Notes on a transplant: A field trial on the efficacy of optimism.

The last few days have seen some big events in my summer excursion. Try to imagine a metronome granted sentience in some sort of Fantasian dream which then decides to spend it's entire brief life of awareness on amphetamine and you'll get some idea of my mood swings since Monday.

I brought my bicycle with me from Jersey, and on the trip up it got a little gunked up with dirt and debris. When we got to Anchorage I dropped it at a local bike shop for a tune-up. About a week after I got to Talkeetna, I took a ride back to Anchorage to pick it up and when I got there I noticed a bit of smoke coming from under my hood. Of course being over 4500 miles from home, with very little money and no idea how to work on cars, this freaked me out a bit. I looked things over, which is a bit like a a high school student trying to diagnose one of Dr. House's patients, but figured that since the check engine light wasn't on, it wasn't over-heating, and there was no discernible oil leaks or spatters that I was safe to make it back to Talkeetna (a two hour plus drive). Just to be safe I bought a spare bottle of engine coolant.

Neither myself, nor the trained eyes at the local service shop could spot a coolant leak and I made it back without incident, but discovered that the smoke was indeed coming from the radiator. When I got into town I asked Holli if her husband, who is a mechanic, would mind taking a look and see if he could figure out what was going on. A few days later he came by and after getting underneath he noticed that a small valve at the bottom of the radiator was weeping fluid; not a large leak, but enough to cause problems. After consulting with him, as well as my brother-in-law Shawn back home, the simple/cheap fix idea was to remove the offending plug and epoxy the hole shut completely. By then it was a holiday weekend, and the only place around where I might purchase something that works would be closed until Tuesday. I'm fully bummed about still being unemployed, and not looking forward to figuring out a way to perform this minor procedure without any tools, or ramps, or a place to store all the fluid I'm gonna have to empty in order to even try it. Hell, I don't even really have a place to work on the damn thing. Major downer. 

In the midst of all this, I go and look at a place that will be available to rent the second week of June. It's owned by a woman named Marne, who manages the big drinking establishment in town, the Fairview Inn. I show up at her place, just a block over from the hostel and one down from Natasha and Tyler's cabin. The rental is a yurt, a type of tent that is slightly more solid and more house-like than camping tents. It's as big as a large room of a house, has heat and power, shares a cooking area with some other people living on the property, but includes access to a private full bathroom, washer/dryer, and Internet access. The rent is $550 a month. A cabin that was much farther out of town and didn't have water was being offered for $450 on Craigslist, so the value here was obvious to me. This is a town where about twenty percent of the summer population lives in camping tents. However, I have about 8 dollars in my pocket and I've been sleeping in my Jeep all week. I tell her at the time that I am interested, but it is entirely dependent upon me finding a job. There are two more potential renters that are coming to see the place, but because Holli is friends with Marne and put in a good word for me, she said she'd try and keep me at the top of the list. I'm stoked on the yurt, but still need to find a job before I can even think about a place to live. Luckily, by the end of the week some REALLY good news comes in: a job interview. The big lodge on the hill, this area's version of the Waldorf-Astoria, called me back after several of my phone calls and intrusive surprise visits. I go in and meet with Sara, the dining area manager, and interview for a position as a server. Things go well (I've always been a good interview) and I have a positive vibe, especially when she says she just needs to check my references and she'll get back to me after the long weekend. Up!

While this is happening, some guys from Poland who are staying at the Hostel are trying to make plans to take a train or a shuttle bus to Fairbanks. It's a five hour drive north from Talkeetna, and it's pretty expensive. When they change their minds and decide to go down to Anchorage instead, I tell them  that I'll drive them there myself for a hundred bucks and we can leave whenever they want. My thinking is that I can take the money they pay and have a professional plug the leak for me so I know it's done right. They love the idea of saving some money and giving it to someone they at least know a bit instead of some random transit company. My mood begins to improve even more. Until an hour later when they realize that none of them brought a drivers license so they won't be able to rent the car they were planning on getting and taking the drive around Alaska that they were hoping for. Damn. This is on Memorial Day, so when my phone rings I think it's either Natasha or someone from home calling to say hello. As it turns out, it's Sara from the lodge, she has managed to get through to everyone she needed to, and made her decision, and she'd like to offer me a job. I accept and she asks me to come by the next afternoon to begin training. Holy awesome, Batman! Up, up, up. I immediately call Marne, and tell her that I'll take the place whenever it's available. When she showed me around, we discussed payment and everything and she was quite amenable to working with me as far as when I could get her the money and pro-rating the first month, etc. This was all going to be a huge help since I had so little left in savings. I began to imagine finally settling in for real, not feeling like a transient anymore. The next day I went in for training, which seemed to go well. The place has been around for a while and they really have their act together. I was given an employee handbook, a server handbook, and a menu to learn. I was shown around a bit and filled out some paperwork. This all managed to take about four hours. Plans were made for more the next afternoon at the same time, one o'clock. I have a good feeling.

When I get back to the hostel, I find the Polish guys have discovered that one of them brought his license after all, and they want to go to Anchorage. I do the math in my head. It's about five. I need to empty my Jeep to make room for all their stuff, load them up, then a two hour drive to town, drop them off, find someplace to park and sleep, make it to the mechanic's by eight when they open, two hours to get the work done, back by noon, ready and able for training at one. Sounds great. If I have extra time I'll buy the clothes I'm gonna need for work. We hit the road. Turns out there is some major construction on the highway, so about fifteen extra minutes are added to the trip. Gotta consider that in the morning, but no biggie. Vehicle is cooperating, we're moving along, and just getting into Anchorage when I notice the temperature gauge is creeping up a bit to the hot side. It holds steady, but when we get to the place where the guys are staying there's smoke coming from under the hood again. We're at a backpacker's hostel, and I decide I'm gonna sleep here for the night instead of driving around looking for a place to park for the night. The guys (sorry, Adam, Pavel, and Dariusz) tell me that in addition to the hundred, they're going to pay for my stay. Very cool guys. I have to figure some stuff out on the computer, and they're going to walk around and find a place to eat and drink, but we plan to meet up later for a beer or two. After letting the engine cool, I check the fluid level and top it off, things seem right as rain again so I take the opportunity to drive to Target to get the stuff I need for work.

I will now take a brief interlude to describe an interesting side effect of the awful globalization of American big box style retail commerce. For the last few weeks I have felt...displaced. Obviously I'm a stranger in a strange place, and I don't know a lot of people around here. Walking around Target at 10:30 at night made me feel--well it may sound awful but it made me feel normal. It's kind of sad, I suppose, but it was comforting in a way that only the familiar can be. And it really brought me to a head space that I needed to be in after a week of such ups and downs.

So I get back to the backpacker hostel, the boys from Poland are still out and about, but I need to study a lodge menu because I'm being tested on it the next afternoon. Also, since I'm getting up early in the morning to be at the repair shop by eight, I need to get some sleep. The next morning I wake up at ten after six, an hour and a half before my alarm. This sometimes happens when I'm on edge. I get to the shop, have a brief discussion with the owner and then just give my keys over and put my faith in the professionals. I also place a call to the manager at the lodge and let her know that I'm in Anchorage at a repair shop with car trouble and might be a bit late. For my second day of work. Shit. Thankfully she's very understanding. So four hours and four hundred seventy dollars later, I have a new radiator. God damn it. This means more borrowing, more debt, and more evidence of not being able to stand on my own. This is not at all how I wanted to start out my victorious summer with the new job and new place in Alaska.

By the time I get back to Talkeetna I have managed to center myself. Sara, my supervisor, told me not to worry about coming in for training, that I can just make it up the next day. I think I've got the menu down pretty good. My radiator is at least fixed. I stop by the hostel to use the 'net and make some phone calls and Holli tells me that while I was gone Marne called and said I can move in within the week. My sister said that her kids finally got the stuffed animals I sent to them almost three weeks ago, and I get to talk to my nephew Nick a bit. I settle back into the town that is my adopted home for the summer, and watch Into the Wild with a bunch of foreign climbers and some of the guides. It really is an excellent movie, despite the crazy behavior it sometimes inspires. And I am kind of happy.

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