I am spending new years eve and new years day this year at the end of the world... seriously... I am actually spending at the worlds southern most city - Ushuaia, Argentina. I did have to bust some serious ass yesterday and today and spend a little less time in some places I had originally planned in order to get me, mom and Chico (as I have named the car) here. I told this super sweet Israeli guy I spent some time with here that I would push the damn car here if I had to and that at this point all three of us were going to make it if it killed me. But, it didn´t. So now, in a matter of 5 days, we have to get back to Santiago. This is really not a big deal unless you think about the fact that it took us over 2 weeks to get here. He he. I am not actually worried.
For those of you who care about the geography more then what you remember from our seriously undereducated 3rd grade geography classes, we flew into Santiago de Chile, drive the PanAmerican Highway all the way to the bottom of the Chilean island of Chiloe (where there was the aforementioned hurricane of sorts). Then we drove back a bit north and crossed the border into Argentina at Bariloche, Argentina near Osorno Chile. From there we took the completely dirt and shitty road (but not before I locked the keys in the car one day and just managed to remember the word for keys) of Route 40 all the way south until we veered back into chile between El Calafete (which is the location of the famed perito moreno glacier) annd Puerto Natales (the gateway to Torres del Paine whose claim to fame is the Milodon skeleten that was found in a cave near there). Then to the Chilean city of Punta Arenas, on a ferry across the straight of magellin, back into Argentina at, um, the middle of nowhere in Tierra del Fuego and then here to Ushuaia. The way back we are hugging the Atlantic Coast (blessed paved road or we would NOT make it in time for our flight) Northward as far as Puerto Madryn (cool ecological reserve, library and town) and then back to Bariloche, Argentina where we will cross back into Chile (which we will have to do one more time before this as well making for a total of about one metric ass ton of border crossings) and then back to Santiago on the same section of the PanAm.
Anyone else dizzy or tired? Ugh, me too.
Happy new year. We are having the best time!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
There once was a man from Nantucket....
The other day I had this dream... I was wandering about the San Rafael Swell looking at precolumbian rock art, only no one could speak English, instead they spoke this language that sounded vaguely like Spanish but was so thickly accented it was nearly impossible to understand. After nearling running down an armadillo in the road and then getting a flat tire I had ended up staying with some sheep farmers who had turned part of their house into a hotel. AND there were wild fucking ostriches running all over the wilderness. Not just one or two of them, but what amounted to herds of giant ass birds sometimes with little chicks all completely incapable of flight peeling away through the dust and wind. It was the weirdest dream ever. Ostriches? Seriously? I mean, yeah yeah glaciers, yeah yeah trippy cave with a million ancient handprints, yeah yeah beautiful mountain, the panamerican highway and route 40 the worlds ´lonliest´ highway... fucking wild ostriches. Thats just about the coolest thing ever.
An Ode to Auto-Immune Connective Tissue Dissease:
There was a time in my life where I felt like my value was completely utilitarian. Then I crashed. Where I was once training to run a marathon in less then a month on my birthday and still climbing and biking nearly daily as well as school and working and my 40+ hours of work a week at the Lowell Bennion Community Service Center; now I was a stiff mass of pain. It was like a combination of the flu and being in a horrible car wreck. The simplest movements were nearly excruciating and I was a neurological nightmare - often not being able to even judge how hard to hold a glass of water dropping them over and over and over again in the course of mere hours.
I have never been so bitter. At one point I told my mom that I was conciously choosing to refuse to learn a lesson of any kind from the whole thing. I told her that I felt like if I learned a lesson, or gained some insight to life in some way, that it would justify what was happening to me and that outside of a malevalent higher power I was not going to provide the universe with justification.
In what now seems like such little time I have come so far, even eliminating pain medications and sleeping pills (though I dont much sleep) from my life. I still have constant ragining headaches and aside from continual pain, I struggle with small things like what is called ´raynouds phenominon´where random body parts go all numb and tingly or a constant fluctuation of weight 5lbs above and then under what I was accustomed to ´before´.
The common misconception is that of pain ´control´. You dont get to have control. I have learned through daily and what has become pretty rigorous meditation not to tune pain out, but instead to tune it in. A great spiritual teacher of mine told me that I should try to embrace the pain, welcome it - even invite it in. Give it a seat at the table. In the Zen concept of Big Mind, explore what Sarahs pain is - who it is - and allow myself to speak for that pain. I do this now. I close my eyes and go through every inch of my body in my head and try to feel every ache, every twinge to the fullest.
The thing of it, is thats its my pain. Its no one else pain, its my pain indicitive of my experience here. Of Sarahs experience here. I earn every sensation of pain I have. I dont have the luxury to take anything my body does for granted anymore. It all beloings to me - the good, the bad... the times I take care of myself and the times I dont. I see the pain I push through as badge of honor, like one of my favorite bruises or scars. It´s just that no one else can see.
Where I once thought of myself in a utilitarian construct, I now think so much more existentially. Fundamentially we are all perfect right now in this moment. Where ever you are, whatever you are doing as you are reading this remember that you will never be more perfect then you are right now. The future is an illusion the past is an illusion... the universe provides the experiences we are meant to have when we are meant to have them and that this world, even in its grotesque and ugliest fashions is still, well, perfect.
I exist. I will never do anything more important then that and at existing I will never fall short of expectations.
Buena Suerte
An Ode to Auto-Immune Connective Tissue Dissease:
There was a time in my life where I felt like my value was completely utilitarian. Then I crashed. Where I was once training to run a marathon in less then a month on my birthday and still climbing and biking nearly daily as well as school and working and my 40+ hours of work a week at the Lowell Bennion Community Service Center; now I was a stiff mass of pain. It was like a combination of the flu and being in a horrible car wreck. The simplest movements were nearly excruciating and I was a neurological nightmare - often not being able to even judge how hard to hold a glass of water dropping them over and over and over again in the course of mere hours.
I have never been so bitter. At one point I told my mom that I was conciously choosing to refuse to learn a lesson of any kind from the whole thing. I told her that I felt like if I learned a lesson, or gained some insight to life in some way, that it would justify what was happening to me and that outside of a malevalent higher power I was not going to provide the universe with justification.
In what now seems like such little time I have come so far, even eliminating pain medications and sleeping pills (though I dont much sleep) from my life. I still have constant ragining headaches and aside from continual pain, I struggle with small things like what is called ´raynouds phenominon´where random body parts go all numb and tingly or a constant fluctuation of weight 5lbs above and then under what I was accustomed to ´before´.
The common misconception is that of pain ´control´. You dont get to have control. I have learned through daily and what has become pretty rigorous meditation not to tune pain out, but instead to tune it in. A great spiritual teacher of mine told me that I should try to embrace the pain, welcome it - even invite it in. Give it a seat at the table. In the Zen concept of Big Mind, explore what Sarahs pain is - who it is - and allow myself to speak for that pain. I do this now. I close my eyes and go through every inch of my body in my head and try to feel every ache, every twinge to the fullest.
The thing of it, is thats its my pain. Its no one else pain, its my pain indicitive of my experience here. Of Sarahs experience here. I earn every sensation of pain I have. I dont have the luxury to take anything my body does for granted anymore. It all beloings to me - the good, the bad... the times I take care of myself and the times I dont. I see the pain I push through as badge of honor, like one of my favorite bruises or scars. It´s just that no one else can see.
Where I once thought of myself in a utilitarian construct, I now think so much more existentially. Fundamentially we are all perfect right now in this moment. Where ever you are, whatever you are doing as you are reading this remember that you will never be more perfect then you are right now. The future is an illusion the past is an illusion... the universe provides the experiences we are meant to have when we are meant to have them and that this world, even in its grotesque and ugliest fashions is still, well, perfect.
I exist. I will never do anything more important then that and at existing I will never fall short of expectations.
Buena Suerte
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Gross Bugs
A quick catch-up
Totally got a Chilean speeding ticket and almost had the car taken away because we could not find the damn registration but then the guys were really nice and checked over the radio that the car wasnt stolen and then told us we had to find those papers before we would be allowed into Argentina with the car. I thought we had left them in the Hotel in Santiago until I found them today in the glove box.
The little guy in the bathtub totally means hot springs - which I guessed but wasnt sure because there are a shit ton of doodes in bathtubs. Now I have moved onto one in which it looks like a man in a rangers hat is jumping out of a snowman as if he was a stripper and the snowman was a giant birthday cake. How is it that even pictures need interpretation?
We were in a freakin hurricane today and it suddenly blew this giant-normous sign halfway off. The messed up thing was I was parked right underneath it and everyone in the building was yelling ´el auto´ and then rooting for me not to die as I stood beneath the hanging sign and tried to unlock the car door and as soon as I had backed the car up the sign crashed down right where the car had been. Some kids got the whole thing on their cell phone videos and when I got out of the car I looked at them and started laughing and then they started laughing and then it only lasted a second because there was still some crazy hurricane going on.
As bus stops were tipping over and roofs were flying off of houses and live power lines were whipping about the roads, some guy in the building told me not to worry - esta temporal (its temporary) he told me like this just happened all the time, no big deal. He was cool as a cucumber as the corregated tin ceiling was being ripped off the roof above our heads. Sure, whatever, no big deal. If you can manage to not be decapitated by someones roof or electrocuted by downed wires its totally temporal. Shit.
Last night we stayed at a place more traditional to my style of travel and as I walked in the room (it was after dark) mom had her duffel bad wide open on the floor next to the bed. I told her she might not want to leave her bags unzipped hoping shed just listen and not ask. But she did. And I said: cockroaches and she said: aw, shit. Because she really didnt want to know. And it was really a good thing that she zipped her stuff up. Really.
Tomorrow to Argentina!
Totally got a Chilean speeding ticket and almost had the car taken away because we could not find the damn registration but then the guys were really nice and checked over the radio that the car wasnt stolen and then told us we had to find those papers before we would be allowed into Argentina with the car. I thought we had left them in the Hotel in Santiago until I found them today in the glove box.
The little guy in the bathtub totally means hot springs - which I guessed but wasnt sure because there are a shit ton of doodes in bathtubs. Now I have moved onto one in which it looks like a man in a rangers hat is jumping out of a snowman as if he was a stripper and the snowman was a giant birthday cake. How is it that even pictures need interpretation?
We were in a freakin hurricane today and it suddenly blew this giant-normous sign halfway off. The messed up thing was I was parked right underneath it and everyone in the building was yelling ´el auto´ and then rooting for me not to die as I stood beneath the hanging sign and tried to unlock the car door and as soon as I had backed the car up the sign crashed down right where the car had been. Some kids got the whole thing on their cell phone videos and when I got out of the car I looked at them and started laughing and then they started laughing and then it only lasted a second because there was still some crazy hurricane going on.
As bus stops were tipping over and roofs were flying off of houses and live power lines were whipping about the roads, some guy in the building told me not to worry - esta temporal (its temporary) he told me like this just happened all the time, no big deal. He was cool as a cucumber as the corregated tin ceiling was being ripped off the roof above our heads. Sure, whatever, no big deal. If you can manage to not be decapitated by someones roof or electrocuted by downed wires its totally temporal. Shit.
Last night we stayed at a place more traditional to my style of travel and as I walked in the room (it was after dark) mom had her duffel bad wide open on the floor next to the bed. I told her she might not want to leave her bags unzipped hoping shed just listen and not ask. But she did. And I said: cockroaches and she said: aw, shit. Because she really didnt want to know. And it was really a good thing that she zipped her stuff up. Really.
Tomorrow to Argentina!
Friday, December 19, 2008
Moving Northward
The drive has been amazing. Everything has been amazing. My skin feels warm and a little burned. Its just uncomfortable enough to remind me where I am.
A few days ago we brought out an old compass that I brought only to realize that its stuck pointing North. I put it on the dashboard to remind myself where I am headed.
Driving has opened up a whole new set of Spanish vocabulary words. There are pictures by the side of the road - just like ours - that explain what services we will find there. We can understand camping, and hunting, we finally figured out that the whale was really a fish. For half the day we kept thinking one of the signs meant gas. At one point we got really low and got off the PanAmerican Highway to find it and there was no gas station anywhere. We finally worked it out and as soon as we got back on the Highway I realized those were the signs for a toll booth. Mom and I laughed for about an hour. There are all these little signs with a guy in a bathtub. We are still attempting to find out what in the name of all that is holy this little guy in the bathtub could mean. I think there is a special irony in the fact that even the pictures require interpretation.
Last night I watched the longest sunset I have ever seen. Because we are so far south (or north, its all perspective) the sun doesnt set behind the andes in a perpendicular way. Instead it sweeps across the sky at a low angle and so the sunset goes on for hours as it moves across the horizon.
The farther we move into the mountains, out into the open, the better I feel.
A few days ago we brought out an old compass that I brought only to realize that its stuck pointing North. I put it on the dashboard to remind myself where I am headed.
Driving has opened up a whole new set of Spanish vocabulary words. There are pictures by the side of the road - just like ours - that explain what services we will find there. We can understand camping, and hunting, we finally figured out that the whale was really a fish. For half the day we kept thinking one of the signs meant gas. At one point we got really low and got off the PanAmerican Highway to find it and there was no gas station anywhere. We finally worked it out and as soon as we got back on the Highway I realized those were the signs for a toll booth. Mom and I laughed for about an hour. There are all these little signs with a guy in a bathtub. We are still attempting to find out what in the name of all that is holy this little guy in the bathtub could mean. I think there is a special irony in the fact that even the pictures require interpretation.
Last night I watched the longest sunset I have ever seen. Because we are so far south (or north, its all perspective) the sun doesnt set behind the andes in a perpendicular way. Instead it sweeps across the sky at a low angle and so the sunset goes on for hours as it moves across the horizon.
The farther we move into the mountains, out into the open, the better I feel.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Santiago
We are here. Where exactly that is I am not completely sure. At some hotel somewhere in the giant mess they call Santiago. But there is a Starbucks next door which is how I know that I am actually SOMEWHERE and that I havent just landed nowhere at all.
Mom is sleeping. She snores a lot. Like constantly. Its okay though, kind of like living in the city the sound becomes expected and almost comforting, like the drunk people wandering home from the bar across the street from my house in the city. After a while the lack of the sound becomes uncomforting.
I think mom is insanely happy. She has no one to report to, no one to listen to, no one telling her where to go or how to get there. No one telling her how to feel or how much to hurt or how much to celebrate. She is not used to traveling this way, she is not even used to living this way. She was so nervous and yet has just bursted out of her little shell. I hoped she would be reminded of what a strong stubborn ass she is. I didnt end up this way on accident after all. She is so beautiful. Absolutely off her fucking rocker, but beautiful non the less.
We have rented a tiny little shit hole GMC standard car that is seriously on its last leg. I have never rented a car when traveling before and driving around Santiago was fucking awesome. Death defying really. Like the Southwest there are so many little parks here and a few nature reserves and with a car I think I will be able to cover more ground faster. At least I can drive when I cant sleep and there are 18 hours of daylight to do it in. This way I wont be slowed down by the schedules of countless busses and trains that run all over the Patagonian desert. The scheduling was truly mind boggling.
A friend asked me recently if I was spontaneous. Ironically my guttoral reaction was no. I am so high strung and anal and I over analyze absolutely everything... and yet I am the most spontaneous person I know. I think that sometimes I hate the restraint of a preplanned schedule. Maybe I am spontaneous just because I am so analytical. I analyze myself into a tiny little corner until the only way out is to run.
I almost always leap before I look. If I truly think of all the complexities of human interactions and the potential consequences of my actions I am scared shitless. The truth is: nothing is in my control. Control is an illusion. The more we try to control something - our premeasured calculated output of appropriate reciprocal response to another human being - the more it controls us. I meet certain people or find myself in certain situations and sometimes, just sometimes, I take a breath and just give in.
And here I am.
Does he ever get the girl? Does the heroin save the day and return home to the ticker tape parade?
I think, perhaps, that it really doesnt matter.
Mom is sleeping. She snores a lot. Like constantly. Its okay though, kind of like living in the city the sound becomes expected and almost comforting, like the drunk people wandering home from the bar across the street from my house in the city. After a while the lack of the sound becomes uncomforting.
I think mom is insanely happy. She has no one to report to, no one to listen to, no one telling her where to go or how to get there. No one telling her how to feel or how much to hurt or how much to celebrate. She is not used to traveling this way, she is not even used to living this way. She was so nervous and yet has just bursted out of her little shell. I hoped she would be reminded of what a strong stubborn ass she is. I didnt end up this way on accident after all. She is so beautiful. Absolutely off her fucking rocker, but beautiful non the less.
We have rented a tiny little shit hole GMC standard car that is seriously on its last leg. I have never rented a car when traveling before and driving around Santiago was fucking awesome. Death defying really. Like the Southwest there are so many little parks here and a few nature reserves and with a car I think I will be able to cover more ground faster. At least I can drive when I cant sleep and there are 18 hours of daylight to do it in. This way I wont be slowed down by the schedules of countless busses and trains that run all over the Patagonian desert. The scheduling was truly mind boggling.
A friend asked me recently if I was spontaneous. Ironically my guttoral reaction was no. I am so high strung and anal and I over analyze absolutely everything... and yet I am the most spontaneous person I know. I think that sometimes I hate the restraint of a preplanned schedule. Maybe I am spontaneous just because I am so analytical. I analyze myself into a tiny little corner until the only way out is to run.
I almost always leap before I look. If I truly think of all the complexities of human interactions and the potential consequences of my actions I am scared shitless. The truth is: nothing is in my control. Control is an illusion. The more we try to control something - our premeasured calculated output of appropriate reciprocal response to another human being - the more it controls us. I meet certain people or find myself in certain situations and sometimes, just sometimes, I take a breath and just give in.
And here I am.
Does he ever get the girl? Does the heroin save the day and return home to the ticker tape parade?
I think, perhaps, that it really doesnt matter.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Before I go...
Vaccinations:
Typhoid and the new Tetanus with Whooping Cough and Diphtheria. Everything else current. Typhoid is the most evil vaccination ever made and the only reason I keep re-vaccinating is because if the vaccine is this horrible, imagine what typhoid would be like. It doesn't help that it's a series of pills (the shot is only good for a year - what's the point?) and you have to take them in some seriously messed up order. How they ever figured out that you had to take 2 pills one day and then another like 3 days later and then another one the next day and one exactly 26.32 minutes after that one is completely beyond my understanding. Much to the chagrin of the health department nurse (who thought I was a complete freak) I didn't take care of the whole inoculation thing until last Monday which put my last Typhoid pill today (hallelujah) and she was seriously upset because I wasn't more concerned about having it in my system for a longer period of time before I left. Also she fully crapped because I refuse to take chloroquine or meflaquin unless traveling to certain places in South East Asia (I laugh at Malaria!). Maybe she has lots of kids she can hope won't grow up like me.
First Aid:
Duct tape (by wrapping a ton extra around the webbing on H20 Bottles)
2 triangular bandages
CPR mouth guard
Scissors, hemostats and tweezers
Pen and my notebook
6 pairs rubber gloves
Chapstick, hard candy, a few band-aids and a few disposable liquid bandages
Disposable little individual antibiotic ointment packets (as soon as you open your Neosporin and touch your finger to it all the germs move in and get stuck in the tube and you just spread that shit around - fucking gross... but you can even put Neosporin in your eye if you get an eye infection. It rocks)
Tampons (not even for the obvious, but if you get a bloody nose they are the best things ever - I make people stick them up their noses all the time - even at home. Also can be used to pack giant gaping wounds)
an ace bandage (the uses for this are literally limitless)
an emergency blanket
3 little bottles - one with sugar, one baking soda, and one salt (different combos of the above work well for heat stroke, exhaustion, dehydration, etc)
a couple pieces of sterile gauze and steri-strips
allergy meds, ibuprofin, immodium
waterproof matches
alcohol swabs
moleskin
ipecac syrup
a shit ton of hand sanitizer - you can dump that in any wound and use it like soap if it's all you've got, also blisters are usually caused by bacteria AND friction so I rub it on my feet constantly.
benzoin tincture - it's this insanely sticky antiseptic. Glues down anything. When I get blisters I split them open from one end and pour some of this in and glue the skin back down and then glue moleskin over. And you'll have a fucking hell of a time getting the moleskin off later. Also glues down steri-strips and such. If I have a syringe I will actually use it to suck the ick out of the blister and then I'll just shoot this right back in.
a small needle & heavy thread for tears and also I've done a few back country stitches - a monkey could do it.
some kind of talc powder or gold bond... that's just for foot care. People let their feet get really swampy. It's fucking sick. You can cause a lot of problems that way.
Other things:
My Journal and Pen because I refuse to get one of these 'pocket mail' things people keep telling me about. There is something about the actual act of putting pen to paper. Plus if I didn't keep a paper journal where on earth would I keep a list of all the boys I've kissed? Not sarcasm, I still do it - very last page of every journal with a date and a name and usually if it was a one time thing or not. I could tell you every single person I've kissed since the first Bush was president. It's a source of pride really. I thought about breaking them all out and tallying it up but I decided I didn't care enough.
My zero degree bag, thicker pad and tent - high winds and lots of rain/snow expected.
The Geography of Bliss -Weiner
In Patagonia - Chatwin
Selected Poems - Neruda
My I-pod for the bus/plane. It's an indoor activity
A clean set of clothes in a plastic bag that that I'll lock up with my extra books in my duffel bag in Santiago so I have some clean clothes that don't smell like rice and beans to wear on the plane ride home
All my camera shit which I may be regretting a little for a second, but whatever. If it's only 10 days I could probably carry a lot. The rest of the time I'll have a home base where I can ditch things and then I'll be psyched about the camera. Plus I can't find the little shit-hole digital point and shoot. Plus I am apparently supposed to give a talk about this shit when I get back. I assume people will expect pictures that actually resemble the things I snapped at.
2 pairs of pants, boots, running shoes, swim suit, wool socks, 2 t shirts, 3 long sleeve shirts, one complete set of thermal underwear, a handful of non-cotton undies, liner socks and tank tops that are easily washed along the way, sunglasses, hat, gloves, thin down layer and shell, waterproof paaahnts, and your mom.
Alcohol stove, iodine and water bladders.
Fuck, I guess I'll take a toothbrush since I won't be alone. Actually I can promise I'll brush my teeth like 16 times on the airplane because it makes me feel a tiny bit less disgusting when I have spent the last billion hours breathing recycled air.
A few markers to decorate barf bags on the way. Little known fact but barf bags make great puppets. Boredom does not agree with me.
Wow, this sounds like a lot but when you lay it out it's nothing. Except for the camera thing. fuck. If I regret that later someone remind me for next time?
Typhoid and the new Tetanus with Whooping Cough and Diphtheria. Everything else current. Typhoid is the most evil vaccination ever made and the only reason I keep re-vaccinating is because if the vaccine is this horrible, imagine what typhoid would be like. It doesn't help that it's a series of pills (the shot is only good for a year - what's the point?) and you have to take them in some seriously messed up order. How they ever figured out that you had to take 2 pills one day and then another like 3 days later and then another one the next day and one exactly 26.32 minutes after that one is completely beyond my understanding. Much to the chagrin of the health department nurse (who thought I was a complete freak) I didn't take care of the whole inoculation thing until last Monday which put my last Typhoid pill today (hallelujah) and she was seriously upset because I wasn't more concerned about having it in my system for a longer period of time before I left. Also she fully crapped because I refuse to take chloroquine or meflaquin unless traveling to certain places in South East Asia (I laugh at Malaria!). Maybe she has lots of kids she can hope won't grow up like me.
First Aid:
Duct tape (by wrapping a ton extra around the webbing on H20 Bottles)
2 triangular bandages
CPR mouth guard
Scissors, hemostats and tweezers
Pen and my notebook
6 pairs rubber gloves
Chapstick, hard candy, a few band-aids and a few disposable liquid bandages
Disposable little individual antibiotic ointment packets (as soon as you open your Neosporin and touch your finger to it all the germs move in and get stuck in the tube and you just spread that shit around - fucking gross... but you can even put Neosporin in your eye if you get an eye infection. It rocks)
Tampons (not even for the obvious, but if you get a bloody nose they are the best things ever - I make people stick them up their noses all the time - even at home. Also can be used to pack giant gaping wounds)
an ace bandage (the uses for this are literally limitless)
an emergency blanket
3 little bottles - one with sugar, one baking soda, and one salt (different combos of the above work well for heat stroke, exhaustion, dehydration, etc)
a couple pieces of sterile gauze and steri-strips
allergy meds, ibuprofin, immodium
waterproof matches
alcohol swabs
moleskin
ipecac syrup
a shit ton of hand sanitizer - you can dump that in any wound and use it like soap if it's all you've got, also blisters are usually caused by bacteria AND friction so I rub it on my feet constantly.
benzoin tincture - it's this insanely sticky antiseptic. Glues down anything. When I get blisters I split them open from one end and pour some of this in and glue the skin back down and then glue moleskin over. And you'll have a fucking hell of a time getting the moleskin off later. Also glues down steri-strips and such. If I have a syringe I will actually use it to suck the ick out of the blister and then I'll just shoot this right back in.
a small needle & heavy thread for tears and also I've done a few back country stitches - a monkey could do it.
some kind of talc powder or gold bond... that's just for foot care. People let their feet get really swampy. It's fucking sick. You can cause a lot of problems that way.
Other things:
My Journal and Pen because I refuse to get one of these 'pocket mail' things people keep telling me about. There is something about the actual act of putting pen to paper. Plus if I didn't keep a paper journal where on earth would I keep a list of all the boys I've kissed? Not sarcasm, I still do it - very last page of every journal with a date and a name and usually if it was a one time thing or not. I could tell you every single person I've kissed since the first Bush was president. It's a source of pride really. I thought about breaking them all out and tallying it up but I decided I didn't care enough.
My zero degree bag, thicker pad and tent - high winds and lots of rain/snow expected.
The Geography of Bliss -Weiner
In Patagonia - Chatwin
Selected Poems - Neruda
My I-pod for the bus/plane. It's an indoor activity
A clean set of clothes in a plastic bag that that I'll lock up with my extra books in my duffel bag in Santiago so I have some clean clothes that don't smell like rice and beans to wear on the plane ride home
All my camera shit which I may be regretting a little for a second, but whatever. If it's only 10 days I could probably carry a lot. The rest of the time I'll have a home base where I can ditch things and then I'll be psyched about the camera. Plus I can't find the little shit-hole digital point and shoot. Plus I am apparently supposed to give a talk about this shit when I get back. I assume people will expect pictures that actually resemble the things I snapped at.
2 pairs of pants, boots, running shoes, swim suit, wool socks, 2 t shirts, 3 long sleeve shirts, one complete set of thermal underwear, a handful of non-cotton undies, liner socks and tank tops that are easily washed along the way, sunglasses, hat, gloves, thin down layer and shell, waterproof paaahnts, and your mom.
Alcohol stove, iodine and water bladders.
Fuck, I guess I'll take a toothbrush since I won't be alone. Actually I can promise I'll brush my teeth like 16 times on the airplane because it makes me feel a tiny bit less disgusting when I have spent the last billion hours breathing recycled air.
A few markers to decorate barf bags on the way. Little known fact but barf bags make great puppets. Boredom does not agree with me.
Wow, this sounds like a lot but when you lay it out it's nothing. Except for the camera thing. fuck. If I regret that later someone remind me for next time?
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Flight
I see them sometimes. They are hunters, alone. They come to me at different times in my life. They are easy to dismiss unless you are watching. Sometimes, maybe, I am paying more attention.
I wonder about being alone. There is something about letting my thoughts wander, my body wander. Keeping my feelings to myself. I wonder what a partner, a lover, another warm body adds to the the equation. Even my friendships are random, fleeting, temporary at best.
I can't hold still. It makes me uncomfortable. I move, I leave, I run. I worry that if I am here too long I will be found or found out.
I am temporary, at best.
I had a friend tell me once that all those times I left, the times I moved somewhere else, or left for a month here, two months there, I left her too. I didn't know what to say. I couldn't apologize. She was right, I did leave her - maybe I didn't realize, maybe I did and I didn't care. Maybe being responsible to other people becomes too much sometimes. Sometimes I am drowning.
I couldn't apologize for the way I have lived my life. Maybe I too hunt alone, eating my prey whole. I feel an emptiness, a void. I never said it was the right way, I never said I make good choices. I never said I was nice... or capable of empathy. I never said I wanted to be this way. maybe if I stayed wherever I am it would be easier.
I never said I would hold still for anyone.
Sometimes I can't breathe here. And I hate the red winged black bird.
I am looking for those places that are as ugly as me and trying to listen for the beauty I know is really there, somewhere.
I am never really here. I can't apologize for leaving somewhere that I've never really been. My heart is always alone, somewhere else.
I look sometimes for someone who will fix it. It seems like I shouldn't be alone, that I should be somewhere. But no one has found me.
I am not sure I want to be found.
I wonder about being alone. There is something about letting my thoughts wander, my body wander. Keeping my feelings to myself. I wonder what a partner, a lover, another warm body adds to the the equation. Even my friendships are random, fleeting, temporary at best.
I can't hold still. It makes me uncomfortable. I move, I leave, I run. I worry that if I am here too long I will be found or found out.
I am temporary, at best.
I had a friend tell me once that all those times I left, the times I moved somewhere else, or left for a month here, two months there, I left her too. I didn't know what to say. I couldn't apologize. She was right, I did leave her - maybe I didn't realize, maybe I did and I didn't care. Maybe being responsible to other people becomes too much sometimes. Sometimes I am drowning.
I couldn't apologize for the way I have lived my life. Maybe I too hunt alone, eating my prey whole. I feel an emptiness, a void. I never said it was the right way, I never said I make good choices. I never said I was nice... or capable of empathy. I never said I wanted to be this way. maybe if I stayed wherever I am it would be easier.
I never said I would hold still for anyone.
Sometimes I can't breathe here. And I hate the red winged black bird.
I am looking for those places that are as ugly as me and trying to listen for the beauty I know is really there, somewhere.
I am never really here. I can't apologize for leaving somewhere that I've never really been. My heart is always alone, somewhere else.
I look sometimes for someone who will fix it. It seems like I shouldn't be alone, that I should be somewhere. But no one has found me.
I am not sure I want to be found.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
