Stories and Cigarettes

Gratitude for November
I want to look at the world in terms of abstract cerebral paintings again. Think of the roads as wet, misty ribbons laid on thick green loam under a humungous sky. I want to walk the train tracks and think deeply about the way I look at the universe, and the way I feel as a resident of it.
I remember when these things were malleable - and I always will be less than I once was and that's alright. But I can still make my eyes wide. I can still see sex as a sacrement and a ritual, and a spell and a prayer. I can still be amazed by the smallest things, and I can still be easily amused.
I could look puzzled and content to say, "I wonder where I'll float next?" And I will. But I can also move the puzzle pieces and follow the scent. I can still look sideways.
I'm still pretty sure there's a missing piece that I probably just have to wait for, but that's frustrating and I'd rather find some way to work. Wherever the puzzle piece is, whatever or whoever it is, had better be pretty awesome. I am not usually content with being saved.
It's the first day of December, and I am viscerally aware of how fortunate I am. Now if I could only remember how to rejoice more appropriately.

Current Mood: pensive

Bless my poor tired traveler's soul
I guess this is probably what I wanted -- a winter of travel, discovery and intregue. But holy hell does it hurt a wallet.
I haven't been able to sit still in Lake Mary, although I love being home. But I'm fidgeting and apparently that can only be remedied by moving moving moving. So here we go.
I got called for an interview in Eugene for an emergency dispatcher job that would start in May. It's the one job I really really want -- the pay is great, benefits, the whole deal, and housing in Eugene is pretty cheap. So I have customarily taken this one necessary trip to Eugene Oregon to a level of complete elaboration. Because I started thinking, well, if I'm going to be in Eugene then I may as well get there a week early, drive to Humboldt to see Eddie, and if I'm going to do that it's only 6 hours to see Ben in San Jose. And of course I book the flight through Portland because it's cheaper (it is) but I forget that I'm still 24 and I have to pay an extra $25 a day because I'm apparently a liability. I called the Enterprise folks and they said there really isn't any way around this, although I forgot to ask if the extra $25 a day would be considered insurance, because it sure as fuck should be.
And then since that's in December and I'm not really in a position to get a job since my family and I are going to Italy in two weeks, I figure - what the hell - I'll drive up to Tallahassee to see some people, and then that's only 6 hours to New Orleans. You'd think I'd learn.
And then I decided that my room needs to be painted on my own dime, since my dad's not going to get around to it. You know it always seems that when you have money in the bank that it's inexhaustible, and by January 1 I'm sure I'll finally realize that is sure as fuck isn't and it's time to rock some serving job again.
But in the meantime, the weather is beautiful, wish you were here.

eighty percent chance
I am lying on the floor of a bedroom that has looked pretty much the same since 2002, but with souveneirs in the drawers of dressers and desks that are a little bit younger. Little inch-round buttons that say things in French, a pint glass from Roslyn, Washington, socks from New Orleans and post cards of pictographs in Canyonlands. My phone is beside me, garbling on speaker the already sub-par hold music of the Colorado Unimployment Benefits Hotline. Let's see if the hold time is eight hours this year. You'd figure that after a year they'd get some reinforcements, but apparently not. I called at 9:55, five minutes before their office even opens in Denver, and already I'm on hold. At least I'm getting it done early this year.

But the important part is this:
From Nashville last week, I turned Bernice south and west down into Birmingham and past Jackson. And the air was thick and made me want to lick my lips, breathing was easier and it rained like falling wet frogs. And I was happy but in the morning I learned that someone had hit the I-20 bridge over the Mississippi River in Vicksburg, and the closest alternative was Natchez. So I went to the ironclad gunboat museum at Vicksburg National Military Park to look at personal affects hauled up out of the river from the wreck of the Cairo. Little glass bottles and iron things, plates and china. The raised wreckage of the Cairo sits neatly under a big plastic circus tent outside. Then I went to Natchez, which looks like Natchitoches somewhat, which is where I was trying to go, but past Alexandria Louisiana the rain got thick and fell in sheets and I couldn't see even at 20 miles per hour.
I fumed in a tourist information center for about half an hour, pacing in a room full of stuffed coyotes and opossums and turkeys set in realistic scrub pine dioramas. I called New Orleans and asked, "You're still a night person right?" then agonised some more.
Finally someone told me the highway to Natchitoches had been closed, horrific accident and all. Alright, and so I go to New Orleans. And New Orleans is heaven.
And from New Orleans to Gainesville to shut down the Salty Dog with someone else named Henry, to play with dogs named Roxanne and tell stories about a guy named Big Pimpin'. And so from Gainesville home, where I realize yes, I need to work out this unemployment racket. And sign up for school at SCC, and most importantly, sit out at New Smyrna with Seanny and a bottle of margarita.
I feel bad that I've left a lot out, and that I've left a lot behind, but if I can work it out I won't be done traveling for good until May.

Nashvillians and Crumbling Headstones
And so the sojourn stretches out from the edge of the Continental Divide, the Hollywood of the Rockies, the land of errant murdered deer and even more dear friends and lovers - It rumbles up the edges of Wolf Creek Pass and mutters to itself about the loss of the map. It tumbles down the edges of the Sangre de Cristos and into a thermal pool filled with three hundred playfull alligators tended by a man named David. He points to one and tells me "That one's Goliath, almost got me - but you didn't now did you fucker?" Hey, want to see a wallaby?
On the front range, tarantulas lumber across two lane country roads and men at gas stations call you ma'am, and it almost helps the homesickness for places you didn't realize were home. You never realize they are until you go, and you promised never to leave a place you wouldn't miss. The Kansas line marks the dimension between sanity and Jesusland.
And it comes down through the planes and into Waffle House territory, and you have a drink with a rogue firefighter and a guy named Cody then you keep going to where the road cuts into Appalachian granite but no you won't get that far this time. Just careen into Nashville with two tomatoe seedlings in decanters, a reservation and a prayer. But anyway there's more than that - new friends, stranger company, good boots and an internet connection. Nine hours a day they talk about saving the cemeteries, shining PowerPoint presentations and laughing silly inside conservator jokes, and just laugh a along half of them don't get it anyway. But a superintendant bought me lunch on his per diem.

It's almost enough that I wouldn't want it to end, and for that reason I go to Louisiana instead of home. But I'll be home soon. Meet me at the Nice n Sleazy, I'll tell you a story.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Raggaeton on Nashvile Public Television

I've got this friend
It's cold and to the west Lone Cone and some other mountain range (La Sals?) are covered in white already. The Platas to the east are still stark and slate but I've got money on they're being snowcapped before I leave here. I leave here a week from today.

I remember saying I was looking forward to missing this place. I know it. I know Cortez and Montezuma, San Juan and La Plata counties well. I know to be surprised if I see a man my age walking through a grocery store in the daytime who is not wearing work pants, a dirty shirt and a baseball cap. I have slept many days in the parking lot of the Cortez Library, napping in my car. I have drink drank drunk with the best drinking partners in Blondie's, Angel's, and even the Brewery. I have slid out on Highway 145 and I have hit two deer. I have tasted so much of what this place has to offer - I have climbed the red sandstone of the desert, I have seen Shiprock jutting out of the horizon from fifty miles away. I have shoveled snow and sunbathed among sagebrush. I have seen bobcats, mountain lions, bears, elk and grouse. I have seen Mug House at sunset.

The park is winding down fairly nicely. Nate the BioTech from last year is returned in a red rental since he creamed his car in Cincinatti on the way out here. Even at a party where most of FarView is drinking meade and having a great time, we both agree it isn't as wonderful as last year, but that's alright. Ali's gone on Saturday, Tina's gone on Tuesday, Tony's already left and so have most of the firemen except Mark. My last dinner party was last night, and I proceeded to donate all of my dishes to the Methodist Thrift Store today.

Bjorn from Gainesville is here. I think he's enjoying himself in the park even though it's pretty isolated. It is an idyllic desert paradise, and there are good people here. Although I got a phone call this morning from Fireman Mark, "Hey I just wanted to let you know, I was just driving back to the dorm and I saw Steve flying down the park road with lights and sirens running, and then Cheri behind him runnin' hot. And I keep driving down the road and I see Bjorn there on the side of the road, and they've got him, hands on the car, frisking him down." I called dispatch, "You want to tell me why my friend is getting frisked on the side of the road?" But they wouldn't tell me, so let's cross our fingers that Bjorn was just given a temporary hassle and nothing bad came of it.

Bjorn and I will be leaving here next Friday, hopefully after the corner light, signal light, and grille for my darling Bernice have come in the mail. I hit a fawn in the Morefield Campground area and it took out the whole passenger side of the front of my car. If they do come in on time, I'll be going to Durango to Volvo John's shop and reattaching these important pieces of my car. Once again, let's cross our fingers. But then, barring this, we will drive eastward, over Wolf Creek Pass and then it'll be all downhill from there - literally. Over the Continental Divide with hopes of making it over to the other side soon. I'm hoping for a winter seasonal job someplace anyplace - even Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in scenic western South Dakota. Otherwise, I'm coming home, to visit Dan i Tallahassee, and make chiles rellenos for Henry in Gainesville, and perhaps even to visit a scumfuck gypsy jazz musician in New Orleans, but likely that won't happen. I think I'll like hanging out in Orlando for a while anyway. I'm hopefully starting a program with the Seminole County Sherriff's office that will last for sixteen weeks, once a week on Wednesday nights, in which I will be trained in firearms, dispatch, criminal prosecution, and a whole slew of other amazing shit. And if I'm going to be there, well, fuck, may as well get my EMT B certification too right?

I'm excited. This is the best and worst part about seasonal work. Your heart breaks to leave the great people you've met. And it really does too. I will cry as I leave the park and I know it. But the best part is where you get to start all over again and work on something else in a complete about-face. And for this I am glad.

Current Music: Better than Ezra, "Coyote"

Oregon Girls and Black Sheep Boys
Years ago it was a silver dollar. Years ago it was round-bodied sea snakes beached on New Smyrna. Years ago the beach was taken hostage by hurricanes and returned only after great monetary cost and pulled from the Atlantic floor. Not too long ago it was thick soupy air and sweat, lust and sugar and booze and a back porch looking out on SW 20th Avenue.

Today it’s high elevation heat, and whipping winds that tear the leaves off non-native plants. Today it’s Brandywine heirloom tomatoes, Detroit dark red beets and tangerine sage. Today I’m picking up a pony keg from Main Street Brewery, sitting in the Spruce Tree Café waiting for the internet to work. Tomorrow intern Ben leaves us for new friends and stranger company. The party probably won’t be too wild, but enough to keep us pacified with living in the world’s most beautiful cage. If only everyone could be so lucky.

I woke up at 5 this morning for nefarious reasons, and prepared some corned beef hash and coffee and chickory. I drove the park road south, also for nefarious reasons, but I didn’t encounter any wildlife.

Sunday night, though, a sojourn was initiated from the great metropolis of Cortez. Conspired at the pool tables and back porch of the Dry Dock Restaurant where Salome waits tables and waits to leave work, Bernice was conscripted to transport myself, Miss Ali, and M’rs Tony, Peter and Jack (affectionately known as Jock, as that’s how he pronounces it). And so we traversed to the equally great metropolis of Rico, where the legendary hot spring flows. Mandatory nakedness, and there are always strangers waiting to be talked to there. The stranger this night was a gentleman named Matthew from Telluride, and we lamented Colorado small-town economics, politics and drug trade. We drank, we smoked, and watched the high clear stars tilt until moonrise, which was almost as light as sunrise. And then we went home.

And then I hit a deer.

It’s true that they really do come from nowhere. The boys were asleep in the back and next thing, they were pitched forward into the front seats (no one was hurt) as I hit the breaks for an elegantly bounding Bambi coming from the left side of the road, and I creamed her on my driver’s side headlight. She was killed instantly, her neck broken clean, and thrown the side of the car as I came to a stop. In the dark road someplace between Dolores and Rico. So we got out to pull her out of the road, Ali in a state of complete excitement hardly paralleled by anybody other than Ali. We ran to Bambi, and Tony yelled, “It’s looking at me!” as he was the first on the scene to see her with her head turned awkwardly, dead as a deer that had just been creamed by a Volvo. And thus the daily dose of absurdity recommended by Mersault and Bernard Mickey Wrangle was dispensed. We pulled her from the road. We drove home.

And so I will be contacting my Progressive representative in Chandler, Arizona, today, regarding the replacement of my headlight and the repair of various dents and scratches thanks to Bambi. And all is well.

One of these mornings, you're gonna rise up singing.

I am in the Spruce Tree Coffee House, not to be confused with plain old Spruce Tree House which is an archeological site in Mesa Verde. This Spruce Tree is almost better because it has wifi and espresso, two things you'd have to go fifty miles to Durango to get if not for Charlie and his Spruce Tree. That and sushi, you'd have to go to Durango for that if not for this place. I have a little box in the cooler of Lox Ness sushi, which is salmon cream cheese capers and spring mix. I'm going to take it up to the park in about an hour, so I can eat it at work. And I am excited.
I'm in town for the eighth trip this weekend it feels. It may even be more. Starting Thursday I drove 600 miles back and forth from Mesa Verde and other places. Mostly Cortez but I also went to Rico which is farther away. This trip is a business trip to the print shop to fax a huge package to Natchitoches, Louisiana (pronounced "nackadesh"), where the a historic park is in need of a museum aid. Let's cross our fingers.
I had some other memorable town trips this weekend. Most notably, Briana and Reeanna came by for a visit on Thursday and Friday, which was the hugest deal of the summer. We had a nice dinner party and then drove to the hot springs in Rico late at night. Nick came too. I think it worked out pretty damn well.
Then Friday night I worked at the Brewery and endured another lucrative weekend of working with truly miserable coworkers. Well, not all, but the few that are miserable people just really make it suck. It didn't help that Saturday I went out with a couple regulars, one of whom is the object of a miserable person's affection. It was a ton of fun -- closing the bars the way you can in Cortez, where you start first at Blondie's, and when Blondie's closes at like 11 or so you walk to Angel's, and leave there to go to Big D's to cap of the night. The Big D's part of the night is normally where it goes bad, though, and it did on Saturday night. One of the people we went out with had a seizure on the side of the road and then the cops showed up and it was just grand. Eventually I resolved to just walk back with a friend across town, crashed out and drove back up at like 7am. Anyway, apparently something simple and innocent as a medical incident and a good night at the bar is enough to cause some people to rock the passive aggressiveness at work. Completely lame, but I'm looking forward to stay positive through it. Something about workplaces with people like that, who will eventually try to push you out: the best course of action is to stay, and stay, and stay and stay. And thoroughly enjoy it. Cortez women freak me out man, they're too combative.
But I'm so happy that Bri and Ree came, and that we went on a tour of Balcony House and soaked in hot water and talked and talked and talked. They went to Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon from here. Let's all wish them luck and prosperity in the frozen north of British Columbia. They're talking about a ceremony in Norway, and I'm quite excited.
So now it's time to close the new laptop up and go to the grocery for Flintstones vitamins and laughing cow cheese. It's almost time to put on the ranger suit.
Salud.

Current Mood: content
Current Music: Tegan and Sara, new song?

Confusing children with angels
I am going to write a story about the gloaming on Main Street.
The sun will bake the road through the rez to Flagstaff.
Meanwhile, the red-hearted children of restaurants here
Will probably not really notice I'm gone until I come back.

I'm hacking up last night's conversation, which flowed over lots of vodka
And listening to the radio, searching for sushi in Tucson -
In two hours I'll be learning how to clean cemetery monuments
And then, for three days, I'll be gone.

I'm taking a pen with me and I'm hoping for the best,
I can't imagine being disappointed.

Here's to abiding.

And the book says we may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.

Love, love, love
From Cortez, Colorado.

Country Swing
I wonder if there will be a day that I think to myself, "Oh, I miss Cortez." Of course right now it doesn't seem to me that there would be but maybe there'll be a day in retrospect I say to someone, "I lived in a little duplex with a French woman whose country boyfriend would come around and read poetry by candlelight with her. And there was an infirm dog that couldn't stand up on its own and her name was Lightning. And I worked at a brewery, and I worked at another restaurant and the owners of that restaurant were ballroom dancers. And one night out, with my French roommate and her boyfriend, we went to the dance hall and my boss taught me to tango. T-A-NGO, T-A-NGO. And there was a retarded mourning dove that cooed across the street and I listened to it sometimes."

There's no fairness in leaving anyplace before you love it. That's all there is to it.

Hallelujah
I am typing on my own computer for the first time in at least six months. Probably more. My nails are actually getting long and I'm not sure I like it. It was always a luxury to have long nails for me because they always break off in dish sinks or after washing my hands too often at any job. I have jobs at two different restaurants now but my nails haven't been soaked in bleach and dish soap for long enough to break off. I say all this because it makes it hard to type when you have long nails. Luxury for luxury, I guess.

I'm living in a little duplex in Cortez now. I found an ad on craigslist for a room to rent, in town, for cheap. My housemate is a wonderful professional lady named Myriem. She's a French citizen, speaks fluently, runs a nonprofit and gardens (at least as much as you can this time of year). I planted my seeds today, at least for eggplant, tomato and dill. I think I'm going to ask the cooks at my respective jobs to set aside some 5 gallon utility buckets so I can plant beets, carrots and onions. The rest I can get as starts later in the spring. We also have a geriatric dog in the house, named Lightning. She's old but she's got a lot in her stiff body I have to say. For the past few days I've watched out my window as she lies in the back yard, sometimes she gets up and moves on her stiff legs even though it obviously isn't easy for her. I like to watch her.

It's no fun being away from Randy but I know I have to be a big kid about it. We went on a date tonight, to the pasta place in town (no one ever calls it by its real name), and watched Watchmen at the little two-screen theater in town. It was the first time Randy had been there. It's funny because anyone else would think the theater sucks. Tiny, uncomfortable seats, tiny screen - I do think the last time I was there the lady in front of me was nursing a newborn. In the summer it's packed for every show. But this is a town of seven thousand people, where you drive down the street and you know the people walking on the sidewalk. Trust me, I know, I work at two restaurants and am trying to keep one of them from knowing. It's pretty difficult when the same people you serve at one come to the other in the course of the same day sometimes. But that's small towns, and this is where I live.

Watchmen is an absurd movie, it's absurdly long, and it's probably the most graphic and violent movie I've seen in a long time. But the sound track! I don't think my life would be as rich if I didn't get to watch an inordinately long sex scene, in a rocket ship, to the original Leonard Cohen version of Hallelujah. And oh, am I happy that I did.

I'm trying to actually write. Like say, "I am a writer" and work on pieces that I've just played around with for years. It's working well, although I think it's time I clip my fingernails.

I've tried my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, and didn't come to fool ya

And even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the lord of song
With nothing on my tongue but hallelujah.

Current Mood: peaceful
Current Music: Hallelujah, Hallelujah

The Famous Green Raincoat
It's a day like Oregon should wear. It was raining this morning when I was up at seven, that drippy mushy rain that Oregon is good at, and Colorado is taking a stab at. It beats snow that's for sure. Although, even though the rain is easier to take (and, even in the Pacific Northwest, it is) I saw a car overturned on Highway 160 on my way to Durango. The driver was standing outside it, in the rain. Someone had pulled over to help her.

I am so happy I made it to Durango at all. Not for the weather but for my car, Bernice the Piece, the 1988 Volvo 740 wagon with Oregon plates and a hell of a lot of longevity. But a week ago or so I noticed that she was dripping oil, then genuinely leaking oil, then practically spewing oil. The hood release latch is jimmy-rigged with a length of twine around the actual release cord, the handle being broken, and I assume it just broke with age, or got slack. I couldn't open the hood to check the oil and just stewed in worry for days and days, even when we were in Santa Fe. So I got the hood up yesterday, after a lot of wading, kneeling, and lying in mud and melting snow. Not a drop of oil. Four quarts and ten hours later I'm on my way to Durango to meet the magical Volvo man. Yes, I have to drive 50 miles to see a mechanic. Hey rural living. But the man is Tim. And Tim is a hero. Tim also has the most enormous fluffy cat I've ever seen. I really think she was half sheep. I can't even describe this cat accurately unless you have seen Boo, the resident cat of the Bijou Theatre in Eugene. Boo has a little sign above her that says, "Hello! My name is Boo! I am very friendly. No, I am not abused. Yes, I am very happy. I have a thyroid problem, but the doctors say I'm down to 23 pounds! Please pet me on my head and armpits, I like that very much." Fat Cat (Mr. Tim's cat) is not 23 pounds, but in volume of wool is easily 50% larger than Boo. She should be sheared. I am amazed.

But yes, Tim is a hero. He puts Bernie on a lift, and watches the oil drip drop drip from her underside and says, "This is what you call 'swimming in oil.' I mean, a mechanic would need an umbrella to walk under your car." But he agrees to fix her, by tomorrow morning, for an easy price. And on top of it, his wife drives me into town. She's a hero too.

She dropped me off at the new Durango library, where I assumed I would wait until about 7 or later for Randy to pick me up. It was about 11:30 in the morning. But there was a lot of noise in the library, and I was kind of antsy anyway I guess, so I started walking. Next thing I know I'm humming "Blue Sky" and walking down 160 toward Dolores, which is, as before mentioned, about 50 miles away. Tom Robbins put it best when he described the sky in Seattle, like cottage cheese that had fallen out of a truck and been pulled through puddles. The sky in Durango looked like that. About a couple miles down I though I ought to stick my thumb out, maybe get to Mancos so Randy won't have to drive so far to get me. Ten minutes later I'm riding in an Explorer with two men named Hondo and Pops, who discuss the psychology of Stalin and Hitler based on History Channel Documentaries with me for a long time. Then there's jokes. And then Hondo gets into discussing his association with the SCA, which I'm sure stands for something else but he said it stands for Sword Carrying Alcoholics. Guy's a Rennie fighter, like those guys who hit each other with gauntlets. Then we discuss language - Dutch, Dineh (Navajo), and all manners of Spanish. Hondo is also a personal body guard, mechanic, and tattoo artist. If he shoots a car, he aims either for the engine or the gas tank. He says this from experience. I have his card.

And so I am back at the apartment under the rain. It occurred to me that tomorrow is Fat Tuesday so I'm going to surprise Randy with a King Cake tomorrow. I'm trying to think of something exciting and random to put in the cake instead of a baby. I spent some time watching jazz funerals on youtube, and thinking how lucky I am that I still get to have walking oddesseys now and then. Lucky indeed.

Current Mood: pleased
Current Music: Dropkick Murphys, "Finnegan's Wake"

Pink Pussy, Purple Fucker, Nuclear Kamikaze, Colorado Bulldog
I sometimes think that the best part of taking off is landing again, even though this time may to the untrained eye appear to be a cop-out, seeing as I have landed in the same place from which I initially took off. But that would be the impression of someone not trained to notice details. So here I am, in Dolores, Colorado, among the ravens and canyons and snow on the ground. The snow isn't as thick as it was when last I left in December, although thicker than it was when I first left in November. I've been playing chicken with this town for going on three months, and I have to say that I feel proud of that. This time around, though, it's the real kind of landing. The hit-the-ground-running arrival that exhilerates me to the point of probably annoying those around me as I focus so much on constructing a life from scratch - a place to live, a job, a part of the community in which I would fit well. But it never takes long and then there I am, sitting pretty in a brand new structure I built quickly but passionately.
I spent a lot of time when in Florida obsessively planning for coming back here, so when I flew in on Monday, I was prepared to spend all of Tuesday carpeting the nearby town of Cortez with resumes. As often happens, the first place I dropped in on hired me, but I figured it couldn't hurt to spread my options around. But now it's looking like the infamous Purple Sage Saloon, the bad boy among bar reputations, has taken me into its fold as a bartender. Meanwhile, so far Denny's and the Spruce Tree Cafe have also graciously offered me positions, but I think I'm in the best place I can be.
And so yesterday I spent my day pouring beers for the nice old men of Cortez, although some not so old, and listening to their stories and gossip from town. "Ah, this bar's been around since the seventies. Used to be called the Gold Rush, then the Highlander, and... hey man what was the other name? This is the fourth name this bar's had, can't remember the third." Right before I got off work I sat on the beer cooler and listened to two real good-hearted guys talk about their respective divorces, how she was sneaking around with a waiter from Tequila's and how he wouldn't of known if his daughter hadn't said, 'Hey daddy, that's Tequila's, and that's the door that Miguel comes out of at night.' They're neighbors, these two guys, and kind as hell, and good storytellers to boot. All the while telling these stories with the smartass edge of a good joke teller, but still artfully belying the pain of it all. I felt lucky. And at 7, I drove back up to the little holler south of Telluride and played Scrabble with a boy who has fierce green eyes. And was happy.
I probably lied to the manager of Purple Sage when I said I could bartend, only for the sake fo the fact that I don't know many drinks, and confuse them frequently. So today, although it's bright and beautiful and not so cold outside, I continue my cocktail flash cards. Godfather, Grasshopper, Cosmopolitan, Metropolitan, Manhattan, Gimlet, Gibson....

Current Mood: cheerful

My name is Emily

And I have seen the snow fall in Montana, the rain fall in the Pacific Northwest, and the leaves fall in Reims.
I have lived in basements, tents, and abandoned buildings. I have made myself a home physically and spiritually time and time again.
I have dodged some bad situations and embraced others gratefully.
I have a 1988 Volvo 740 stationwagon named Bernice.
I know how to crochet a scarf, grow a garden, change my oil and drink a man under the table.
I have a beautiful scar beneath a tattoo of the fleur-de-lis on my chest.
I still know how to call to barred owls and mourning doves, to tell whether the moon is waning or waxing.
I have loved despite my better judgement, and have danced and reveled for that choice.
I have flown and driven, ridden on trains and busses, talked to numerous strangers, with various results.
I have lived among the canyons, arches, mountains, valleys and aspen stands of the great American west.
I can ask for spare change in French, raise a toast in five languages, and converse in Dutch.
I have learned to drive in the ice and snow.
I have kept my friends close to my heart.

I will be twenty-four years old tomorrow.

Felicitaties naar mij.

Current Mood: bored

Be Well. Go Well.
We are half an hour into the Fourteenth of January. A date that I always remember is Ryan V.'s birthday, as it is Grant T.'s. This year I get to celebrate one, and simply remember the other. But I'm pretty pleased that I get to take part in the libations to Ryan's birth. It's been a while.

It's been a while since I've had so much time in Florida. I'm here for about two and a half weeks, I've been here for a week now. I planned this trip so long in hopes that I'd have enough time to be bored, instead of frantically trying to see so many people in a short period of time. And I've definitely had the time to be bored, and it's nice. The weather is wonderful, the bike trails are extended from the last time I was here, and Dems even lives in Winter Park. And all is well.

I drove down to Salt Lake City about a week ago, to store my car in a storage unit, sleep in a Motel 6 with rickety cielings and fly out of Salt Lake International Airport. I had hoped the roads wouldn't be so bad, and they weren't necessarily. I feel like I've developed a complex for those icy roads, and I know the boys in Montana at least would laugh at me for it. But I made my way west on I-90 a week ago, right at dawn. I had the time to stop in Butte, where I finally found Frank Little's grave. The marker is clean and well-maintained, and it leads me to wonder if it's been replaced. People have left tokens on it. It was wonderful to see that it isn't forgotton, but I guess it's sort of naive for me to assume it would be. But the epitaph is still there. "Frank Little: Slain by Capitalist Interests for Organizing and Inspiring His Fellow Men" I always liked the other thing people said about him, "Half Indian, Half White, All IWW." And so I walked out of the snowdrifts in the Mountain View Cemetery, past the graves of mining dead, past Evel Kneivel's grave, and back onto I-90.

In Dillon I hit ice for the first time, dealing with people who followed me too close. I've gotten good enough at driving in on the ice with a useless rear wheel drive Volvo that I could at least spin out a little on purpose to make them realize that perhaps they're too close for safety.

The snow got bad enough in Ogden, about forty miles north of Salt Lake, that I had to stop for the night, and drive to the airport area the next day. After I put my car in a storage unit, I started walking back to the Motel 6 and stopped at a Denny's. The man who was working that night was possibly one of the best servers I've ever come into contact with (I'm pretty into good servers). When he checked me out I read his nametag again - where I had thought before it was Jesus (most of the staff at the restaurant was bilingual), I realized it was Jebus. I said, "That's a joke, right?" He replied, "Well, sort of. We have a lot of real religious people who come in here, and they were offended by other guests calling me Jesus." I didn't know what to say. He said, laughing, "Oh I don't care. If they want to call me Jebus they can call me Jebus, I know what my name is." And I walked home so happy to have heard that story.

And here it's sunny. Melissa and I drove to see the manatees at Blue Spring State Park, where the manatee count was 181 today. I think I'm going to ride my bike to Geneva tomorrow. I'll be heading back to Colorado in a little while, to start up ventures like employment, housing, and education. I guess that's the additional benefit of being bored in Florida, you're inspired to plan a little bigger.

Current Mood: bored
Current Music: Squidbillies, holy hell I love adult swim.

The possibility's slim
And why shouldn't I be laughing?

A lot?

Big Sky
The mountains are laughing at us, friends. They're watching us drive our little cars in the slush and ice and bounce all over the roads. They're laughing because they can't understand why we have to go so many places regardless of the weather. We've denied the seasons. Here we pretending to celebrate fellowship, which comes from an occasion in which we once celebrated the longest nights of the year, simply in hopes that maybe the dark will begin to recede. It's ironic that in trying to celebrate the season we spite it. There's ice out there. There's snow out there. There's a highway flanking this town that would kill you if it could. That's what we should celebrate, the fact that once a year, mother nature makes a few serious attempts at killing us. (To quote Garrison Keillor) Happiness is the terrible thing that almost happened, but didn't. They laugh. The mountains win again.

And despite all this good advice, Bernie the Volvo and I have only recently finished an 800 mile excursion from Dolores, CO back to Bozeman, MT. We did our own little dance on Interstate 15, spinning out of control, three turns like a top only to end up ass-end in a ditch. Heart palpitations. And still! There's a boy with a lovely Dutch name trapped down there in Cody, Wyoming and Rylan and I might have to come to the rescue, the Christmas Crusade. If we do it right, we can be back by tomorrow afternoon in time to make teriyaki salmon, grilled sweet potatoes, pears with brie and a rhubarb pie. Collin's stranded! What time is it? Adventure time! Rhombus!

Current Music: Michael Franti & Spearhead, "Hey, I Love You"

Synapse to Synapse
How to pretend to live on the lam:
I am in Dolores, CO today. I have been since last Friday. It's a long drive, thirteen hours, from Bozeman, but it seemed the thing to do and I'm glad I did it. In Bozeman there are others hiding out, traveling, staying below the radar. They only come out to write in coffee shops and sled down the frozen hill off of Manley Rd. I am proud to consider myself one of them, but it seemed like the time to move before the weather got too bad. The storm followed me to Colorado, and the snow will probably still be there when I go back north. There are two feet of snow in the places that have not been plowed here in Dolores. I thought I could drive to Cortez but it's still falling and I'm distrustful of my capability on the roads. So back to being hidden. Back to hiding. I don't really feel like I'd be hiding from much other than those I may know around here, and even then just for propriety's sake. But still, I'm here, looking at the backyard and imagining what a garden would look like out there in April. Planning the little details of a life I plan to live for the next year and laughing at how wonderfully skilled I am at putting myself in situations where I feel trapped.
I'm thinking about age. There's lots to think about but I can't really organize it. I'll be twenty four next month. I still forget to tell people I'm twenty-three. And I've done well with it anyway, I've danced back and forth across the Continental Divide under the fullest brightest moon in a decade. I'm extraordinarily skilled at lots of practically useless things and hopefully will find more to be skilled at. But I guess it's a matter of relativity. It's a shame to find yourself looking at life that way but I would assume it's an aspect of being an observer from time to time. It's curious to watch the people I know and love live so differently from me, and from each other. It's just that difference that makes me wonder if I'll be fading from their lives, if I'll be forgotton for newer experiences, more serious things. I don't think I'm ready to be serious about anything. I just want to be a waitress.
The snow is thick but I'll probably go driving. I'm getting better and better at it so I may as well get some errands done. The place I'm staying at has a wonderful library full of books I should have read long long ago, but it'll have to wait until the weather gets too bad. Send my regards to the Sunshine State. I'll be home in January.

Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: Death Cab for Cutie, "Company Calls Epilogue"

A good year.

View Larger Map

I can remember May 10, 2008, at about 4 or 5pm. I was trying to get my car to go up a hill in Mesa Verde National Park, the first time I'd driven into it in two years. I was thinking about how the drive here had been so much fun for the drop-offs where you car goes up and you can't see what it's going up into, then it hits the crest and your guts go up and your car goes down. But I was also thinking about what in blue hell it was that I was doing, committing to six months of a job in a very isolated location in the company of people I may or may not want to be around at all, let alone for six months. I was kind of worried, in a way that I wanted to just brush off and not think about, that doing something like this, so different from what I'm used to doing, would change me and maybe that's scary.
I think that's really all I have to say about that, I think it has changed me but not in a way that's scary. It's just hard to think about the paradises that I have known and how drastically dissimilar they are. When I think of happiness I can think of a remote building complex on the edge of Navajo Hill, with people who are conservationally minded, kind, and pretty tame. Or I can think of a small studio apartment with a sagging ceiling near the University of Oregon, with people who drink too much, set things on fire that shouldn't be set on fire, and swim naked in the Willamette River. I guess I can think of a dozen other different heavens too, but it's the difference that leaves me torn. I guess I could go do either now, so what do I do? Hide in Montana.
So anyway, this map, or the link to this map, is the path that I have taken this year. Close to 10,000 miles, but about half of it was via Greyhound. It's a good route, it's nice to look at.

Welcome to Montana: Please check your brain at the border and shoot your way in.
It's almost 2pm in a quiet apartment off of Fallon St. in Bozeman, Montana. It's unusually warm outside. The snow is melting in places, in the same way it was a few days ago, right before it snowed again all night. The sky is blue and it'd be a lovely, perfect day to go out and explore but in my car isn't starting again, and I'm wracking my brain on the puzzle of it. It's doing something very similar to what it was doing in Colorado, but in Colorado it was only doing this at 8,500 feet above sea level. Bozeman is at something close to 5000, and Madison Wisconsin is even lower than that, where my car decided it would prefer to move by way of flatbed than by its own four wheels. I'm definitely frustrated. It's acting like it's not getting gas, but only when it first tries to start. If I can get the damn thing started, it starts up again just fine. It's just that first combustion. So what? Fuel pump? It's got new spark plugs, and a new fuel filter. The guys at the Midas in Madison just unhooked the fuel line and let it drain, at which point it started right up. So, I just paid you guys a hundred dollars for a diag-fucking-nostic - what's the story? Oh, we couldn't tell you. Hooray.
So I am at the apartment of a young man named Rylan, whom I met on my Greyhound sojourn to Eugene early this year, in about February. He's hoping I'll stay here until January and I probably will. On the 7th I'll be getting on a plane in Salt Lake City to fly to Orlando for three weeks, because it seemed more practical to fly than to drive all the way to Florida and then back to Colorado, which is where I'm assuming I'll go by February. It's confusing as to why. In Madison, Henry said, "You sure like routine, don't you?" I kind of got offended, but it seems that I do indeed go for the places I'm familiar with, or have some familiar element to them. But I would have to say in my defense that I do so on the knowledge that I've spent a few years just going to random places and finding out I prefer the ones that I know and love. Why I don't just return to Eugene is also an enigma. But I have family of the best kind in both places, and I guess I just haven't lived in Colorado long enough. Funny old world.

But I'm here for now, reading and writing in Rylan's apartment. I'd probably go somewhere if the car started but it's nice to have access to a computer at any rate. I've been looking up job announcements on the federal website; there are some cool ones out there. Capitol Reef, Zion, Oregon Caves, Grand Canyon, and a few already out from Mesa Verde, although they'll just be calling me in January regarding my return as a visitor use assistant. I probably will just go back there. Once again, funny old world. Rylan gets home in the afternoons from work and for the past week I've been having a great time re-acclimating myself to being a social animal. I feel awkward and alien in a way, having been far away from this for so long, but I think I'm doing okay. Rylan's friends are rock stars, and have been very good to me, just coming in as this awkward stranger. I think I'll be okay hanging out here for a while. My concerns should lie with having a good time and meeting interesting people but I'm restless in the worst of ways, wondering where I'm going more than where I'm at. That's the problem with being unemployed and drifting. There's the danger of it going to your head, consuming you in a way that defeats the purpose of what you're doing. All you think of is where to go next, what the next adventure is, as opposed to the adventure you can create right where you are. But at least it does give one the time to contemplate these paradoxes, time to read, time to write if one had the inspiration. I'm not really sure where to find it but it's comforting to know that Butte is only a few hours away, and that great Berkeley Pit and the grave of Frank Little is so close. The idea behind letting yourself float is the hope that you might be surprised, that you might find a spark behind something perfectly bland and usual while you're sitting pouting about how everything is so ordinary.

We could all probably do better with what we have than wonder all the time about something more. I could probably do better. But here are my offerings for the day.

One last time in Evanston
We're almost finished working on the apartment. The kitchen's painted a color called "Coral Cliche," which is fitting. But it's an improvement, and we'll be cleaning up tomorrow, and my dad will drive back south and I'll be going north to Madison for however long. I may end up just going straight across to Montana depending on if there's anyone waiting for me in Madison at all anyway.

Yesterday was so wonderful. I have two new baby cousins, one on each side. My cousin Joe and his wife had a daughter last year, and when I first met her she was maybe four months old. Last night when I walked into my aunt's house this beautiful little bouncy, very Italian little girl darted into view. It was amazing. She's precious, she's a genius. And I love my family. I was so lucky to sit with both sides of my family for dinner yesterday, with my family related to me by marriage like my cousin Bo's parents from Croatia and my cousin Liz's boyfriend Omar. And at my dad's family's gathering I got to meet Laila, my cousin Jimmy and his fiancee's new baby. She's maybe four months old now, and precious. And of course in the meantime my other cousins, the kids whom I remember when they were born, the tiny little redheaded twins in cute Christmas baby outfits, or my cousin Kevin who I swear was in elementary school last year. They're huge. And drinking beer! And getting tattoos! It was truly an experience.

So there's supposed to be a snow storm this weekend, and I'll be in Madison more than likely, at the hostel, smoking at the Silver Eagle if I'm lucky. Tonight I go out one more time with my cousins and then sometime tomorrow I'm gone. I guess I really can't ask for more. I mean, just like anything else, it all looks more exciting in retrospect. I just figured there'd be more adventure at some point. But hey, it's November. And I'm thankful.

Current Mood: Baby, don't you wanna go?
Current Music: Robert Johnson, "Sweet Home Chicago"

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