two steps forward, one back

The first time I got lost in Alaska was during the summer of 2005. It involved an aborted night at the Salmon Bake--a restaurant/bar/concert venue in Glitter Gulch, the touristy strip of overpriced shops selling shot glasses and tiny stuffed moose dolls near the park entrance--a map that we realized years later had one crucial piece of wrong information on it, and several hours of driving around in the alpenglow looking for an unmarked cabin I'd never seen before. (We actually had to buy gas because we drove for so long.) At the time it was hell, and it was a relative miracle that we eventually found the correct cabin and didn't barge in on some random Alaskan in the middle of the night, but now it's mostly just a funny story that I roll my eyes at when I remember that first ill-prepared and poorly planned trip.

Every time I come back here I feel like I know at least slightly more about what I'm doing. That first time, I came with a denim jacket, a car full of goldfish crackers and peanut butter, no rain or hiking gear, and no concept of the environment, weather, or layout of the area. I remember the incredulous look on E's face when these things were revealed one by one, and I vowed to not repeat my mistakes in the future. When I returned last year I managed to bring hiking boots, a gigantic borrowed rainjacket, and clothes that at least were capable of keeping me from freezing to death; I learned flower names beyond the ever-present fireweed, I hiked significant amounts, and I didn't get lost. This year on my elderhostel hike with E almost everybody I talked to thought I worked here, apparently based on my ability to name berries E had pointed out moments before. I have my own rain jacket, and it fits. I brought layers.

I came later in the season this year, with a vague hope of seeing the northern lights if such a thing came up and with the definite intention of coming to the Denali Education Center's auction, a social event and fundraiser that I've been hearing about for years. Denali is the kind of place where, due to the relatively small pool of people being drawn from, an event like this invariably ends with everybody you've ever met or heard of gathering in the same room and, if circumstances are adverse, staring at each other awkwardly. As an avid people-watcher, how could I resist? And indeed, it was fascinating. At one point I walked out of the building where the live auction was being led--you haven't seen anything until you've seen an energetic auctioneer trying to whip up enthusiasm for a life-sized handmade ceramic chicken that he describes as "rather angry looking"-- and saw at least five people who I knew to be variously interconnected with my friend all arrayed in front of me in a semi-circle. It was like being in a Victor Hugo novel, where at some point every character invariably shows up in the same place and discovers that the evil stepmother has hired the future paramour of the dead prostitute's daughter to hoodwink her adopted father, or whatever, except with hiking boots.

After the auction was over E and I headed to the Salmon Bake for more revelry, or something. The Bake and its apparent rival, Panorama Pizza, run shuttles down the highway every hour to cut down on drunk driving; we made it out at about 12:30, and after several more beers and an ill-advised (aren't they always?) shot of whisky, I wobbled over and told E that I was heading home with or without her. I made it onto the shuttle, and this is where things began to circle around to where I'd been four years before. The driver hadn't heard of the well-known restaurant by E's house, and instead dropped me off at a highway milemarker maybe a half-mile away; it was dark, I was rather intoxicated, and I was unsure which direction was which. I knew I wasn't far away, so I blindly picked a direction and set out with my headlamp trained at the ground, figuring if I hadn't found her driveway by the next milemarker I'd turn around and head back. There's only one road; I'd find it eventually.

The thing about being lost here is that, much more so than in a city or town, there are few reference points for outsiders. Despite the fact that there are few streets to choose from and a limited number of doors to try, the landmarks that people from non-rural areas use to find their way--say, street signs and house numbers and a gas station with a light on where you can ask for directions--are not always there, are not the givens they are in my everyday life. This became abundantly clear to me as I stumbled down the dark highway, waiting to see anything that would remind me of where I was, or at least tell me whether I was heading in the right direction or not. But there was nothing. It was three in the morning, it was dark and there was nobody awake anywhere near me, and even if I called E there was no way I could tell her where I was. I was on my own, it seemed.

I eventually got picked up, less than half a mile away from E's house, by the Panorama Shuttle. The driver's girlfriend was the girl I'd done a shot with earlier, naturally. He dropped me off at the right driveway ("Of course I know E! Three driveways down from the restaurant, right?"), and I, because it was that kind of night, lost my headlamp as I exited the van, slurring my thanks yet again. E lives at the bottom of a steep hill with no lights whatsoever, and even drunk I knew I couldn't make it down alone without a light. And so I sat on her landlord's steps underneath a motion sensor light, waiting for her return, coughing hard and crying just a little bit from aftershock as the rain started to come down in earnest. It was like a story a twelve-year-old girl with knowledge of alcohol and rural Alaska would write.

Eventually E came home and we made it down the hill and drank tea and talked about boys until four in the morning and I peeled off my dress and announced that I had to go to bed. The next day she went off to deal with very nice but unfortunately timed tourists for way too many hours, and I took a three-hour nap and wrote in my journal until I regained my composure. We had dinner that night, and by then it was already a funny story. I always have a day here where I feel so out of place, so foreign and unknowledgeable and helpless, that it lowers my spirits and makes me feel flat and useless. The evolution is in the recovery time; as soon as I can laugh at myself, I know it will be okay and that I'm getting better all the time. Maybe next trip I'll manage to avoid getting lost at all, or at least I'll be laughing even as I stumble away from wherever I'm supposed to be going.

away we go

So. I'm off to Alaska--where the temperature is apparently ranging between 24 and 75, which has led me to pack way too many clothes--for the next twelve days or so, and I'll have limited internet access so the relative silence on here will be continuing. Lately I've just been out of words, so at a loss for what to talk or write about, and I've been trying not to let it bother me too much and to just wait until it passes. I think this trip is exactly what needs to happen right now; I've been feeling a little disconnected, a little less maniacally joyful lately, but I'm imagining that when I return I'll be back to my cheesy wordy ways. So wish me luck, cross your fingers that I can make it through the next twenty hours or so on minimal sleep, and I'll see you in almost two weeks, a little dirtier and with a giant smile on my face.

supergirly

Since I seem to be completely out of words, and since I also seem to have perhaps left my camera battery charger in Arizona and so can't yet upload trip pictures, here is a comic from one of the zines Lauren sent me from Portland. (Just click to see a larger version where you can actually read the words.) I'm leaving for Alaska in about five days, and I'm feeling not only unprepared but like I've agreed to do far too much in that time period. Time to go bake something and work off some of that excess angst.

home is where?

I've never really been somebody who gets homesick. As a child, I would go to camps or on weekends away and expect to feel those pangs that made others cry and mope, but past the age of five I have little to no memory of this actually happening in any sort of major way. The closest I've come in the last ten or fifteen years was probably my first trip to Poland, and that was inspired mostly by jetlag and my terror and frustration at being unable to understand not only spoken communication but written language.

But when I arrived home in Flagstaff this past week, I felt an inexplicable pang. Flagstaff has functioned in recent years as something of a refuge, somewhere to go to see loved ones and mountains and generally clear my head, but for whatever reason on this trip I spent the first two days of my stay thrashing inside of it like an itchy wool blanket. A number of people I'd been hoping to see were out of town or working more than anticipated and I found myself at loose ends, unsure what exactly I should be doing other than eating at Macy's (best veggie biscuits and gravy ever, I swear to god) and shopping with my mom, which honestly can only take you so far. By the afternoon of the first day I was cranky, and by that night I'd pinned down part of the problem: I missed Chicago.

It's probably a little weird, but that sent me into a bit of a tailspin. For years I've been treating Chicago as home but also as a waystation to somewhere else; I tell people that I came here for grad school and just haven't gotten around to moving yet. But to be in my actual hometown--albeit one I visit infrequently and haven't lived in for any length of time since about 2002--and missing my adopted city so deeply made me pause. Where was home, and what did that mean?

In truth, my tiny little crisis was less about the fact that I was feeling uncomfortable in Flagstaff and more about the way my connection to Chicago has changed in the past year. For most of my time here it truly has felt like a waystation, with friends and lovers who came and went, careers that have waxed and waned, and more apartments than you could easily shake a stick at. I was, in fact, planning a move to Denver for sometime next year, a change of scenery that I hoped would give me new direction and perhaps a push towards whatever it is I want to do next. But somehow, after almost five years and just when I'd given up on this city, I seem to have grown roots. There are all these buzzwords--happiness! community! decent job!--that suddenly mean more to me than they have in a long time. It's a good thing, certainly, but it somehow took me slightly by surprise.

My trip ended up going well, thankfully. On the first night when I, a generally fast walker, was out-walked by somebody on the hill up to my parents' house I cursed my City Girl lungs up and down; by the third day I was cheerfully accepting my status as a visitor instead of a some sort of removed native as I puffed my way up a mountain, and I was much happier for the change. Being from Chicago doesn't mean I can't love Flagstaff, just as being originally from Arizona doesn't mean I can't love my life here in the big city. I miss mountains, but for now I think I'm too centered here to leave.

heading back to the land of the pines

I'm leaving for Arizona this morning, which means that a) I'll be hanging out in the mountains and eating my favorite veggie biscuits and gravy while I beam at all the hippie biker folk very very soon, and b) I won't be writing on here for a few days. I've already decided to be less goal oriented (giving up on the "200 posts this year" goal because it started seeming a tad ridiculous; I'd rather just write as much as I can without pushing it), and that's cool. I'll see you when I get back.

But I'll leave you with my current favorite summer recipe. Rose-Anne called these really fancy pizza rolls, and that's as good a description as any. But I prefer calling them soy chorizo-potato-feta pastries. They're great for summer because the oven only has to be on for ten minutes, and they're yummy as all get out. I've served them about six times in the last two weeks. I am, indeed, a pie crust ninja.

Soy Chorizo-Potato-Feta Pastries

Crust:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup butter
1/4 or less cup water

Mix the dry stuff, cut the butter in with knives or a pastry cutter, add cold water and knead until solid. Add more flour if too sticky, more water if too dry, but give it a minute for the butter to melt in before you give up on it.

Filling:
1-2 medium to large potatoes, peeled, chopped, and cooked until soft
1/2 pack soy chorizo (I like Upton's Naturals, a seitan chorizo, but Soyrizo or Trader Joe's brand work as well, although you might want to drain some of the oil out of looser chorizos)
feta to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
olive oil (I just glug some in)
oregano to taste
salt and pepper to taste
dash cayenne (optional)

Mix the filling together, adjusting flavors as you desire. I often make a double batch and have these consecutive nights. Pat out circles of pie dough, spoon filling into the centers, and seal them shut. Place on a greased/parchment papered/silpatted cookie sheet. Pre-heat oven to 425 and cook for about ten minutes.

With that, bon voyage to myself!

the letter we thought we sent

This makes me think of what it feels like to write. Sigh.

Hand Games, by Marge Piercy

Intent gets blocked by noise.
How often what we spoke
in the bathtub, weeping
water to water, what we framed
lying flat in bed to the spiked
night is not the letter that arrives,
the letter we thought we sent. We drive
toward each other on expressways
without exit. The telephone
turns our voices into codes,
then decodes the words falsely,
terms of an equation
that never balances, a scale
forever awry with its foot
stuck up lamely like a scream.

Drinking red wine from a sieve,
trying to catch love in words,
its strong brown river in flood
pours through our weak bones.
A kitten will chase the beam of a flash
light over the floor. We learn
some precious and powerful forces
can not be touched, and what
we touch plump and sweet
as a peach from the tree, a tomato
from the vine, sheds the name
as if we tried to write in pencil
on its warm and fragrant skin.

Mostly the television is on
and the washer is running and the kettle
shrieks it's boiling while the telephone
rings. Mostly we are worrying about
the fuel bill and how to pay the taxes
and whether the diet is working
when the moment of vulnerability
lights on the nose like a blue moth
and flitters away through clouds of mosquitoes
and the humid night. In the leaking
sieve of our bodies we carry
the blood of love.

the lay of the land

One of the unexpected but kind of amusing things about my friendship with P and my subsequent involvement with genderqueer chicago has been that I managed to meet and befriend most of the staff of the local sex toy store that he works at. It's close to my job and I frequently walk by as I go to the grocery store on my way home from work, and I sometimes stop to chat with whoever's peddling lube and dildos to the citizens of Andersonville that evening. On other somewhat rarer occasions, I end up staying to talk for much longer. I'm particularly good friends with P's girlfriend N, and we've spent many hours now chatting and telling each other stories as customers wander in and out of the store. I've been going on and on about how many stories have been making themselves visible to me lately and I'm a sucker for a good starting line, so I have to admit that this is one of my favorites: "So I was hanging out at the sex toy store the other day talking to my ex's girlfriend and then..." In reality, I think of her as a friend and not as P's girlfriend, just as I think of him as a friend and not my ex; it's a subtle but important distinction, but as a story opener it's still entertaining to me to make clear just how interconnected everything in my life has become. It makes me terribly happy actually, that she and I can be friends, because in the "real" world I think this is a fairly unusual scenario, but it's true and I have benefited greatly from this bond that might seem on the surface to be so unlikely.
I also just like watching the customers. I appreciate being around sex-positive people, and I enjoy watching people buy things and knowing that they are going to have a really great afternoon or evening ahead of them. Some people are visibly uncomfortable and I wonder what they think of me, sitting on a stool by the register and trying not to make them feel watched as they peruse the shelves of toys and books and porn. Other people are chatty, and ask lots of questions or tell us about their experiences with toys or just life in general. Sometimes people ask me questions, and I either explain that I don't actually work there or, more rarely, I answer; my sales job has made me much more comfortable talking to strangers, and it can be hard to turn off the salesman persona that I adopt at work. (I recently talked a total stranger at Whole Foods into buying a seitan italian sausage that I hadn't even tasted. Granted, I was familiar with the same company's seitan chorizo, but still.) I certainly don't know as much as the people who actually work there, but even I know that you can't use a silicon-based lube with a silicon toy and occasionally I talk up some of the books that I've read. It makes me feel like an impostor, but it also kind of amuses me; it seems so indicative of the changes in my life, that I might spend a Saturday afternoon telling a stranger about how much I like The Ethical Slut.
A week or two ago, I was hanging out with N as she took pictures of a buttplug when a middle-aged Argentinian woman wandered into the store and started asking about dildos and harnesses. I watched as N helped her try on one of the harnesses over her pants, and then the woman began looking around and asking about other things. She ended up near where I was sitting; on the shelf behind me was a black criss-cross piece of lingerie that she seemed very intrigued by. She asked N if she could try that on too, and for a few minutes she and I both struggled to figure out all the pieces of fabric and snaps and cords that went into this particular outfit. We finally got it fastened and the woman stood back, admiring herself in the mirror, but still she looked dissatisfied. After a minute she pulled the shoulder straps down and asked if she could take her sweatshirt off to see more clearly how it fit. N nodded, and suddenly the woman was standing before us completely topless: no undershirt, no bra, just bare breasts.
"I'll just lock the door now..." N said, and went to do so. I was helping the woman pull the straps back up as N and I exchanged looks behind her back, and then suddenly a man was standing at the door. N began to shield the woman, and she exclaimed "No, he's my husband, let him in!" And so we did. He and his wife admired the lingerie, and then she told him about the harness and he nodded approvingly, and she put her shirt back on so that they could make their purchases and be on their merry way. Just another day, I suppose. I went to work after that and made up a bunch of flowers for somebody's wedding, and contemplated how very different her job was from mine, and how very glad I was that I'd been there.