Murder in the First

A few months ago I was tuned in to the documentary "Who killed the electric car?", a bleak tale of the birth and death of a short-lived idea freeing us from the greasy depths of oil-reliance: a car that runs on electricity. " Oh, what a great idea!" one thinks when watching the electric fetus emerge from the environmentalist womb. Visions of wars ending, smoggy airs parting, and smiling drivers exiting cars and plugging them into earth-conscious sockets start flashing in the mind. I imagined the fall of American imperialism and the possibility of peace, harmony...but then the tale takes a turn for the worse as the Bush Administration and oil companies sabotage the the invention to preserve their investment interests. As a result the electric cars are secretly sent away to an EV1("electric vehicle") burial ground somewhere in Arizona. I remember watching the footage as an aerial shot panned over the dumping grounds for these earth-preserving cars and envisioning their metal shells as corpses...left to die in a mass grave in silence. And littering the land to boot.
This reminded me of an equally saddening sight: the fate of Christmas trees after Christmas. Today marked the first day of my annual tree sighting. All splayed out on the curbside sans lights, decorations or love, the post-Christmas evergreen has continually filled me with a feeling of sadness. I've always felt that the sight of them on the street was a cause for mourning or the impetus for a moment of silence. These trees, plucked from their homes and carted to unfamiliar environments, drowned with water and dressed up with pomp and glitz, used and abused, are then discarded without a second thought as soon as the party has ended. The whole act has a tone all too similar to that of procuring a prostitute.
On the first day of their disposal, the trees still seem to have life in them. With their pre-attached tree stands they could easily be hoisted up into their original position and lined up in rows to ornament the street for a week or two. They could in fact live the extent of their lives and die naturally ( I'm sure they've been watered enough inside their respective brothels).
But today in Oakland, CA I saw the worst disposal of a holiday-prostitute-tree to date: the homicide, cover-up and disposal, mafia style.
This makes me appreciate my new family tradition of celebrating festivus....no tree, no gifts, no pomp and glitz. Next year while everyone else goes murdering trees, there'll be a festivus for the rest-of-us.

Conditioned Looking

When traveling across country by car the eyes have two functions. By day they dart swiftly back and forth, near and far, taking in as much stimuli as possible. As the miles pass by, the terrain changes, and the tiny one-horse towns pop up and then recede in the distance, the eyes check it all out, deciphering each new set of visual information to take in upside-down, turn around in the back of the brain and register- beautiful, unique, interesting, exciting,shocking, frightening, etc. It's like the eyes and brain are running a marathon. By sunset, although one has been seated in a car all day, there's a feeling of a hard day's work. After endless hours of catching things on the fly at seventy miles per hour, its hard for the mind to slow down.
...but then its dark. And so it must. And since its only five o'clock there are plenty more miles to chase after before day's end.
The dark state highway roads of the midwest present the next challenge. After a day of darting,the eyes are now resigned to the tedium of watching the little yellow lines on the road two hundred feet ahead because frankly thats all the further they can see. The scenery on either side might be exquisite, but peering into the darkness presents not even the slightest hint of what it might be. On long straight stretches of road reflectors and road signs whiz by in periphery. After 200 miles or so the task becomes very hallucinatory. Pools of purple start appearing on the road along side those hateful yellow dotted lines. Dark shadows in the roads' edge start looking convincingly like free-range cattle. The monotony resorts the eyes to habituation; conditioned looking where reaction disappears.
I imagine that residents of podunk mountain towns across the U.S. suffer from a sort of habituation themselves. Their eyes no longer dart back and forth in bewilderment and awe of the scenery on the 20-or-so-mile mountain drive into "town" for necessities. Instead the route becomes utilitarian, goal-oriented, ordinary.
There's something to be said then for the intention of the contemporary nomad: avoiding the disappointment of inevitable conditioned-looking.

Westward-Ho!

And....weeeee're off! I think almost everyone's father historically yelled that phrase when pulling out of the driveway in the family van or station wagon bound for summer vacation fun (for me this occurred at the Jersey Shore. Enough said.) and clearly somewhere along the way this phrase became a requirement for dad-hood. It's gotta be written in the rule book. So just for posterity I gave a good 'ol "and we're off" as we saw Meadow Lane fade away in the rear-view of our loaded jeep at 4:30 am yesterday as the embarking of our Westward Road Trip Extravaganza 2007(-8)! came to fruition (henceforth WRTE07-8!).
It was an impressive first-day-out to say the least.

WRTE07-8! by the numbers:

hours since departure: 43
states hit to date: 7 without counting PA. (total will be 10)
number of deer carcasses on Westbound I70 between PA and MO: 21
number of hawks, alive not dead, mostly perching:43
number of "This American Life" audio episodes heard: 6
number of hours without legitimate sleep: 29 (turns out I'm not that young anymore. I am subsequently achy and sick-ish after pulling this impromptu all-nighter and I know the last few hours in the car I was belting out my accompaniment to the "Rent" medleys one minute, then felt my head drop and realized my eyes had been closed mid-lyric... snapped back up still singing and repeated the cycle.)
Roadside America attractions spotted and detoured for: 1


All day I've been wondering, what happened to the good old days of invincibility when I could easily go out drinking on a Saturday night, roll home at last call, wake up to an alarm I had set correctly, get to my 8am dance rehearsal on time, and still finish the day like a hummingbird?
Camped away in one of my favorite cities, Boulder,CO for the next two days, I hope to rediscover the insights to this time-frugal method of existing and apply them in a less self-sacrificial way, and heal the sleep deprivation for the next phase of our rally Westward. Ho!

Christma-cuffs

The funny thing about Christmas is, no matter how hard you try to fight it, how hard you try to get back to the basics of the holiday: void of material purchases and crazed-shoppers' syndrome and centered around quality time with those who are cherished and loved (the "jesus is the reason for the season" ideals), there's always a breakdown of the minimalist mentality and an all-too-natural slip into the conventions of the American-bred-and-fed materialist expectations. The Hallmark holiday-ism, so to speak.
Thus, due to said expectations, a small and simple but well thought gesture never seems enough. And spending the day just like any other day makes others mutter some cliché about "its nice not to make a big deal out of it" or some other equally banal sentence with an underlying tone of "what an unfortunate circumstance". The yearly duty of answering the question "what are you doing for Christmas" is equally as torturous as the semi-daily " are you in school?" or "what are you doing these days?" to the 27-year-old overeducated underachiever, a title which I am proudly toting while brewing coffee and serving pastries at my local coffeehouse. Temporarily. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I have a time line, a schedule, some goals, and an agenda. I've packed them up in an orderly fashion to be dealt like flashcards at the onslaught of life-goal questions and applied my holiday mask of fun, family, and positivity. My game face. Now show me to the ring.
As we load up for another holiday-centered gathering my brother says from the background "...that's why I hate the holidays"...

P. A.

Wow. I'm finding it hard to believe its been nearly two months since I posted. Not that anyone's reading...
The lack of insightful writings is a result of my current locale.
As it turns out, I'm wintering in Pennsylvania. I'm sure if you are reading you're thinking that I change plans like underwear. I can empathize with that opinion. I like to think I learn by doing. In truth the story of how this keystone winter came to be is tiresome and unfortunate, but revolves around bureaucracy and paperwork, two things I despise. And the concept that I absolutely must go ahead and try to do it to realize I shouldn't have tried to do it or didn't even want to in the first place. Thus I have nestled away in the snow-covered lane named for long-expanses-of-wildflower-land-in-which-to-romp until weather and finances permit me to head back up. I'm craving big north.

( no, this is not a meadow in P-A)

"Nestled in this snowy lane" may sound cozy and nice, but believe you-me its certainly not like wintering in the Rocky mountains, or Hawaii as many of Alaska's residents do, or even wintering in Florida where at least for the sake of killing boredom you're close to the beach. No, here in P-A, ("the only state" someone recently epiphan-ized to me, "where people call it by the letters...P...A") one gets stuck in a rut for lack of things to do. I'm not talking in terms of giant adventures to ski slopes or cabins in the mountains. I'm talking basics. I just want to see a damn film that doesn't have some simple horror theme and two teeny bop celebs or some urban slang in the title, but here in mid-state P-A the "films" rarely arrive. I would even settle for a day in the art community, say looking at art or watching a show. Unfortunately the art museum is featuring some 19th century Parisian prints and its specialty: some local artists who specialize in the all-too-unoriginal photos of the Market Street bridge and Capitol Building or watercolors of a coffee mug on kitchen table. The only show of the season is none other than the Nutcracker, put on by the ballet school where I used to teach (picture low low budget renditions of your favorite musical performed in the attic or living room at family gatherings and holidays)
On the other hand, if you're in the area and want to find me, I'll be serving up coffee and bagels at the best local business in town. Turns out my mean tortilla wrapping skills from Fairbanks have come in handy...and my sarcasm and body art have found a place of acceptance in Republican-ville.

But no worries, all: I'll be camera-toting on a cross-country road adventure to ring in the new year, so my ho-hum attitude and general blasé will soon vanish and I will enlighten this blog with visuals more appropriate for its hefty title...earth-see. and sky. ahead.

Loco Locos

Well, here I am in Hollywood...the Hollywood District of Portland, OR, actually. If I had a nickel for the number of times in the last month that someone has spoken words of high praise for this city or said "oh Erinn you'd love it there" in the last month, I could support my drinking habit and sponsor my travel bug. So I had to investigate. I'm staying with a friend of my mother's, exploring the various neighborhoods, city parks and art & music scene for which the city is known. Along the way I have also learned a few interesting facts, selling points which place Portland on the top of my list of "places to live in my lifetime" (well, the top of the "...in America" category anyway).
First, Portland has a car share program, called Flexcar, allows people to reserve and use a car whenever they like or need...for grocery shopping for example. I know I hated hauling my groceries home on the rush hour subway to 94th Street from 14th in New York City just because I liked shopping at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. You become a member and just estimate how often you will use a car each month and pay the corresponding fee. Turns out several other cities, like Seattle and Atlanta offer this service too. Who knew?
Portland really seems to have a green approach to things. My hosts even picked me up in a Prius...
Another interesting fact: Portland has a large immigrant and refugee population, including groups from Mexico, Russia Asia and all around Africa. There is an organization to support these individuals and foster easy transitions to American life...This makes me think of documentary about the Lost Boys of Sudan. Some were placed in cities like Buffalo, NY and Pittsburgh and were given a tour of the American grocery store...they were completely confused and appalled by the donuts with colored sprinkles. They couldn't believe we ate that stuff. Sometimes I can't either.


Word to the wise: if you're ever in this cool-ass city, hit up Powell's books. It's impressive.


My final comment for this entry: Is anyone even reading this??

At least it will serve as a historical travel log for myself in the future...

And the World Spins Madly On

Fairbanks, Alaska has a way, as I've been told an innumerable amount of times in my short span here, of latching on to you in ways that no other of the fifty states can. Despite its extremes in weather and tagged winters, this town inevitably tugs at your heart-strings and musters a certain "saudade" in one's psyche, thus causing one's perpetual stay. I've been reading up on the "Fairbanks winters" and poking my nose into others' conversations that always include some version of the phrase "...so this is your last Fairbanks winter, then?" or "(Fairbanks') winter's here! Are you ready?" and name-dropping low temperatures, like "minus twenty" or worse...and to the leyman these phrases can be intimidating. This might be especially so with continued knowledge that the towns you grew up in are now enjoying a lengthy and quite mild fall season, while here its already been flurries since Friday.

I have been an unbalanced scale of weights and measures this past month bouncing between musings of my first "Fairbanks winter" and anxious interest in getting the hell outa' here, bound for more familiar (i.e. "easier"?) climates and conditions. My intention literally changes day-to-day and I am certain that more than a few have begun to classify my whimsy as flakiness due to this constant limbo.
A valued friend's opinion is that this decision will not make or break my impressions of Alaska, and to some degree he's right. No matter where I'm goin', the world spins madly on... (check out the Weepies "And the World Spins Madly On").
But its that draw inherent only to Fairbanks (or maybe, I risk assuming, Alaska-wide?) that initiates this fickle-ty and prevents me from feeling satisfied with a committed decision to go or not go.
...I bought a plane ticket back east the other day and have plans to load up and haul out next week. Let's see if I actually board....or how long I'm gone.