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>As much as we whine and complain about the cultural wasteland that is Fairbanks, the truth is that we hardly ever get out the map and go explore it. The reality is that we are simply more apt to buy a pizza and stay home with Netflix than shell out for tickets to a real performance or beer and a cover for good music around town. This weekend is a shining exception to our homebody ways. We’ll see if the exception sticks, or proves the rule.

Last night we went to see Sarah Vowell read and answer questions about her writing and life (favorite place in her adopted hometown of NYC: a SoHo loft full of dirt.) Considering that Peter is currently unemployed and my hours this week barely added up to part time, we decided that a Vowell reading was too good to pass up, even at $27 a ticket. I don’t regret it. My introduction to Vowell was in college, when I happened upon her Goth Makeover piece on This American Life. I’ve been a fan ever since, and the audio tapes of her books (read by the author, and so much better for it) kept us in stitches on the longer stretches of the Long Trip North in 2006.

The thing that I loved about her reading and subsequent Q&A time was the low-brow/ high-brow nature of what she does. She talks about going to some of the campiest American history based tourist traps, yet her jokes and nuance would be lost on anyone without a decent grasp of the whole of US history from Plymouth on. (I will pause here to admit that I missed a few. My grasp of US history has never been stellar, but I was relieved to follow most of it.) I resonate with her essay style, and her sardonic view of this country amidst an obvious love for it is refreshing.

Tonight we are going to see our neighbor Holly, who is starring in A Thousand Clowns, a second night out on the town in as many days. Last weekend, there was a Retro Ski-Wear themed wedding inside the Ice Museum at Chena Hot Springs (much warmer inside than out, this time of year.) In the mean time, I am tackling laundry and Peter is taking a fly-fishing class in anticipation of the ice melting out of the rivers sometime in the next three months. I hope. I am pretty much over winter at this point (since we still don’t have sled dogs) but at least daytime temperatures are hovering around freezing even if the snow will be around for awhile. The real test: Nyssa was out on the porch chewing a bone for an hour this afternoon with narry a whimper at the door. Spring is just around the corner, and we are emerging from social hibernation alongside the equally cranky bears.

>

And as long as I’m with you, I’m ready for whatever life can dish out.

I love you.

>Last night was a fire station night. In order to run with the ambulance crew as an EMT, I am required to pull five shifts and two trainings a month. I try to pull my shifts on weeknights, even though this may leave me a little out of it at the kennel. On weekends, there are plenty of folks hanging around waiting for calls which means my chance of getting good hands-on experience in is greatly reduced. I realized this morning that I am getting better at sleeping in the station, although the total lack of calls helped with the good shut-eye. My first few shifts, I was so nervous I would sleep through a call, that I woke up every half hour all night. This left me in rough shape for work, although I doubt the dogs noticed.

Our district averages one medical call a day, so the fact that I slept like a baby all night was not unusual. Usually, I arrive at six and curl up on a couch with a book until I fall asleep or the tones go off and never see a soul besides my shift captain and an occasional extra medic. Last night, the station was hopping. Folks were dropping in, hanging out, and a number were pulling a rare weekday night shift. Someone dropped in for a shower, someone else for some wind-down TV and conversation after 12 hours of Taxi-driving. Another officer was in the bay for awhile using the mini-gym. Another medic was being checked off for his EMT-II skills, so I lent my arm for an IV poke. I tagged along to the rig as he was quizzed on nitrous oxide and IO procedures. Soon, four of us were packed in the back of the ambulance checking expiration dates and trading good run stories. An off duty BC dropped by and stuck his head through the door to see if there was ice-cream in any of the freezers (negative,) then climbed in to join us. It was hard to tear myself away to the bunk room to try and get some sleep.

Perks at the station go beyond the available hot showers (no waiting in line and shelling four fifty over at the laundromat for tepid water anymore!) cable and quality folk. Once a month, we get to take something like this …

I’m hard pressed to think of a better way to spend an a week-day evening than with the Jaws of Life.

>What p. said. Except I’ve only read one of those books. But everything else, yeah. Right on.

ps. pete is thrilled.
A new friend asked me last weekend what it is I write. I stuttered out some incoherence or other, but didn’t – and don’t – know. Is that because what I write doesn’t fit a genre, an easy convention? Or because I don’t write enough anymore to create the critical mass that would be an answer. I’ve been trying not to think too hard about that all week, because the critical mass behind the real answer is heavy enough to hurt.

You can see Chena Pump Road from the parking lot near the ski hut, and it looks too big to be a road on the edge of an Alaskan town. It looks like someone transplanted it from Houston, dropped it into the woods. Probably the fancy-pants highway exits, light posts and ostentatious new building strip have something to do with that.

Finally, this thing p. found!
That is all. Goodnight.

>Six years ago, I was sitting on stiff sheets in a sweltering room, listening to the distant traffic and trying not to let sweat drip onto my field journal. My three coworker-roommates were watching a soap opera at full volume, perched on the other side of the one staff bed. I was sort-of paying attention, knowing that once I could follow the convoluted plot I’d have the language mastered. I was more annoyed that the television had been requisitioned for sappy drama. In the next room, the street-boys I’d come halfway around the world to work with were sprawled out on the cool tiles of the bare living area sleeping or listening to a garbled radio program of ghost stories. They were happy for a dry, safe place to crash and utterly disdainful of the mattresses someone had requisitioned for the program. I didn’t blame them. The mattresses already smelled of mold after just a few weeks of rainy-season humidity.

In the eternal dusk of urban night, the last call to prayer sounded over local loudspeakers. A dog’s bark echoed down our small alley. A car swept its headlights through the front window. I weighed trying to go to sleep over the screeching television against looking up the translation for ‘volume’ and attempting a diplomatic request for less of it.
The phone rang. Ari, one of the older street boys who’d been in the program nearly three months tapped the door and stuck his head in.

“Bu Maria!”

“Aku?” Nobody called me here. I didn’t even know if more than two people had the number. I shuffled out and shut the door against the now-wailing, recently-bereaved soap-star. I saw the whites of wide-eyed five and six year olds in the gloom after lights-out, terrified by the ghost story and egged on in their fear by the older boys. Ari handed me the phone and stood by curiously. I squatted on the floor next to the phone. A familiar voice was urgent on the other line. It was Mrs. Karsi, my host-mother from the first half of my internship. I had to ask her three times to slow down so my brain had time to translate.

“Are you alright?”

“Um, yes. I’m fine.”

“Have you spoken to your parents?”

“My parents? No. Did they try to call me there?”

“No. Are they alright?”

“I haven’t spoken to them. Did they call you?”

“You should call them.”

I was trying to piece it together. Had my parents called me at her house? I had moved into the street boys home several weeks before, and they had my cell phone number. Was something wrong? Was someone sick, and in the rush they had called the old number? I felt my breath growing short. Ari asked what was wrong. I shrugged my shoulders and asked him to make the little boys turn down their ghost story. A sharp command later, and a sea of dark faces were looking up at me. Apin grabbed my hand. I waved them silent.

“Did you talk to them? Did they call you there?”

“No! No! Is the television on?”

“Yes. The girls are watching a soap opera. What’s wrong?”

“There was an airplane crash in America.”

I laughed with relief. “They are not flying today. America is a big place, like here. Where was the plane crash?”

“Near the big house!”

“Near the big house? There are lots of big houses.”

“The big house! The biggest one.” I racked my brain. Big house? Hollywood?

“They don’t live near any big houses.”

“No! No! The biggest house. The house painted white. Yes! The house that is white!”

“Oh! The House that is White. No, they don’t live near there. I’m sure my family is safe.”

“You should call them to be sure. Ok? They would want you call them. Right away.”

“Ok. Thank you. I will call them.” I hung up and told the boys it was nothing, sent them back to their ghost story. They wandered back into the darkness, and the garbled radio-voice fired up again. How sweet that my host-mother was worried enough about an airplane crash in my home country to call me. What a relief that there was nothing actually wrong, nothing to worry about. I slipped back into the staff room, where Norma asked, “Who was it?”

“There was an airplane crash in America’s Capitol. Mama Karsi was worried about my parents.”

Karima looked at me, grudgingly. “Do you want us to turn on the news?” I could see the soap coming back on over her shoulder.

“Nah. No big deal. My family isn’t near there. I’ll call them tomorrow.”

I slipped my field journal under the bed, pulled my sarong over my arms and head against mosquitoes and settled down to get some sleep.