I have a long list of wants when it comes to actually sitting down and committing words to (figurative) paper. But there is one thing that transcends mere want. There is something more important than inspiration or a functional computer or a hot cup of coffee or sheets of blank, college-ruled notebook paper or index cards or the Sense and Sensibility soundtrack or a solid character or a laugh-out-loud opening line. Above all these very reasonable requests shines one necessity, the Key Ingredient to Authoring, if you will.
I must have vast wastelands of time.
In England, this was handed to me on a silvah plattah, because as an unemployed expat with no friends, no TV and no internet, my greatest resource was time.
But back in Anchorage, life gets a little more crowded. I have a car, so I can actually go places. I have some people, so I have places to go. I have a job so, that I can continue feeding myself in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed. I have church events. I have a Blockbuster card. Suddenly the hours that used to drift upon my doorstep have melted into an icy puddle of commitments and 99-cent 5-night rentals.
But I think I’ve found a loophole. Turns out, this is a pretty big state. And there are many villages and towns in Alaska that feel even further from home than England. And if by some twist of luck you can find yourself paid to go to these remote villages armed with a calculator and a cooler of groceries, you might also find yourself facing evening after evening of quiet solitude.
I’m writing this post because there is literally nothing else to do.
It’s a foggy, rainy night here in King Cove, a small fishing village on the southwestern tip of Alaska’s mainland. The one channel that comes in on my television’s bunny ears is ratnet – a haphazard conglomeration of all the networks that gets shot out to rural Alaska antennae. Currently the program playing is a how-to on recording and reporting Maritime weather (“only you know the sea and weather conditions at your boat’s coordinates!”), and it puts me in mind, both in tone and era, of the old McDonald’s training videos where they still use the Styrofoam McDLT containers.
I’ve cooked and eaten dinner. I’ve finished my book. I walked around town for awhile until the clerk at the mercantile said, “Aren’t you afraid of bears?” and I decided it would probably be prudent to be a little wary. I’ve fought with the Paleolithic internet.
And still the hours drift.
So I break down and write.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Porcupyre
“Mom, porcupines are pests. Once they come up to your house you have to get rid of them,” JR said as he loaded shells into my dad’s old 22. “They chew wood, they get under your deck. Think of the dogs! Think of the horses!” And with that, my oldest brother strode through the back door and sighted in on the unfortunate prickly porcupine treed in a nearby evergreen.
Like everything my oldest brother says, there was merit. And little room for argument. Or sentimentality. And my mother, with her sixteen years of experience parenting adult children, folded her arms across her chest and decided that she would not pick this battle.
Two muffled pops and the porcupine was dead, a still and spiny little heap. I held our hysterical neighbor dog by the collar (he wanted nothing more than a face full of quills) while JR rolled the body into a laundry basket, walked over to my parents’ burn barrel and lowered the porcupine, basket and all, into the cold ashes.
“Well,” he said, “gotta go.” He loaded his family into their car and headed home. The family farm had been saved from unwanted incisors, and he other irons in the fire.
Which is how the Great Porcupine Cremation of 2009 fell to me.
I’d like to say, for the record, that this was my first ever cremation attempt. Here was what I knew going into it:
1. The human body is 80% water – I apply the same percentage to quilled rodents
2. The porcupine has been dead (by this time) for two days. Rigor mortis is sure to have set in. And it will probably have glassy open eyes. And its tongue might be hanging out like it was on a dead squirrel I saw once.
3. Mom wants her laundry basket back before the cremation commences.
And here are the steps to cremating a porcupine, should you ever be called upon to do so:
Step One: Dump porcupine (hereafter referred to as P) out of laundry basket, into burn barrel.
Step Two: Start fire by pouring half a cup of gasoline on P and several pieces of pressure-treated junk wood. Watch for nails. Also, as I was told later by JR, watch for explosions from trying to start a fire with gasoline (no explosions noted).
Step Three: Build a bigger fire by throwing all manner of junk wood into barrel until flames are taller than you. Pause to find work gloves. Have a glass of iced tea as you wait for inferno to die down enough to check on P.
Step Four: Staying well away from the mouth of the barrel to avoid possible large intestine explosion shrapnel, obtain a large stick or board and attempt to lever P up from its position at the bottom of the fire to the top, without actually pushing him over the edge and on to the ground. The idea being to create a sort of funeral pyre for P in manner of King Arthur or that one crazy king in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Or a Jedi warrior.
Step Five: Continue in this manner for…I don’t know, two hours? Add wood, and stir P to the top. Add wood and stir P to the top.
Step Six: Now it’s time for dinner. Get some good pieces of wood (none of that plywood crap) and rebuild your pyre, capping it off with P and then the little grate lid that goes on the barrel. Go inside and wash your hands. Eat rotisserie chicken.
Step Seven: After you have eaten, go check on P. He will look just the same as when you left. But wait! Take off the grate! Tap P with stick. He will dissolve into a pile of dust.
Congratulations! You have just cremated a porcupine! Please send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Way to Go Kevin, along with your check or money order for $29.99, so we can we will mail your commemorative porcupine plaque, complete with certificate of authenticity.
Like everything my oldest brother says, there was merit. And little room for argument. Or sentimentality. And my mother, with her sixteen years of experience parenting adult children, folded her arms across her chest and decided that she would not pick this battle.
Two muffled pops and the porcupine was dead, a still and spiny little heap. I held our hysterical neighbor dog by the collar (he wanted nothing more than a face full of quills) while JR rolled the body into a laundry basket, walked over to my parents’ burn barrel and lowered the porcupine, basket and all, into the cold ashes.
“Well,” he said, “gotta go.” He loaded his family into their car and headed home. The family farm had been saved from unwanted incisors, and he other irons in the fire.
Which is how the Great Porcupine Cremation of 2009 fell to me.
I’d like to say, for the record, that this was my first ever cremation attempt. Here was what I knew going into it:
1. The human body is 80% water – I apply the same percentage to quilled rodents
2. The porcupine has been dead (by this time) for two days. Rigor mortis is sure to have set in. And it will probably have glassy open eyes. And its tongue might be hanging out like it was on a dead squirrel I saw once.
3. Mom wants her laundry basket back before the cremation commences.
And here are the steps to cremating a porcupine, should you ever be called upon to do so:
Step One: Dump porcupine (hereafter referred to as P) out of laundry basket, into burn barrel.
P appears intact – tongue still contained in mouth; eyes, as hypothesized, glassy; quills white and gray; claws curled into tiny fists to protest the world’s injustices, which have hit him rather hard of late.
Step Two: Start fire by pouring half a cup of gasoline on P and several pieces of pressure-treated junk wood. Watch for nails. Also, as I was told later by JR, watch for explosions from trying to start a fire with gasoline (no explosions noted).
P a bit singed, but was still primarily intact given that the fire was mostly happening above him.
Step Three: Build a bigger fire by throwing all manner of junk wood into barrel until flames are taller than you. Pause to find work gloves. Have a glass of iced tea as you wait for inferno to die down enough to check on P.
P appears slightly more singed, however quills are still intact and glassy eyes still accusatory. At abdomen, P has split open to reveal a ballooning large intestine, color: green.
Step Four: Staying well away from the mouth of the barrel to avoid possible large intestine explosion shrapnel, obtain a large stick or board and attempt to lever P up from its position at the bottom of the fire to the top, without actually pushing him over the edge and on to the ground. The idea being to create a sort of funeral pyre for P in manner of King Arthur or that one crazy king in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Or a Jedi warrior.
P starting to look charred now – no sign of quills. Lots of sizzling as body fluids are released. Skin breaks apart revealing pink flesh underneath. Pervading smell: banana candy.
Step Five: Continue in this manner for…I don’t know, two hours? Add wood, and stir P to the top. Add wood and stir P to the top.
P has lost his tail. His lower organs are also gone, but his lungs are hanging in there like little troopers.
Step Six: Now it’s time for dinner. Get some good pieces of wood (none of that plywood crap) and rebuild your pyre, capping it off with P and then the little grate lid that goes on the barrel. Go inside and wash your hands. Eat rotisserie chicken.
P looks disturbingly similar to rotisserie chicken.
Step Seven: After you have eaten, go check on P. He will look just the same as when you left. But wait! Take off the grate! Tap P with stick. He will dissolve into a pile of dust.
Congratulations! You have just cremated a porcupine! Please send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Way to Go Kevin, along with your check or money order for $29.99, so we can we will mail your commemorative porcupine plaque, complete with certificate of authenticity.
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Call me Ken Griffey Jr, 'cause I'm back!
It’s an embarrassing interval. Like when I wait too long to return a friend’s call, and a simple phone call evolves, in my mind, into a mammoth undertaking. So much time has passed, this isn’t going to be a fifteen minute chat. I need to block out an afternoon. I need to put this phone call on my calendar. We are going to require hours to repair the rift that time has torn in our neglected friendship.
What? You had another kid? What? It already has teeth? Yikes. It’s been too long.
And here I am in a similar situation. There have been periods of dead air in the history of Way to Go, Kevin!, to be sure. I’m nothing if not an inconsistent blogger. But never has the dearth of posting been more pronounced than the two-and-a-half months of radio silence that I am only breaking now.
In my defense, nothing very blog-worthy has been happening. The last good story I have is the moose collision, and the dent from that giant elk’s keister is still gracing the hood of my car. My life has been filled with more administrative functions – lots of job shuffling as I work to fulfill my dreams of being the first Pulitzer-prize winning novelist/accountant, lots of appliance moving, lots of time playing aunt to a captive and very cute audience. Many omelets have moved across my frying pan since last we spoke (and those great cook-your-own tortillas from Costco, have you ever had them?). Enough to fill the days and weeks, to be sure, but lacking in a certain drama.
But, I know that’s just an excuse. Because a boring life has never gotten in my way of crafting a long and detailed article on, say, potato chips, or getting my belt loop stuck on a doorknob.
I’ve just been lazy.
So without any more fanfare or self-deprecation/congratulation, I’m going to try to start this thing up again and resume chronicling the minutiae of my fascinating existence.
Kevin has teeth, and I have some catching up to do.
What? You had another kid? What? It already has teeth? Yikes. It’s been too long.
And here I am in a similar situation. There have been periods of dead air in the history of Way to Go, Kevin!, to be sure. I’m nothing if not an inconsistent blogger. But never has the dearth of posting been more pronounced than the two-and-a-half months of radio silence that I am only breaking now.
In my defense, nothing very blog-worthy has been happening. The last good story I have is the moose collision, and the dent from that giant elk’s keister is still gracing the hood of my car. My life has been filled with more administrative functions – lots of job shuffling as I work to fulfill my dreams of being the first Pulitzer-prize winning novelist/accountant, lots of appliance moving, lots of time playing aunt to a captive and very cute audience. Many omelets have moved across my frying pan since last we spoke (and those great cook-your-own tortillas from Costco, have you ever had them?). Enough to fill the days and weeks, to be sure, but lacking in a certain drama.
But, I know that’s just an excuse. Because a boring life has never gotten in my way of crafting a long and detailed article on, say, potato chips, or getting my belt loop stuck on a doorknob.
I’ve just been lazy.
So without any more fanfare or self-deprecation/congratulation, I’m going to try to start this thing up again and resume chronicling the minutiae of my fascinating existence.
Kevin has teeth, and I have some catching up to do.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Roadblock of Flesh and Bone
“Watch for moose!” has been my mother’s constant refrain to her children since my parents moved up the mountain two years ago. Their new house sits nestled among acres of tilled fields and scrubby forest and the occasional neighbor farmhouse. In other words, a perfect breeding ground for the oversized ungulates. They walk through our horses’ electric fence about once a week. They browse for potatoes in the garden. They meander along the side of the road as we whiz past, heading back to Anchorage after a weekend of leisure and hauling firewood and a backseat full of Sunday dinner leftovers.
Katy once had a near miss. A bull moose standing just outside the reach of her headlights leaned a little too close and his antlers clattered across the side of her car as she tried to stop on the icy hill. Other than a shaken Katy, and a bull moose whose head probably rang with vibrations for days, they were unharmed.
But a few weeks ago, I crossed an item off my Alaskan list that I hoped would always remain unticked.
I hit a moose.
She just appeared in the far reaches of my low beams, scrambling in the center of the road, trying to avoid my car. I stood on my brakes and the Santa Fe slowed. It slowed almost to a stop on the wind-cleared roads and, for a split second, I thought we were all going to be okay. But, just as the Santa Fe was halted, we caught up with the moose, and clipped her back legs. She sat on my hood, her rump making a loud, metallic thump that I had only heard in the movies when unsuspecting teenagers hit pedestrians in the road.
She recovered her footing quickly, and I don’t think she ever hit the ground. We were all still for a moment – me, with my hands wrapped around my steering wheel; Peter Segal from Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me telling some joke over the radio; the moose, avoiding eye contact, her right back leg lifted gingerly.
As we stood there, avoiding eye contact in the middle of the road, I thought of the moose/vehicle confrontations that I’d heard of in the past.
In high school, I drove past an accident. The car was totaled, its front bumper pushed into the dashboard and windshield shattered. And the moose lay, her legs curled under her, and a stream of blood flowing to the storm drain. They were waiting for the police to come and put the animal down.
When I was in elementary school, my dad hit a moose on his way to work. Again, the car was totaled and the moose was shot.
I’ve broken her leg, I thought. I’ve totaled my car. Now we’ll have to call the Troopers and make them come out and shoot and quarter this animal in negative-fifteen degree weather.
I don’t mind the fact that people kill and eat moose. Moose is a staple in Alaska – its lean meat is healthy and plentiful. But if I’m going to hunt, I want to do it on purpose. Neither of us was looking for a fight. We both just wanted to cross the road.
My fears were allayed when she started putting weight on her leg. Eventually she stepped over the snow berm and crunched through the snow - walking off without even exchanging insurance information.
So she wasn’t broken, although I’m sure that she’ll be sore for a while. And aside from a large dent in my hood, my car was unharmed.
As moose collisions go, this one went about as well as it could have.
And now that I’ve crossed it off my list, I can drive as fast as I want down that mountain.
Just kidding, Mom.
Katy once had a near miss. A bull moose standing just outside the reach of her headlights leaned a little too close and his antlers clattered across the side of her car as she tried to stop on the icy hill. Other than a shaken Katy, and a bull moose whose head probably rang with vibrations for days, they were unharmed.
But a few weeks ago, I crossed an item off my Alaskan list that I hoped would always remain unticked.
I hit a moose.
She just appeared in the far reaches of my low beams, scrambling in the center of the road, trying to avoid my car. I stood on my brakes and the Santa Fe slowed. It slowed almost to a stop on the wind-cleared roads and, for a split second, I thought we were all going to be okay. But, just as the Santa Fe was halted, we caught up with the moose, and clipped her back legs. She sat on my hood, her rump making a loud, metallic thump that I had only heard in the movies when unsuspecting teenagers hit pedestrians in the road.
She recovered her footing quickly, and I don’t think she ever hit the ground. We were all still for a moment – me, with my hands wrapped around my steering wheel; Peter Segal from Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me telling some joke over the radio; the moose, avoiding eye contact, her right back leg lifted gingerly.
As we stood there, avoiding eye contact in the middle of the road, I thought of the moose/vehicle confrontations that I’d heard of in the past.
In high school, I drove past an accident. The car was totaled, its front bumper pushed into the dashboard and windshield shattered. And the moose lay, her legs curled under her, and a stream of blood flowing to the storm drain. They were waiting for the police to come and put the animal down.
When I was in elementary school, my dad hit a moose on his way to work. Again, the car was totaled and the moose was shot.
I’ve broken her leg, I thought. I’ve totaled my car. Now we’ll have to call the Troopers and make them come out and shoot and quarter this animal in negative-fifteen degree weather.
I don’t mind the fact that people kill and eat moose. Moose is a staple in Alaska – its lean meat is healthy and plentiful. But if I’m going to hunt, I want to do it on purpose. Neither of us was looking for a fight. We both just wanted to cross the road.
My fears were allayed when she started putting weight on her leg. Eventually she stepped over the snow berm and crunched through the snow - walking off without even exchanging insurance information.
So she wasn’t broken, although I’m sure that she’ll be sore for a while. And aside from a large dent in my hood, my car was unharmed.
As moose collisions go, this one went about as well as it could have.
And now that I’ve crossed it off my list, I can drive as fast as I want down that mountain.
Just kidding, Mom.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Aw, you're just pulling my leghorn.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
'tis the season
There are seventeen people in my immediate family, including four who have birthdays in December (and three in January). Such staggering numbers have forced my family to take some Yuletide measures in order to make the holiday season feasible.
Actually, just one measure: Christmas lists.
Here, for the first time in print, are the Gates Family Christmas List Guidelines and Rules:
1. The Lists must be published before the first of December. This is non-negotiable.
2. The Lists should contain a careful balance of expensive and inexpensive items so as to create a mixture that is neither too rich nor too lean. High-ticket items can also be helpful in that they make less pricey items seem reasonable, even if they aren’t.
3. You may repeat an item several times throughout your List (ie: listing “money” at number 3, number 12 and number 22). This is a way to “lighten up” your List, while at the same time establishing a subtle emphasis.
4. The Lists are merely guides. Don’t think that you have to buy something from the Lists. You can still use your imagination and buy a surprise. But realize, if you do this, that one of your brothers is going to complain that no one has purchased a single item off his List for the past eight Christmases.
5. The Lists may be hand-delivered, emailed or faxed. The Master Lists are maintained by Mom. Any disputes over “dibs” on a particular listed item or arguments regarding duplication will be resolved at her discretion. Refusal to comply with her decision may result in one of the following: broken thumbs, horse head in bed sheets, Christmas dinner dish duty.
6. Dad is apparently exempt from having to publish a List.
7. Repeat mantra as needed: The List does not suck the joy and spontaneity out of Christmas, leaving a vapid shell filled only with rank consumerism.
Here’s my list this year, along with a sneak peek at my brand-new baby graphic design skillz:
Probably too small to see. You can click on it to make it larger. Or you can just buy me a surprise.
Actually, just one measure: Christmas lists.
Here, for the first time in print, are the Gates Family Christmas List Guidelines and Rules:
1. The Lists must be published before the first of December. This is non-negotiable.
2. The Lists should contain a careful balance of expensive and inexpensive items so as to create a mixture that is neither too rich nor too lean. High-ticket items can also be helpful in that they make less pricey items seem reasonable, even if they aren’t.
3. You may repeat an item several times throughout your List (ie: listing “money” at number 3, number 12 and number 22). This is a way to “lighten up” your List, while at the same time establishing a subtle emphasis.
4. The Lists are merely guides. Don’t think that you have to buy something from the Lists. You can still use your imagination and buy a surprise. But realize, if you do this, that one of your brothers is going to complain that no one has purchased a single item off his List for the past eight Christmases.
5. The Lists may be hand-delivered, emailed or faxed. The Master Lists are maintained by Mom. Any disputes over “dibs” on a particular listed item or arguments regarding duplication will be resolved at her discretion. Refusal to comply with her decision may result in one of the following: broken thumbs, horse head in bed sheets, Christmas dinner dish duty.
6. Dad is apparently exempt from having to publish a List.
7. Repeat mantra as needed: The List does not suck the joy and spontaneity out of Christmas, leaving a vapid shell filled only with rank consumerism.
Here’s my list this year, along with a sneak peek at my brand-new baby graphic design skillz:
Probably too small to see. You can click on it to make it larger. Or you can just buy me a surprise.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
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