Currently Listening The Avalanche: Outtakes & Extras from the Illinois Album By Sufjan Stevens see related

Jill of Many Trades (Originally titled "Neruda on the Rocks")

That was a bit of an absence.  Oh, and a violent one at that.  I have been whirled to many places of employment, none of which provided me with internet access and lots of freetime.  I know, I know, it's tough, but thank you for your sympathy.

First, I was stolen by the Loft, a place with which I was familiar from nights o' karaoke, concerts, poker nights, and family nights.  Only this time I was takin' folks orders and doing a poor job of it.  The first couple nights, people granted me sympathy because they knew that I was new there and because I smiled too much.  Then, they got pretty upset when I couldn't properly order their half cheese, half no sauce, extra pepperoni, garlic butter, chicken strips, hot wings, pilsner of Sierra Nevada, and two pints of Bud, oh wait, that's all to go (which means you have to do it over again).  It was like being tricked.  Ambers don't liked to be tricked.  However, one night, when I got there, they put out the tip jar because I was the official "bartender."  That made me feel a bit badass.  I don't think you're supposed to say "bit" and "badass" in the same sentence; the former nullifies the latter.  Here's the other bad trick.  As far as drinks go, we mostly just serve beer at the Loft, about 6 or 7 different types; we also have some wine and a few other drinks, like Bicardi.  People came up on a pretty consistent basis and asked me which beer was my favorite.  Oh, and but NAMB has stolen this preference from me!!  They make you sign a teetoler form at the beginning of it all; not to not get drunk, but to stay completely dry.  I just want a little glass of wine every now and then, maybe some beer with my pizza, some port on my birthday.  I don't think that drinking is wrong, but I do think that giving my word and going back on it is.  So, I don't know which of those is my favorite, but I'll pour you whichever you like.  The entry that I was going to write in March when this was happening was going to be about this adventure in which I tried again to find Illouette, with my pack on.  I was trying to fit it, so I weighted it down with what we had.  It was filled with books and a cast iron skillet.  At Illouette Creek, I perched upon a boulder partially covered with water and removed from my modular library a selection of Pablo Neruda's poems.  The sun filtered down the canyon, the river roared above, and I drank deeply the words of the poet, full-bodied, complex.  The warmth made my brain hum and my heart quickened its pace.  When I went to stand, I could hardly do so.  Mr. Neruda lowered all my inhibitions, and I still kept my word to NAMB.  More trades to come; thanks for reading.

Pixel Power

 Our wi-fi is finally fixed, so that means... a few pictures are in order.  We'll see if this works.

Ferocity and Fragility or The Anatomy of an Adventure

Today was finally shower day, so I decided I had better run first to make the agony worthwhile.  I headed out towards the back loop, and huffed and puffed for 10 minutes or so, when I saw it.  Springing from my beaten path was a much less beaten path.  Being versed in Frost, I followed the supposed trail up and up, until I realized, with no dismay at all, that it wasn't a path.  Playing along through the trees, boulders, and bushes, I noticed something long forgotten.  Sniff.  Flowers.  Flowers have smells, most delightful ones at that.  As a matter of fact, all the woods were alive with maddeningly delightful smells.  There, brushing against my left shoulder, a yellow blossom cradled in the smooth green leaves of a tree.  And I realized why I've never loved Yosemite.  The painful pleasure that has built up in me from granite faces and cedar arms was meant to escalate and explode.  It is not a stagnant pleasure; it has a destination, and that destination is the vastness of the wonder of God.  To stay in the stagnant is for the pleasure to become painful because it seeks this orgasmic explosion.  All beauty is pointing, not to itself, but to Him.  It asks us to make a journey, not to stagnantly enjoy.

These trees and bushes, despite their intoxicating fragrance were holding me too closely, and fortunately, my homemade trail stumbled into a vegetation-less boulder field, the field, below Glacier Point.  This area is called the Apron, and the general consensus is to steer wide and clear because there was a very large rockfall here less than 10 years ago and the area isn't stable.  Feeling rather ferocious about taking my life into my own hands, I scrambled across the white-fallen boulders.  I was climbing over boulders, but looking for the paths with the smaller chunks o' granite, so that I could walk and not climb.  There they are, friendly little baby boulders, underneath my feet.  Before I could feel too victorious over these fist-sized rocks I realized that just one of those guys, falling from Glacier Point to my temple would be the end for me.  What great fragility there is to this life!  The lesser rocks could take it.  The Apron moves up along the cliff face to what would amount to a peak resting against a wall.  There's this waterfall, Illouette, around the corner that I've tried to scramble back to before, from a different place, and I thought that perhaps this peak would be a great vista for this elusive waterfall.  The higher I got, the looser the boulders became, and the more I realized the reason for all the advisories against this place.  That lended all the more to my ferocity.  Close to the wall, some snow is still biding its time, and in that snow I noticed some footprints.  I went to check out if I could see how old they were, but when I got close, I realized that that "trail" was actually a continuing line of rocks that had fallen and embedded themselves deep in the snow, laying there, reminding me of my fragility.

Ever so naturally, I swung away from the wall, and into a dry river bed.  Here the rocks are even looser, but erosion has made a remarkable handicraft.  Powder, glittering in the sun, so fine and clumped in strange rows.  It looked as if an ancient, shiny serpent had woven itself all through the boulders.  I put my hand to the powder, and it came back to me covered in glitter.  Pyrite like I have never seen it.  I had to get out of the gully because it reached an area covered with snow that was suspended 4 inches or so above the rocks.  Snow caves, treacherous creatures.  However, when I tried to climb the bank, I was met with equal treachery, and a skull-sized boulder rocked free from my home and fell towards my foot.  Somehow, I caught this heavy rock, and released it down the mountainside with my foot free from its path.  After escaping the river bed, it was only a bit more scrambling before the peak was underfoot.  I couldn't see Illouette, but the view of the Valley was exhilarating.  So many grand monuments that you just can't see in a single view from anywhere else I've been.  I can't describe it to you.  I scrambled down through the forest, my heart buzzing with His beauty.

A Fine Week, A Stupendous Week

I hired the grasshoppers to hop from key to key and type this entry for me.  My fingertips are a bit lacking in their usual fleshyness.  They had a little conference with the cracks in the granite today.  It was a lovely climb.  I'm running out of payment for the grasshoppers, they only accept diamonds.