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.

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 can't remember the name.
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.

It had a courtyard garden...
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...

I should keep it as it was in my imagination.
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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

Moonlighting

Snide decal

In Which I Imagine Terrorizing Foreigners for Not Liking Cat Power

Me: What are you listening to?
Janitor: Is Bulgarian pop.
Me: Can I listen?
Janitor: You will not like it.
Me: Maybe I will.

I look down at my iPod which is on shuffle and skip ahead til I find a song representative of my music, Cat Power covering Bob Dylan's "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again".  I put my earbud in his ear and put his earbud in my ear.

Day

The library here is so small they keep back issues of National Geographic, Mother Earth, Alaska, in the bathroom.  The bathroom is spotless.  I am charmed.

I'm sharing a kitchen with a lot of foreigners who are not Mexican.  My experience with foreigners who are not Mexican is limited.  When I awake at 1pm (remember, I'm Night Audit, so this isn't laziness but necessity), it seems someone is always preparing stewing beef in a baking pan with chunks of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, while grilling onions.  It puts me off my coffee and oatmeal.  If it were real butter...?  If Fabio didn't star in those commercials...?  If it was a better cut of meat...? maybe my stomach wouldn't turn.

On the way back from town I'm in the shuttle with some tourists from England.  The husband tells me the origin of the word posh: In the old days, on boats to India, the preferred way to travel was port on the way there, starboard home.  Because of the view, or the sun, or both.  Only the richest people in England travelled this way: Port Out, Starboard Home.  POSH.

I walk to the end of town, to the river, and sit on some rocks.  Birds fly around low, little delicate chirps, twitters.  I read once that birds chirp for only two reasons: to announce a food source, or to advertise willingness to mate.  I didn't like that.  It doesn't allow for the purely ornamental.

Once I asked my mom what would grow if you planted birdseed in the ground, and she answered immediately, "Little birds."

I stare at the water.  It's a deep, rich grey, a color itself, not the absence of it.  Black, white; hell, heaven; God, not-God... this grey is the wide, rich boundary between absolutes.  A rock that ripples.

In my head, Van Morrison sings, "Oh the water - oh oh the water - oh the water..."  I have my iPod in my pocket, could listen to the song now if I wanted to, but I don't.  It would be too loud and exact.  The Van Morrison in my head is the perfect volume and clarity, sun filtered through grey clouds.

I walk slow, back home, kicking my feet against the insides of my ankles, which are mosquito bitten.

Walking to the River

I have gotten conflicting reports about swimming in the river at the end of town.  One person told me "It's cold enough to KILL YOU" and another person said, "If it gets into the 90s the sun will warm the water enough for swimming!" 

I guess those two statements don't conflict in fact, only in spirit.  I dipped my fingers in and it was cold enough that I was not tempted to change into my 1950s style red bathing suit, for a swim, even though it is a really cute bathing suit.  Another fun thing to do with a river though, besides swim in it, is stare at it while sitting on a sun-bleached log.  And watch birds dive-bomb fish.

Tiny triumphs of nature

Caterpillar tree

Birches

The Little Susitna River.  PJ Harvey lyric: "White sun scattered all over the sea"

Big chunk of leftover snow at the river

Rocks, sun, riverbed

Also, I moved.  I now live in a room by myself instead of a room with three other women, in an apartment with SEVEN OTHER WOMEN.  Yeah.  The night before last someone's snoring woke me up at 3am, and it sounded like she was gargling jet skis and ducks.  I know who it was, and she is very sweet, and I know that people can't help it if they snore. 

Instead of throwing a stuffed animal at her (which was my strategy with Jessica when we were kids - she'd wake up with a start and look over at me; I'd be lying there, eyes closed; she'd roll over out of the snoring position and fall back asleep) - which I actually might have, but I didn't bring any with me, they're all in the back windshield of my car, looking trapped and faded, so that people will stare at me on the freeway and wonder how my mind works - just kidding, haha, - are you even following this sentence anymore? - so yeah, INSTEAD OF throwing a stuffed animal at her, I got up and put earplugs in.  What I failed to anticipate is that I would not hear my alarm at 6:20am with earplugs in.  Ha.

I woke up to a scrambling noise and saw the arm of the girl in the bunk above me reaching down to the dresser, pushing buttons on my alarm clock at random.  I think I said "Oh shoot," except actually the other word, and turned it off.  I looked at my watch (instead of at the alarm clock) (for some reason) and realized it had been on for twenty minutes.  TWO ZERO.  Ha ha.  Sorry, guys!

I think part of the reason no one threw anything at me in all that time is that I have an iHome alarm clock that plays my iPod, and I had it set to play the album "Systems/Layers" by Rachel's, this classical band.  Better than beeping.  Although when I woke up it was playing the song "even/odd," which is the most frantic song on the album.  That is maybe why the girl in the top bunk (NOT the snorer, note) finally reached down to turn it off.

Here is the song, in case you want to close your eyes and pretend you are my roommate:

Uh, so yeah.  The snoring/alarm clock incident was the only one I had with them before moving out today.  They are all nice, and normal, and mature enough to share a space with a lot of people.  There is a girl who tends to be very anxious about when everybody plans to shower in the morning, and wants to know exactly what time people are going to do it.  For some reason (and I think this is unusual) everyone else is very casual, very "Whatever, we'll all shower, it'll be fine" about it.   Last night I told her, when asked what time I planned to shower in the morning, "I don't have to be at work til noon."  

"So okay, what time?" she persisted.  

"Once at seven,  and then again at eight.  I take two showers every morning, an hour apart, or else I don't feel clean."  I said this very seriously and she believed me and started trying to plan around me and I laughed maniacally and said Just kidding, I'm showering tonight.  

So maybe there would have been more incidents.  If I'd kept living there. Because I can't always stop myself from being hilarious.

But yeah.  I am out of there and in my own room because I am going to work two graveyard shifts a week at the Front Desk.  My bosses were concerned, initially: "Will you be able to stay awake?  Will you be okay not talking to anyone for eight hours?"  Oh!  Staying up all night and not talking to people are two of my best talents.  That's why I was asked not to enter the Miss America pageant.

My room is kind of huge.  It has a mini fridge, two twin beds, two closets, a good view.  I will be sharing a communal bathroom and kitchen now - the HR woman told me the two women's showers and two women's toilets downstairs in the common area are shared among 10 women.  That's fewer women-per-facility than before; however, I have to walk outside and downstairs to get to the bathroom.  But whatevs.  I have a little kingdom of silence for the next four months, in Alaska.