Wild Charlock

Long time, no post

2009-11-17T14:18:00.001-08:00

Wow, back to my beloved Wild Charlock blog. Most of the things I write now go on my backpacking blog, but I'm keeping this one for more personal updates (and Ultimate Frisbee pics).

This was taken by my friend Isaac Lane Koval.

Sending me mail on the Appalachian Trail

2009-07-02T09:59:00.000-07:00

1. Monson, Maine

Send by 7/13/09
ETA 7/18/09

Shelly Brown
Shaws lodging
17 Pleasant Street OR PO Box 72
Monson, ME 04464.

2. Gorham, NH

Send by 8/11/09
ETA 8/16/09

Shelly Brown
General Delivery
Gorham, NH 03581

3. Hanover, NH

Send by 9/6/09
ETA 9/10/09

Shelly Brown
General delivery
Hanover, NH 03755

4. Great Barrington, MA

Send by 9/28/09
ETA 10/3/09

Shelly Brown
General Delivery
Great Barrington, MA 01230

5. Port Clinton, PA

Send by 10/17/09
ETA 10/22/09

Shelly Brown
General Delivery
Port Clinton, PA 19549

6. Harpers Ferry, WVA

Send by 11/16/09
ETA 11/21/09

Shelly Brown
General Delivery
Harpers Ferry, WVA 25425

7. Daleville, VA

Send by 12/11/09
ETA 12/16/09

Shelly Brown
c/o Outdoor Trails
Botetourt Commons
28 Kingston Drive
Daleville, Virginia 24083

8. Hot Springs, NC

Send by 1/8/09
ETA 1/13/09

Shelly Brown
General Delivery
Hot Springs, NC 28734

Solstice!

2009-06-24T12:16:00.001-07:00

Back from another frisbee tournament (I know, it's an addiction). My team broke our record an actually won 2 games. Go Natty 20's!

Here are my favorite pics, all taken by my friend Isaac Lane Koval. It pays to have a professional photographer on your team.

More here.

Argyle Reserve

2009-06-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

My Skillz team just won the league championship! Here is a picture of one of our coaches.

I'm going here!

2009-06-11T14:02:00.000-07:00

Mt Katahdin! Here is a great description.

Bears

2009-06-02T15:25:00.001-07:00

I've been working on my Appalachian Trail blog a lot lately and it seems to be going well. My favorite part: making up goofy questions and then pretending that my unsuspecting friends asked them.

This is the best one:

Tina L from Chattanooga, TN.

Question:

Does menstrual blood really attract bears?

Answer:

Yes. And they keep stealing my pick-a-nick baskets.

Supporting additional legislation to monitor puppy mills in Oregon

2009-05-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

I received this e-mail today because I am a volunteer at the Humane Society, and I think it bears reposting. I wrote earlier this year about the 120 Burn's Dogs that were surrendered to the Humane Society by an abusive breeder. The Humane Society is trying to introduce legislation that will prevent abuses like this occurring by imposing stricter regulation on puppy mills. Here's the email:

You are getting this email because you are a very dear friend of OHS and we are concerned. Yesterday we sent out an action alert regarding some pending legislation. In the last 48 hours, the puppy mill breeders began an aggressive campaign of lies and fearful propaganda against our legislation as payback for regulating puppy mills. Some legislators have gotten dozens of letters opposing our bill, labeling us as a radical animal rights group and claiming abuse by our investigators. Unfortunately this smear campaign is getting some legislators attention and the pets of Oregon need folks who love animals, not to profit from them, to speak out.

If you haven’t done so this week, I am asking you to contact your representative immediately ask them to support three bills.

Using your personal email account, go to this link and instantly email your state Representative and Senator. Let them know you care about animals and you support the Oregon Humane Society.

Please do not identify yourself as an OHS employee. Your strongest voice is as a voting constituent in their district.

SB 303A Requires more training and uniform standards of conduct for OHS investigators, matching what is required for all law enforcement officers in the state. SUPPORT! This bill does not give Humane Special Agents more authority or broader powers. It only relates to training and certification, the Governor still appoints agents. Contact your State Representative.

HB 3348 Restores Humane Special Agents ability to apply for search warrants by first person testimony. Without this bill we will have to find a sympathetic police or sheriff’s officer, tell them what we know and hope they will follow through. Time is essential and without quick access to search warrants animals have disappeared and their fate is unknown. In two recent cases we believe the dogs have died because we could not get a search warrant fast enough. SUPPORT this bill. Contact your State Senator

HB 2470 Puppy mill regulations, while this doesn’t go far enough it is a major improvement for the lives of thousands of dogs in Oregon’s puppy mills. This bill has one more hurdle to become law, tell your senator you support humane conditions for dogs in puppy mills. SUPPORT this bill

For more information on legislative issues, go to http://www.oregonhumane.org/advocacy/legislation.asp

Of course you can always email me directly or call me at my office. I would also appreciate copies of whatever you receive from your legislator.

Thank you so much!

Sharon M. Harmon

Executive Director

Oregon Humane Society

Receiving mail on the Appalachian Trail

2009-05-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

I've been wondering about how to keep in touch and get mail from people while I'm on the trail, and I just found out one way. The post office offers a service called general delivery.

This means that if someone writes me a letter addressed like this:

Addy*
c/o General Delivery
Small town near the AT, State, Zip code

Unfortunately, I have yet to officially change my name to Adelaide, so, unless I get my stuff together and change my name before I leave, letters will have to be addressed to Shelly. I have to take a picture ID to the specified post office to pick up my mail. Handy, eh? I've also heard that some businesses along the way offer the same service.

I'll be e-mailing out a list of what post offices I'll be using and when.

Excommunicating the wrong person

2009-05-19T15:03:00.000-07:00

I just heard about this story from Brazil. Here's what happened: a nine year old girl was raped by her stepfather and became pregnant with twins. Her mother took her to the hospital and the doctors, who were afraid that the pregnancy would kill the little girl, performed an abortion.

A horrible situation, and it gets worse. From CBC:
"Upon learning of the abortion, the regional archbishop excommunicated the doctors, as well as the girl's mother. He did not excommunicate the step-father, saying the crime he is alleged to have committed, although deplorable, was not as bad as ending a fetus's life."

I don't know how to say strongly enough that this decision by the Catholic church is crazy, that the cruelty of excommunicating the doctors that saved this girl's life, but not the man who raped her is astounding. And I am disgusted and infuriated that the Vatican would support that decision.

Come hike part of the Appalachian trail with me!

2009-05-18T23:56:00.001-07:00

Hello friends,

Here is a map of the trail. I'll be headed North to South, starting in Maine in July. If you have time and you're interested, come hike part of it with me! E-mail me if you want rough guesses of where I'll be at different places.

Look buff for the camera

2009-05-07T15:09:00.000-07:00

I recently began training with Nikki Becker from Missfit Adventures. My reasoning: if I am going to tell everyone I know that I’m trying to backpack the Appalachian Trail, I better not come home a month after I started. Nikki trains clients in her “all women’s adventure club.”

If you want to read more about my preparations for the AT, I've started a separate blog for the trip. (Because you can't have too many blogs, right?)

Here's me trying to look buff for the camera. I'm not sure it's working.

Argyle Reserve--my Ultimate team

2009-05-07T13:58:00.000-07:00

Scottsmen! from CrossFit Portland on Vimeo.

Reserve! Preserve! Prevail!

Backpacking the Appalachian Trail

2009-05-06T08:47:00.000-07:00

It’s no secret that I have commitment problems. Not with romantic partners, that is. When it comes to life plans I tend to get nervous and say the equivalent of “let’s just be friends.”

But not today. It’s official, as of Tuesday, April 28th, I have decided to backpack the Appalachian Trail.

I will be blogging about my preparations for the trip and my adventures on the trail. Any advice would be appreciated!

Pic o' the day

2009-05-01T16:12:00.000-07:00

I don't think you can have a "pic of the day" if you only post pictures once or twice a month.

Susan Boyle

2009-04-27T21:11:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen this yet, it's worth checking out. The judges' comments at the end are pretty snarky, but Boyle herself is impressive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Pic of the day: Boots

2009-04-20T22:20:00.000-07:00

Messing around with my camera as I was reconditioning the leather on my boots.

O-klahoma

2009-04-20T15:28:00.000-07:00

My little brother, one Griffin Brown, just got into a PhD program at the University of Oklahoma. He battled off fierce competition ranking #2 out of 40 applicants.

Bonus: his tuition will be covered by the school, plus a monthly living stipend!

Back from Gandy Goose

2009-04-15T23:19:00.000-07:00

The Natural 20's are back from Bend having achieved the record of 1-6. Not bad. Next tournament we are aiming for 2 wins.

Here are some photos:

It's not me, it's you

2009-04-08T13:51:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling frustrated for a bit about the loss of saturation in the photos I upload to the web. I've tried all kinds of things, even boosting the saturation to unrealistic amounts. Today in my photoshop class I hit upon the real answer: Facebook and Blogspot have been squeezing the life blood out of my pictures.

Check out this web gallery I just made for class: http://sws.pcc.edu/student/CAS208_bgleason_24707/shellybrown53/project2/

A lot of the pictures are oversaturated because I was trying to compensate for any loss. But loaded directly onto a server, they actually look pretty vivid. I may actually go back in an desaturate some of them.

Victory!

Apartment garden

2009-04-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

I am mourning the loss of a yard as I prepare for this year's planting. Cross your fingers, I might be able to get a community garden plot.

In the meantime, here are my poor overcrowded starts. Mini-cucumbers, kale, basil, rosemary, and I have two flowering plants next to my other window. I have been trying to figure out how to give them more space when today I hit upon a brilliant idea.

A brilliant idea involving sunflower butter.

I save all of my leftover plastic jars because the grocery co-ops let you bring them in for bulk goods. Unfortunately, I don't live close to one anymore, and my plastic jars have been piling up a bit. Today I pierced holes in the bottom of a few of them to make mini planters. Then I put them on casserole dishes so that the water that drains through doesn't go anywhere.

Voila! A sunflower butter pot:

Google newsfeed: one of these things is not like the other

2009-04-02T17:17:00.000-07:00

Kind of ironic, no?

Burns Dogs

2009-04-01T11:22:00.000-07:00

Ted Tellefson in Burns, OR was recently arrested for 100 counts of animal neglect. Apparently, he was a breeder and things got out of control, and when the sheriff investigated, these dogs were cramped together in filthy cages. I think that "things got out of control" is a generous way of describing the situation, but the man has agreed to surrender the dogs. Usually, animals are kept in isolation pending investigation, but because Tellefson has admitted guilt, the dogs are now being socialized and given an opportunity to learn to trust humans again.

At least, this is my understanding of the situation. I recently started to volunteer at the Oregon Humane Society, where they are currently housing 90 of the Burns dogs. Very few volunteers are allowed to work with these animals because they have been so badly traumatized, and the people at the Humane Society want to establish an environment where they can feel safe an comfortable. I am feeling both angry at the way this man treated these dogs and grateful that Oregon has such a wonderful Humane Society.

The Oregon Humane society adopts out 98% of their dogs and 95% of their cats, which is pretty incredible. They are recognized nationally for excelance. It's a community effort; they have over 1,000 volunteers. During the orientation, I sat next to a woman who was recently laid off. She told me that she she has been struggling to get a new job, but because she has more time now, she's spending some of it volunteering. Apparently, one upside of the recession is that there are now more volunteers than ever helping out with non-profits. So, while these organizations are having trouble raising money, the investment of human capital is at an all time high. I think its wonderful that so many people, who are themselves suffering, have made the effort to give to those in need.

Video Application

2009-03-26T19:26:00.000-07:00

Backpacker magazine is holding open auditions for gear testers. One part is a written review and the other part is a 5 minute video. Here's mine. The quality is a little bit low, but it's my first try at making a movie, and I'm going to use a nice camera next time. Also, it's a bit cheesy, but it was really fun to do. My friends Jade, Steph, and Phil helped me out.

I think that the number of people who watch it will affect how likely they are to choose you. Also, if you have a youtube account, I'd really appreciate it if you rated the video or made a comment. If you don't have a youtube account, don't worry, we can still be friends.

Walk it off

2009-03-09T00:41:00.000-07:00

Some subjects shouldn't be made into A Complete Idiot's Guide. They may as well entitle it: Anxiety, It's All in Your Head.

Even better:

Failed Trip to Mount Jefferson: A story in three acts

2009-02-23T17:02:00.000-08:00

Prelude

The winter weather in Portland is pretty dreary and I had begun to get restless. I thought, Central Oregon gets 300 days of sun a year, odds are it'll be bright and warm there. I actually thought that. You might say, Adelaide, that logic doesn't really follow. It's still winter and you are going to the mountains, how could you delude yourself into thinking you could backpack there?

You might say that, and I would tell you to kindly keep your opinions to yourself.

Act One: Big Plans

Place Adelaide wanted to stay:

Well, not exactly. This photo is of Mount Washington, a volcano that last erupted over 1,000 years ago. I took this picture from the side of the road, after I climbed up a 4 foot snow bank created by the plows.

This is as close to nature as I would come on the trip.

It turns out that the trail I wanted to hike was impassable without snowshoes. I had anticipated some snow, but I thought I could park my car, hike to a covering, set up camp and enjoy the sunshine. No such luck. It wasn't just that there was snow on the trail, the entire parking place was snowed over and then the road had been plowed so that all you could see was the sign: Pacific Crest Trail.

Act Two: Reality hits

Place Adelaide ended up staying:

It's ok, I said to myself. So things aren't going to go as I planned, that's alright, I'll make new plans. So I drove through the city Bend and out into the Badlands.

About two hours into the middle of nowhere, I pulled my car over and got out. With no light pollution, the stars were amazing. I got my sleeping bag out of the trunk, opened the sun roof of the car, leaned back and watched the sky. I saw three shooting stars before I fell asleep.

Midnight: I awoke with the feeling of something falling on my face. It had started sleeting in the night. I turned on the car and shut the sun roof. I was wet and cold, and there were no stars. Suddenly, the idea of sleeping on the side of the road stopped being a romantic idea.

Act Three: Reality hits harder

Place Adelaide ended up staying the rest of the night:

In my mind's eye, I had at least expected that, if I couldn't hike, I could stay in a quaint country inn. However, there are no inns in the badlands, in fact, the only structure I saw was for A-1 Antelope taxidermy: Free Salt! And, as I was unsure how long things would go on like this, I drove back through the freezing rain hoping to not slip on any forming ice patches. I found this hotel late at night, and sleep-deprived and shivering, asked for a room.

Ah, well. It was a noble effort nonetheless. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for sunshine so that I can get outside again.

2009-01-28T16:28:00.000-08:00

Ian was hit recently by a car on his walk home, and it's made me a bit paranoid about being seen on the road when I'm biking. On the upside, you'd be surprised how often I hear, "Look at that hot chick with the glasses and the giant reflective vest."

When it was bad, it was oh, so bad, and when it was good...

2009-01-25T10:32:00.000-08:00

This past week we've had a break from the cold and wet winter here, and I realized something profound: Portland is like that bad boyfriend you can't help loving.

Think of it. You start out in the summer. The landscape is amazing. The skies are blue, everything is green, and there are more wild berries than you can possibly eat. It's all better than you ever knew it could be.

But then the Fall comes, and things start fading. In the back of your mind, you have a sense of foreboding that you don't want to acknowledge. You say to yourself, things were so wonderful this summer, I can handle a little bad weather.

But you know in your heart that it isn't going to be a little bad weather. There will be months of unending rain, soaking into everything you own. You will buy waterproof pants and a waterproof jacket, a waterproof cap to put over your bike helmet and waterproof gaiters over your shoes. You will get used to ringing out your socks, and you will keep a steady supply of hangers in your bathroom so that your clothes can drip dry. And if the rain wasn't enough, you will be cold and shivering all this time. You will grow accustomed to your fingers being blue and pruney. The days will be always overcast, and you will start popping vitamin D pills and anti-depressants. You will say to yourself, in your moments of despair, I will never be dry and warm again.

And just when you're ready to quit this relationship, just when things have gotten so bad that you've threatened to pack your bags and leave, he will dangle one beautiful day in front of you. One crystal clear, warm, sun-filled day. You will take a blanket to the park and read a book there. Or go on a hike in the Gorge. Maybe you will even take the day off work or skip school so that you can make a trip to the coast. At the end of the day, wrapped in your covers and drifting off to sleep, you will sigh contentedly and think, now I remember why I love this city so much.

It will rain the next day without fail.

You will wake up that morning with a groan. And, as you are putting on your waterproof pants and zipping up your waterproof jacket, you will say to your city, in Brokeback Mountain style, "Why can't I quit you?"

Photo of the day: Michelle in Oak's Bottom

2009-01-17T18:46:00.000-08:00

I had stopped posting pictures here because I was frustrated with the loss of saturation in my photos. I haven't really learned how to fix it, but I have some good leads. In the meantime, here is a picture of Michelle making a plaster cast of an animal track in Oaks Bottom.

St. Peter's: We're Open

2009-01-10T01:57:00.001-08:00

This has got to be one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken.

Limbo

2008-12-22T17:51:00.000-08:00

The Catholic church has done away with the doctrine of limbo. Unfortunately, it still exists for me. Limbo, that is. I’m not talking about the unbaptized here; I’m talking about my lack of clarity over what I should be doing with my life.

It seems that every step I take is in the wrong direction. That’s not totally true. I am ruling things out things that I don’t want to do, but working one by one is pretty inefficient. At this rate, I will have settled on something by the time I’m eighty.

I went to wilderness school this past semester and learned about primitive skills. I really thought I would be into all of that, but it turns out that I am firmly entrenched in the 21st century. One activity we did was making fire with a bowdrill. It goes like this: you gather four pieces of wood from the forest. One piece needs to be wide and flat, this will be your baseboard. Another piece needs to be long and have some flex in it, this will be your bow. Another piece of wood you will carve down to make a spindle. And the final piece of wood needs to fit into your hand so that you can bear down with it on the spindle. You have to be careful about which types of wood you choose, because, if you don’t, making a fire will be almost impossible. At least, it will feel this way. You then carve out a notch into your baseboard, tie a piece of cordage onto both ends of the bow, flex the bow so that you can wrap the spindle in the cordage, and place one end of the spindle in the baseboard and the other in the piece of wood in your hand. Bear down, turn the bow rapidly until you get a coal.

The problem is that in the time it took me to write the previous paragraph, I could have made a fire with matches. And believe me, after grinding on the bowdrill for over an hour, sweating, getting blisters, having the spindle snap out of place and hit me repeatedly, matches were all I was thinking about.

So it turns out that I will not be a primitive skills guru. Part of this is because I can’t see myself convincing sane adults to make a bowdrill. At least, not enough to make a living. It’s not that everything is about the money, but I want a career now. And I can’t seem to focus my energy right now on things that won’t provide some kind of financial return.

Except writing, that is.

But I find that even writing is hard to do consistently. Ian asked me the other day why, if I’m passionate about writing, is it hard for me to motivate myself on a consistent basis. I told him that great writers throughout time have struggled with this. Margaret Atwood said, “Blank pages inspire me with terror.” Unfortunately, the truth for me is less flattering--I’m actually just lazy. It’s much easier to watch a TV show than to sit at my desk and wrestle with words.

It’s not just that. Sometimes it feels so sad to me to pour out my heart into something other people won’t read. At least, no one but the four people who read my blog (you know who you are). The Japanese philosopher (whose name I cannot remember) writes that when we do something for fame or money, we love results and not actually the activity itself, thus robbing ourselves of the joy of the process. Perhaps I should post that on the wall in my office.

I don’t mean to have self-pity. I do live a blessed life, and I have the luxury of exploring my options. I just hate being between things. I want to run at something with all my heart. I want to break out of limbo.

Christmas lottery

2008-12-08T17:15:00.000-08:00

The Oregon lottery is advertising the idea of giving scratch cards for Christmas. This sends the message: your chance of actually getting a gift this year is astronomically low.

Terrorism against women

2008-12-03T13:09:00.000-08:00

I know this image is very intense, but I think it's worth showing. The New York Times just published an article about acid attacks on women in parts of Asia and Afghanistan.

"Terrorism in this part of the world usually means bombs exploding or hotels burning, as the latest horrific scenes from Mumbai attest. Yet alongside the brutal public terrorism that fills the television screens, there is an equally cruel form of terrorism that gets almost no attention and thrives as a result: flinging acid on a woman’s face to leave her hideously deformed."

Read more.

Photo of the day: Michelle

2008-11-18T23:49:00.001-08:00

Photo of the day: Vintage car

2008-11-17T19:43:00.000-08:00

Still haven't figured out why I lose so much saturation when I load my pictures up to the web.

On blogging

2008-11-17T15:14:00.001-08:00

Photo of the day: Ariel, strong and mighty

2008-11-15T21:13:00.000-08:00

Photos taken during survival trip

2008-11-14T16:51:00.000-08:00

I recently did a three day trip with some friends in the Mount Hood wilderness area. We built our own shelters, despite the rain and snow, and I managed not to freeze to death. Here are some photos I took.

Photo of the day: Bowdrill

2008-11-11T18:43:00.000-08:00

I just met someone who takes a photo every day and posts it on her blog. This seems like a great idea to me. I'm still learning the basics of photography, but I'm going to shoot for putting up a couple of pictures per week.

Here's my first one. It's of the bowdrill set I made.

*I've been convinced to add the rest from this series.

In my apartment courtyard

2008-10-18T12:33:00.000-07:00

Fauve

2008-10-17T15:13:00.001-07:00

by Arthur Sze

Caw Caw, Caw Caw Caw.
To comprehend a crow
you must have a crow's mind.
To be the night rain,
silver, on black leaves,
you must live in the
shine and wet. Some people
drift in their lives:
green-gold plankton,
phosphorescent, in the sea.
Others slash: a knife
at a yellow window shade
tears open the light.
But to live digging deep
is to feel the blood
in you rage as rivers,
is to feel love and hatred
as fibers of rope,
is to catch the scent
of a wolf, and turn wild.

Crazy racist McCain supporters

2008-10-17T15:11:00.001-07:00

Cute 106 year old nun votes Obama

2008-10-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

The reporter says she reads the newspapers "religiously." Come on, people. We're better than that.

Anger Management TrackersNW style

2008-10-09T14:39:00.001-07:00

It’s been a little over a month since the TrackersNW immersion program began, and I have yet to cut off any major appendages–which I take to be a fortuitous sign. I have cut myself making my bow, trimming cordage, actually, whenever I am in the same room with my knife or hatchet, I seem to cut myself. But all in all, no emergency room visits as of yet.

Which is a good thing, as our group recently began practicing making tools out of stones. The idea here is that if you are stranded without a knife you can create one by flintknapping. According to our instructors Brian and Shaun, if you hold one rock in your hand and hit it on a 45 degree angle with another rock, the result will be sharp flakes that you can use to cut things. Apparently, this works.

I say apparently because after trying this and smashing my fingers several times, I had worked through all the curse words I know and had to move to another method. This consisted of holding one rock upright between two sticks and slamming down another rock on top of it. The smaller rock crumbles under pressure and begs for mercy. While I did not smash my fingers with this method, I also didn’t produce anything sharp. I did manage to break up a few rocks and gloated over their decimation.

So I switched to the final method, which is my favorite. Here you take big rocks and throw them down on the ground against other rocks. This is Anger Management TrackersNW style. The upside of this is that when you are smashing objects for flintknapping, no one thinks you are crazy or out of control–they think you’re resourceful.

At least, that’s how I choose to think about it. In fact, I’m so resourceful that I threw a rock down that bounced back and hit my shin, thereby providing me with enough anger to flintknap for a while.

By the end, I hadn’t managed to produce anything very sharp, but it’s probably for the best. Looking at the cuts on my hands, I figure that my playing with only blunt objects is probably a good idea.

Check out Earth Ninjas for more stories by the TrackersNW immersion team.

I been in jail in Chattanooga

2008-10-06T15:22:00.000-07:00

Ian just bought a new mattress and the store could only deliver it during work hours, so I volunteered to be at the apartment when it arrived. They only sent one guy, and I'm sick right now, but somehow we managed to lug it up together.

"So where you from?" he asks me. He has already lingered too long. Apparently, he's feeling chatty.
"Chattanooga," I say.
"I know Chattanooga. I been in jail in Chattanooga."
"Oh," I edge towards the door. "Isn't that interesting."
"Not that it was my fault. I mean, it was my fault, but you know."

I don't know, but I don't let on. He tells me that a cop was being aggressive (not quite the way he put it) and he decided to be aggressive back. I have already said thanks and shook his hand three times. So now I nod and slowly start to close the door.

"But I don't take that kind of treatment and hired a lawyer that costs one thousand dollars an hour."
"Good for you," I say. The door is almost closed but he moves towards me.
"I just love your accent." He's got an arm the door way, looking at me.
I want to say, So does my big, big muscular boyfriend. He's just crazy about my accent. Instead I stick my hand out one more time, say, "Thanks. You have a good day," smile and close the door.

Animal Tracks

2008-10-02T21:37:00.000-07:00

This is me with the other students at TrackersNW.

More pics on Photobucket.

We're bringing sexy back

2008-09-21T20:51:00.001-07:00

Stealth and evasion style.

Bear Poo

2008-09-21T16:15:00.000-07:00

I think, anyways. I’m not entirely sure.

One of the downsides of being in TrackersNW is that I am now taking pictures of shit to show to my friends. I recently went backpacking at Goat Rocks and there was a lot of scat on the trail. Most of it was bear, but I think there are elk in the area.

Another downside to being in Trackers: too much to do. I really wanted to go on this backpacking trip, but I also wanted to work on my bow, practice starting a fire, and work on my website. So, I did what any reasonable human being would do in this situation–I carried my stave and two books with me into the woods.

For over 6 miles. I decided somewhere in there that this may not have been the smartest decision.The picture below is of me hiking, and that wood sticking up right behind my back is not a tree. No, it’s attached to my pack.

As luck would have it, we were greeted on our first night by a moonsoon. And, as we had camped out on the side of a mountain, climbing higher through the thick fog didn’t seem like a wise idea. So I donated my stave to the earth because I didn’t want to carry it any further. Ah, well. I returned from my trip bow-less, comforted only by my pictures of bear poo.

On Horny Goats and Slaughter

2008-09-15T19:52:00.001-07:00

There is a horny goat in our midst. No, I'm not making a veiled reference to another student. TrackersNW is one of the few educational institutions where you can say, "There is a horny goat in our midst," and literally mean that with us there is an actual goat not getting enough action.

And he won't shut up about it. I was kept up all one night, as he called out to the females. I wanted to say, "Dude, you're sounding desperate. Chicks don't dig that." But, as you probably guessed, horny goats (like horny humans) are very hard to reason with.

After a whole night of hearing his calls, I woke up the next morning grumpy and exhausted. If I had previously had any doubts about my willingness to slaughter an animal, they were now assuaged. I could kill one, and I had just the right goat picked out.

Unfortunately adult male goats are not so tasty. The meat tastes too much like pheromones, the goat equivalent of Axe body spray. The animal we had selected for slaughter was a yearling sheep. He was kind of cute. Watching him pace in his pen, I couldn't help wondering if he somehow knew. It seemed like it, as he resisted being caught, and it took four people to hold him down. Shaun stroked his head a few times to calm him. It was tender, and felt both strange and appropriate to show affection to this animal right before we killed it.

I had decided to witness this event because I wanted to know if hunting is something I can do, if I can take the life of another animal. And I wanted to be accountable for my food decisions--to pound into my head the reality that the meat I buy in the grocery store was once something living and breathing.

Despite my determination, I could not watch the first cut. It was too raw. Too grim and holy. I turned back to watch after that. Shaun held its head over a bucket to drain out the blood, and Krista stroked its flank. It twitched for a while and I wondered how long it would stay alive. All I could think was, we've severed its vocal chords, it can't even call out in pain. We were all quiet then, grave, waiting for it to stop moving.

Later, as we skinned the animal, I joined in. I saw blood on myself, spots of it on my thumb and forefinger. I understood then about the blood offerings different cultures do to the gods. That it is some attempt to honor the mystery of our lives being dependent on the death of another animal. That destruction and life are tangled in with one another. The blood on my fingers, the smell of burning fat, the half digested grass in the sheep's belly, all hinted at something larger and more terrifying than I know how to grasp.

We ate the meat, tanned the hide, used the bones to make tools. We did not let its body go to waste. Ultimately, watching this whole process was important to me, and I hope to participate more directly in the future. I want to be involved in the cycle of life and death. To approach my meals with a mixture of gratitude and solemnity. It's not that I like killing animals. It's not blood lust. For me, it's looking reality in the face by loving and thanking the animal that will feed me. It's surrendering to things unknown.

That is, unless we're talking about that damned goat, in which case, it definitely is blood lust.

Nature of the Village

2008-09-14T08:34:00.001-07:00

I just got back from spending one week with TrackersNW at a permaculture farm in Port Orford, Oregon. Details to follow.

The End is not so Near

2008-09-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

One of the most recent comic from xkcd.

Travel Photos

2008-08-31T18:05:00.001-07:00

I uploaded some of my pictures from Semester at Sea onto this website.

Here's the link:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/slideshow/7074/travel_photos.html

Dungeons and gold short shorts

2008-08-31T17:04:00.000-07:00

My team just ended our ultimate frisbee season. Determined to go out on a bang, we all wore costumes for our final game. They are supposed to be Dungeons and Dragons characters, but you can tell by the outfits that many of us don't actually play the game.

Separation Creek Trail

2008-08-31T16:11:00.000-07:00

This was a great semi-secluded trail. We were attacked by a swarm of rather athletic mosquitoes (they bit through our clothes!), but the trip was otherwise beautiful and quiet.

Putting Nova Scotia in a photo bucket

2008-08-30T21:38:00.000-07:00

And more such as this on:

http://s391.photobucket.com/albums/oo360/AdelaideBrown/

Nova Scotia Photo Journal: Whale Watching

2008-08-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my cousin John's birthday and we went whale watching to commemorate the ocassion.

Here's my first photo entitled: Oh my gosh! A whale!

Which ended up with my taking a picture of other people's backs.

The next ones went better. The whales came right up to our boat.
Apparently, Humpback whales are very curious and find us as interesting as we find them.
The water where these pictures were taken is only twelve feet deep!
The whales have bumps around their eyes called tubercles. Apparently, each on of these is a gargantuan hair follicle with one coarse hair. The whales detect tidal patterns and calculate distances based on the vibrations from these hairs.

Nova Scotia Photo Journal: Cape Split

2008-08-24T19:04:00.000-07:00

Nova Scotia Photo Journal

2008-08-23T19:58:00.000-07:00

Aunt Kay

2008-08-22T20:23:00.001-07:00

(courtesy my new camera)

Bush and Birth Control (sounds naughty, eh?)

2008-08-15T13:08:00.000-07:00

My friend Abe sent this to me and I thought I'd pass it along.

The Bush administration is trying to include birth control in the definition of "abortion" so that healthcare workers can refuse to provide it. From the Houston Chronicle on August 10th:

"Health and Human Services officials are considering a draft regulation that would classify most birth control pills, the Plan B emergency contraceptive and intrauterine devices as forms of abortion because they prevent the development of fertilized eggs into fetuses."

If you, like me, feel that this is insane manipulation of both women and English, please add your name to the MoveOn petition about it, and keep your eyes and ears open for other opportunities to intervene in this bait-and-switch.

Click here to read the Houston Chronicle article:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5935532.html

Click here to sign the petition:
http://pol.moveon.org/contraception/?r_by=-8759920-lgKkJ3x&rc=mailto

Petition for aid to Georgia

2008-08-12T16:39:00.001-07:00

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-georgia

This is a petition for international community "to meaningfully aid Georgia in stopping the Russian Federation from violating international laws and its attacks on Georgia's sovereign territory."

It only takes a second to sign.

In honor of my dear friend Maggie Osdoby-Katz.

We are actually cooking

2008-08-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

Ian and I cooked a meal together recently, which, if you know me, is quite surprising. My oven was shocked.
We decided to take pictures to commemorate the occasion.

Sister, sister

2008-08-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

Audrey and I spent the night in a hotel together on my brief excursion back south, and took way too many pictures. Here are my favorites:

More on facebook.
(And in Audrey's profile, too)

Sleep with the earth

2008-08-06T15:49:00.001-07:00

"Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth."

-Walt Whitman

Female Ultimate Frisbee Footage

2008-07-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

These ladies are super hardcore. I aspire to so fearlessly lay out for the frisbee.

Introducing the Natural 20's Blog

2008-07-25T09:33:00.000-07:00

My Ultimate Frisbee team, the Natural 20's, have started a blog. We'll be updating it periodically unless we all burn out and abandon the project. (Hopefully not, though)

Animator vs Animation

2008-07-24T22:08:00.000-07:00

This is hilarious.

http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs13/f/2007/077/2/e/Animator_vs__Animation_by_alanbecker.swf

More Mount St Helens pics

2008-07-21T18:20:00.001-07:00

Mt. Saint Helens

That's me way up there

Sliding down the mountain on my bum

Hot and sweaty

Patrick being goofy

Blake, Stephanie, and me

More photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mblakenichols/sets/72157606204011386/
http://picasaweb.google.com/IanWMcHarg/SummitingMtStHelens
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sfitting

How Not to Climb Mount St Helens

2008-07-21T17:03:00.000-07:00

“Dude, I have very limited visibility," Blake yells up at Patrick. Basketball sized rocks fly by barely missing him. “Don’t climb down yet,” he says. “You’re knocking everything loose.” Patrick stops descending, but it's not really falling rocks that he’s worried about. He’s worried that the part of the volcano we chose to summit will cave in soon. I, on the other hand, am sliding down uncontrollably on my back through the ash, trying to dig my axe into the side of the ground, and laughing with a mix of humor and hysteria. I narrowly avoided peeing on myself.

It is on this note that I will introduce this post. There are many online articles telling you how to hike Mount St Helens. They offer useful advice, trip preparation, planning and safety measures. In the interest of avoiding redundancy, I am going to tell you something different. I am going to tell you how not to hike Mt. St Helens--pointers on good things to avoid.

For starters, don’t sleep in. Most people start at four or five in the morning so that they can descend while there is still light. We started at nine. (my fault, admittedly).

Also, when you get dressed, don’t wear tight pants. I had bought my hiking pants hoping they would make my butt look good. However, with all of the high stepping involved, I could feel the fabric pulling against the seams. It was a bit like hiking in salami.

Not to mention all of the extra effort it takes to nearly rip your pants into shreds and hike. It is also not a good idea to wear underwear that self destructs. By the end of the trip, Blake’s boxers had somehow been torn to bits. Not his shorts mind you, just his boxers. It's a bit of a feat to do that, somewhat akin to pulling destroyed underpants out of a hat.

As there was still snow on the mountain, we brought ice axes to help us negotiate any tricky spots. With these strapped to our backs, we looked like a menacing brigade, as if a team of axe murderers had decided to do some bonding and trust building exercises.

We played games to pass the time, which I do recommend. I don’t recommend the ones we played. There’s only so many times that you can do, “I’m thinking of an animal” without being tempted to use your ice axe on a companion.

Wanting an extra challenge and hoping to avoid my pants splitting into two, I decided to leave the volcanic rock and hike up the snow. This is also a good thing not to do. In order to avoid sliding, I had to put one foot into the mountain at a horizontal angle, wedge the handle part of my axe into the snow, step my other foot over, dig in, rinse and repeat. Basically I did a one way version of the electric slide for four thousand feet.

Patrick and and Blake joined in doing a different step where you jam your toes into the mountain repeatedly to gain footing and rely on your axe for safety. In the event of a fall, we were to stick our axes in the ground so that they could catch on the ice.

Hiking on the snow leads you away from the trail, and, if you sleep in, don’t bring enough water and are relying on beans and lentils split between four people, it’s generally not a good thing to do. We hiked between rock outcroppings, axe murderers doing the horizontal two step, and rested every so often.

Once we had summited (I crawled up the last part on my stomach), it suddenly seemed like we were very far away from the base. We weren’t near the trail and couldn’t find any markers. Added to that, Steph was feeling sick and we were worried about losing light before we descended.

I was prepared. I had already made the complicated decision of who I would eat first. Here are some good tips on that: Always save the vegetarians for last. They pose the least threat as they probably wouldn’t eat you anyways. If possible, go for the strongest person in your group. Patrick was in the best shape and I figured that if I was going to eat him, I would have to have numbers on my side. On this note, if you are going to eat one of your friends in the woods, don’t let everyone have an axe. Keep that one for yourself.

We rode down the mountain on asses doing something called glacading. In this, you sit down, stick your axe into the snow and use it as a rudder. Doing this for a short time is fun, but, as we did most of our descent this way, I got pretty cold. Once the numbness sets in it's not too big of a deal. By the end, the seat of my pants were completely worn through. So if you are going to glacade down the mountain, let me give you one important reminder:

Don’t choose that day to skip the underwear.

Stephanie, on the other hand, had a great idea. She stuck her legs out from inside a trash bag and rode down the mountain in plastic bloomers.

We finally found the trail again and hiked out with some light left in the day. I was at this point feeling pretty hardcore until three Hollister wearing high schoolers passed us. They were cute and clean and we, well, we looked like something straight out of the movie Castaway.

My story may make the trip sound very hardcore, but some of the pictures don't quite match up to my memory. I’ve tilted a few to make our hike look steeper. Take this one, for example. Normally, it looks pretty cool, but tilt it a little to the side, and you enter into extreme badass territory.

I’d gladly do the hike again, hopefully informed on what not to do when climbing Mount St Helens.

As an addendum to dead baby penguins comments

2008-07-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

This recent ad was released by the McCain about Obama and oil drilling in the US.

Dead baby penguins

2008-07-20T11:58:00.001-07:00

I mean, come on, there is no way to make that title sound worse. That's Mumble from Happy Feet washed up on the shore.

According to Discovery Channel News, this year in Brazil more than four hundred young penguins have been washed up on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro. Suspects in the case: global warming creating rougher ocean conditions, overfishing causing the penguins to swim into more dangerous territory, and pollution from the offshore Campos oil field covering the penguins.

And with the discovery of an 8 billion barrel deep water field and President Bush vowing to lift bans on offshore drilling, Mumble doesn't stand a chance.

Super Saiyon Ninjas

2008-07-18T21:00:00.001-07:00

Our team recently played the Super Saiyon Ninjas . After each Ultimate Frisbee game, each team comes up with cheers for the other team and performs them for each other. For this team our cheer (written by yours truly) went like this:

(set to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

Super Saiyon Ninja Players
Super Saiyon Ninja Players
Super Saiyon Ninja Players
Hammer in the endzone
Ninja power!

They're the world's most fearsome frisbee team.
Superstars, you know they are extreme.
Even though we form a stack,
This frisbee team don't cut us no slack.

Super Saiyon Ninja Players
Hammer in the endzone
Ninja Power!

And, if you played Ultimate Frisbee, you might think those jokes were funny. To over explain it, a hammer is a frisbee that is thrown high into the air so that it falls upside down or lands on the skinny edge. A stack is a offensive play. And a ninja, is a hero in a half shell and green.

The End is Near

2008-07-08T13:17:00.000-07:00

Griff and I did a final push of paiting and nailing and gluing at our old apartment and it looks like we will be out of there soon. Here are some pictures of the adventure.

Also featured: the fabulous Miss Stephanie Fitting.

xkcd

2008-06-30T17:06:00.000-07:00

I've just discovered this comic series xkcd: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. Here's a good one.

So much depends on

2008-06-23T19:41:00.000-07:00

A Red Wheelbarrow.

Audrey Brown's new blog!

I'm thinking she will probably be posting some of her travel stories and artwork. If you haven't gotten to see her work yet, you are in for a treat, as it is quite beautiful.

The Nads Have It

2008-06-16T09:24:00.000-07:00

This Spring, I joined an beginners Ultimate Frisbee league with my friend Cecily. Our team name is the Nads, thus the cheer, "Go-Nads!" Our team tied for last at the tournament. Here are a few pictures.
I also played a little naked Ultimate, of which, thankfully, there are no pictures.

The Countdown to the Tournament

2008-06-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

One week and counting until I leave with some friends to go to an Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Eugene.

Check out this wicked cool footage of the Rhino's, Portland's team.

My team is made up of pickup players from the games I play on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Think of it this way: if you took all of the kids who got picked on in High School and put them on a team together, this would be us. They are some of my best friends. Our name is the "Natural 20's" which is some kind of Dungeons and Dragons reference. (See how cool we are?) Our team design (to be put on bright pink T-shirts) features a Frisbee, a beer, a d and d die, and a unicorn smoking a joint. Go team!

Goodbye Sweet Truck

2008-06-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

Griff had a little accident last time he was here and now my truck is totalled. Sadness. Here are some pictures. They don't look so bad, but I guess it was enough. It's a good thing Griff works in insurance now.

The Last Paragraphs

2008-06-01T21:03:00.000-07:00

We were given the assignment in my class to write the last two paragraphs of our novel. Here's what I came up with:

For Ava there were no more questions, no more crying out. She wanted nothing now. It seemed to Randy that her face held the glow of a martyr. That soft light shone from it. The anger had bled from her, the mourning, the pain. Her face was clear and new, and terrifyingly empty. There was no cause, no music, no need to shout or beseech. There was only Ava, staring blindly ahead, bereft of hope, of even affection towards her daughter. Lenny tugged on Ava’s leg, her gaze into her mother’s face desperate and imploring. Randy knew that when it came time for them to separate, Lenny would throw a fit, howling and scratching at him with her nails. She would hate him then, indeed, it had already started. She would fester a hate for him in her grim little body. Lenny held onto Ava’s leg, shaking it softly, “momma, momma, momma.” Ava did not hear her, even this had fallen away. She stared blankly ahead, mute because there was no audience.

Ava understood then about despair. That in the one excruciating moment, when Christ arched his back, strained against the bloody metal in his feet and pulled against the metal in his hands, sucking in enough air to cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” this was not despair. The very impulse to shout out, to want something to respond, this was anger and fierce hope. Despair, she knew, is the moment afterwards, when Christ sank back down and died of the silence. It’s when you know that nothing happened, no one responded, and you do not think to call out again because now you know that no one is actually there.

Weekend at Falls City

2008-05-28T10:55:00.000-07:00

This Memorial Day weekend I went with some friends to Falls City and camped out around one of their family's fantastic three level super yurt. We were a pretty eclectic group of people which gave me a chance to get to know some new faces.

Here we are playing with salamanders, swinging on ropes, and hugging old growth trees.

Amazing photos by my friend Peter.

Computer Geeks Go Head to Head in the Ultimate Sport

2008-05-22T17:19:00.000-07:00

"Every few weeks during the spring, stalwarts of the Internet economy — companies like Go ogle, Apple, Facebook and Yahoo — meet on an open field to shout out their brand loyalties and throw things at each other. It's not the downturn in the economy that has blood pressures high. It's ulti mate Frisbee."

-Mallia Wollan

Check out the podcast.

If they can do it, so can you! (And, not to get in your face about it, but you really should play.)

I'd give you the skin off my back

2008-05-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

I went hiking this weekend with my friends Andy and Ian. The view of the coast is from the mountain we summited. It was incredible.

The scrapes are from when Ian hoisted me up onto a dead tree trunk and I fell, skinning my back along the side of it. I will now go jump off a bridge because all of the cool kids are doing it.

And, of course, there's always room for a little beach Ultimate Frisbee.

More pictures on flkr.

On being Goth

2008-05-18T07:46:00.000-07:00

Even more Ultimate Frisbee pics

2008-05-09T17:36:00.001-07:00

My friend Isaac (an Ultimate Frisbee player) is a professional photographer and videographer. He brought his camera to Wednesday's game. Here are a few of the pictures:

Green Grappler Caterpillar

2008-05-07T23:23:00.000-07:00

Say that six times fast. This was my National Geographic picture of the day. Wild.

Dogwood trees

2008-05-07T23:22:00.000-07:00

The drive up to Tellico Plains was beautiful. An Appalachian town, it was surrounded by small mountains and an overflow of trees.
“This area isn’t so bad,” Randy told Ava at a pit stop. “It’s pretty up here.”
She nodded. “At least it’s that.”
He had been driving a U-Haul and Ava followed in their Chevy. She hated driving and was still a little jittery. They sat on concrete picnic tables drinking the free Coca-Cola the tourist board handed out. Randy poked his head through the open door of the Chevy and looked at his daughter.
“How’s my girl?”
Ava pulled him back out by his belt with an intensity that started him. “Randy Cox,” she hissed. “Lenny started crying an hour into the trip and didn’t fall asleep until just now. If you wake her up, I will literally start ripping tufts of hair from my head.”
It was then that Randy noticed how drained Ava looked. How angry and wild.
“Are you ok?” He handed her the rest of his Coca-Cola. “Here, drink this. Maybe it’ll help.”
Ava put her head between her legs and took several deep breaths. “I’m fine, just a little car sick.”
She righted herself and looked out of the parking lot to where someone had planted a Dogwood tree.
“You know Jesus died on a Dogwood tree.” She told him, pointing to it. It was spindly and bent over. One of its branches had been cut off so that it wouldn’t grow into the road.
“That’s silly, baby. It’s too small. Come on now, maybe you should eat a little something.”
Ava put her head between her legs again. Randy had to scoot close to her to hear.
“It used to be bigger. Then, when they used it to crucify Christ, the tree started growing all twisted and small. As if it was being punished or, I don’t know, sad about being used that way. You can see it on the flowers. They’re shaped like the cross with a crown of thorns in the middle.”
She took several more deep breaths. “My momma said you should never kill a Dogwood tree. God put it there as a reminder and it’s sacrilegious if it dies.”
Randy decided to not pursue the issue. “Sure baby.” He rubbed her back and was surprised to feel how damp it was. “Not feeling any better?”
Ava shook her head. She started crying. “I know that your will is God’s will for my life.” She spoke as though she was reciting the catechism. “And that if I submit to what you say the Lord will bless me ten fold, but its just hard.” She took a short loud breath and began weeping again. Then abruptly sat up and looked into his eyes, “Moving back to Tellico Plains is just so hard.”
Randy put his arm around her and rocked back and forth. “I know. It’s just what we need to do right now. You trust me, right?”
Ava nodded her head slowly.
The other families in the parking lot had heard Ava’s crying and were looking over at them.
“We’re all ok, over here.” Randy called out to them. “She’s just tired.”
Ava wiped around her eyes. “I’m fine,” she looked around. Her face was still red and shiny, but she managed a smile.
Everyone looked away, pretending that they had not been watching in the first place.

Presh

2008-05-01T00:22:00.000-07:00

My friend Colin's band, Presh, is playing their first gig ever this Thursday night!

Here's the poster:

Ultimate Frisbee fight to the death

2008-04-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

Check out this picture of my friends Arjohn and James duking it out for the frisbee in this morning's game. That's hard core. (More pics on flkr)

What might be the first chapter

2008-04-28T13:16:00.000-07:00

I've made a lot of changes to my story this month for my novel writing class. Here's my most recent assignment.

Randy loved to watch the muddy brown waters of the Mississippi River. When he and Ava were first married, they took a trip to the coast, to the place where the river meets the Gulf of Mexico. She had seemed so beautiful to him then. Full, like a ripe plum. He loved to take parts of her between his fingers and squeeze as if he were expecting juice.

Their honeymoon had been short, as the wedding was rushed and somewhat unexpected. Ava’s pastor had insisted that the only way she could disobey her father’s command to move back to Tellico Plains was to transfer her headship from her father to a husband. Randy took pity on her. They had slept together outside of wedlock and he knew she’d never be able to marry another man. Besides, they got along well enough, and she seemed to think him worldly and wise. Everything was new to her, and he felt so strong and smart teaching her things. Her church put together a hasty, quiet wedding one weekend. Randy hadn’t been able to take much time off of work. Now, they had a week to spend together. To take in, at a leisurely place, the warm weather and the music. It was Ava’s first vacation.

“Where do you want me to put these?” Randy was holding Ava’s new yellow suitcases.
“Over there, by the dresser. I wanna unpack before we go out.”
Randy dropped the luggage on the floor. “Unpack? Baby, nobody unpacks on vacation.”
“Then why do they have the dresser?”
“That’s just to put the TV on.”
Ava nodded. She turned on the lamp by the bed and clapped her hands together. “Randy, they have Bibles here. Isn’t that wonderful? What a good way to witness to strangers.”
Randy closed the door and turned on the air conditioner. “People don’t read those. It seems to me like a stupid idea to put them in here. Nobody but Rock Raccoon has ever been saved by Gideon’s Bible.”
“Rocky Raccoon?”
Randy sighed. “I’ll play you the song sometime.”
Ava turned on the fluorescent light in the bathroom. It flickered before casting a pale blue sheen on the tub and toilet.
“Look at these!” Ava said. She walked out of the bathroom carrying two small bottles. “It’s shampoo. They give you your own shampoo here.”
Randy grinned and thickened his Southern accent, teasing her. “Yep. It’s fancy. We’ll wash our hair with it later and smell real purty.”
Ava cradled the small bottles. “Not these. Don’t use these. I wanna take them home.”
“We have shampoo there.”
“I know.” She slipped the bottles into the purse Randy had bought her at Walmart. “But these are cute. Maybe I’ll give them to somebody.”
“Baby, they have these shampoos at every hotel. If you use these tonight, they’ll bring you new ones in the morning.”
Randy stripped off his damp T-shirt and lay down onto the bed. He reached into Ava’s purse, ignoring the pained look on her face. He pulled out the bottles, breaking one of the seals.
“You’ll see. Tomorrow there’ll be two new ones just like these.”

Ava’s father had been very strict. When she was growing up, the only time they were allowed to leave her home town, Tellico Plains, was for occasional revivals at other churches. Her family would sleep in their car or at other people’s houses. When the mosquitoes weren’t too bad, they’d sleep outside in tents.
Ava had moved to Nashville soon after her mother’s funeral. She was twenty years old then. She had left without telling her father, boarding a greyhound bus early one morning. She stayed with a pastor who arranged for her to get a job at the Christian bookstore.
As soon as she saved up enough money, Ava got a place of her own. She wrote to her father then, telling him that she was safe and still going to church. She was following the ways of the Lord, she told him, just in a new city. He began driving to her small apartment every weekend, threatening to take her home by force.
Once, he came to her place when she wasn’t home. He kicked a hole in the door and banged his wiry fists on the wall. The neighbors called the police and it took several officers to restrain him. A tall man with no meat on him, he fought with all the viciousness of a praying mantis. The police held his face away from them, as if they were afraid he might spit. They put him in jail for two days and Ava did not visit him. He stopped coming to Nashville for a while then.
Randy didn’t know how Ava had gotten the courage to leave her father. She was a shy mystery to him. Round green eyes and a tight ass.

Ava put on her polka dotted blouse and a long, loose skirt. Randy had wanted her to start wearing tighter clothes, shorter skirts, so that other people could see what he got to see. She had refused, saying it was unseemly and invited men to think impure thoughts.
Randy looked his wife up and down and slid his hands onto her hips.
“Ready to go to the beach?” she said.

The air was full of ocean sweat. Ava could taste it when she licked her lips. And the beach smelled of fish left out in the sun too long. Randy and Ava held sticky hands and walked along the dull grey sand.
“Look at that!” Randy said. He took a few steps into the water not bothering to take off his shoes. “Ava, do you see that?”
Ava squinted and shaded her eyes with one hand. “What are we looking at?”
“You don’t see that? It’s a puffer fish. Pretty close to the shore. They’re supposed to live farther out, right?”
Ava shrugged. She slipped off her sandals and pulled her skirt up to one side, stepping out to where Randy was standing.
The puffer fish had inflated itself. Its brown and black quills stood out against its tan body.
“Hold on.” Randy splashed out of the water and ran up the beach. He returned with a white bucket borrowed from a fisherman. “Is it still there?”
Ava had not moved and neither had the puffer fish. Randy waded out to where she was, bucket in hand.
“Be careful,” Ava said. “I hear they’re poisonous.”
“Nah, that’s crazy.”
Randy dipped the bucket into the water, careful not to move too fast. When he had caught the puffer fish, he held the bucket up so that Ava could see it more clearly. Its spaced apart eyes stared blankly, as if it were all the same to him, Gulf or bucket.
“He’s not moving,” Ava said.
“Yeah it is, look at those little fins.”
“But he’s hardly moving. Do you think something’s wrong with him?”
Randy sloshed the water around in the bucket. “I don’t know. It does look a little confused.”
“Let him go.” Ava said, running her finger along the rim of the bucket. “I don’t think he likes this.”
“What are you talking about? Look at its face. I don’t think it gives a shit.”
Ava leaned over so that her lips almost touched the water in the bucket. “Are you ok, little guy?” She squeezed Randy’s arm. “Please let him go.”
“Fine,” he said, irritated. He drew the bucket back and launched the water into the air. The puffer fish flew at an arc and then smacked the surface of the water before sinking back into the Gulf.
“Randy!” Ava dropped the hem of her skirt. It soaked up the briny water. “That was terrible.”
Randy hoisted his wife over his shoulder and carried her to the shore. She was limp on his shoulder. “It’s just a fish. Don’t be mad at me.”
He let her down, lifted her shirt and blew on her stomach, hard. She didn’t laugh and pushed his face away from her. Randy righted himself and ran his fingers through his thin blonde hair. “Now come on, Ava. It’s your first vacation. You can’t be mad at me on your first vacation.”
Ava squeezed the water out of her skirt. She let Randy pull her close.
“I’m kind of hungry,” she said softly.
“Let’s go eat.” He kissed her nose. “I heard about a great seafood restaurant.”

They ate at Big Smiley’s Fish Fry. It was noon, but they were the only customers, as there were only fans and no air conditioning.
“Shrimp’s a little expensive here,” Randy said, eyeing the menu. “It’d better be good.”
He had taken off his shoes and socks. They stank a little under the table.
Ava put down her menu. “I think I may get grilled chicken.”
“Grilled chicken? Baby, nobody goes to the coast and gets grilled chicken. You gotta have shrimp or crawdads, hell, even catfish, but not grilled chicken.”
“I just want it, that’s all.”
The waiter came to their table. “You folks know what you’re going to have?”
Randy took charge. “She’ll have a half a pound of shrimp, on ice, and I’ll have...Say, do you have any puffer fish?”
The waiter pointed, “Well, we have one in a tank over there, but you can’t eat her. She’s a pet.”
Randy and the waiter walked over to the tank. Ava did not move.
“This is Katie May,” the waiter said. he dropped a bit of food into the water. The bumpy oval body wiggled up to the surface.
“So that’s what they look like normally. I’ve always wondered.” Randy tapped the side of the tank. “Hey, blow up.” He turned to the waiter, “Stick something in there so it puffs out.”
The waiter shook his head. “Don’t wanna hurt her. They can’t do that many times in their lives, you know. Too hard on their bodies. It’ll kill them.”
Randy looked back at Ava. She was staring down into her glass, using her straw to spin her sweet tea. He headed back to the table.
“I don’t know if you can eat those,” the waiter said, following him. “We don’t serve them, anyhow.”
Randy put his arm around the back of Ava’s chair. “Could you go ask the cook?”
The waiter pause. “You mean if you can eat them or if we serve them.”
“Well, both.”
The waiter yelled back into the kitchen. “Hey Dan. Can you eat puffer fish?”
“Only if you cook it right.” Dan yelled back. He came out of the kitchen, beer bottle in hand. “But it’s a damned Russian roulette. Kill you same as feed you.”
He took a sip of his beer and continued. “I don’t see why you’d want to eat them anyways. There’s too little meat.”
He looked over at Ava, “She ok?”
Ava did not appear to be breathing. She glanced up at Dan and then down again at her drink.
“Oh, she’s just giving me a hard time ‘cause we caught a puffer fish earlier and she didn’t like it,” Randy said.
Dan shrugged.
“Who do you think serves it?” the waiter asked.
“Well, they serve it over there in Japan, but I don’t know that you can eat it here.” Dan looked up and then to the side. “Go ask Arnold, he would know.”
The waiter started to walk away from the table when Randy called out, “It’s ok, fellas. I’ll eat puffer fish later.”
He winked at Ava, she did not notice.
“Bring her a grilled chicken sandwich and I’ll take a pound of shrimp, cocktail sauce and a wedge of lemon.”
The waiter and cook nodded and walked away. Randy squeezed Ava’s leg but she still would not look at him.

Tellico Plains

2008-04-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

And now something a little more serious. This is an excerpt from a project I've been working on. The assignment is to use dialog (as opposed to narrative) to further the plot.

Adelaide Brown
The drive up to Tellico Plains was beautiful. An Appalachian town, it was surrounded by small mountains and an overflow of trees.
“This area isn’t so bad,” Randy told Ava at a pit stop. “It’s pretty up here.”
She nodded. “At least it’s that.”
He had been driving a U-Haul and Ava followed in their Chevy. She hated driving and was still a little jittery. They sat on concrete picnic tables drinking the free Coca-Cola the tourist board handed out. Randy poked his head through the open door of the Chevy and looked at his daughter.
“How’s my girl?”
Ava pulled him back out by his belt with an intensity that started him. “Randy Cox,” she hissed. “Lenny started crying an hour into the trip and didn’t fall asleep until just now. If you wake her up, I will literally start ripping tufts of hair from my head.”
It was then that Randy noticed how drained Ava looked. How angry and wild.
“Are you ok?” He handed her the rest of his Coca-Cola. “Here, drink this. Do you need something to eat?”
Ava put her head between her legs and took several deep breaths. “I’m fine, just a little car sick.”
She righted herself and looked out of the parking lot to where someone had planted a Dogwood tree.
“You know Jesus died on a Dogwood tree.” She told him, pointing to it. It was spindly and bent over. One of its branches had been cut off so that it wouldn’t grow into the road.
“How could they have made a cross out of that tiny thing?”
Ava put her head between her legs again. Randy had to scoot close to her to hear.
“It used to be bigger. Then, when they used it to crucify Christ, the tree started growing all twisted and small. As if it was being punished or, I don’t know, sad about being used that way. You can see it on the flowers. They’re shaped like the cross with a crown of thorns in the middle.”
She took several more deep breaths. “My momma said you should never kill a Dogwood tree. God put it there as a reminder and it’s sacrilegious if it dies.”
Randy decided to not pursue the issue. “Not feeling any better?” He rubbed her back and was surprised to feel how damp it was.
Ava shook her head. She started crying. “I know that your will is God’s will for my life.” She spoke like she was reciting the catechism. “And that if I submit to what you say the Lord will bless me ten fold, but its just hard.” She took a short loud breath. Then, abruptly, sat up and looked into his eyes, “Moving back to Tellico Plains is just so hard.”
Randy put his arm around her and rocked back and forth. The other families in the parking lot were looking at them.
“We’re all ok, over here.” Randy called out to them. “She’s just tired.”
Ava righted herself and wiped around her eyes. “I’m fine,” she looked around. Her face was still red and shiny, but she managed a smile.
The families looked away, pretending that they had not been watching in the first place.

Crunchy the Hamster

2008-04-21T13:47:00.000-07:00

I told Kate that some day I would write a short in honor of her hamster. Here it is. My friend asked me how she should think about this story. I told her this, "I would like for you to think of it as one of the stupidest things you've ever read and also mildly amusing. "

Crunchy had been diagnosed with testicular cancer. His ball sack had been large before, but now it had swollen to the size of a peanut. He groaned and laid on his side to give it room.

“So, we might have to put him down?” I asked. Mom had bought me Crunchy two years earlier, when I was in seventh grade. Now, I was definitely too old for a hamster. The cancer seemed serendipitous.

“Of course not, Sarah Elizabeth” she told me, putting her arm around my shoulders. “We’re going to fix Crunchy right up.”

The vet performed the worlds smallest double orchiectomy on Crunchy, who soon began hormone therapy to compensate for his decreased testosterone levels. Mom fed him little bits of mush and water from a dropper as he recovered from his surgery. She made me wake up every four hours to give him Pedialite.

“I don’t think Crunchy would like for his life to be artificially prolonged like this,” I told her.

“Maybe we should let him rest in peace.”

“Are you kidding?” My Mom said. She reached her hand into his cage and petted Crunchy’s back. “He’s our miracle hamster! Don’t worry, baby, he’ll be just fine.”

The next morning I told my Mom that Crunchy had run away.

“But how?” she asked me. “He could barely move.”

“I guess he got better.”

“Oh, Sarah Elizabeth, you must be devastated.”

I told her I was, but that some ice cream might help. We could celebrate Crunchy’s brave recovery from testicular cancer.

-ade

You Can't Have Everything

2008-04-19T16:39:00.000-07:00

You Can't Have Everything-
But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands
gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year old finger
on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.
You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look
of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite
every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August,
you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love,
though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam
that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys
until you realize the foam's twin is blood.
You can have the skin at the center between a man's legs,
so solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind,
glowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness,
never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who'll tell you
all roads narrow at the border.
You can speak a foreign language, sometimes,
and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave
where your father wept openly. You can't bring back the dead,
but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands
as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful
for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful
for Mozart, his many notes racing one another toward joy, for towels
sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts,
for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream,
the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand.
You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed,
at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping
of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise.
You can't count on grace to pick you out of a crowd,
but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump,
how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards,
until you learn about love, about sweet surrender,
and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind
as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you,
and you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond
of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bannanas
your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept.
There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's,
it will always whisper, you can't have it all,
but there is this.

-Barbara Ras

In which my housemates go "ultra" green

2008-04-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

My housemates, Garrett and Dustin Moon, are being featured on the front page of The Oregonian for their green home building initiatives. They have designed a house that lives almost entirely off the grid, while being incredibly functional and flexible. Their plans surpass the efforts of most professional architectural companies. What makes them different is that they are largely self taught and entirely grassroots.

Dustin and Garrett bought a house that they planned to rehab. Unfortunately, the house was poorly situated on the lot and badly constructed. They switched their plans to deconstruct the house and build a new one on the site.

Originally, Griff and I lived alone in our apartment, which is a few blocks from Garrett and Dustin's home. Their house is badly insulated and very cold in the winter, but, hey, so is our apartment. When it was freezing outside, we would huddle around the wood stove in their kitchen, sheets of plastic covering the windows to keep the heat in and heavy blankets to stop drafts. It was a wonderfully cozy nook that we all dreaded leaving. Now that the deconstruction process has begun, the Moon brothers (and Alisha) live with us while they complete their project, which makes Dustin and Garrett the only people to have our apartment be "a step up."

There will be some ongoing coverage of their building process in the Oregonian. I will keep you posted.

Olympic Protestors Fend Off Liberty Hating Athletes

2008-04-07T10:17:00.004-07:00

It looks as though carrying the torch has become a bit dangerous, as evidenced by recent demonstrations in France. Apparently, there have been protests all over the world about the Olympics being held in China.

Here's the article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080407/ap_on_re_eu/olympic_torch

I particularly like the part where the protesters threw things at a wheelchair-bound athlete. And only in France is the bread hard enough to be a projectile. Viva la Revolucion!

Actually, I think the protests are great (if a bit sloppy in their execution). I didn't realize that there was so much global sentiment about human rights abuses in China.

The essential questions of life

2008-04-01T20:00:00.001-07:00

On why I'm hoping to become a total bitch

2008-03-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

In a good way.

I recently went to the release party for Bitch Magazine, a publication that seeks to reclaim this controversial word. From their website:

"The writer Rebecca West, back in the day, said, 'People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.' We'd argue that the word "bitch" is usually deployed for the same purpose. When it's being used as an insult, "bitch" is an epithet hurled at women who speak their minds, who have opinions and don't shy away from expressing them, and who don't sit by and smile uncomfortably if they're bothered or offended. If being an outspoken woman means being a bitch, we'll take that as a compliment, thanks."

I've applied to intern with them this Spring. Even if that doesn't work out, I plan on volunteering with them in some form.

Obama and Me

2008-03-23T20:14:00.001-07:00

Drove: 2 hours to Eugene
Stood: 2 1/2 hours in line
Waited: 1 hour inside the building

To hear Obama speak. Totally worth it. There were so many people in the auditorium that it shook when they clapped and cheered. We were some of the last ones to get in and they turned away over a thousand people still in line. I had wanted to go that morning to his speech in Portland, but the 13,000 tickets were taken in 3 hours.

The top two pictures are zoomed in and the bottom one a more accurate representation of where we were sitting. I found the speech a little low on content, but I suppose that's the way these rallies go. Obama is an excellent speaker, and the crowd was crazy about him.

Example-
Obama: And the environment...
Oregonians: Yah!!! Wow!! [standing ovation] He said the word "environment"

It was funny because before Obama couldn't even make a point everyone would start screaming and cheering. He's bigger than the Beatles here. Oregonians are also incredibly jazzed that their primary will matter for the first time in 40 years.

A trip down memory lane

2008-03-18T13:05:00.001-07:00

As Griff and I got into a stick (but now resolved) issue with our landlord yesterday, I though I'd take a trip down memory lane and show us working on the apartment.

Awareness Test

2008-03-13T10:54:00.000-07:00

Follow this link for an awareness test. Griff and I both did it and it blew our minds.

http://www.dothetest.co.uk/

TrackersNW

2008-03-10T17:47:00.000-07:00

I'm interviewing this week to enter this program next year.

Entrepreneurial Skills & Agile Project Development

This is the nitty gritty of making a living. Every hunter-gatherer needs to find shelter, water, fire, and food. We want to pull people out of jobs where they work in a hierarchical organization and bring them back to a means of support that feels like a team, or even family.

Consider it a Masters of Business Administration that is actually fun and practical. We aim for ways of making a living that immerse you in energizing creativity and a conversation with what is wild. We recognize our students want to rediscover their connection to the natural world but many of them want may want more than being a wilderness educator (we are wilderness educators, we understand). What they need is a fun, sustainable way of making a living that supports their passion and responsibility. We call it "Tribal Business" from the termed coined by Daniel Quinn, author of Beyond Civilization and Ishmael. In a "Tribal Business" everyone finds themselves in the same boat and they need to make a living together. Whether for money, barter, support or all of the above.

With TrackersTEAMS, students assemble into Natural Agile Teams, and through this, effectively self organize to develop key business projects with the goal of making an immediate living for themselves and their team. The project can be anything rooted in sustainability, from an outdoor education program to a fair trade coffee stand. You also learn efficient ways of tackling the most daunting tasks for a business: accounting, organization, quality control and marketing. We look at new and common sense ethics such as being highly transparent (less sell and more yourself) and how inspiring it is to be part of a collaborative team.

-Tony Deis, Core Instructor

Hunter-Gatherer Skills: Habitat as Home

The urban sphere of Portland is unique. The instructors make their own living gathering with seasonal rhythms and so will you. They specialize in plant propagation, gathering and preserving. The Willamette Valley of Portland, Oregon becomes your larder and home. We work to make over 50% of our diet hunted and gathered. This contributes and enhances the Personal Health and Training thematic.

Hunting is a key rite of passage OPTION for those who choose it. This is one of the few residential programs and definitely the most accessible that provides the foundation for you to experience this profound conversation with the living world. Wild edible plants are the basis for healthy living. As you progress through your year you become sewn into the dance of the seasons. Our bodies become clocks attuned to the cycles of the plants.

-David Jacobson, Core Instructor

The Trackers Eye, Mind & Heart

Some people believe an Animal Tracker only follows footprints on the ground. Tracking can be that, but also much more. Included in its scope is the constant awareness of feedback from the land, such as the ebb and flow of bird sounds and songs. TrackersNW commits our support to the best tracking instructors in the country. Our instructors do not consider themselves your mentor but instead the true tracker considers herself a collaborator. You come into our classes knowing our instructors are there to grow with you, the land and the art of tracking.

Tracking connects you to the Hunter-Gatherer thematic and also takes your hyper-sensory awareness to whole new level. Dancing with the animals, a human being perceives and relates in many spheres of ecology simultaneously. The moving and physical body, the categorizing and dissecting mind, and the empathizing heart. You develop tools of perception that find value both in urban and wild landscape. Your mind starts to create living maps  and stories telling us about an entirely different world moving on the edge of our awareness. This peels back layers of perception and we really "step through the looking glass." Check out our latest Tracking Series.

-Billy Williams, Core Instructor

Personal Health & Training: Health & Wellness

In this culture we often ascribe an inability to surmount challenges in our lives to a lack of willpower, or skill, or other such abstract factors, yet often we can find their source in our lack of health and wellness. Mental focus, a positive mental attitude, and a joy in your physical body comes to you as you deeply reflect and act on your own unique nutritional needs, and physical expression. Using such resources as the bio regional martial and movement art SHIFT, you learn from world-class instructors on how to let your primal self out and truly express a wild and hyper competent body awareness. You receive ongoing check-ups and medical care from our in-house Naturopath, who is also a master martial artist and instructs many portions of your SHIFT classes. A core focus is practical training for Body Control including muscle attunement, consciously shifting internal temperature and accelerated healing.

-Molly Strand, Core Instructor

Interpersonal Clarity & Peacemaking

Your skills as a tracker in experiencing the needs and emotional dynamics of wild animals will find application on a profound level in your human relationships. By increasing clarity and honesty of your own needs, and raw feelings, your understanding and empathy in your human relationships shoots through the roof. Then relating to family, village, and collaborators, loses its "high-stakes" element, and you regain balance and receive nourishment of what makes you human. In the same ways you respect the animals you track for their hungers, fears, and joys, you start to understand the people you care for and collaborate with, at a deeply rich level.

-Willem, Core Instructor

Natural Building & Permaculture

Receive your certification in Permaculture Design AND Natural Building. You tackle real world projects that feed and shelter you and our community. Projects become celebrations, houses are refitted to greener flows. Engineering and construction is covered on all levels, including traditional skin on frame boat building and design. Permaculture activities are also abundant, we don't stop in zones 1, 2, 3 and 4 but seem to live on the outskirts of zone 5. We become stewards of our land while looking at the entire Willamette Valley as a garden waiting to happen again.

-Tony Deis, Core Instructor

DIY: GREEN Creative Engineering, Auto Mechanics, Welding & Industrial Design (bio fuels truth and industrial recycling) MacGyver STUFF!

Ever since you were a kid you knew the value of it. Making something AWESOME from nothing! How would you really build the post-apocalyptic bus from the Road Warrior, how do you become the jack of all trades that can only see possibilities from JUNK? Students actually go to junkyards, pull parts, take out the welding torch and make hyper functional rolling, catapulting and floating art!

-Thaddeus Koster, Core Instructor

Wilderness Mentor & Guide

Many wilderness residential programs still reinforce old paradigms of teachers, students and charismatic leaders*. They work towards a goal to create environmental educators for communities based in the natural world. At TrackersNWhighly marketable skills with a foundation in business, arts, team collaboration, and communication. Helping to create healthy communities rooted in the land in a way that actually works. we leave "teaching" behind, especially in the guise of mentors, holding the real world values of collaboration, community and family close to our hearts. Plus, our certification and training works with you to develop

You receive your Wilderness First Responder certification, we teach you kayak and water rescue skills, you learn you how to put together a long term backpacking trip, teach snow and desert camping and all the other logistical nuts and bolts of your classic NOLS or Outward Bound type program. All that plus the addition of truly cutting edge social "nature-based" models of learning.

You help us make TrackersTEAMS models the foundation for community learning. Our models never stop growing and reshaping to become even more effective. We value your input. It is here classes stop being classes and we truly create collaborative places to share and learn. If you have heard of models that include white belts, brown belts, Level 1s, 2s and 3s you have heard of a hierarchal model. Our form of Mentoring is a form of collaboration that you need to experience to believe. There is never an aura of mystery with our instructors. Students cry with us, care with us and live adventure with us.

We take care with asking you to be a volunteer, when we feel confident to include a student in an internship or instructor position at one of our youth or adult programs, WE PAY THEM in order to keep relationships healthy and true. We always live by the axiom of give support, get support and we collaborate with students to constantly find ways of expanding the living of the village to meet their personal needs of sustainability.

-Molly Strand, Core Instructor

Art, Theater, Music & Design

We explore functional ways of making music and art that really tell our story. Many of our instructors are well known Portland artists, designers and theater teachers.

In the art of improv and performance we learn how to spontaneously move together. You start to think and act on your feet and actually celebrate being "caught off guard" as opportunity to be creative. You learn to read your "partner" with subtle and silent communication.

In visual, writing, and verbal arts you develop the craft of storytelling. We feature students works in multiple art showings (if they wish) and suggest many creative possibilities for a living as storytellers who foster more life with their eloquence.

-Shaun Deller, Core Instructor

Synthesis

All these skills work together to produce a truly "wild family." They create in us what we call "bad ass" factor but also hyper-competency. The ability to walk through anywhere and hold your own with confidence and care.

We learn these things as collaborators and the axiom is always "less talk and more rock." Everything becomes hands on. Conversations and debriefs do accelerate the learning yet they take on the feeling of collaborative "jam sessions" that spur your creative process.

Girls Rock! The movie

2008-03-09T21:02:00.001-07:00

I'm going to see a documentary this week about a rock and roll camp for girls 8-18. A quotation from one of the girls: "I've been waiting for so long to admit to myself that I'm amazing. And I really am. Everyone is beautiful in their own way, and they get even better when they decide to be powerful and they decide to rock."

Here's the trailer.

Rock on.