James, gym, Jimi

An interesting phenomena has occurred here in Talkeetna. For whatever reason, everyone here calls me James. I am not opposed to this. In fact, when most people meet me and ask me what I would like to be called I tell them that James or Jim are equally fine. Back home almost everyone calls me Jim. A few people used James, the more formal, full name, on occasion, and there's even a guy I know who calls me Seamus. The only variation of my name that I do not offer to others is Jimmy. Most people might think that I don't like going by this name, but that's not the truth. Actually, the story is that while growing up the only people who called me Jimmy were my family, and when someone that isn't family refers to me as that (not including karaoke aliases) it always makes me feel like I'm being treated or spoken to like a little kid. This is not a hard and fast rule, because some old timers use Jimmy as a part of natural speech. My name was more popular in the past than it is now, so Jimmy was a very common nickname. But when James started making its appearance in my life, roughly six to ten years ago, I almost fought it. It seemed too formal, not at all me. But the more I heard it, especially from a certain few women in my life, it took on a special air. Jim may be the guy behind the bar, but James is the name of kings. These days I really don't prefer one or the other. When I'm introduced, or when I'm asked my name, I just say whatever comes to mind. I've been wondering if leaning towards one or the other is some indication of how informal I want my relationship with each person to become. I'm not sure, and it probably doesn't matter anyway, but it's something that I've wondered lately and I doubt I'll ever really know.

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Every month I have ten dollars deducted from my bank account to keep my Gold's Gym membership open. I joined about five months before I came to Alaska, and this little maintenance fee keeps my account active so I don't have to re-join when I get back. I still manage to keep the fantasy of getting in shape alive, and I pay a steep price for it. The membership is about sixty a month regularly, and that includes my access to the boxing equipment and classes. For as much fun as I used to have in my Krav Maga class, I thought that the access to all the boxing, MMA, and kickboxing stuff they offer at Gold's would really keep me interested and going in. It didn't really help. I was working out, but there just wasn't the same camaraderie or good times at Gold's. Maybe when I head home I should try again, give it more time, but I miss the ass-kickery that went on almost nightly in Krav. Coming up here, I knew that there wasn't going to be any fancy gym around, or even simple weights or who knows what kind of place to do anything. I made a conscious choice to go very far back to basics and do strictly body weight exercises while working in kettlebells as often as my body would allow. Well, I was doing really well for about three weeks and now, nothing. There was no real reason, either, I just stopped. I lost all interest in exercise. I haven't even been hiking in weeks now (although that probably has more to do with the insane amounts of rain that have been falling). For some reason I am not able to stay motivated towards these things, even though I finally have the time and the space. It is like life called bullshit on my grand plans, and I don't even have a witty response. The sad part is, I do hate the way I look, and especially the way I feel about my health and physical fitness. Weight loss is one thing, and it would be great, but I just want to FEEL good and have some energy from day to day. The circumstance is different here, but not the result. I need to take better care of myself.

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Somewhat to that end, I have recommitted myself to the undying love of my life. If I am to be healed, it will not be from traveling, or from the mountain, or the strange and sometimes fascinating experiences of my summer away, it will be from the one thing that has always healed me. The sun that always shines on my soul: music. I left work one day last week with a heavy heart and a mind full of rage. It was a shite day to cap off a few in a row, and things were being done at my job that seemed almost specifically designed to mess with me. By the time I finally got to leave I was at my boiling point. I decided that instead of going right home to stew I would head up to the highway where the supermarket and gas station are and get some fuel, some air in my tires, and a few groceries. This trip is about 12 miles, and I thought it might be good for me. Well I was very right, because the goddess Minerva was smiling on me and as soon as I hit the road my iPod started belting Jimi Hendrix out through my speakers as loud as I could take it. My temper calmed, my mind was put at ease, it even seemed as though the sun was fighting through the clouds to make an appearance. By the time Machine Gun came on it was like an entirely different day. Music has always had the ability to alter my moods. Usually it happens on days when I'm already up, and the right song comes on and I'm taken to a whole different plane of existence. But when you're down it can be even more important to have those sounds surround you and lift you back up. And if 6 turns out to be 9, I don't mind, I don't mind...

Jet Boats vs. ATVs - ATVs Win!

So, in the last two weeks since I braced this space to become my whiny headspace clearinghouse, I have worked and played and worked some more, but suffered no bouts of existential angst and had no real problems to vent. Truth is, it's just plain ol' crazy what you can get used to. I am at the point now where I am closer to leaving than I am to my arrival here. Summer is half past, and I'm settled into the groove of life, the way we all do, when it just keeps coming at us. There have been ups and downs, to be sure, but the rest is just life.

It's not that I didn't expect this to happen, I know from past forays into the weird (I'm looking at you, Army) that when you just take each day as it comes you eventually just develop routines and all of a sudden it's not weird anymore. I just figured that it would have been something that I noticed, like a definitive moment in my workaday life, where I recognized how adept I am at being a temporary Talkeetnan. It actually kinda whispered past. Perhaps it was Wednesday night, when I was suffering from an extremely rare (for me) bout of insomnia. As I lay awake, re- and de- composing letters to friends in my head, imagining the pub that I will one day open, and trying to figure out what I'm going to do when I get back to the Jerz, maybe that was the night that I transformed from a guy who wasn't sure that he was gonna last here to a guy who has a full time job, a place of his own, good friends and neighbors, and a fairly decent social life. I can't really say, because it happened when I wasn't looking, but living. Like all important moments do.

I have had a steady schedule for the last month, which is really great compared to the first few weeks I was there when my days off changed every week. Even more remarkable is that I have managed to squeak by the rain once or twice and actually go out and have some fun in the sun. Last weekend I took advantage of the lodge employee discount (re: free) and went on a Mahay's Jet Boat Adventure Tour. You spend a couple of hours riding up the Talkeetna River, they try and show you some local wildlife or just a lovely ride out on the water. We saw a few bald eagles, from a distance, but not much else. There is also a small nature walk component where they pull off to the bank and you go into the woods to visit a native style camp and a trapper's cabin. It was an ok time, but seemed more like the kind of trip you'd go on in middle school for social studies class. Since I was ill-informed about the types of trips Mahay's offers, I didn't realize that you could go on a different ride that took you five hours up river to a class 5 whitewater area called Devil's Canyon. Guess I have to go back and take the grown up ride.

Dena'ina Indian Encampment, part 1

Dena'ina Indian Encampment, part 2

Trapper's Cabin

Inside the trapper's cabin.

A trapper's cache.

The Talkeetna River & a Mahay's Jet Boat

Doubt you'll make it out, since I took this with my cel, but there's a bald eagle up there.

Tuesday evening of this past week, I was invited by one of my lovely co-workers, who also happens to be one of the cooks at the lodge, to share in the wonderful bounty of a Thanksgiving Dinner in July. Hannah and her roommates put together quite a spread. There was turkey, stuffing, potatoes, home made macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, home made gravy, and biscuits. Not to mention desert, consisting of pies and cupcakes and cookies, oh my. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and celebrating an extra one in the middle of summer was a great way to spend an evening so far from home. There were a whole bunch of people from work there, including some night shift folks that I never see. Afterwards, in lieu of a game of catch with the pigskin, we threw a frisbee around and then headed into town for some adult libations. I had to be up for work at 4:45 the next morning, so I didn't stay out too late, but it was a good night with some good people. And my first real home cooked meal in months. Oh, yeah, and I played ping-pong for the first time in many years too, and even though I am a little rusty, I think I've still got it.

Today was, by far, the best day of the week. Except for sleeping in a bit later than I would have liked, everything came up roses today. I had a great breakfast at the lodge, enjoying French Toast that isn't as good as mine, but sure ain't bad either. Then I headed into town to check my PO Box and discovered a package sent to me by some wonderful friends back home, which consisted of multiple packs and one loaf of Case's Pork Roll to warm my grateful belly. Sufficed to say, dinner tonight was delicious. This afternoon, I arranged for another employee discounted adventure, this time trail riding 4-Wheel ATVs all over the local area. It's a three hour tour, but since we weren't on a boat I wasn't too worried about being a castaway. I've never ridden a quad before, and it was a blast. The weather cooperated, the guy running the tour was amenable to my attempts to see how fast I could hit trails and take turns, and I didn't crash or fall even once. I look forward to going back when there are no vacationers in the group and seeing what those things can really do. And I don't think I'm gonna have to worry about a re-occurrance of that insomnia tonight. Tomorrow it's back to work, back to the routine. Just plain old living. Just like they're doing anywhere else on earth.

The Talkeetna River from the trail high on the banks.

Another spot along an old ski trail, on a clear day you can see Denali from here.

Your humble author, rugged and ridin'.

I am a Paper Journal Failure

I swear I have tried, many times. I've owned at least four different journals. I've gone from cheap black n' white marbled composition books to custom leather cover Oberon journals with a replaceable insert. I just can't seem to get behind writing in the little bastards. I don't know what it is. When I write other things, poetry or lyrics or whatever, I actually prefer notebooks to typing, but something about the process of "journaling" or writing a diary or blog just screams KEYS to me. I wonder if it is something in my brain, like the difference between creative writing versus writing about events and thought processes that are not completely invented. My blog and journal entries are creative (at least as far as I am capable of rendering them) to be sure, but they are never purely conjured the way that my other writing is.

I am a bit disappointed in myself with this realization, or rather, with accepting this fact. Just before I left for Alaska I bought a new insert for my fancy leather journal. Also, my folks went out and got me this very cool little black journal with a magnetic latched cover. They both sit, undisturbed, in a box next to my couch. Once I set this blog in motion, I kind of accepted that I would be spending less time writing things in little books, but I did not anticipate abandoning them entirely. The most frightening prospect now, the little spot in the distance that seems to grow as it gets closer, is how I think this space will come to evolve in the near future into my one and only outlet for the stinky mental, emotional, and psychological detritus that I occasionally need to purge from the recesses of my mind.

My entries, to this point, have revealed a little bit of my thought process and next to nothing of the dark corners of my mind. But living as I am, with no one in particular to be the sounding board for all of my less happy-happy joy-joy thinking, I fear that sooner or later I will just take the plunge and let the words fly here. My fear of this happening is two-fold. First, it will take a fair bit of patience on the part of the reader to deal with all of my tedious ramblings, and second I may well reveal things about my feelings towards others and the lives they lead that are better left un-spoken. I would never do this in a callous or thoughtless manner, but it might still lead to hurt feelings or misunderstandings. After all, if I say someone is a pain in my ass and twelve people all assume I'm talking about them because I'm not going to use names, well, that can only lead to trouble. A third potential problem, but one I'm not even really worried about, is the impact of my opinions on anything else. If I come on here and say something that offends someone's delicate sensibilities, well then they should just stop reading. But the audience here is practically guaranteed to only be people who know me personally, and I don't ever want to have a discussion where I'm explaining myself in person about something I wrote on here four months ago. It's tiresome and just plain stupid.

I suppose the point of this is really a roundabout disclaimer. As much as I just wanted to only write about traveling and the experiences of what some might have considered a working vacation, the reality of having two jobs, not a lot of money, and about 1/100th of the social circle I enjoyed at home has led to far more introspection than even I was prepared for. I just want to warn everyone that this blog isn't gonna be all rainbows and puppy dogs. And I'll just get this out of the way for the record:

The weather in Alaska fucking SUCKS this year.

"how can I make this clear?

it seems so simple yet

I could spend my whole life 

saying things that make no sense"

~ Dag Nasty