putting the "ohh" in October

winter is dragging its heels. normally, Anchorage falls are weeklong orgies of color that end with an embarrassing premature windstormation. the cold hits with a six-month bang. not so this season! snow fell last week and promptly melted; the autumnal foreplay continues, and the last few days have been nearly t-shirt worthy. 

I didn't tweak this photo at all, apart from minorly cropping the bottom (I was staring directly into the sun as I took this). behold yesterday's luridity of Arctic Valley and the day-tripping motorcyclists. 

and this one. Alaska looks like a goddamn Bob Ross painting right now. 

this is filtered with "old photo 3". I'm being a fucking narcissist because I want to remember how happy am to live here when it's January and dreadful. 

I RODE ON THE BACK OF MY FIRST MOTORCYCLE TODAY! it was gorgeous. everything about it... the brightness, the smells, the tangibility to the surroundings... I'm still zingy. the list of "things I am terrified of but still want to try" is growing ever shorter. anyone want to go rock climbing or scuba diving?

*

tonight's sunset at the spot where we have all those talks about our feelings... you know. 

I made this tonight and it's dreadful. the (boxed, imported) basil is bitter as hell. or were the canned olives what ruined it? or the fact that I refrigerated the underripe tomatoes? I am a poor excuse for a housewife. 

ask anyone! 

the surliest of Sundays!

the wee bird-mummy from Alabama, under a hand from an arm from Seattle, foregrounded by a crusty dracena from Midtown. 

Darwin's. 

Minnesota becomes O'Malley. I wish the sky really looked like this. 

ain't nothing more scornful than a cat, except perhaps a woman.

October will be better. 

I loved you all my life

4th Avenue.

makin' the FREE CANDY molester-van look even sexier. 

one of my favorite houses in Anchorage is for sale! 

5th Avenue. 

Point Woronzof. 

I've shared a lot of anecdotes lately regarding my shitty driving. in this, I'm going about 50 mph and trying to take a picture of the fresh snow on the mountains. as soon as I realized I had photographic proof of how tunnel-visioned and fucking idiotic/hazardous I can be, I had to post it to shame myself. I'm sorry, fellow citizens. I promise to be much more conscientious. 

Entropy-pants. 

I wantonly overdid it on caffeine today. so I listened to the Pixies cover "I Can't Forget" three times in a row. 

your zig is zagging.

snow on green leaves. the first snow is always childishly exhilarating. it's an odd combination of giddiness and resignation... it was kind of a relief to descend from Hillside back into the world of barely-changing trees and dry pavement. I shall digest the inevitable in small doses. 

a narcissistic outtake. I truly hope I was the only one up there. 

there is no possible way this is palatable. what in the fuck would you do with this? mix it with milk and put it in your kid's thermos? 

it was windy as hell when I took this. the sunsets linger here. they linger longer. 

put most of the rest of my art up today. I acquired two pieces at the 'gathering' this afternoon. they have a good home here. 

didja know? if you take every human on the planet and give them six square feet of personal space, they will fill an area the size of Texas. 

48 hours of sunny autumn!

my porch! note the chicken and various dead plants. 

the sexy, mysterious Glenn Highway. 

the Tastee-Freez on my old corner in Eagle River. it's been vacant since we lived here in the 80s. 

I park under a birch tree now. 

this is where I lived in Eagle River, circa 1985. i am unsure of which unit. what I do remember: grey carpet. the neighbor had one of those high-backed wicker chairs that I loved to sit in. one of the nearby buildings was gutted in a fire and nobody woke me up to watch it burn. the commute into Anchorage in the backseat of our Nissan Stanza was boring and I wasn't allowed to draw on the steamy windows. the North Slope was my favorite restaurant because the booths had curtains and they served Shirley Temples. 

the poetic death-forest near Girdwood. 

da Arm. 

Entropy-pants. 

I learned last night that a group of butterflies is called a "kaleidoscope." I am still reeling from the lyrical sensuality of this! 

addendum

it actually gets quiet here. I can hear my body keeping itself alive. and I can hear my brain constantly backpedalling. 

I don't know how to process things without writing about them. seeing my insipid thoughts in print makes them seem comical and therefore manageable. and since I first started keeping "blogs" in 2005 (all of which are no longer active) I can't just write "for myself" without getting horribly disgusted and stopping. it's like having a discussion with someone who agrees with everything you say; it's pointless. 

I spend a lot of time alone. I always have. often it's a craving, a necessity; but that comfort can easily shift to a restlessness bordering on frantic. being back in Alaska has reminded me of a lot of shit in my life and my past that I never truly thought mattered- good things and horrible things, made more lurid with repetition and familiarity. there is really only so much I can do and say and feel here before it's been DONE- a new, fresh method becomes crucial. I suspect this is a Life Lesson most people figure out far earlier than I. maybe I moved back to be in a cozy, claustrophobic environment in which I would finally, TRULY, be forced to confront my own bullshit. 

it's hard to be back in a place where I have so many memories of my family, our love, and our significant dysfunctions. I hate worrying if and when I'm going to see people from my past whom I don't care to interact with. and I hate realizing that, despite my most idealistic and earnest intentions, not everyone's thrilled to have me living in Anchorage again either. I hate feeling lonely AGAIN, STILL, in a beautiful but very unforgiving place. ultimately: no matter where I go, here I am, and now I'm back in fucking Alaska.

I'm currently writing this like a phone-lit troll in my parked car at Point Woronzof- one of the places I've always gone to decompress, to remember what's important. and yeah: it's QUIET. it's a beautiful soft silence that I hadn't heard in years until I moved back. it's as dark as the full moon and the green runway lights will allow, and directly in front of my car is the goddamn Big Dipper, just like on the state flag. if I lean forward I can see the North Star near the crack in my windshield. it's like Alaska's humbly reaching out to me at every misstep, acknowledging its deficits in an unavoidably charming way. it's like it's saying: yeah, it's hard; yes, it can suck here just as ferociously as anywhere else, but it's still pretty amazing and your favorite people are here and we're all in this together... we're all in this surreal corner of the world, so let's just relax and look at the stars- the stars you could never see in the city smog of Seattle. 

I've been listening to the Queen song "'39" on repeat for the past week or so. it's still my favorite of theirs (after "Seaside Rendezvous", because OF COURSE). and it's even more poignant lately, with the leaves changing and the earlier darkness, in a new lair with the objects surrounding me that I deemed worthy to follow me from my childhood and throughout Washington. I found all my old journals, rubbish I'll never reread but can't throw away, and letters with my mother's handwriting, and the ashes of my deceased cats. I still have photographs from the past three decades, and books with exes' inscriptions on the inside covers, and lists I've angrily written on scrap paper about how to make myself finally fucking happy.

does everyone do shit like this, and it's simply too mortifying and vulnerable to admit to?  

a minivan of loud humans pulled up beside me. they're in front of my car, carrying glowsticks for illumination, laughing amid coughing fits. jets fly overhead. it's no longer quiet, but that's okay too. the clouds barely move in front of the moon. 

I'm not going to edit this. consider it a moment crystallized. I'll post more blithe photos soon. 

panic, on trying not to

the mountains (McKinley, Foraker, and the one I can't remember the name of) were visible from 300 miles away, but my phone camera couldn't discern them, even before the filtration. 

back-alley Alaskana. 

this alcove in the pedestrian alley beside the 4th Ave Theatre is where, circa 1994, a pay phone used to be. we'd call our moms from there to get rides, furtively exhaling the fumes from our Doral Menthol Ultra-lights (bought underage from the now-defunct bodega at 4th & E) away from the vile receiver so that they remained unaware of our silly habits. 

last night's skygasm. 

my happy place. 

whoever you are, I fucking like you an awful lot. 

skyrockets in flight? 

thanks so much for everyone who's offered their kindness and clarity lately. it's helped me far more than you can imagine. you know who you are. 

weird introvert.

I lived in the Ravenhill Condos at 8101 Peck Avenue for about two years during elementary school. 

this is the Thomas Kinkade version. 

our unit, G-53. 

a neighbor was leaving as I was creepily taking pictures, so I went over to explain myself. "I lived here around 1987" I said. she said the closets are still mirrored. I remember the bathroom having carpet, beige carpet, and my dad setting up a hibachi in the fireplace to grill meat. I learned how to ride my 2-wheeler Huffy in the parking lot. the snow burms created massive forts. I could see the Centennial Park steam-thing from my bedroom window. I always loved the names of the streets in this neighborhood: Peck, Grand Larry, ZAPPA. when we moved I wrote my name in the bottom of my closet in pen.

but does any of it matter? not really.  

this is where I just moved from, after I cleaned it. 

I had it filled to capacity with crap. 

the bedroom and water closet. 

and I said goodbye. 

the view from my new lazy place, 0:32 13 September 2013. 

and 10:43 13 September 2013. 

Everything in this town is saturated with memories and emotions; it's almost overwhelming. 

it poured all night, loud on the top floor from my open window. i can hear the train from my new place. and now the birds are chirping and the sky is blue. the driveway is covered with yellow leaves. this is how things are now. 

don't be bored.

I moved all my shit in six days. this has been an exhilarating week! actually, this entire year has been rather stimulating. 

I took the kitchen cabinets off to better reveal the 1977 mushroom shelf liners. the cabinet door fell on my foot. 

facing west. 

today: scenes from the laundromat. 

I love the laundromat!

the sinister, swarthy laundromat!

being narcissistic at the old lair, the night I broke my lease and started packing. 

this turn of events, like pretty much everything else of late, has turned out astonishingly well. I feel very fucking fortunate. 

yesterday at the fair

in the future, everyone will be able to imitate Andy Warhol for fifteen minutes. 

they're all breathing. 

the energy's waned a bit. the smiles are a bit forced, the gazes manic with ennui. 

I'm drunk and I'm not wearing pants, so this isn't a good time to talk to me about Jesus. 

this comes with a matching vanity cabinet! 

it pissed rain and a north wind blew. my boots leaked. I had another scotoma-thing. ate cold fries with bacon dip and listened to Bret Michaels caterwaul from across the grounds. realized too late that I missed the Pure Prairie League play "Amie" at the Sluicebox. gave chair massages whilst wearing a scarf and gloves, singing along to Gerry Rafferty and Journey on my coworker's iPod. dug my fingers into the cloudlike fuzz on the backs of freshly shorn sheep. the best part is leaving at night; I walk by the bungee ride and stop to watch people scream and laugh. their giddiness is contagious. the seat is neon-lit against the cold black summer sky. 

today's the last day.