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Skydiving
Yeah, so I jumped out of an airplane the other day. It’s well known than New Zealand is famous for bungy-jumping. When we got here there were countless airport brochures covered with alluring photos of smiling people about to hurl themselves to their doom. I thought about skydiving and it seemed sane by comparison—only a little daring like a walk on the foot-high barrier next to the path instead of on the path itself, rather than bungy-jumping daring of hurling yourself right off the cliff next to the path. I could do that. “Karen’s going to go skydiving,” Matthew remarked to his mom right after we got here. (He had…
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Spider Dance
The room where we’re staying here in New Zealand is teeming with life. That sounds so positive and lovely stated like that, “teeming with life,” doesn’t it? Like we’re in some fabulous wildlife sanctuary filled with tiny playful monkeys and exotic butterflies and mysterious yet-to-be-discovered species. Or that maybe we’re in a magical underwater world where each teaspoonful of this watery bedroom contains an entire ecosystem. Nope. We’re talking flies and spiders and tiny worms. Ew. One night I counted twelve spiders hanging from the ceiling corners. And why wouldn’t they be? There are at least 20 flies in the house at any one time; surely one must stumble into…
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Notes From Down Under
So, we’re in New Zealand. Once what I imagined as a rather exotic faraway place, one not all that high up on the List of Places I Might (Hopefully) Go One Day, now it’s mundane. Almost. Here are some things I have noticed: Pies. Every small shop/bakery/grocery stocks pies. Savory pies. With meat in them. Delicious, actually. Coffee. Kiwis are almost as serious about coffee as Portlanders are about theirs, though I am still not quite clear as to what either a “flat white” or “long black” is. I settled for a mochaccino because a) I always order a mocha when I order coffee out (about once every 3 months,…
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Why, Yes. There It Is.
omfg it has been busy, with little sign of let up. Twelve hour days have melted in sixteen hour days, and this parttime gig is now paying me about a buck an hour. And, oh, I should be announcing it with fanfare (we launched! last week! and the site—Super Eco—totally rocks! go see!) but sadly all I can think about is the fact that the letters double themselves on the screen and make it nearly impossible to see. Last week it was cold, and I was in Pennsylvania. It snowed there. My heart froze. I hadn’t seen three cherubic faces in seven months, hadn’t held them in seven months, hadn’t…
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OMG People Are DYING!!
Not really. No, that’s not true. They are. I just don’t happen to know which ones. And besides, what is it they say? In one ear and out the other? No, that’s not quite right… One door opens and another one closes. Yeah. That’s it. So when you last left our hero, he was dangling precipitously over the precipice, holding on to a leafless branch. His grip was loosening. His breath was tightening. WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT? Letting go. And with the letting go, the realization that Everything Will Be Okay Somehow, and that letting go isn’t a failure of some sort, and that letting go isn’t a lack of…
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Still Here
So yes, I moved. I packed up my car with all my stuff, reported in with Canada (bye! don’t let the door hit you on the way out!) and moved in. So did the snow. Then I was snowed in. Because of the snow. And the steep steep hill. And an appalling dearth of snowplows. It was sort of peaceful until the propane tank ran dry. And then it got cold. But there was this weird sense of denial that I had, of enjoyment of the fact that I had little and was making due with A Chair and A Bed and a package of rice cakes and some butter.…
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Prioritizing
This is my last night in Vancouver. Oh, come on. Not, like, EVER. I’ll be back. Sometime. But everything I own is stacked here next to me. Quite a sight! There are 7 boxes and 2 in the car already. Plus 1 more in the back with computer stuff in it, because GOD HELP ME IF THERE WAS A GOD IF I HAVE TO GO WITHOUT INTERNET. Plus some smaller boxes and some suitcasey things and 2 bottles of wine and a wooden horse statue that used to stand next to the fireplace lo these many years ago in the house I grew up in. And upstairs is a small…
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I Totally Moved Here For The Dollar Coins
Last week I was in Washington, in that country that wanted me back so badly that at the border the Drug Dog took a shine to the rear end of my car and the three border guards standing around there with nothing better to do started peering through the back windows at the two boxes in the back of my vehicle and asking me questions like, “So, have you run over any animals lately?” I thought the prudent course was deny-deny-deny, so I put on my most innocent, shocked expression and feigned innocent shock. “N-n-no! I don’t think so!” I managed to stutter, innocently. That was the wrong answer. This…
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It’s Official
Next week I say au revoir to Canada, though not permanently of course. Our paths will cross again. I’ve already bought a bed. After struggling with the symbolism of what it would mean to own furniture again after feeling the heady freedom of saying “Everything I own is right here in my car!” for the past six months, I bought some. Well, one furniture. A bed. Surely that’s symbolic, too. A bed means comfort to me. Home. Warmth. Love. Not just any bed: I figured that as long as I am doing this I may as well do it up right. This is MY bed. So it’s the most comfortable…
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Home
I have a home again. At least, I left a deposit check and a lot of information about myself, and it’s my hope that it will mean picking up keys in a couple of weeks and then trying valiantly to fill a space that I already know is too big, but what the hell? Shopping for places to live has consumed me for weeks. Several times a day I’d comb through the offerings on Craigslist, looking for treasure. The perfect place, summed up in a paragraph and, if I was lucky, a couple of blurry photos. I hunted down property management companies and sifted through their inventory. I saw, after…