And That's How I Became a Gas Station Attendant

It's official: I signed my contract to be a fuelie next season!*  When I was little I considered being a musician; I got a little older and wanted to be a law professor; by high school I thought I'd be a political speech writer.  After seven years as a book editor, things really went sideways and I cooked, administrative assistanted, and drove.  With yet another semi-calculated lateral move, I will pump gas.

*footnote/gloss/fine print
1) I will be a Fuels Operator, performing such duties as transferring diesel from storage tanks to buildings around town, driving a big ol' truck to deliver fuel, dispensing jet fuel to airplanes, laying out and checking hoses, and helping offload the annual resupply tanker ship.
2) This is an opportunity for me to advance my, uuhhh, nascent mechanical skills.  I mean, I did take shop class (one trimester) in 7th grade, and I did (eventually) figure out (and subsequently forgot) how to dismantle and reassemble a commercial deli slicer in my (wait for it...) salad days (haha).*
3) Next season will be somewhat/rather/wildly complicated by the coronavirus.  The details are being hashed out, but it's likely the program will scale back projects and personnel.
4) No one really knows when New Zealand is going to allow anyone to enter the country again.  Having only recently escaped, I can verify that they have zero interest in a bunch of germy people transiting through their stringently protected island oasis.

*footnote to the footnote
So I actually learned how to take apart and clean and put back together a deli slicer working at a deli when I was 17.  Among other things, I made salads at this deli.  And then my first season at McMurdo I used Shreddie Vedder, the industrial salad shooter slicer in the so-called Salad Room, which necessitated me drawing (I am terrible at drawing) the five or so components that you screwed it to make the blades work, and describing for myself in my notebook at length what I thought they looked like and how they fit together because just looking at the metal parts in my hands each time it was like I had never seen them before.  Normally I hate terrible puns, but those were ACTUAL salad days. :p 

Last October, I was fixated on photographing a certain image that never quite worked out.  Out at the airfield, maybe six or seven of these sled-trailers with fuel tanks were parked in a line about fifty feet apart.  They had circular holes in the metal braces (which you can barely make out on the lower left of the tank); you could look through one and see the next tank, and then through its hole to see the next tank.  I'm not sure if any camera or depth of field would show more than one, given their distance apart.  But trust me, it looked cool.

It will be an interesting season, no doubt.  I'll be closing valves!  Analyzing samples!  Turning giant wrenches!  Legit working outside, south of the Antarctic Circle!  And the isolation will take on a new tone.  I'm guardedly optimistic for next October -- a rare commodity at present.  And I'm duly optimistic about spending a long chunk of time this summer with a certain guy of noted quality.  That's right, no updates from Alaska this year, but yes reports of hiking and cooking and fun.

Some Things I’ve Eaten While Stranded

10 - homemade scones

9 - cans of tuna

8 - pounds of potatoes

7 - quarts of yogurt

6 - heads of broccoli

5 - pounds of cheese (mostly cheddar, also some brie and feta and havarti)

4 - bottles of Sauvignon Blanc (well, drunk, not eaten)

3 - pounds of butter

2 - pounds of chocolate

1 - can of tom yum soup

This might be my favorite Christchurch graffiti.

I have eaten a variety of other things over the course of New Zealand’s four weeks of (ongoing) lockdown.  But something about these items captures the dilemma of cooking for oneself in an unstocked kitchen only temporarily yours.  I guess it’s easier to just repeat than be inventive during each fraught grocery store visit.  I haven’t bought any spices; how am I consuming such vast amounts of garlic and pumpkin seeds but not moving through the eggs?  I think I’ve got supplies worked out to last the remaining week.  Things are about to get a little bacon-heavy, but there’s plenty of cabbage to balance it out.

It’s fun seeing friends and society in general spending time in the kitchen.  Even if you’re subsisting on ramen and Spaghettios, I think it’s incredibly valuable to *daily* have your hands (er, at least a spatula) on the food you eat.  And to people making anything and everything from scratch (shout out to Tom Pence!), three cheers for your efforts and enjoyment of food.  Maybe instead of waiting for things to get back to normal we’ll find we like doing things differently.

It had been outrageously beautiful fall weather.

NZ buttermilk is super thick.  Combine with their 

wonderful cultured butter and devour delectable scones.

Check my nails/Baby how you feelin’

Spring and fall, tiny daisies cover the botanic garden lawns.

I miss you, brunettes with glasses! (pictured without glasses)

3/22

I was an intense nail-biter as a kid.  At some point in 7th grade I decided that as part of my plan to not be such a weirdo I’d have to cut it out.  I steeped myself and did so, one fingernail at a time.  (I started with the left thumb, then the right thumb, working toward the pinkies.)  I know the process was complete by the end of high school because I granted myself a reprieve for AP exams, during which I bit and chewed through the strenuous hours.  I still often distractedly pick at my nails and cuticles, and it’s a tell that something is up when I trim them obsessively, seeking to perfectly control the contour, or length, or evenness.

It’s especially important to tidy things up before flying.  Any hangnail or jagged morsel of skin will be bloodied and/or obliterated.  All those lines to wait in, people to put up with, and pent up tension from delays and bad smells and invaded personal space makes me desperate to gouge my eyes out; as that has its downsides, I make do with destroying my nails.

Maybe alcohol or sedatives would help, but I’m kind of stubborn—stoic? masochistic?—about maintaining outward calm on my own steam.  Wish me luck, if the planes even fly, on 30+ hours of travel.

————

I apologize for that gross digression.  NZ continues to be fabulous and is also clamping down in response to that thing everyone is talking about.  It is just the beginning of autumn, with leaves parting from their branches, the evening sun slanting impossibly golden on the fading flowers, and thick clouds shrouding the mountains and valleys well into the morning.

I would like to report that I ate two oysters, and they were okay.  They started off the “trust the chef” tasting menu at my favorite restaurant in the world.  Not normally my thing, these guys were pretty mild and went well with my Sauvignon Blanc.  The subsequent garlic baked mussels, salmon carpaccio and tartar, brown butter filet of sole, crisp pork belly, and braised short ribs, all with their accompanying garnishes and mosaic of flavor, were fantastic.  (And sticky toffee pudding!)  Stay safe and stay in business, Boatshed Cafe.  

————

3/23

Well that was quick.  My chances of being marooned indefinitely just significantly increased.  Not great for the psyche, but a relief for my fingernails.

Valderee Valderah

The concrete tent in Arthur’s Pass.

me and a glacier

Is it glamping if you make satay noodles with fresh veg?

In the last few weeks I’ve fended off giant mountain parrots, twice eaten braised beef cheek, crept through caves, boiled noodles in a field of sheep poop, and washed my hair once.  I’m pleased to report that my natural greasiness can quickly recover even the most frozen-desert-damaged hair.

There was also a day when I got a massage and read a (year-old) New Yorker magazine.  But the really luxurious experiences are gorgeous lonely beaches with rock outcroppings and the rare moments beside water when you’re not being eaten by sand flies.  Tonight my travel buddy and I are living it up like thousand-aires and sleeping in a hut rather than our tents.  Both provide refuge from asshole insects, but the hut features a large picture window that looks out on the lake and mountains beyond, and provides the light by which I write this (sparing my janky headlamp that’s on the fritz due to previously dampened, three-year-old batteries).

I’ve got one week left before I return to virus-hysteria world.  Don’t worry, I’ve got my own supply of toilet paper already.

Sleepy South

Lots of open water already.

By the way, this is the man I’m exclusively dating.  

Look how handsome he is.

Programming note: I’m back to doing this on my phone, so non-sequiturs are the fault of autocorrect.

Dude, I am TIRED.  The last two weeks on station it didn’t matter how much I slept (or how little I worked), I was just tiiiired.  We had some lovely snow and the penguins hung around; I bundled up for the cold first sunset; and then I got shuffled and delayed a few days which allowed for more thorough goodbyes and mental preparation for departure.  The last days of McMurdo summer are a quasi-ghost town: everyone’s doing last-minute chores, presumably inside, and the typical hustle and heavy machinery activity disappear as though it’s a snow day from school.  

Even with all that extra nap time, here I am in beautiful New Zealand, adventure at my fingertips—and I’m sleeping a solid 11 hours.  Ok, I’ve walked over some decent hills and scrunched my toes in some beach sand and am well on my way to a solid tan.  In a few days a buddy and I will tackle some sizable peaks and saddles and river crossings along the non-flooded portion of the Rees-Dart Track.  My tent stakes will take their first plunge into international soil, and I’ll light my own camp stove for the first time.  There are currently three types of cheese in my rucksack (all Kiwi).  I’m rested (I think) and I’m ready.

Molting

I made an effort to finish reading my books, hike to Castle Rock, and give the bathroom a thorough cleaning.  Soon it’ll be time to pack, to winnow things down for travel and leave a box of anticipation and postcards and socks for next year.  Fingers crossed for working in Fuels come October, but, no matter the job, this is where I want to be.

They're tiny, but look on the land in front of the ship...

HOLY SHIT!

Hey guys!  Thanks for choosing to molt here.

We’ve been doing lots of taxi rides.  They let the poor Coastie rats off the boat for two days and they swarmed, over the hill to Scott Base, up trails, and back down to the wharf and the boat.  And the shuffle of summer people departing and winter people arriving has filled our lobby with confused, overdressed people burdened by unreasonable amounts of luggage.  Another end-of-season sight: I will always chuckle at the actual boxes of rocks that come back from the field to be analyzed in labs back home (they’re looking for rare meteorites), boldly stenciled as “ROCK BOXES,” in case you have any second guesses as you lift them.

February is remaining oddly warm, and the penguins (and humans) are loving it.  They lay basking in the sun like so many beach bums -- face-down on rounded bellies, sometimes tucking their faces into their shoulders.  We all seek that ultimate comfort of dozing away the warm afternoons, burrowed into a choice pillow.

My roomie made it back after a looooong two-week weather delay from a deep field camp.  Day after day they canceled flights because of storms on one end or the other, and finally, a day before the seasonal cut-off, they managed to get one mission (instead of four) there and back.  The plane had to be dug out and re-launched with rocket boosters.  And here we’ve been sitting pretty with salad and fruit again, and the bountiful harvest of second-hand clothes and room décor people are shedding as they leave for home.

Out with the Old

Lightning.  Jill.  Brandi.  Tater Time.  All departed from this place for distant shores, ne’er to return.  These tough old trucks were driven pretty much into the ground, in harsh conditions, by delinquent young navies for decades.  They carried endless shipping containers of food and supplies to us and poop and garbage away from us.  I doubt the current professional bureaucrat-ese will coin monikers as irreverent as Shagnasty for the replacements.

We'll miss you, cool old trucks.

photo: Brian Egger

This year we have a causeway instead of an ice pier.

(Not my photo, wish I knew who to credit.)

And I’m trying to spend as much time in my beloved Coffee House as possible before its scheduled demolition this winter.  This warm dark cave of alternating conviviality and quiet, with its Hobbit-hole arched ceiling, satisfyingly solid oak bar, distinctively creaky door, and cozy comfort is irreplaceable.  The old wood skis and burlap coffee sacks will no doubt reappear in a new space, and we’ll have to imbue it with as much good conversation and music and toasting and commiserating as we can to bring life to it.

Something else we are in the process of shedding is complacency about sexual harassment and assault.  Well-worn patterns of behavior and toothless responses and tepid policy enforcement aren’t cutting it for this robust community.  Women (and men) here—as everywhere—endure far too much shitty action and infringement on our right to live and work in reasonable safety.  Many of us are sick of experiencing acts of aggression and violence and are incensed by the ineptitude and inaction of management to even comply with program rules and the law.  It’s wonderful to get away from the dehumanizing effect of technology and “modern life” by being here, and we will not suffer dehumanizing by our colleagues. 

We’re working on improvements in identifying, documenting, and reducing harassment and assault.  Friends, if you have any knowledge, insight, or suggestions, please share them with me so I can discuss them with station management.  Luckily, my fuck-off vibe has thus far protected me personally, but it’s just that—luck.  My friends have been assaulted and I want to do as much as I can to promote our safety here.  Please do forward anything you think could be helpful.