Category Archives: Civilization

The Gallery of The Awesome II

May 23, 2008

I have journeyed far and wide of late, from the hot and dusty reaches of eastern Washington to the harshly lit bowels of Wal-Mart. In these journeys I have seen Things, Great and Amazing Things that Thrill the Senses. The incredibility I have seen is such that it is worth another visit, yes, a return of sorts, to The Gallery of The Awesome.

Some of this may be new to you, some may be downright frightening, but I recommend you stay with us until the end, keeping your hands and feet inside the car at all times.

This post card can be found outside the office of one of Kate’s favorite geology professors. It goes without saying how he feels about dams:

Place Explosives Here

In case there is any question, here’s the door to his office:

Bob Carson's Door

He will retire soon, and when he does the school will need to buy a new door.

Here we see a sign for the Bing Bang Blow Out Sale, which is happening right now at the independent record shop in Walla Walla:

Bing Bang Blow Out Sale

Actually, this sign has been in their window ever since Kate was a prospective student for Whitman College, five long years ago. It is likely a nod to the song “Witch Doctor” by David Seville, with its chorus line all “walla walla bing bang” and such. The shop boasts what is hopefully eastern Washington’s largest collection of VHS tapes and 8-tracks, despite having been blowing them out for the last five years. Say, what the hell kind of independent record shop is this?

Hot Poop

That’s right. The shop is named Hot Poop. Right there in downtown Walla Walla. Bing Bang. Judging by the number of Zappa posters in the window, I would bet it’s named after the Frank Zappa song of the same name. Based on Zappa’s character, as well as the degree of censorship that the album apparently experienced, I’m willing to bet that Frank didn’t want the song to be named “Hot Poop” at all, but rather “Hot Shit.” Ironically, the phrase “hot poop” is far more disgusting and offensive than “hot shit.”

Speaking of shit:

Squirrel Feeder

The above is a Premium Eastern Red Cedar Squirrel Feeder, available at Wal-Mart. Unless those wood screws are intended for permanently mounting the squirrel to the platform, this feeder is far more humane than the electric squirrel feeder that my father invented:

Electric Squirrel Feeder

Actually, it’s a bird feeder that he’s rigged up in such a way to discourage squirrels from draining it on a daily basis. It plugs directly into a regular wall outlet. He added the 60 watt light bulb so that when a squirrel completes the circuit, the bulb would take out a lot of the current and not cook the squirrel. Even so, there’s still a lot of squirrel poop all around this thing.

Speaking of unfortunate surprises, the Hood River Hotel features fine dining and vintage charm. How fine, and how vintage, you may ask? Here we see the worst table in the joint:

The worst table in the joint.

Speaking of vices, here we witness a grim milestone:

Grim Milestone

A gallon of gas costs nearly as much as a pack of Marlboros! Speaking of gas, these beautiful turtle figurines are available at the gas station near the Hood River Bridge:

I mean really.

Either a poor artist somewhere has a great sense of humor despite living in wrenching poverty, or the turtle’s likeness to a wrinkly penis happened completely by accident.

Last, but certainly not least, Dr. Bronner called. He wants his superlatives back:

SUPERthrive

I hope that this packaging has won design and typography awards the world over. In an effort to keep your eyes from melting, I have transcribed the top portion for you:

#1 PLANT HEALTH EXTRA LIFE
Greatest Guarantee-Offer PROOF Ever
67 YEARS, unchallenged, $5,000. GUARANTEED to be
World CHAMPION
#1 ACTIVATOR, #1 REVIVER, #1 Trans/PLANTER, #1 Extra GROWER, #1 PERFECTER
WORLD’S FAIR SCIENCE-MEDAL-WINNING
SUPERthriveTMs 50 IN ONE
VITAMINS-HORMONES

Those are some bold claims. I don’t know whether to give it to my plants or pour it on my turtle.

Also posted in Consumerism, Funny | Comments Off on The Gallery of The Awesome II

Familiar

April 21, 2008

It’s been over a week since I watched Into The Wild, and the convolutions of my brain are still busy processing it. I was prepared to be consumed by a brilliant fire of jealousy, but in the end I was completely blindsided by the familiarity of the story. The parallels between our journeys, our desires to seek out new adventures, I realized that the differences between our individual experiences were only a matter of degree.

I am drawn to the story of Christopher McCandless not because it represents the extreme, but because it represents the familiar. As Krakauer states in his foreword, “…were it not for one or two seemingly insignificant blunders, he would have walked out of the woods in August 1992 as anonymously as he had walked into them in April.” Though our paths were different, I believe McCandless and I pursued them for similar reasons, with similar philosophies and a similarly intense passion for life.

When they showed Emile Hirsch traveling through the Pacific Northwest, tromping around Sahalie Falls and McKenzie Pass, I felt a slight tinge as my life twisted in and amongst this work of fictionalized non-fiction. These are all places that I myself have visited, and at times while watching the movie it felt as though I was witnessing my own journey through the landscape.

While I haven’t enjoyed nearly the hardscrabble life as McCandless, I do have friends scattered throughout the world who are living out similar experiences. From squatting at Camp 4 and sneaking half-eaten meals from tourists, to shoveling snow at the South Pole, to spending a sleepless month exploring Alaska, my friends make it clear that McCandless is not alone in giving his middle finger to conventional living.

I’m currently rereading Into The Wild, and I find that Krakauer paints the story in a very eerie, very chilling light. In the movie, Sean Penn has made a great effort to capture that passion for life, that mighty yawp of existence that all who knew McCandless say he possessed. To that end, what Eddie Vedder has done is magic in its purest form, and the soundtrack for Into The Wild resonates to the very marrow of my soul.

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Load-Bearing

April 10, 2008

After finishing some client work this evening I intended on watching Into The Wild, which just arrived from Netflix. For ten years it has been one of my favorite books (its challengers include Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Rand McNally U.S. Road Atlas) and I have to admit I was a little bit apprehensive to watch the movie.

My nerves about it are prickly not because of the usual “OMG they better not ruine mine favorite Book!!1!” but because I’m afraid of what I might find out about myself. You see, aside from the whole “starving to death in the wilderness” thing (which I’ll admit has a fair amount of romance to it), I want to be Alexander Supertramp.

At least, I used to want to.

Or do I still?

My post-collegiate path has been a winding one, both of place and of being. The spring I graduated from college I skipped my graduation ceremony so I could leave Minnesota and start driving to Oregon just one day sooner. I loaded up all my worldly possessions in the Green Dragon Wagon, not knowing if I would be gone for three months or three years. In the end, I worked as a windsurfing grunt until I ran out of summer, a snowboard instructor until I ran out of unbroken legs, and a web designer until I ran out of Vicodin.

I stayed in Oregon for two years and lived in two towns, moving back and forth between them until I moved back to Minnesota to work as a wilderness guide. I took an eight-day Wilderness First Responder course. I met someone lovely. I spent three months growing a beard and living in the woods. That fall, my reintroduction to civilization involved getting choked up over such amenities as toothpaste and ice water.

The following summer I did it all again, only this time I was joined by someone lovely. I grew a beard. I stomped through Yellowstone for twenty days with five guys and three mohawks. That fall I moved back to Oregon as my love traveled all over the Western United States, living outside and learning about land rights and trying not to freeze to death. We reunited that December, though she was kind of freaked out that I had shaved my beard.

For 1 1/2 years now I have been planted in Hood River, working with the intertubes, kiteboarding during the summer, snowboarding during the winter, and occasionally visiting Walla Walla for some reason or another. In four months Kate and I will be moving across the country to attend graduate school at Indiana University, she to study environmental policy and me to study interaction design. After finishing my program I want to be involved in some Pretty Big Shit in my industry, which likely means I will no longer be taking three months off at a time to guide trips or teach snowboarding or fret about not having work during those unfortunate “in between” seasons.

Aye, and there’s the rub.

Part of me thinks that I’m ready to move on from this lifestyle. Another part of me fears that for all these nomadic experiences, for all this living in the outdoors, I have still managed to miss something, some hidden meaning. This elusive nugget of truth drove Christopher McCandless in his travels, and is what gave rise to Alexander Supertramp. I’m certain that Christopher would agree with me when I say that the logical conclusion of this journey is something besides starving to death in the backcountry of Alaska. What it is, however, I haven’t figured out yet.

I’ve changed a lot over the last five years, especially over the last two, and I’ve noticed my nagging sense of wanderlust begin to fade. With it I fear my curiosity goes as well, my unconventionalism, my identity. I speak of piling all my furniture on the front lawn and burning it, and people laugh as though I speak in hyperbole. I do, to be sure. But for me, owning more stuff than will fit in my car is painfully embarrassing, every bookcase and file cabinet a trophy to defeat. I have lost my mobility, but I have gained… what, a sofa? A coffee table? These are changes I have not been dealing with well.

It was in this context that I started to watch Into The Wild.

I got as far as the DVD menu. I watched it loop a dozen times. My vision blurred and my chest tightened. A dozen times Christopher burned his money, hitchhiked to Alaska, grew a beard, and posed in front of the bus.

I turned off my television.

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The Gallery of The Awesome

March 24, 2008

Last night I welcomed upon you a great injustice, in that I described a number of truly awesome products without actually showing them to you. Tonight I hope to make things right and proper, and with the help of this “Multi-Media” tool will magic their images to you, with absolutely no post office, telegraph cables, or Speak & Spell device involved.

First up in our Gallery of The Awesome, we have a Colon-Shaped Brownie Tray:

Colon-Shaped Brownie Tray

Next, we have a litter box designed for one-legged cats:

One-Legged Cat

If you thought the one-legged cat market was so small that it couldn’t possibly support more than one specially-designed litter box, you thought wrong:

Another One-Legged Cat

Last and certainly not least, we have Taylor Fay. He’s totally stacked in this picture, probably the result of his patented “ripping the legs off cats” workout:

Taylor Fay

That is all.

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Owner Alarm

January 15, 2008

I wonder when in human history a smoke alarm last warned someone that his house was on fire, rather than carrying out its typical function of commenting on his cooking.

Likewise with car alarms. I am convinced that no one, aside from the owner of the car, actually has the capacity to set off the alarm.

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Slayer

November 23, 2007

Phew. It’s been a busy holiday, though hardly in the conventional sense. On Wednesday they sent me home early from work, partly because I was sick, but mostly because I was being a regular old sourpuss on account of being sick. I went home and took a three hour nap, and then loaded up the Subaru and started on my way down to Bend for Thanksgiving. The plan was to celebrate with my friends Shane and Brandee again, and perchance do some mountain biking or snowboarding or whatever, as dictated by the weather.

When driving to Bend in the winter I typically like to drive out to The Dalles and turn south on 197, so I can avoid going up and over the saddle of Mount Hood. The route barely adds fifteen minutes to my drive, and it lets me avoid the Cascades and do the bulk of my driving through the dry high desert landscape. Despite my careful planning for this trip, I never made it to Bend. I barely even reached the first exit for The Dalles.

I swerved to avoid the first deer.

And that’s when I hit the second deer.

He was a huge feller, much bigger than the doe that I didn’t hit. For one thing I am a gentleman, and I would never hit a lady. For another, I live by the conviction that if anything is worth doing at all, it’s worth doing right. If you’re going to hit a deer, hit a huge fucking deer. That said, I have nothing on my uncle, who suffers from Parkinson’s and just recently shot an eight-point buck from his freaking wheelchair.

The buck did an incredible amount of damage to my car, smashing in the headlight, mangling the fender and the hood, shattering the windshield, snapping off the side mirror, and denting in the passenger doors. Fixing it is going to be ridiculously expensive. While I’m kinda pissed about the whole thing, I do realize that I still have my life and liberty, which is more than I can say for the deer.

Meanwhile, my hobbies lately have included sneezing, coughing violently, and talking to my insurance company. I’ve been doing my best to fight off this virulent plague I’m hosting, and so long as it’s not the Killing Cold I think I’ll be able to come out on the other side of this one. I’ve been pulling down hard on the Western Family Orange Juice, a from-concentrate concoction that’s so delicious you can actually taste the municipal water source.

Also posted in Life, Oregon, Travel | Comments Off on Slayer

I Heart Sprint

January 18, 2007

Last week my cell phone suddenly lost most of its ability to make and receive calls. The nature of the glitch suggested that it was a problem with Sprint’s all-digital wireless network built from the ground up. My phone kept getting booted off Sprint’s network and into roaming land, so my initial concerns were about my monthly bill (which is already a little bit out of control).

I sent the following message to support:

Dearest Sprint,

Lately your Sprint Network coverage within the 97031 zip code has been extremely spotty. Normally I get an extremely strong on-network signal when I’m in town, but for the last couple days I’ve been experiencing some rather frustrating trouble.

Frequently when I go to place a call, my Sprint Network signal suddenly drops to zero. As the call starts dialing, I’m suddenly on Digital Roam, or even (gasp!) Analog Roam. Thus, I am being forced to “roam” even though I’m well within Sprint territory, and well within my usual locales when placing calls.

I assure you that my home or office have not suddenly relocated themselves to places that would have spotty Sprint reception, nor have I wrapped my home or office in tinfoil or lead shielding or other such things that would interfere with signal strength.

No, nothing has changed except for the signal quality and reliability that I am currently receiving from Sprint. I will allow that it might be a problem with my cell phone itself, but beyond turning it off and on again, there really isn’t a whole lot of diagnosing I can do in that regard.

That said, the reliability of your “all-digital wireless network built from the ground up” has suddenly become very questionable. I suppose this is a long way of saying that when my next bill shows up, I will dispute any and all “roaming” charges that have resulted from the instability of your own network.

Yes, I know that my plan includes “free” roaming off the Sprint Network. However, I also know that while you don’t charge me for “roaming” when I make/receive calls off your network, you do nick me for “long distance” charges, which are normally included when I use your network.

Claiming that you offer “free roaming” when you simply charge for “long distance” in its place is merely a clever game of marketing semantics, as you are effectively charging for the exact same thing. Thus, I shall dispute any charges for either roaming or long-distance.

Take care, and have yourself a lovely day.

Cheers,
Dane Petersen

Not long after, I received the following response:

Dear Dane,

I apologize for the inconvenience caused by the coverage issues. Thank you for contacting Sprint together with Nextel in this regard.

Since your plan includes roaming, the long distance calls made withing U.S. would not be charged even while roaming. However, the long distance calls made to outside the U.S. would be charged irrespective of roaming.

I have checked through our resources and noticed that we have good coverage in your area.

We understand that in spite of the good coverage, you are experiencing service related problems. To resolve this matter, we need to create a trouble record for this issue. Therefore, I have forwarded your case to the appropriate department. One of our specialists will call you within the next 48 hours (on your Sprint number) to assist you.

Our specialist will take the required information, which is used by Sprint engineers to improve the network. Each month we add or improve hundreds of cell sites based upon the information received. Thank you for reporting this situation and we will do everything we can to resolve this issue.

Thank you for contacting us. Have a great day.

Abel R.

E-Care
Sprint together with Nextel
“Where our customers come first!”

Refer someone to Sprint and get $25.
Visit www.sprint.com/referralprogram for details.

I wrote a reply the following day, by which point my troubles had, well, progressed:

Dearest Abel,

Thank you for your response. I will take you at your word that I will not be charged long distance for my calls placed to destinations in the U.S. while roaming within the U.S. That said, Sprint has given me plenty of reasons to be distrustful of our relationship with one another, so please don’t take offense as I brace myself for other hidden charges that we haven’t discussed here.

In the time since I wrote my original message, my troubles with Sprint have progressed from mildly irritating to downright infuriating. In an effort to “force” my phone to use Sprint’s network (which according to my phone has strong signal coverage, despite evidence to the contrary) I have disabled both analog and digital roam.

As a result, only about 25% of the outgoing calls I have been trying to make actually go through. The rest result in errors ranging from “The network is busy, please try again later,” to “No service available.”

Additionally, I’m receiving frequent voice mails from calls that never even caused my phone to ring. I would estimate that at least half of my incoming calls are not coming through to my phone, and are instead getting diverted to voicemail.

Not being a specialist myself, I don’t know whether this is a problem with my phone, or a problem with the network. I hope that the specialist can help answer this question. I also hope the specialist can manage to get through to my phone when he or she calls.

Cheers,

Dane P.
E-Kvetch
Brainside Out together with Dane Petersen
“Where you hear us before you see us!”

It wasn’t long until I received a reply. I must say that while not being all that helpful, Sprint is very responsive. Sadly, however, my dear friend Abel had been replaced by someone new:

Dear Dane,

Thank you for your reply.

I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience you are experiencing.

The zip code 97031 is covered under the PCS coverage network and there is a problem with the phone reception or coverage, this could be because of the following two possibilities:

1. Phone difficulties: Please visit a Sprint Store to get your Phone tested. To locate the nearest Sprint Store, you can click on the following hyperlink:

http://www.sprintstorelocator.com

2. Network difficulties: If your Phone passes the diagnostic test and the coverage problem persists, you can contact us to process a trouble record for this service-related issue. Please dial *2TALK from your Phone or 1-888-211-4727 from a landline phone. Our specialists will be glad to assist you.

Thank you for contacting us.

Odalys D.
E-Care
Sprint together with Nextel
“Where our customers come first!”

Refer someone to Sprint and get $25. Dial #REF or visit a store for details.

…as an aside, I find it rather tactless on Sprint’s part to include a “Refer someone to Sprint!” link in their email signature on support emails. Seriously, if I’m mailing back and forth with your support crew you can safely assume that I’m kinda pissed at you about something, and probably not in the best mood to burden others with your service.

As of yesterday it appears that the worst has finally passed, as my phone seems to be making and receiving calls once again without issue. I figured I owed Sprint an update regarding my current status:

Dearest Odalys,

I am pleased to tell you that as of today my phone seems to be working fine. I am now able to make and receive calls with the same rate of success that I had previously enjoyed with Sprint. I didn’t bring it into a Sprint Store for testing, however, as the nearest store is 60 miles away and my gut tells me that this has been a problem with the network, not with the phone.

Also, with an hour of freeway driving and six inches of snow standing between me and the nearest Sprint Store, I fear that under current weather conditions I would probably die if I were to undertake such a foolish excursion. Seriously, I hear they’ve resorted to cannibalism in Portland.

No, the Oregon landscape has consumed enough poor souls this winter. I feel it is my duty as a responsible citizen not to add to the mounting body count, and instead I chose to wait this one out. If the fact that my phone works again is any sort of evidence, it seems that inaction in this case was indeed the best action.

Thank you for your help, and have a lovely day.

Dane P.
E-Carp
Brainside Out together with Dane Petersen
“Where cold fury follows us wherever we go!”

Refer someone to Brainside Out and get $25!
Visit www.brainsideout.com for details.

Today I received a call from a Sprint representative who, along with being uncomfortably apologetic for the problems I have been experiencing, assured me that a network specialist would contact within the next couple days regarding these issues. I thanked him for his deep concern and made sure he understood that most of my troubles seem to have already been resolved, but I agreed that further correspondence with Sprint would certainly be enjoyable.

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Ghost Town

January 3, 2007

Like a scene from a surreal dream, Kate and I currently find ourselves in the abandoned tourist town of Medora, North Dakota.

Medora is the gateway to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, a huge and gorgeous tangle of bluffs and cliffs out in western North Dakota. It’s a kitschy western tourist town, complete with saloons, general stores, wild west storefronts, and street signs hewn from wood and set in western fonts to mimic old time sign posts. This town was born wearing cowboy boots and listening to shitkicker music, and Kate assures me it’s a bumpin’ place during the summer.

The story is completely different come the winter. By the time we pulled off the freeway at the Medora exit it was already dark outside. And boy was it ever dark. “Are you sure there’s a town here?” I kept asking Kate. Nowhere was a town in sight. There were no street lamps, no road signs, no glow in the sky. Just, dark. And a road that wound through a narrow valley.

We pressed on, and after a few minutes of emptiness the road dumped us in the middle of downtown Medora.

There was not a soul to be seen.

We checked into our hotel, and left our car alongside the three others in the parking lot. At least one of those cars, obviously, belonged to the staff of the hotel. The others? They could belong to other guests, but there hasn’t been any other sign of them yet. The desk clerk told us that during the summer tourist season the town held a permanent population of 200 people, but right now there were only 80 or so. We would soon discover that even this number is probably quite generous.

Kate and I decided to hit the town on foot, so we’d be able to stumble back to our hotel after whatever secret revelry Medora would offer us. We made for the Iron Horse Saloon, after the desk clerk suggested that it was probably the only place in town that was open this time of year. On our walk we found some sort of bicycle (it wasn’t a bicycle so much as it was a regular human-sized tricycle, with a large basket on the back) abandoned on the side of the road. I hopped on the bike with glee, excited to cruise around town in style, only to find that the likely reason it was abandoned was because the chain was missing.

We gave up on the tricycle and made for the Iron Horse Saloon. The first few doors we tried to open were locked, but thus encouraged by a beer sign claiming the saloon was open, we eventually found our way inside. We were met by the harsh glares of two people, a lip-pierced fellow in a red flannel shirt, and an emo gal with bleach-blonde hair.

We said we were looking for supper (that’s what they call it in these parts, supper) and the fellow hinted that they might could do such a thing. If taken literally, the words he spoke suggested that they could indeed cook us supper. Taking into account the tone of his voice, however, it was obvious that he intended for us to fuck the fuck off. Kate whispered in my ear, and we pushed away from the bar and bound out the door.

Not yet ready to call it a night, we decided to explore the creepy town of Medora a little bit more. Besides the people at the bar, we hadn’t seen any other people. No one. Everything was closed, the streets were empty, the houses dark. In the middle of every intersection was a large pile of snow, five feet high. There was a police car that would pass by us every fifteen minutes or so, but beyond that we never saw any other cars. No one had bothered to rake the leaves from autumn, but the wind had gathered them into random piles in the quiet corners of town.

Many of the sidewalks in Medora are made of wood planking, and our footfalls would echo across the town. Other times the sidewalk was covered in a thin layer of crusty snow, and the loud crunch of our footsteps would make us shiver. As we toured the town we nary spoke above a whisper, lest we awaken the ghosts.

Before long our imaginations were getting the best of us. We started seeing people out of the corner of our eyes. I swore I smelled someone cooking doughnuts. Some life-sized cowboy cut-outs were arranged in front of the Medora post office, and both of us thought for a moment that they were real people.

At one point we walked up to a gift shop to peer in the window, and remarked at a stuffed cat that was seated on the window ledge. Suddenly it moved its head, blinked, and after a few seconds of confusion we realized it was actually a real live cat.

It was the only living thing we would see that night.

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Laundromatic

December 5, 2006

I have discovered an axiom of Hood River laundromats, in that at any point in time at least one quarter of all washers and dryers must be out of order. At first I thought this only applied to the laundromat in the Heights, which besides its defunct collection of machines isn’t all that bad as far as laundromats go. Well, as far my standards go for judging a “quality” laundromat, it isn’t bad. I guess.

Given Kate’s account, which includes a four-month tour of every laundromat across the Great American West, perhaps I have unduly low expectations given my experience in Hood River. She is typically aghast when I describe an average Hood River laundromat, and assures me that such traits are not universally present in laundromats the country over.

Okay, despite the 25% failure rate of its 1980s vintage collection of washers and dryers, the Heights Laundromat isn’t bad. It has slippery yellow plastic seats, a working Neo-Geo arcade machine, and a kick-ass dollar store next door. Plus, there’s this huge and cool wooden bench out front with the words Heights Laundromat burned into it, that has a great view of Mount Hood when the weather is nice, and an even better view of the parking lot when the weather is bad. Seriously, you can see the parking lot so well that you almost feel like you’re there.

Now, for the longest time I thought the Heights Laundromat was the only gig in town. Business directories and Google Maps suggested differently, but every time I went in search of a fabled second laundromat I turned up empty-handed. Back in October I would drive up and down the street keeping a keen eye out for this laundromat, never to find a thing. There was the paint store, the car wash, the diner that was obsessed with eggs, but alas, no laundromat.

I finally stumbled upon it this past weekend, when I was quite literally on my way to the Heights with a load of laundry. Turns out the Westside Laundromat has a few things going against it, not the least of which is the fact that it’s listed on the wrong side of the street in Google Maps. The lettering is peeling off its sign, and what’s more, it’s attached to the Chinese restaurant. In my quest for alternative laundromats, I never thought to check the Chinese restaurant.

While smaller than the Heights Laundromat, one couldn’t exactly describe the Westside Laundromat as cozy. The front door barely fits in its metal frame, and it protests violently every time someone makes an entrance. The few arcade games that are available are tucked into a back room, and aren’t even turned on for that matter. There are instructions that remind you to check inside dryers for children and pets before loading, but neglect to tell you to keep an eye out for, say, other people’s clothing.

What Westside Laundromat lacks in ambience, however, it makes up for in proximity. While the Heights is nearly a whole mile from my house, Westside is a measly block. Yup. One block from my house, and it took me two months to find it.

If Hood River is any indication, owning a laundromat seems like a pretty sweet business. You open up the place in the morning and you lock it up at night. You spend your day kicking around town doing whatever you find prudent, while in the meantime people are jamming your face full of quarters. Your infrastructure is at least a quarter-century old and requires no modernization, and if anything breaks down it’s nothing a sheet of notebook paper, a Sharpie and a piece of tape can’t fix.

Maybe I’ve got this freelance web design thing all wrong.

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Eight

November 29, 2006

I find it somewhat comforting when my surroundings remind me that this, all of this, is just a phase. The wild river of life, not unlike the Monsoon Lagoon at Raging Waters, twists and turns as it sees fit. No doubt in a few short years, or weeks or months or even days for that matter, we’ll all find ourselves paddling completely different routes.

Tonight I was reminded how fortunate it is that I am no longer ten years old. No longer do I throw tantrums and shout at my mother and slam doors so hard it ripples the floor upstairs and makes the lights flicker. Me? I don’t really mind listening to the whole act. I actually find it quite entertaining, and what’s more it also grants me a moment’s pause for reflection. I smile at it now, knowing that fifteen years ago nothing I blew up over was critical enough to leave a lasting impression on my life. I chuckle and wonder why the hell I took it all so seriously, when nothing really mattered at all.

Sure, I realize this now, but to be fair I must remind myself that back then, this was my very reality. I commit a historical injustice when I superimpose my current mental state on my ten-year-old self. Back then I was ten, and that’s all I had. All those daily ups and downs, the joys and stresses, they were what constituted my life. Of course I took all that stuff seriously, whether it was the injustice of not getting a Sega Genesis for Christmas, or missing a ride to school in the morning, or being forced to eat hot lunch for an entire year.

Ultimately, what difference did it make? In the long-term, was it really worth gettin’ stressed out and throwing a tantrum over that Genesis? Damn. Even back then, when I saved up and finally bought one with my own money, I ended up selling it a couple months later for a Super Nintendo. Talk about a short romance. Back in 1990, try telling me that in fifteen years the main players in the video game realm would be the company that built my Walkman, and the company that invented DOS. Try telling me that Ninendo would literally own Sega. I would probably call you crazy, and I then I would probably kick you in the shins. Seriously, I was notorious for that in elementary school.

Flux is the natural state of all things. This is both ridiculously obvious and ridiculously easy to forget. Even now, I’m no doubt working myself into a tizzy over things that, in ten years’ time, I’ll simply laugh at upon reflection. The only difference is that this time around I’m aware that my stresses are ridiculous in the greater sense, involving such dumb things as mysterious mold growing on the outside of my flower pots, bleach stains on my bath mat, and misspellings on my LLC registration with the Oregon Secretary of State.

In its own dumb way, the knowledge that these stresses are inconsequential becomes a stress itself, a kind of meta-stress about the lack of relevant stress in my life. Sigh. Perhaps I miss my days of hiking through hailstorms, evading grizzlies, and treating blisters.

Or perhaps there’s just a gaping hole in my heart. Try as I might to distract myself with the banalities of civilized life, I miss those days of driving to Anoka, playing lousy mini-golf, and turning road signs into giant birds that eat people.

I just lost the game.

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