Living in Alaska is like:

Living in Alaska during the end of summer is like:

-Smelling, perpetually, like a camp fire. And after bathing, you smell like camp fire/soap.

-Crowd surfing when the crowd you're surfing is gravel. This stuff is everywhere. One ended up embedded in my car's windshield the other day. Needless to say, Novus and Speedy Glass do well out here.

-Living 4 hours behind the rest of the world. Because we know the whole world is in the Eastern Time Zone.

-Keeping constant vigil for animal droppings. Why? Although stepping in it would be stinky and nasty, running into who left them would just be nasty.

-An orgy of duct tape. Because duct tape is everywhere and if, heaven forbid, you run out of the stuff the Walmart in Wasilla sells more of it than any single store anywhere else in the world.

-Struggling to have just a little heat, warmth, coziness. There's a dearth of sunshine here during the rainy season so emotions run high in a sad way. Rainy and damp. And chilly. It's an epic setting for a Hitchcock, Wes Craven collaboration. Worst of all, I've found love is in short supply. There's no cat and mouse to play, no flirting, no gesturing. People here are clad in flannel, are hearty and are forward. In short, the people are as cold as the name Alaskan implies.

-Everything you expected it would be. Today someone down at Keith's Service Station called me looking for a moose tag. She gave me only 4 digits for her phone number. People routinely refer to 30 miles down the road as "just" down the road. Addresses aren't addresses as much as they are mile posts. I sleep at milepost 231 and I work in and around milepost 238.6. You hitchhike, wear Merino wool socks, fish, hunt, drink, and have fingers built like beaver tails.