the edges of your vision are rimmed in gold

Now the fall is here again
You can't begin to give in
It's all over
When the snows come rolling through
You're rolling too with some new lover
Will you think of times you've told me
That you knew the reason
Why we had to each be lonely
It was just the season

My boss is awesome. He knows when I’ve been too lazy to pack lunch and too broke to buy it because I stay at my computer through lunch break playing Minesweeper without enthusiasm. Today I was munching on my second bag of potato chips from the office variety pack. I am a sucker for the Cheetos and cheese Doritos. My coworkers can tell when I’ve used their desk because when they return, there’s my evidence piled in the trash bin. So today--a reprieve from the fatty snack that will lead to my trans-fat demise! He throws me a Silverbow bag, and I catch it as if it were manna from the heavens. Inside are a bagel swirled orange and black and a raspberry crumble cake. Yay for holiday-inspired nourishment!

He’s also just arrived from a business trip to Yakutat, where he did a community assessment in preparation for a new school program launching. This morning, he walks by my office door and says, “I got something for you.” He chucks a maroon t-shirt at me. It’s from Icy Waves, a surf shop there. He is so thoughtful! I just hope he doesn’t want to ever surprise me with an Alaskan ulu seeing as he likes to give his gifts by winging them at people.

… The thought of a secret leaves me smiling today. Some coincidences simply render me speechless ...

some people shit on your shit and some people call you on it

Life isHigh onMe: sir paul:
Life isHigh onMe: "don't you know that it's a fool who plays it cool by making his world a little colder"
Life isHigh onMe: whatever else you see in him, whatever you think is tender or wonderful, he can't even handle himself, let alone you

Went to a Halloween party last night with the usual crowd and a lot of unusual people. I dressed up as a Kissing Booth--$1 or a drink. I managed to get a lot of free alcohol, some inappropriate gropings, and money to buy a cup of coffee or rent a harness at the Rock Dump (i.e. two measley bucks). Steens was Frida Kahlo (complete with dead baby in a jar swimming in battery acid water), who I didn't think was obscure, but apparently is in these parts. Some guy strapped a giant yam around his crotch--he was a dictator. Get it? Dick. Tater. Ok, I overexplain.

While I thought my costume was AWESOME, the movement with it was NOT. People found it impossible to maneuver around me in a hallway; the maximum capacity of many of the rooms halved if I was in it; on the dance floor, I had to be given wide berth. I caused traffic jams on stairways. It was a logistical nightmare.

Today, a group of people recognized me. One said, "I don't know your name, but you're the kissing booth girl! That's gonna be what I'll call you." I laughed. "Well, I have been called worse things. Have at it."

until it passes

Is it strong or selfish to lay everything out on the line? Last night, I thought it was frighteningly brave, but today I’m having doubts.

I used to go to bed angry as a habit. I slept unsettled feelings away; I was really really good at this. Sometimes I would sleep entire days away. I have had people ask me, “How can you sleep through that??” referring to the way my alarm will beep for two hours next to my ear. Or I’ve had friends ask, “How can you fall asleep anywhere??” because whether on a smelly Greyhound bus with my head jostling against a window or in a sardine-packed car in the dead of winter because all the hotels were full, I could still snooze in a heartbeat. Well, because once you’ve trained yourself to sleep through paralyzing rage, you can sleep through anything. Now I’ve flip-flopped. Feelings of anxiety or frustration run through my veins, poisoning sleepiness. So I talk for hours until I feel better, siphoning out the pollution before it kills me, or I take pills to calm the waves. When what is making me anxious or frustrated involves strong confusing feelings about someone else and that is the person I'm venting to, was it a courageous or cowardly feat to lay my fears and madness out there? ‘I’m trying to fucking stop these filters when we speak. We have them for so many other people. I don’t want them with you,’ I had thought at the time, mentally shaking my fist, sobbing. But today, I simply want to disappear.

Is the mind the last taboo? A good friend of mine brought this up before, and it’s interesting and disturbing. We (in general and hypothetical terms) are more comfortable dropping our pants than our guards. The most intimate physical acts often occur before the most intimate parts of ourselves are shared with that other person. As he posed it to me, “Did our grandparents know each other before they ‘knew’ each other?” I’ve had many boyfriends, but very few have known me well. Most knew really nothing at all, and usually, that suited me just fine. After all, you can't give your heart away to just anybody.

But if you don't know a person, how can you give your heart away at all?

the universe is conspiring to help you

This is my order.

Good: free fries & darts – Jack came back to town from his fishing adventures so he, Elsin, Seams, and I went to Imperial to shoot games of darts and pool. We livened it up a little bit by playing it like “Horse”. You know, when you try a crazy shot and if you make it, the next person has to attempt the same move successfully. So I went after Jack who just happened to be good at really insane dart releases. It *is* possible to hit bullseye when kicking the dart from the top of his Xtratuffs, but it is quite impossible from the top of my Keens. My hands-down side-splitting favorite, however, was the “Fire in the Hole Spin & Spank” maneuver in which Seamus took a running start into a side body roll-over, got up in a squat with his butt sticking out, and barked, “Spank me! Right now!! Quickly!!” After executing this highly controversial extreme darts technique, we realized we’d attracted a small crowd of drunken barflies who were laughing uproariously at us and thinking we were more tossed than they, when oh so sadly, we were all very much sober.
Better: a free car –Who loves Stina? I do. Not only because she is radiantly lovely with smooth alabaster skin and smoky brown eyes but also because she hooked us up with a donated Subaru. Ok, so the car is pitted with rust, makes horrible grinding noises in turns, leaks oil, can only hold 6 gallons of gas because of a hole in the tank, and smells like death is in our cards. But you know what? It also smells like FREE, and that smells pretty damn good.

Best: a free trip to Yakutat – Better than the symbolism of freedom which driving a car gives me is an actual get-out-of-Dodge ticket. Hooha! Our executive director asked me if I’d be up for accompanying our new employee to Yakutat to help her start up a school program there. It’s nowheres-ville and full of hardened fishermen, untouched sandy beaches, and waves just asking to be ridden. Would I be up for it? Oh you don't even know me, hellz yeah.

to be fascinated, to suffer, to dare

the good life? a boat in water. trailing wakes that pinpoint where i come from. ahead: flawless potential. but not even, really. i think i would enjoy being a constellation, weeping silver stars and flirting with moons, lady diana laughing in her pewter palace in the sky. empty space and points of light. but my conflict, the thing that tries to keep me, is the endearing quality of naivete. the clean smell of wholesome. family and seasons. animals living in a world i would like to inhabit: treading the line between shape and chaos. to laugh out loud. to be fascinated. soft eyes, good hearts, and a hand to touch. do nice boys really finish last? i talk of things i will not utter and never possess.

sweet hunger. a silent pleading. i wonder why we become scared to voice desire. does that irrevocably express weakness? i cringe from the cliches and yet fold them around my heart. i battle with this paradox constantly. my mind has been unraveling since i started to think. i would like to believe in the sincerity of promises. i can recognize less and less; my world moves so fast. no wonder i seek certainty in words. but even words are not enough. even words fail me.

All is Illuminated

Pondering: "If you're happy in a dream, Ammu, does that count?" Estha asked.

I wonder what is more real: the night-time or the daylight hours? In the day, they behave just as friends. Acts of intimacy are embarrassing. Our upbringing demands a certain social protocol. We talk about who won the sports game last night or where we'll eat for lunch, we talk about the weather as if it's a daily item of interest when every day brings the same rain and spotty sunlight. At night, however, confidences are exchanged, we come naked to each other. In the physical and/or metaphorical sense, we are bare, open, vulnerable. Suddenly, it seems more okay to reveal skeletons in the closet or personal desires or the fears which grip us like invisible balls and chains in our waking hours. But while the night seems to free us, it also presses upon us more responsibility. There is excitement, tension, possibility. Unrestrained, we have to work harder to check the beast. In the night, the control is with us; get the balance right, and it can bring advances in the morning. Get it wrong, and the sun brings regret and desolation.

We join the night-life, we seek release from the cabin fever of constant decorum. But so much of that is fake too. Indeed those around us expect difference, expect excess. The night being the "correct" time and place for confessions or passion; it is a frontier between what is comfortable and known and what is (potentially) dangerous and unclear. If you wanted to barge into a bedroom or serenade a window or drunk dial or admit that you believe she is your soulmate, the night is a good excuse. When your action is well-received, then you say it was honesty. If your overture was rejected, you shrug and say it was the night speaking. Too much and you're burned. Like Icarus and the sun, or the sushi-lover's puffer fish. Numbed nerves good, but a lick too far, and game over.

Juneau's Historic Cemetery

This is what my walk looks like when I go to/leave from my high school office. There are lots of graves from people born in the 1800s, the most famous of which is the city's co-founding father and namesake, Joseph Juneau:


The other dude, Richard Harris I think, got the shaft because "Harrisburg" was already taken by Pennsylvania.

he catches my fall when i start to slide

My best friend recently got back from a 3 month backpacking trip in South America:


From 5 hour treks in the desert ...

To a 5-day ride on a boat...

To the place in the jungle which gets submerged in water during the rainy season...


To Macchu Picchu, which is on my list of top 3 things to see before I die...

To the VLT (Very Large Telescope), which is on his list of top 3 things to see before he dies...

I miss extended trips, hitchhiking, boat rides, food markets, the dryness of dust and the moisture of jungle. I miss getting on the back of someone's truck and watching the landscapes move backwards while the wind and my hair play. I miss good meals for $1 and palapas and especially hammocks. Mostly, I miss traveling the world with my kin spirit, a green-eyed son and a pacific island daughter.

A Fable to Mourn the End of an Important Phase or Thank You Lumpz, and Truly a Good Bye

I was Humpty Dumpty and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put me together again. And then a beautiful boy named Lumpy, who came from barren lands, walked along one day. He was fascinated by the beauty of my broken shards and also frightened. He touched my back gingerly under moonlight but then walked away, and I thought I would never see him again.

Two years later, I had grown bitter and lonely; I had spent time with bad people who pretended to help me but broke me even more or left my pieces rearranged and all mixed up. Then, Lumpy came by from a dream in a dream and sat down. “How have you been?” he asked. “Life is hard,” I complained, reaching out an arm. He laughed at me and asked, “Compared to what?”

“What do you do in those barren lands?”
“I am a slave to machines. I sleep in a burning house. But I left to find you again.”
“I suppose it had been pretty stupid to be sitting on that wall,” I admitted.
“I love that you were up on a wall in the first place,” he answered. “The rest of us are content to stay on the ground.”
“Being on the ground is only normal,” I said.
“Normalcy is the safeguard that separates emotion from consequence. I am not so afraid of consequence,” said this boy.

I felt myself healing; I did not need glue or patches or thread or liquor to dull the pain. I was doing it by myself. My new self was not the perfect porcelain sculpture I imagined myself to be in the beginning; I was molded with bumps and scars, but I felt good in this whole shell. I was no longer a cracked pitcher.

“I love you, and yet you bring me pain on a daily basis,” he confessed after some time. “You bring me face to face with parts of myself I often studiously avoid. I have to go back to the barren lands; I have more work to do. I have to work hard to be free.”

To repay him for his conversations and his ministrations in helping me become restored again, I planted flowers in his dry fields, reds of all shades. We walked around and we named them all: the lightness of poppies, the thick of good wine, the blood of sunsets, a misty stripe of rainbow evanescence.

Where he lived was so different from where I was used to and I began to yearn for other places.
“Come with me,” I invited.
“I can’t.”
“Then I must leave alone.” I thanked him again for helping me rebuild. I walked fifteen paces then turned around, scared I was doing the wrong thing. but he had already walked three steps determinedly toward his own future and has kept walking since.

Midnight Camping in the Last Frontier

The Fantastic Four (i.e. Gobie, Steens, Seams, and me) went camping out past Eagle Beach, near the end of the road, last night. Gobie picked the spot, and it was gorgeous; we were right by the ocean, and you can see the Chilkats straight ahead, and Orion and the Big Dipper and Mars watched over us as we made terrible tofurkey dogs and awesome s'mores over a fire that was burning much too fast because we used thin cedar planks instead of the more expensive Duralogs. Seams and I slept outside, and I saw my first shooting star.

When I woke up at 7:30am, there was frost on my sleeping bag, but with a view like this, who minds a little cold?
















Note how everyone else is up and packing while Seams is sleeping away like a baby.

Who Googlism Says I Am

I found this after I typed the last entry, pretty funny stuff. I highlighted the ones I found true/amusing.

Googlism for: valorie

valorie is a psychologist with a private practice in kansas city, MO
valorie is a former president of her professional association
valorie is a former president of agricultural communicators in education
valorie is the best on line psychic reading that i have seen online
valorie is very friendly and kind and cares a great deal about the people she reads for. this shows through in her readings
valorie is always there with open arms and a big hug
valorie is a 7
valorie is someone who can help you define and achieve your objectives
valorie is kind
valorie is from the US and alberto is originally from buenos aires
valorie is in the same room with you
valorie is reclining in what looks to be an old fishing net hung from a ...
valorie is showing and wonder just what the lady behind her was so intent in eating
valorie is the 1
valorie is 11
valorie is 42
valorie is also a great spokesperson for the volunteer program as well as the dog park
valorie is married and the mother of one son
valorie is also a consultant for private and corporate entities
valorie is happily married
valorie is a teacher at lanier high school where she teaches calculus
valorie is currently employed by the USDA forest service as a budget analyst
valorie is one of those rare individuals that possess a variety of creative talents
valorie is as old as tish
valorie is helping me as i type this article
valorie is the same person as brenda
valorie is also a member of the agent image council
valorie is right in one respect--because you definitely do want to win
valorie is trained to find people
valorie is in big trouble with mary margaret
valorie is another of the friendly voices who answers the phones
valorie is 5'9"
valorie is a second grade teacher in the centralia school system
valorie is three years old
valorie is an eclectic witch
valorie is 5'9" 160 lbs
valorie is a math teacher and is the team leader for the 8th grade blue team
valorie is a member of the westminster volleyball team
valorie is a board member of the consumer credit counseling services of southern nevada and the latin chamber of commerce
valorie is an american with a natural artistic sensitivity for the argentine tango
valorie is living alone after recently separating from her husband
valorie is combining forecasting and conflict resolution skills to steer employers away from litigation and agency regulation
valorie is the daughter of charles and laura belle
valorie is a former miss black texas usa
valorie is also going to ride a century with me tomorrow
valorie is smothered to death in plastic
valorie is currently jumping around the room pretending to be richard simmons by putting my gorilla slippers on her head
valorie is now known as valorie_bbiam
valorie is 16
valorie is still living
valorie is valorie lennox
valorie is also a bmx racer
valorie is a superb poker player
valorie is logical and
valorie is born
valorie is no julia roberts
valorie is the daughter of warren harding lawson and elizabeth rifman
valorie is in florida visiting relatives and swimming; while mary is in burbank still working at studio city
valorie is hunted and shot with an arrow and gutted
valorie is considering a new career as a gladiatrix and/or amazon as she got some swords
valorie is waiting impatiently
valorie is 28 years old lolley is 29 years old location
valorie is employed with "the best of west virginia" tamarack
valorie is an english teacher
valorie is fake
valorie is so nice to work with and her beanie was mwmts aaa+++"
valorie is a licensed interior designer with more than 16 years of interior design experience
valorie is getting married in july of 2002 in judy & jeannot's back yard in college place
valorie is something wrong?

That last one is money.

So, let's try this again. Who are you?

Who Are You?

I'm the girl who wants to get in a car and drive with the windows down in gorgeous weather, drive until the landscape is completely foreign, but it only takes 30 minutes until the road ends in Juneau.

I’m the girl who set fire to her hair by accident because she tilted her head back into a candle while laughing, and then she laughed some more because she thought someone farted, but no one did. It was the smell of her hair burning.

I’m the girl who went through six years of Sunday school only to refuse her confirmation because she did not believe she should commit when there was so much of the world left to learn.

I’m the girl whom a ghost befriended in the Philippines and she frightened her cousins so much they would go home during sleepovers because she would sit up in bed at midnight and start talking to her invisible friend.

I’m the girl who dropped out of college because of borderless Mozambiquan smiles.

I’m the girl who pilgrimaged to Jim Morrison’s grave in Pierre Lachaise, her way of paying her respects for a boy who had strung himself up in a dirty basement and stepped off a chair. She did not know him nearly so well until after he killed himself, and after this, she vowed to know better those people she cared about and not let any friends live unacknowledged.

I’m the girl who holds solitude to be sacred, but being alone leaves her floundering.
I'm the girl who never smiled for pictures until she was 11.
I'm the girl a San Francisco city hall official tried to intimidate, not realizing that she was a girl who did not take threats sitting down.

I’m the girl that wants to write a book called, “Fuck you Damien and Your Small Town Dreams”.

I’m the girl that would have married you if she were a little older or you were a little younger, but then you would never have met at all.

I’m the girl that still believes in magic.

I’m the girl that dived off cliffs in Greece but can’t swim so she had to ask a boy in front of her to wait and take her hand after she jumped.

I’m the girl who pretends she hates clichés but would give anything to hear, “If I could, I wouldn’t ever let you go.”

I’m the girl that teachers trusted because she was an honors student and got impeccable grades so it took the school 7 months to finally punish her for having a 20% attendance record her senior year.

I’m the girl who, during that said year, went to only one class in the entire month of October which happened to be when the yearbook photographer took her picture, and when it was published, the caption read, “Studying hard in AP European History”. She would have bought the yearbook just for that piece of irony alone but she didn’t want to bring anything familiar with her when she moved away.

I’m the girl who wants to love you but knows the only way she can, is not to.
Who are you?

Promise

"You can’t buy this beautiful, four color archival poster, even though all of the proceeds will go direct to the people who need it. You can beg & plead & throw a tantrum & even threaten to write your representative (& you know how well that works..) We’re not going to sell it to you.
You can only get it as a thank you.

That’s right. When you donate $20 or more through us at StoryPeople to the continuing relief efforts in the Gulf Coast, we’ll send one to you. If you order by Friday, Brian will sign it, too. (We’ll also have them at our galleries nationwide in the next couple of days, but Brian won’t be able to sign all of those..)"

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself."

Just Finished Reading:
"What's the world's greatest lie? It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate." ~Melchizedek

This was a beautiful book. I don't review books like I review movies because if it were good, I would never feel that I could write anything nearly as eloquently/comically/poignantly as the author did to describe the story. And if it were bad, then I didn't even waste my time finishing it let alone bothering to write a review (like the recent "A Simple Habana Melody" by Oscar Hijuelos). Movies, on the other hand, you already paid 9 clams for, good or bad till death do us part, so you have to sit through it to the end and hope the ride's entertaining. Unless it was "It Takes Two" which I went to by pure and utter accident (I swear); I walked out of that nightmare in less than 5 minutes.

First A Rant, Then the Good Stuff

Before I talk about how Phone Sex Guy called me again last night, I am permitting myself a selfish tirade tentatively titled, "Why I Am Not 'Wise'":

I might not spout off opinions about politics or activism like what I think of Bush nominating that woman for the Supreme Court or how I feel about the endangered state of those poor pandas, and I don't cry in my room wondering about the meaning of this god-given existence (often), and when I try to meditate I usually just start thinking about orange creamsicles, which are delicious. And I remember doing these things in the past; I was nicknamed 'a walking encyclopedia' throughout secondary school, close friends would tell me I was strong and well-adjusted and 'wise' beyond my years, that if these things happened to them that happened to me, they would have killed themselves already, and then eventually talking about such things either made me feel like a pretentious asshole or it gave me a headache or maybe, I had no need anymore to prove myself a warrior. Now, I make fun of myself (often) because I read crappy gossip magazines and look up my horoscope in them and watch brain cell-reducing reality tv shows, and I make many off-color jokes that people sometimes take seriously, and in life, I have made a lot of mistakes, and since seething with pain and anger exhausted me and living out of a suitcase stopped being a novelty and I, being the proverbial apple, had just fallen so, so far from the tree, there was nothing left to do but laugh and make more mistakes and laugh about those and wake up every morning to love the world all over again, no matter what it did to me the day or month or years before. And if people have problems and come to me about them, I don't regurgitate self-help advice from Deepak Chopra, I don't talk about my philosophy of the world and how we, as recently evolved creatures are trying to function in primitive responsibility and yet are testing new cognitive waters, that we carry the collective remembrances of 50,000 years and this alone is psychologically heavy, but I will listen, my heart bursting with empathy because suffering is suffering is suffering, but if nothing else, I have learned that this too, yes whatever it is, shall pass, and until it does, if you want me to be there to hold your hand or watch terrible movies or just to breathe quietly, then I will. But I do not presume to know how the world or you should function, and I will surely never tell you what to do--choice and freedom being beautiful unbound things. And if my silence is taken as ignorance or lack of depth or interest--which it has--then I am sorry for not having the ability to convey my thoughts. I am used to carrying them silently and have shortchanged myself in vocally expressing sentiment appropriately.

Okay, now THAT'S off my chest, onto the humor:

So Phone Sex Guy calls me last night, and I answer the phone because we don't have caller ID and I figured last month was the last I'd hear of him. How am I doing, he wants to know. He was just in a (presumably, sex) store the other day and saw a present (probably a vibrator or other accoutrement) he wanted to buy me. Okay... thanks? I quickly end the conversation, and an hour later, the phone rings again so I make Steens answer it.

S: "Valorie moved out."
PSG: "Wait, what? I don't understand."
S: "Uh yeah. Well, if she ever gets back for her shit, I'll tell her you called."
PSG: "But I just talked to her an hour ago!"
S: "
Well things have changed. I don't really know. I just got home, and she was being a bitch, and I told her I never want to see her fucking face again."
PSG: (very concerned) "Woah. Do you want to talk about it?"
S: "No I don't. Goodbye."

What kills me is not only was he so oblivious he didn't even hear me guffawing in the background, but while he is attempting to use me to unload on (ha, ha, get it?), he is welcoming my roommate to emotionally unload on him. So now I am waiting for Steens to get an Emmy for her performance, but the sex toy he bought me will probably arrive first.

Don't F&ck Your Family

So Spanks walks into my house and says, "I've got this great movie for us to watch." "What's it about?" I asked. "Well, it's a family movie. There's a bunch of comedians, and they tell a joke--the same joke--but sort of one-upping each other, and then Bob Saget starts sucking off the mime..."

"Wait, what!?? What is this movie called??"
"The Aristrocrats."

While that conversation is untrue, the movie isn't. Okay well Danny Tanner doesn't actually blow the mime, but he does talk about screwing children. For 45 minutes no less and in great, gleeful detail. And Andy Richter talks about it TO his own kid. Because this movie is lewd, unspeakably obscene, and funny as shit. If you think shit is funny. And if you think swimming in it and smearing it all over your face is another hilarious concept, then you're Golden. Showers.

Based on some tradition dating from vaudeville times, comics tell this joke to each other, improvising the middle bits, making it as shocking and offensive and lengthy as they can, and the punchline? "The Aristrocrats!" (jazz fingers or other showy hand gesture here). Not a particularly exceptional ending, but that's not the point. How far you can push the limits is.

And like a Rorshach test to crazy people, apparently, you can tell a lot about the person depending on how they tell this joke. There are those who focus on incestuous acts, those who prefer highlighting bestiality, the ones who revel in scatological humor, and the best tellers of them all who masterfully weave all three elements and then add a random bit like a dead grandmother. Or my favorite, the wife with a boil on her back. That popped.

From Whoopi Goldberg to Robin Williams to Ant--hell even Carrie Fisher has her own take--, these comedians proudly parade their personal versions, fondly reminisce the first time they heard The Joke, and break down why it actually works. You get to see how important timing and vocal inflection and embellishments are, and how hard it is to actually be funny. And when someone manages to pull this joke off, and brilliantly, you are that much more impressed.

Germans, however, probably wouldn't find The Joke that shocking seeing as they do that kind of thing in real life anyway.**


**If that statement offended you, you are better off not seeing this film. Or reading my blog ever again. Which I probably wouldn't have to tell you twice, you puritan cumbucket.

i'm bursting to tell you but i can't

Yesterday was a great day for the following fabulous reasons:

1. Seamus got hired as an actor for a traveling theatre company doing ESL plays for kids all over ITALY. Good things do happen to good people. And Seamus.
2. I whittled my inbox of 20 files to 3. Because when I actually show up for work instead of skipping out early to go hiking, I get serious shit done.
3. I went to the Rock Dump with Nolan. And although I sucked from going so many times in a short period, and my arms died on me after one climb, and it took me 10 minutes to take my harness off cuz I couldn't grip worth a damn, its the hurty achey feeling that comes with knowing you've worked out to the best of your ability. That or because you've ripped a muscle tendon, I'm still investigating this one.
4. At The Hangar after climbing, one of Nolan's friends propositioned me to proofread/transcribe a novel he's working on. I think it's a memoir of his commercial fishing experience, and he said he'd make the job "worth my while". I'm not good at telling people how much my time is worth (no wait, actually I am, but not in a monetary way), so I may just exchange my services for a season pass to Eaglecrest. Not only do I plan to be a super awesome rock climber, but I aspire to be a sexy snowboard bunny too.

Everyone's at a retreat tonight as chaperones/facilitators for a group of high school freshmen, which means I will not be getting:
a. my sexy salsa Steens (self-explanatory)
b. my free sleeping heater (Seams)
c. access to the school printer after school hours because I've been too lazy to get a copy of the room key (officemate)
d. an ulcer (Spoons)

the buck stops here

I consider it a beautiful Juneau day when I don't have to wear my XtraTufs or a raincoat or 2 fleece liners, but to have all 3 of these things happen concurrently is flabbergasting. And then to even require the use of *sunglasses*!! That's a virtual miracle! Like a Mafia underling to his superiors, I had to pay my dues for this blessed weekend of clear skies and intact appendages, so a visit to the Shrine seemed fitting.

The Shrine of St. Therese is past Auke Bay, near the end of the road. It's serene and tranquil and if the Rapture were to ever actually happen, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the pit stop for a thousand souls before ascending into Heaven. Or if the Rapture included "second place winners" if you will, then this would be a pretty good compensation package. But I am technically Catholic and thus do not believe in the Rapture anyway so I guess it's all moot, but one likes to imagine or we wouldn't have invented religion at all now would we?

Since we were already so close to the end of the road, and I'd never been before, we drove there too. I get a huge kick from living in a place where there is a sign that tells you how many miles to go before you will, indeed, stop having paved access to anything. The sign is seemingly polite, like it has taken etiquette lessons or at least read an article or two of Miss Manners. After all, it does warn you it's ending. 'If you were hoping for a fast food place,' it advises, 'don't keep going this way! And if you needed a gas station, then you are in the wrong country.' But underneath its gracious exterior, it is actually mocking you. 'Oh you say you wanted to drive to Skagway?? Too bad! Take the ferry sucker!' And if you really persisted on driving, say, a Hummer, past it anyway, then I hope you and your steel monstrosity fall into an ice crevasse and die.