A field guide to Jan-february

DIRECTIVE 1:

SHUN WELL-DESIGNED/AIRY/SPACIOUS PLACES IN FAVOR OF WARRENS. It is possible to live in tunnels and still see the sun. Trade normal bulbs for red ones, trade flashlights for maglights. All sources of light must give off a distinct color to produce a sense of chiaroscuro in all inhabitants of a room/cubby hole/bar table. Ask not what lighting design can do for you, but what you can do for lighting design.

DIRECTIVE 2:

AVOID THE TEMPTATION TO BECOME A MAGPIE. Or if you cannot resist this urge, indulge in it until you feel sick. Remember that time in the summer of 1973 when your mother worked at an ice cream store before going off to college (which meant moving across the Hudson and just above 14th street) and could not look at ice cream for six years after. 1979 was a funny year, after all. For Mom. Not for us, of course, we weren't alive yet.

DIRECTIVE 3:

MOVE SLOWLY AND METHODICALLY THROUGH ALL READING MATERIAL. Breathe as your read aloud. Pay attention to the punctuation. Listen to the author conducting your speech. Write out all your notes and do the review exercises. All other processes will fail you and result in poor grades and a reduction in your grade point average.

DIRECTIVE 4:

WELCOME WITH OPEN ARMS THE RESURGENCE OF NON-NARRATIVE DREAMS INTO YOUR LIFE. Things are returning to normal - you dream again that spiders have bred with cats and that Vlad can produce silk that looks more like gooey PVC that allows him dangle from the fan above your bed which sends you in terror tearing out of the house into the yellow summer light where a dusty pick up trucks waits that you get into and drive off in to go rob banks that are empty and you can simply take the money from. Things are as they should be.

DIRECTIVE 5:

IN THE QUIET MOMENTS, WHEN YOU HAVE PUT DOWN YOUR WORK, THINK OF YOUR DOTAGE. It will be a relief to grow old. Or not. Or possibly it will and it won't. You will be able to reminisce and think of the summer of 2009, when someone was not yet alive. Your bones will creak and the calcium build-up from old bruises will not go away. Possibly, you will become obsessed with restaurants and wine and dusty volumes like your grandfather. But you think not. After all, did he follow directives 1-4?

END TRANSMISSION. FOLLOW ORDERS AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. BEEP BEEP BEEP! WHEN ARE YOU COMING HOME?

My life is the empty set.

SCRIBBLERS IN THE LIBRARY WILL TELL YOU THAT LIFE IS THE EMPTY SET. DO NOT BELIEVE THESE CHARLATANS.

Your life is all reals - a ring of candy wrappers, ash, abandoned castanets, unrecognizable late nights, stolen and donated pages, text messages, sideward glances, encrusted dishes, unintentional monolouging, space rides through wormholes, howling, remixes of remixes (i.e. f(g(x))) and things that are sometimes so nice it makes you a little sad. Your life includes the damnable SQUARE ROOT OF TWO.

STAND UP TO THESE LIARS.

Tell them - identities I'll take, but you can keep your inverses because I don't believe in Opposites. I don't need to be added to or multiplied by to get some other set of numbers. Especially not if those numbers are air conditioning, ties, the Sunday New York Times, cosmetic dentistry, Lysol, pre-distressed clothes, flags fluttering, or that sourpuss expression you've got on your face. I SIMPLY DO NOT WANT WHAT YOU ARE SELLING. YOU CAN SELL IT AS HARD AS YOU LIKE, BUT I AM NOT BUYING. I'm not even in the market for what you've got.

Tell them you've got everything you need in your little ring, then chew up the advertisements they've shoved into your hands and spit them back on their faces.

can't sleep with the man who dims my shine

so last saturday justin and i left port angeles to begin a 6-day adventure into and around olympic national park
and while i was there, and after i've come back, i've wondered how to write about it here
because as certainly as i am a cephalopod,
this was an adventure.

here is a map and some lists. they suffice to tell the story.

purple star is where i live, red is bus, yellow is hitchhiked, blue is hiked

things i saw (copied from my notebook-- i made these lists every night except the first and last):
sun 30 aug at the beach in lapush
-mushrooms: alcohol inky caps, mycena amicta, wine-colored agaricus
-bald eagle atop a rocky outcropping with a seagull diving at it
-a living, washed up shark, about 3 feet in length
-wily chipmunks
-surfers
-grizzled gulls
-my breath
-pelican party
-the town of forks, taken over by twilight-readers/watchers
-trees and rocks that look like caspar david friedrich paintings, only west coast so no oaks-- spruces instead

mon 31 aug in the hoh river valley (948 ft elev)
-lots of mushrooms! including chicken of the woods and baby oysters, pleated pluteus, tawny almond waxy cap, yellow pholiotus
-a skeletal mountainside, graves of trees, white from a fire 30 years ago
-my broken camera
-the hoh river, bluey grey with rock and trees, classic pacific northwest image
-big big tree with a whole ecosystem at its base so tall and thick
-moss on phone booth roof at visitor center

tues 1 sept at hoh lake, (4500 ft elev)
-mushrooms! orange, purple, red, brown, white, scaly vase chanterelle
-the clouds from above (and in them, and below them)
-BIG BIG BIG cedars, spruce, fir
-a composting toilet with spectacular mountain views
-right now, these ridiculous trees covered in moss.dripping from everywhere, a light, sickly green, like something dr seuss or meghan would draw
-the meadows which smelled like delicious baking
-a doe and her 2 fawns
-a black bear bumbling on the hillside opposite our camp
-these mountains mountains snow and glaciers (mount olympus and all its peaks)
-tadpole parade
-submerged logs in hoh lake, slumber slumber
-trout babes and jumping fish

2 sept at appleton pass (5000 feet elev)
-that black bear, but close up
-an owl at bogachiel peak
-ravens at heart lake
-a goat outside our tent, nibbling and sniffing and terrifying
-blueberries blueberries blueberries staining my fingers and lips
-two small scummy nasty ponds

and there's no more written in my journal for the trip anymore, though the next day we went to the hot springs on our way out of the park so i got all this sludgey slime on me and smelled like eggs and nakedly asked strangers for directions. and saw a beautiful forest along boulder creek... the descent from appleton pass, though it was rainy, may have been my favourite part of the trip (???)

my mental soundtrack (songs that got stuck in my head on those long silent days of walking):
'leaving today!' christina aguilera
'i like it rough' lady gaga
'i am a wizard' harry and the potters
'genius next door' regina spektor
'man, i feel like a woman' (who sings this??)
'be our guest' beauty and the beast
'felix felicis' harry and the potters
'can you feel the love tonight' lion king (the parts where timon and pumbaa are talking)
'welcome' christina
'paparazzi' gaga
'elbow room' schoolhouse rock

and i can't remember anymore! i tried hard to remember my mind's playlist.

in other news i am trying to remember hindi and it is really sad. and to do reading for my civ class which starts in 3 weeks BLECH

also blech that this farm is boring and i can't imagine being here until the 19th... i have arranged a rideshare out of seattle on the 20th. there's really nothing to do here; i think all i do is weed and harvest. by the time i leave i will have accomplished nothing! weeds grow back and so do veggies. maybe i'll run away somewhere earlier or something. suggestions?
gee this blog has gotten active and i like it. hello good work i like your brains
.zee

Slip Sliding Away

To do to prepare for going home:

• forget about cigarettes
• have back-up, secret place to smoke them just in case
• debate merits of bringing your laptop
• think of questions to ask your parents (dig inside your self for a lack of awkward)
• think of answers to questions your parents will ask you
  
• plan to excavate your basement (since it's in the jaws of the tag sale these days) for favorite scraps
• frantically try to clear away any administrative tasks to have a "relaxing vacation"
• reminisce about the times when your backpack was bigger than you and you wore a uniform and your dad drove you to school on his way to the train station and you had to shake the headmistress' hand after an older girl helped you out of the car
• try to pick a book, fail
• second guess your decision to buy a plane ticket
• pack the grubbiest, second-handiest clothes you own
• leave room for bringing back costume pieces
• get bored, jump around to Man Man for a while
• switch to Crystal Castles
• finish stuffing things in the bag, leaving folding in the past
• alert the one friend you actually want to see as to your whereabouts/travel plans
• steel yourself! hold on to what you've built!