The Bulgarian Bonfire Soirees

Eastern Europeans. Every time I forget my woes and start seeing life for its very few charms, it's in the presence of foreigners (or, in the case of Quebec, people foreign to me). Here in Alaska, young Eastern Europeans are brought in for the hospitality and tourism industry. They're cheap labor to the local proprietors and the kids get to come to America to suss out whatever it is Eastern Bloc-ers come to America to suss out. It's a win-win.

The season is winding down faster than a rig going 65 MPH is incapacitated by a moose on paved permafrost. And the RV park the clowns I work for put us in has closed for the season. The RV park's Eastern Europeans throw a party of sorts every night now. They light a camp fire and play bad techno/electronica/dance music. They've invited us Jeep boys to drink cheap beer with them and hang out around the fire. They burn anything they can get their hands on. I never knew Budweiser cans burn so well.

So at night, we hang out under the moon drinking the cheap stuff and chatting absolute nonsense. And I couldn't be having more fun. I hope they're out tonight, though Maria is on a flight to LA or Vegas or NYC and the rest of the Moldovans, Macedonians, Bulgarians and Russians are about to fly the coup too. Any day, as a matter of fact. Our group is bound to dry up quickly. And when it does it's back to the blanket feelings of underwhelmed-with-being. Bang! I fucking love moose, mountains and fire. I'll miss the the heck out of this place. But I gotta split!!

From bad to September

Feeling low. Low. The sun went from setting at 10:45pm to setting at 8:30pm. Northern lights were out again last night. They sucked. Today, 09/09/09, my rideshares headed south decided to nix the whole thing. Now I have to bear the burden of driving 5 thousand miles and paying for 5 thousand miles worth of fuel.

And I keep seeing moose splattered all over the place. I saw a massive rig with a dent the size of my extended family in it. And a blood splatter bigger than a Ford F-150. The last thing to go through the mind of the moose it hit? Its own asshole. Hanging out in the middle of the Parks Highway at whatever hour that happened, maybe its own asshole was the ONLY thing to ever go through that moose's mind.

I'm very excited to be leaving this place in under 2 weeks. But I'm still sitting with the unnerving feeling that I'm not going to be very happy anywhere else. Sometimes. Well, I think that I'm bigger than this brain. This body. This life. What kills me is the wants. I want to eat every day. Hunger is a pesky little habit. I want stuff. Maybe even a woman friend. Vey. Purple tennis shoes. A winning lottery ticket. A road bike with flat handle bars. A skill. A New York strip steak. A happiness maybe very few people know. Lucky kid that I am. To want to be happier and not healthier, or safer, or cleaner, or less closer to death. Lucky to be unhappy.

So I'm rolling down the Stampede trail and come to a calf moose trot right by me. Then the mama moose saunters in front of my Jeep. So I sit. And throw the Jeep in park and watch. I didn't do much thinking. I just watched. I suppose if I did think I would have wondered that I can't watch this sort of thing in Brooklyn. Or that I'm on the clock is this is helping me pay the bills. Or that this is the exact reason I came to Alaska for 6 weeks. Or how I'd be writing about my thoughts in another day or two. Writing about her and her calf. Writing about how each one of her mouthfuls of tree leaves equates to about 5 or 6 large salads at any deli anywhere. And then I actually did have a thought. I threw the Jeep into drive and motioned onward. But she squared me up. And I thought either she's not going anywhere. Or that I'm disturbing her meal. I put the Jeep back into park and hung out a while longer. Microcosm for my life? At almost 30, did I just throw it back into park? Am I idling on my trail?

What about you and your trail?

Thoughts on future sadness

Yo! This summer has greeted me with the happiest of happies I've ever experienced. It started fresh in Montreal, had me driving forever to Tennessee to experience Bonnaroo, mega huge parties way back in Quebec, meeting maybe a hundred new friends all over the place, learning to repair bikes at McGill U., seeing tons of bands play live, and driving across the continent to Alaska. All the while I never missed Brooklyn, though seeing that bands would be playing live in Brooklyn made me appreciate the access to ALL New York City has afforded me. If I ever actually live there again, I won't take it for granted.

But I'm almost 30 and my brain is fucking fucked. The thoughts that swirl in my head just won't let me live in the moment and appreciate not being 30 and being in Alaska for no other reason than because I can't work above ground in Montreal.

But that doesn't help. I have these bad feelings that I won't be happy after this. That no matter where I go, after this summer, will pale in comparison to this one hoorah. Ouch. It's soooooo real to me. Going back to Brooklyn would almost feel claustrophobic. Going to Montreal would certainly mean working under-the-table, menial tasks and living hand-to-mouth. And staying in Alaska would offer some promise, but tons of misery and a cost-of-living that I'm certainly unprepared for.

How do I balance my chronic spells of depression with; new, exciting and healthy experiences that stimulate and keep me reasonably happy; AND find a way of making a living that doesn't have me continually thinking of seeking out a new way to earn an existence? Doesn't seem possible. It's the sort of way-leads-onto-way that forks me over and over again.

I keep melting.

Someone teach me French, a skill that stimulates me to no end, and write me up a work visa. Or motivate me to act and not think. Or better yet, distract me.

But no one wants to read this bullshit. So I'll have you know that last night I saw the lankiest cat ever bound its way across the George Parks highway. Turns out it was a lynx. And I finally saw Dall sheep hanging out. And the ptarmigans' feathers and arctic snowshoe hares' fur are changing color! There are a couple hares that visited me at cook's camp today. Cutest things ever.

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.

Pissing under the Northern Lights

Friends, I can't provide a picture for this post. I just couldn't do it. I tried snapping one, but there was no justice. Tonight, I went to the Panorama Pizza Pub just south of Denali here in Alaska, which produces some awful grub. But I had a few Miller High Lifes and took to getting home just before midnight local time. Obviously, upon imbibing my beer I had to relieve myself and tonight, of all nights of my almost 30 years on this here planet, tonight I peed under the Aurora Borealis.

Timbuktu

Morning. It's still night here... but I'm 4 hours away from most anyone who would read this. And by that, I'm referring strictly to time zone. No way anyone is traveling 4 hours and ending up in Denali, Alaska. Not if you're anyone I know anyway.

So what have I seen? Duluth, MN. Great place. Really.

I think I passed Glacier National Park in Montana. There may or may not be a glacier.

I saw Calgary, Alberta. Not a nice place. Very middle of nowhere-trying-to-be-somewhere.

Whitehorse, on the other hand is a gem. Drunk First Nationers and francophones all over the place. They've also got a Walmart whose parking lot doubles as an RV park. And a campground where I paid C$1 for a 4 minute shower.

I saw bison walking along side the road in the wee hours of the morning. I swear to you, they are so dark, had it been in the middle of the highway in the middle of the night, I'd have been stew meat. That far north, you only read about street lamps. Quite dangerous.

I saw Fairbanks. Nothing fair about it. They've a couple of great outfitters, a McDonald's that sells the McMckinley (a Big Mac with bigger beef patties), and the largest Walmart I've ever seen.

I saw Anchorage. Drunk eskimos abound. The people are rude. They practice shady business. Very disappointing.

I saw Wasilla. Wasilla is Alaskan heaven. The people are nice. They remind me of pleasant Canadians.

And of course I've seen Mt. McKinley. Big. Word on the street; it's bigger than Everest. It starts lower, has a higher rise (18 thousand feet, whereas Everest, though taller, rises a lowly 13 thousandish), and a larger base.

Oh yeah, I've peeped a cow moose and her calf eating the life out of some leaves not 100 feet away from where I sleep. Talk about big. I've seen a threaded flange break off my car's alternator. I've seen the Stampede trail made famous by Christopher McCandless and that whole Into the Wild hoopla. I've seen the midnight sun. I'm not exactly in Timbuktu, but I'm not in Kansas anymore either.

Summer 2009, will you marry me?

Ah man! It's been almost a month, but Canada is rocking my socks off. I'm shipping off to Alaska tomorrow morning and I am going to miss this balls to the wall place.

Last night I did Osheaga. Girl Talk hit with pounding synth beats and La Ronde (the local Six Flags amusement park) serenaded us with fireworks. The weather was absolutely perfect. I can't say anyone could ever plan a better party on paper.

My time here is clearly winding down and with my future up in the air here comes this pesky down, depressed me again. But seriously, lately I've done everything from trying to illegally escape Canada on foot, to riding home on a stolen Bixi at 4 in the morning, to developing a reputation for drinking everything out of extra large yogurt cups.

I just can't take blogging. Too much of a responsibility. I feel guilty. I can't update the blogosphere on my comings and goings. MY comings and goings. I can't, in reality, because why would anyone care, either way?

But I trudge. And my spell check seems screwed. And I've met the best people in the world. HERE. And I'm leaving in 24 hours.

"Je suis contente parse que nous somme ensemble."