Lounge Singer

my favorite cargo sled (for loading pallets of stuff onto planes)

A chapter title I wish I had written, from The Career Woman's Cookbook,

in the NZ lounge of the historic Hillary Hut.

I'm afraid to jinx it, but I'm pretty excited about all the music happening.  My roomie has insider status at a building I've eyed for years but never been in: the Paint Barn doubles as a rehearsal space after business hours.  This week, I played piano and clarinet and guitar and cello (barely) and sang.  Yes, there is a nice new cello here, and I can scrape the bow across with some satisfying resonance at least half the time.  It was a fun discovery made possible by repeated power outages.  All is not well with our electrical supply, and we went through three of five back-up generators.  (Don't ask me why or how the generators failed mechanically; rumors abound of bolts sheering, fan blades expelled, and improbable gremlin destruction.)  Decades of delayed maintenance and power overdraw is finally catching up with the system, thankfully during summer while sunlight shines in the windows.  Still, it's a challenge to peer at mysterious food in the gloom of a de-powered galley, let alone cook it.  Oh yeah, and we desalinate our drinking water from the ocean, so no electricity means no water, either.

And so with limited lights, rationed water, and no intra- or internet, music folks wandered around until we found each other.  Joe and Patrick and I had the cello, a guitar, and a banjo, and I knew just where to go.  There's a small dorm on the far side of town, as yet uninhabited this season.  The lounge of the Mammoth Mountain Inn (I have no idea why it's called that) has large windows that look out to the ice shelf, two long couches, and decent acoustics.  It's the perfect place to pass around a bottle of wine, sing some love songs, and speculate about who we should eat first if the power completely stays off for good.

Sweater Song

Shuttle Jake unconsciously posing at emergency apple #1.

You can't actually see the amazing ice fog glitter,

but this picture ended up looking neat.

old film canisters from the NZ Hillary Hut

No, not the Weezer one -- my new favorite thing to sing is a playful and exquisitely longing song that employs a sweater as an improbably sexy metaphor ("I Wish I Was," by the Avett Brothers).  This year I finally brought an aux cable, so I can listen to my own music while I drive.  If there's no one to shuttle, I can repeat a song over and over and over, and in such fashion learn it, all during work hours (shhhh, don't tell).

Every year I give myself a talking-to about how I should really learn guitar so I can accompany myself, and skip over the ingratiating and bowing and scraping that I perform in order to wheedle people into playing music with me.  Luckily my Fuelie friend is obliging me for the time being, but really, I swear, I'll learn to strum and pick...this summer...or next season...sometime.

Unseasonably warm and sunny weather has followed me from Alaska to Antarctica.  Everything's melting, I hiked in a sweater, and sunblock is my constant companion.  The sea ice is quite thin this year, only having formed in late July.  Already large cracks extend from the rocky point just beyond town, and our days of exploring pressure ridges and skiing around the cape are numbered.  The seals seem to be thriving, though, and a slew of doe-eyed pups are adorably writhing around.  

Speaking of writhing on the ice shelf, I started doing push-ups and sit-ups on every drive to the airfield.  No, that's not me suffering a stroke behind my van; I'm just trying to be inconspicuous, in a bright red jacket, with a neon safety belt, in a broad, open, white plain bustling with heavy equipment and airplane mechanics.  I eeked out 20 push-ups in a row once, but the following set, two hours later, I could barely finish my usual 10.  I'll get there soon, though, and my sweater will be waiting when it get's too cold.

Stockholm's cold but I've been told/I was born to endure this kind of weather

abstract lenticular clouds atop Erebus

den + dresser

The window frame in my room is not quite true, and even mild winds whistle mournfully; the drafts stir my bed curtains.  I have what technically passes for a four-poster: the metal corners of the frame reach up a foot or so, and the sheets I tacked to the ceiling enclose my small sleep-cave.  

I elected to work the day shift first this year, which will hopefully grease the wheels for doing lots of music.  But I felt significant pangs as a crowd of good people departed for the night shift this weekend.  We'll always have Saturday night...

A set of drawers contain my minimal and tidy possessions, yet incongruously sprouts an increasingly unwieldy collection of hoarded luxuries and scavenged detritus.  There are notes on Post-Its on notes, a teetering pile of books and old magazines, a gnarled chunk of ginger root, wine glasses and colored pencils and maple syrup and balls of yarn of varied autumnal hues.  The raw materials of my temporary domesticity are close at hand, uncannily like props on a stage in their organic disorder.

Training is nearly complete, and soon I'll drive those regular runs out to the airfield, this time with an aux cord and my own music.  I'll still tune in to the Armed Forces Network radio broadcast of awful Top 40 for entertainment and to keep up with the kids these days, but not until after I've listened to First Aid Kit's "Emmylou" 147 times in a row.