and down them it sounded like thunder.
---
Someone left a book titled The (New, Illustrated) Great Controversy in the lobby. It's written by Ellen G. White and is the basis of the 7th Day Adventist sect of Christianity. It's kind of interesting that this book and the book that is the basis of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, were both written by women. Should I write fanfiction of Ellen G. White and Mary Baker Eddy as friends? lovers? enemies? Spies who frequent secret rooms in hotel lobbies and coat closets?
Let's see: Mary Baker Eddy was born in New Hampshire in 1821. Ellen G. White was born in 1827, in Maine. That would totally work. Stay tuned!*
---
*I will never actually write this.
Sunday, July 8
My 4 or 5 Trees
Here are the ([haltingly] spoken word) lyrics of Rachel's song "4 or 5 Trees" on Systems/Layers.
I was thinking about it again the other day.
I'm not sure of...
I'm not sure of...
I can't remember the name.
It was down the street from my apartment.
It was down the street from my apartment.
I used to go down there pretty often...
Once a month or so.
It was set back from the street.
Once a month or so.
It was set back from the street.
It had a courtyard garden...
a courtyard garden with a winding path,
a courtyard garden with a winding path,
a stone gazebo,
and four or five trees.
It had beautiful tall windows and red stone walls.
I never went inside.
It was clear to me that...
It had beautiful tall windows and red stone walls.
I never went inside.
It was clear to me that...
I should keep it as it was in my imagination.
The most peaceful place.
The most peaceful place.
I haven't been inside Things and Dreams, a gift shop in Talkeetna, because it's clear to me that I should keep it as it is in my imagination. A gypsy fortune teller's incensey lair with scarves and veils nailed loosely to the walls. There's a shelf of sinister-looking snow globes, and a shelf of unlabeled amber-colored glass tincture bottles. The light inside is dim. The gypsy fortune teller has long grey wavy hair, red lips and an unreadable facial expression. She tells my fortune with a pack of regular playing cards. As the conversation moves she interprets my dreams and things.
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."
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.
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
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).
Tuesday, May 29
Things I Need From Civilization
I asked someone who is going to Wasilla this week to buy me three things from the Wal-Mart there.
1. Blank cd's. The other week I drove a nice couple who were staying at the lodge to Denali, three hours north. It was the first time I had ever been north of Talkeetna. I made a hundred dollars.
Their accent was not familiar to me, so I asked where they were traveling from. "We start in Quebec," the wife said. She pronounced it, "Kee-bec." Huh, I thought. I've been pronouncing it wrong. We tried to talk about the weather where I am from versus the weather where they are from but were thwarted by the fahrenheit/celsius conversion. Then we tried to talk about gas prices where I am from versus gas prices in Alaska versus gas prices where they are from, but were stymied by gallon/litre converson. The car fell silent and I thought, I wonder if the real reason the US refuses to convert to the metric system is so small talk with foreigners will be difficult and we will remain in an ignorant bubble.
Anyway, it turned out they were from Brazil and had started their vacation in Quebec. We all had a good laugh when I explained I thought they were from Quebec. This was a preposterous assumption to them, probably because (from what I hear) Brazil is one of the best countries.
On the drive home alone I could not get any radio stations to come in and I did not have any cd's with me. I let the radio search continuously for a clear station and tuned out the static. The whole drive back, the only song that came in was "Cheap Sunglasses" by ZZ Top. I realized how good of a song it is. Then a bird smacked into my windshield and probably died.
I could go online and buy a tape-to-iPod converter thing... like that fake cassette you plug into your iPod to trick the car into thinking your iPod is a tape... but I like the idea of making cd's more. The challenge of picking songs I will not immediately get sick of. Trying to balance upbeat songs with slow songs. Trying to put some ones everyone knows on the cd's so that when I drive the taxi in town, my drunk friends will ask me to turn it up.
2. Bug spray. Did you know if you get too many mosquito bites it turns into leprosy? Little-known fact. I can't believe I forgot to pack bug spray after last summer. Not much else to say about this one. Except that I am really sick of the joke where people call mosquitos the state bird of Alaska. I might start saying that mosquitos are the state flower. Or the state dog. Each state should have a dog. Why not? I should try to start that.
3. Glue. To make these. I already have watercolors, and cardstock in the form of discarded hotel key envelopes. I've got big plans to turn the flowers into a crown and wear it on Solstice. I haven't yet tried to make them because I am still enjoying the fantasy stage of the project, where it is really fun to do and turns out beautifully.
1. Blank cd's. The other week I drove a nice couple who were staying at the lodge to Denali, three hours north. It was the first time I had ever been north of Talkeetna. I made a hundred dollars.
Their accent was not familiar to me, so I asked where they were traveling from. "We start in Quebec," the wife said. She pronounced it, "Kee-bec." Huh, I thought. I've been pronouncing it wrong. We tried to talk about the weather where I am from versus the weather where they are from but were thwarted by the fahrenheit/celsius conversion. Then we tried to talk about gas prices where I am from versus gas prices in Alaska versus gas prices where they are from, but were stymied by gallon/litre converson. The car fell silent and I thought, I wonder if the real reason the US refuses to convert to the metric system is so small talk with foreigners will be difficult and we will remain in an ignorant bubble.
Anyway, it turned out they were from Brazil and had started their vacation in Quebec. We all had a good laugh when I explained I thought they were from Quebec. This was a preposterous assumption to them, probably because (from what I hear) Brazil is one of the best countries.
On the drive home alone I could not get any radio stations to come in and I did not have any cd's with me. I let the radio search continuously for a clear station and tuned out the static. The whole drive back, the only song that came in was "Cheap Sunglasses" by ZZ Top. I realized how good of a song it is. Then a bird smacked into my windshield and probably died.
I could go online and buy a tape-to-iPod converter thing... like that fake cassette you plug into your iPod to trick the car into thinking your iPod is a tape... but I like the idea of making cd's more. The challenge of picking songs I will not immediately get sick of. Trying to balance upbeat songs with slow songs. Trying to put some ones everyone knows on the cd's so that when I drive the taxi in town, my drunk friends will ask me to turn it up.
2. Bug spray. Did you know if you get too many mosquito bites it turns into leprosy? Little-known fact. I can't believe I forgot to pack bug spray after last summer. Not much else to say about this one. Except that I am really sick of the joke where people call mosquitos the state bird of Alaska. I might start saying that mosquitos are the state flower. Or the state dog. Each state should have a dog. Why not? I should try to start that.
3. Glue. To make these. I already have watercolors, and cardstock in the form of discarded hotel key envelopes. I've got big plans to turn the flowers into a crown and wear it on Solstice. I haven't yet tried to make them because I am still enjoying the fantasy stage of the project, where it is really fun to do and turns out beautifully.
Saturday, May 12
3 Things
1. I found a t-shirt at the Free Box that has the lyrics to Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me" printed on the front of it.
2. I came up with a new mixed drink called High-Heeled Boots On the Rocks. At the river, there is nowhere to walk but on rocks, and it is hard not to stumble.
3. I ate nothing but carrots and Cinnamon Life for a few days because I had no other food, no ride to Cubby's, and the food at Nagley's is outrageously expensive.
Saturday, September 17
Friday, August 19
Basketball Fishing
I cast a fishing rod for the first time today. At dusk, on a balcony, in the rain. Aimed for the basketball hoop across the gravel road. I'd been sitting there for awhile, near the two guys who invented Basketball-Fishing, reading a book of poems my friend sent me, glancing up every time I heard the whir of the line. Then finally one of them made it. We all laughed, delighted. Then finally I said, "All right, let me try." I didn't make it into the hoop but I got damn close.
I gave the fishing pole back and watched as one of them got the hook stuck in the wooden beam above our heads. He bit it, broke it, retied it, and was about to cast again when an old man who works in maintenance, whose room we were in front of, opened his door and came outside, also holding a fishing pole.
The two guys scattered. One shut the music off and disappeared into his room, another took the fishing pole downstairs to the common room. Zoom, gone. I sat there with my poetry book wondering if the old man had gotten them in trouble for playing this game before. But the old man - he held a fishing pole too. I watched him cast it off the balcony same as we'd been doing, only he didn't cast it across the road, but off to one side. He looked over his shoulder at me. "Gotta make sure this is working right."
"You should aim for the basketball hoop," I offered. He ignored me.
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