Ash

 

It is either the scent of a memory, or the memory of a scent that I associate with that charred, black rubble. The December sky was always gray, and it was so odd to be standing in what used to be our cozy, dark living room underneath that gray sky. Inside outside. The outside all burned up, some of the inside left, if singed, around the edges.

We poked among the snow-dusted rubble. Any salvageable item would be carefully plucked from the charred black, placed in a pile. The scent of the memory was heady, almost sticky. Every salvageable item we'd find would have this cloying scent, the scent of a fireplace, almost sweet. The most impressionable image burned into my five-year old mind: the melted gaping maw of the glass and plastic television.

We moved across town, where I had to start finishing Kindergarten, attending a new school. We made new friends -- they lived in the apartment by ours, and some of the ornaments were re-done.

My memories of the days and months that followed were, in a word, weepy.I remember my weeping mother, boxes of tissues, weeping about the house plants and the kitties and the books and her crochet work and the pictures: the life we'd had in our small yellow house. She especially mourned the house plants: the spider plants she'd lovingly nursed from shoots.

Some time between the time I completed kindergarten and started first grade, we left Alaska. It was another change: back on the road again, back to the lower 48.

Northern Lights, Down in Flames (Part II)

A couple of years later, it was time to start going to school. I attended North Star Elementary, and from the very beginning, I loved school. Those hours of Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers, being read to and taught by my mother, had prepared me well.

In mid-December of 1985, things were going about as well as they could for a five-year-old. After all, I was the oldest, going to school. I was a hot-shot, for a Kindergarten kid (weren't we all?). My dad was in Las Vegas, working to earn money for the holiday, but that was okay since he'd be home for Christmas in a week or so. It must have been right after Turtle magazine had arrived in the mail, because I was in the bedroom of my parents, away from my pesky siblings, to read my favorite magazine.

And then I heard my mother scream my name like I'd never heard her scream. And again. I'd never heard her say my name quite like that before.

So I peeked out the door, entered the hallway.

In a flash, I saw the smoke and my mother, her eyes wild, literally dragging my two siblings by a tangle of hair and arms.

Before I knew what had happened, she had dragged me, too, and we were outside, across the street, watching our little yellow house being lapped up by smoke and flames. Hours later, when I finally emerged from the daze, I realized that the only thing I had escaped with was my clutched Turtle magazine.

The newspaper, Anchorage Daily News printed a photo of the rubble along with a small caption reporting that firefighters had taken over 45 minutes to arrive on the scene, by which time the house was a total loss. It also noted that a woman and three children had escaped unharmed, and that two pet cats didn't make it.

Fuzzy and Punky died in the fire.

Northern Lights, Down in Flames (Part I)

By the early 1980's, my dad had several years of experience in construction and was about as well-respected as one can be in that business: he worked for a contractor, hanging sheetrock on a number of the now-famous Las Vegas resort hotel and casino properties. Since Las Vegas is all about building up to tear down and build again, he rarely had a shortage of work. After awhile, he was doing well enough to upgrade our yellow VW beetle to a brand new, shiny, red Toyota Corolla station wagon.

Perhaps it was the new car, the wanderlust, hippie nature of my parents not wanting to raise a family in Las Vegas, or something else entirely -- I was too young to ask and will never know for sure -- but after three years, they decided it was time to move on. Where? Somewhere about as climatologically different from the hot, arid Las Vegas desert as can be imagined. In the summer of 1983, we packed our bodies and a meager amount of material belongings into the station wagon and hit the road for Anchorage, Alaska.

We rented a small yellow house on Cheechako St. Our yard was blooming with dandelions, "fuzzies," we'd call them when the season would change and the yellow flowers would turn to ripe-for-the-wind seed pods. We would purse our lips together and be like the wind, blowing the seeds off the stems, watching them lazy, drift on the air.

Soon thereafter, we also got our first family pets: two cats, Fuzzy and Punky. Fuzzy was named, undoubtedly for her fur's resemblance to the "fuzzies" in the yard. She was either a poofy or a fat, gray cat with extraordinary patience for children. Punky was a sassy little calico kitten, thus named after our favorite colorful television personality, Punky Brewster.

My mom was quite talented with a crochet hook and yarn, and she would watch us from the steps while making amazing things: dolls, ornaments for our tree -- snowflakes and snowmen and Santa's twelve reindeer, angels and elves -- for the upcoming holiday. Distinct memories of summertime: Fuzzy and Punky tearing after strands of yarn that my siblings and I would run around in circles in the yard of bursting dandelions.

My dad continued to work in drywall, but Anchorage, Alaska wasn't exactly the fastest growing city in the US then, so he'd fly back to Las Vegas, periodically, for work. Three children and times were tough.

My mother stayed at home with us. Days and nights were either long or short, depending upon the season. We had black garbage bags stapled to the windows, and I don't have much memory regarding sense of time or season on the indoors. During the harsh winters when the field of dandelions turned to white, days were filled with hours of PBS -- Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers -- and learning, reading, crayons and paper, being read to. We at a lot of Ramen noodles. My first magazine subscription, Turtle magazine was had in the small yellow house. Every time a new edition came in the mail, I was thrilled. I loved staring at the words, trying to figure out how to pronounce them, what they meant.

The periodic absence of my father was especially difficult for us, financially. Because he was in construction, a drywall hanger who worked for a contractor, he received no benefits or health insurance. Sometimes, when things were tough, my mom would take us to go stand in line at what I believe was the welfare office, though I can't be sure. It's strange how sometimes distinct memories can remain -- we were bundled up and up and up, until the layers of shirts and sweaters and coats and hats and scarves and gloves were deemed satisfactory to be subjected to the elements. The four of us would venture out into the cold, foggy Alaska morning with its eerie light, walking. My mom would have invariably packed hot chocolate and graham crackers for these trips, where we'd follow the streetlights and arrival meant we could finally open that warm hot chocolate, which was like steam from heaven underneath buzzing fluorescent lights.
Part II

There's No Place Like . . .

Most people are able to look back on their life and see a particular place as "home". Some part of their existence has ingrained itself into a geographic locale. Everybody has somewhere they "go way back," and no matter what happens they can close their eyes and imagine it in their mind's eye.

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is able to return home to Kansas after clicking together her ruby red slippers and wistfully saying: "There's no place like home. There's no place like home." The whirlwind may have taken her away from her familiar place, people, comforts, but it didn't destroy her idea of home; she had it in her all along. Dorothy had a pretty good idea of what she was asking for so wistfully when she clicked those heels together: Kansas was and is all she knew.

Dorothy never knew how lucky she was.

Growing up, I never knew that feeling of "home"; the tornado was metaphoric. My parents were hippies, of a generation that technically didn't and couldn't "know" any better. My dad was born and raised in Southern California. Although my grandmother did her best to raise him with the Mormon Pioneer values she'd grown up with, she was essentially a single parent as my grandfather was serving his country. My dad was the second-born, a mischievous child who grew up as a friend of the Beach Boys.

My mother was from an East coast family. As a young woman, she was a cheerleader who'd been crowned "Miss New London." But something (the 60's) happened to turn her flower child. She roamed with the wind, attended Woodstock and followed the Beatles around London.

They met in Las Vegas.

In true au nautrel hippie form, my mother gave birth to me at home, on the floor of our home in Las Vegas. There were no midwives, no doctors, just her and me. It was a Sunday morning, and my father had to leave to get white thread to "cut" my umbilical cord. As the story goes, he couldn't find white thread, and when he got back home with the only kind of thread he could find, I was already born.

The first three or so years of my life were spent in Las Vegas, during which I acquired two siblings -- brothers. I don't really have any memories of that time of my life, but there are a few pictures: in nearly all of them, my mother is with child, and we are all smiling, happy. There was one particular photo of me and my little brother, Steve, we had our arms around each other, and lets just say that not all of our house plants in the background of that photo were entirely legal.

Movement: the Depth of Space between Adjectives

One of my online friends once asked me why I have so many blogs and journals all over the Internet. Thinking about it, I realized I like to keep strict separation controls on my writing, building a barrier of contextualization with which I can do free-writing and association for certain types of writing: some serious, some for fun, some experimental, some that I might as well, or have been, gushing blood or sweat or tears or potentially broken bones during composition.

Anyway.

Aside from my online journals, I have (rather had) a notebook journal that was gifted to me via a "Secret Santa" thing that from an online writing forum I frequented some time around Y2K, when started using a particular online pseudonym for writing and coding. This notebook/journal has been stolen. I think about it sometimes, like . . maybe somebody has read it, all my secret private thoughts and such -- makes me very uncomfortable.

This digital gypsy has a new muse these days; the depth of space between adjectives.

Mourning

I'm in mourning.

Deep, deep mourning and sadness and I cannot even begin to describe the sense of loss and emptiness I feel. I'm in rage. Various profanities have poised themselves on my lips and I must fight them because they want to lash out and curse the bastards who smashed out the window in my car and made off with the most precious collection of belongings I've ever owned.

Ah, but they're just belongings.

Perhaps to some people, a box or a few boxes of books might be "just belongings," but not to me. My book collection is indeed the most precious thing I've ever owned, and it's gone. Stolen. Violently ripped from my vehicle and probably lying in a dumpster somewhere. I know my books are not what the thieves were after because several books were left, carelessly tossed aside and in disarray lying among the not-sharp shards of busted-out car window glass.

And it's all my fault for being such an idiot. It's going to take me a very long time to get over this, and I might never be able to fully forgive myself. Here's the story.

My place of employment had an official End of the Year; Yeah, We Know it's the Beginning of the Year, but We Were Just Lazy Getting Around to Throwing It party last night. I attended this party, because as newbie/temp-to-hire employee, I had been specially invited and figured it would be a good idea to attend.

Whether or not it was a good idea is relative now, in hindsight.

Staying with friends in the Potrero district in the great city of San Francisco, I walked to the brewery where this EotY,WKitBotY,bWWJLGAtTI party was being held. I had left my vehicle parked back where I was staying, and as the night wore on, I proceeded to dine and drink with my most friendly co-workers.

Some number of hours later, I've learned that my place of employment is quite happy with my work and has more or less told me that they want to hire me as a full-time employee.

Yay! I head "home".

Fast forward to this morning, and I venture outside into the cool, brisk San Francisco morning with the intention of going to get a newspaper. My eyes come to rest on my little car, and immediately notice the busted out window and the broken glass on the street.

My car is _empty_

Empty, as in null, VOID of the belongings it previously contained.

My car is empty as in Empty.

I've been robbed.

My car is Empty as in EMPTY, and it slowly begins to dawn on me. I attempt to assess damage control and remember where and what it held, but to no use.: letters from my now dead parents, keepsakes that I'd acquired from my life of small trinkets . . . all gone. And the thieves made off with most of my books. Boxes of books, the only things I found necessary to haul with me across the Sierras.

I guess this is how California welcomes people.

(This post ends with me and my housemates pouring hefty glasses of brandy. At 10 AM)

Martinez, Revisited

'Tis been not quite ten years since my initial visit to Martinez, CA, and I can genuinely say I'm just as (if not more) enchanted with the town now as I was then. It especially helped that today was an incredibly gorgeous day in terms of weather. I've never really considered anywhere "home" and this return to Martinez as more or less full circle for something maybe symbolic or representative of home. To me, at least. The scent of foods on salty, brisk seaside air: hot foods, spicy foods, ethnic foods, greasy foods, sweet foods and the ocean, all mixing and mingling together in a euphoric olfactory . . .

Finding decent/free Wifi spots on this journey has been an enormous challenge. I can never be sure if the places that advertise their "free Wifi" are actually going to deliver on the promise. I don't like hanging out at places of business without being a customer, so I usually end up purchasing something non-expensive. I haven't at this particular place of business just yet, though, and I've been here well over an hour. Noisy college football game : A&M 10 Cali 28; 7:27 or so left in the 4th, like I care :)

Perhaps I shall exit before I'm noticed.

Fedora Lovesong

Fedora Core 5 Rocks!

I know FC6 is out recently, but I'm still learning FC5.

Anyway. Last summer ('05), while I was hanging out at Barnes & Noble in Flagstaff, AZ, I found this super cool book, called Red Hat Fedora 4 Unleashed. It was fascinating: a giant 1000+ page volume full of very interesting things to learn.

What? There's a world outside of Microsoft and Apple? *solemn nods*

And so since the summer of 2005 have I been tearing through this book, absorbing every detail and nuance and "update" in the *nix world. . . I've since tested 8-10 different versions of Linux, written code and programs for various tasks, and (until this summer) never received a penny for this borderline obsession. I can't help it. I'm done with school, and I still need to learn.

But that's all beside the point.

Fedora Core 5 is awesome. Being super computer geek girl, I've tested the following Linux distros:

Slackware
Free BSD
Fedora Core 4
Debian "Sarge"
Mandrake+Connectiva=Mandriva
MEPIS
Novell SuSE 10.1
Ubuntu
DSL (Damn Small Linux)
some others
and . . . Fedora Core 5.

FC5 is my current favorite; here's why. . .

Each of the previous distros had something lacking. Either redundant sound-card detection (having to run commands each bootup to get sound working), lack of support for flash, printers, or other "update" issues.

But since I have this "old" manual (FC5 is built on FC4) I was able to figure out enough to get my new setup working with:

-macromedia flash video (for online video)
-macromedia flash sound (for online sound; i.e. youtube)
-my printer and scanner and copier (test page printed with color wheel + 1-degree Radial Lines in B/W hangs on my wall)
-cd/music "ripping" (for offline sound/mp3s, ogg, wav-format) Kaffeine/Grip
-updated security torrents & yum issues
-awesome web-developer tools!

So there's my "lovesong" for FC5 as a main, server-type PC.

I'm leaning toward MEPIS for the laptop. Its Debian-based structure and excellent hardware detection are unsurpassed; the KDE-default is also a refreshing change, more intuitive and mobile (and such) than the GNOME-based Fedora Core default. Though they're easily interchangeable (KDE & GNOME), I like to test distros with the "default" X-Windows client just to get an idea of what the developers were thinking when compiling a certain group of packages in a distro.

What Moses Wants . . . and Other News

Having gone a long while without watching television, I allowed myself an indulgence the other day. . . a schmoozfest of sorts: an entire afternoon and evening of television watching. This occured only because I was without net access.

An initial run through the channels verified what I'd assumed: that I had not been missing much. But then did I come across the shuffly-footed comic animation of South Park. This particular episode featured Kyle and Kenny as they were off to summer camp. Though, this was not just any summer camp. . . this was a summer camp especially for Jews. And what Jewish summer camp would be complete without an appearance by Moses himself?

CHIEF ELDER Great and honorable Moses, what do you
desire from us, your children?

MOSES I desire... I desire... macaroni pictures.

CHIEF ELDER Yes, yes, yes, the macaroni pictures
are coming right away. Uh, anything
else you want from us, O great leader
of the people?

MOSES I desire... popcorn necklaces.

Here is transcript of the episode, aptly titled "Jewbilee".

* * *

In other news, I have been pondering entropic migration patterns. And after all this pondering, I've decided I shall move North. Either back to the the Northwest, or to the Northeast; I have not yet decided. It's a difficult decision. I love the Northwest. . . all the trees! And rain! The Northeast, however, is one area of the country I've not explored. I imagine it to be all quaint and fun to explore . . . but crowded, which seems a wee bit scary. But I am brave and tough and smart, so maybe not that bad.

Have not written much lately, as evidenced by this poor, poor blog! . . . this being back in S. Utah is not exactly inspiring, so the planning phase has been officially initiated. A tentative start this is. And now, perhaps I shall inquire for some suggestions at < secret online forum >. . . and, just maybe, a poll.

Destination Eureka

Eureka -- More of a Place than a State of Mind

The summer of 1997 was the one before my senior year of high school. Something got into my restless little head that I should take a far-off and solitary voyage to some place I'd never been. I visited a travel agency (keep in mind this was back when people needed travel agents to "navigate" the Internet and book things for travel-planning purposes) and purchased a round-trip train ticket with money I'd saved from my part-time waitressing shindig.

Destination? Eureka, California. I had a friend there, who was staying with her sister for the summer, and she invited me to stay.

The train was to leave at 1:05 a.m. on Sunday July 13 from Salt Lake City and arrive in Sacramento at 3:05 p.m. the next day. (indiejade references her scrapbook, which has the train ticket stub and precise times). From Sacramento to Martinez via train, and then from Martinez to Eureka on a bus (train service not available).

I conked out sometime between 3 and 4 a.m., waking up at an undefined point in the harsh bright light of morning. . . I will not forget that morning. The train stopped in Reno after passing through long dry desert, eventually meandering into Napa Valley wine country. There is something almost indescribable about that sense of removal and distance layered over fascination and connection with a "place" while one is a passenger on a train. . .

But anyway.

By the afternoon, the train eventually reached Sacramento, right about on time at 4 p.m.. I exited the train and began searching for my connecting one. I checked my ticket and realized that I'd overlooked a fairly important detail:

The train to Martinez was not scheduled to depart until 6:30 a.m. the next morning.

. . .

Great thought I. There I was, stranded in an unfamiliar city overnight, and (as a naive 17-year old would be) without a clue. I cursed the travel agent who did not bring this little discrepancy of a 15.5 hour delay to my attention at the time I'd purchased the ticket. I cursed her a little more, and then decided to make the best of it.

The downtown train station was situated near a mall. Being in the time-killing mood, I visited the mall and proceeded to become inherently fascinated with the art of watching people. Indeed, some of the most fascinating observations of humanity I'd ever made to that point in life were made at that shopping mall. I think, perhaps, it even clinched my idea (at the time) to study anthropology.

For about 7 hours, I strolled, drank too much coffee: bitter coffee, sweet coffee, free coffee; mused, watched, observed and moved from point to point. All the time watching particular individuals in the crowds. . .all of them so fascinating: People in the city so self-absorbed, but at the same time, so invisible. Some beg to stand out from the crowd -- distinctive "loud" clothing/piercings/tattoos -- loners begging for attention. Others so wrapped up in their little bubbles, conveying defiance with not wardrobe, but stride and mien.

Nighttime found me in a nearby motel. Looking back, I'm surprised that this particular downtown motel was not more expensive than it was at the time. Maybe the train station people with whom I spoke about my crappy travel agent took pity or fear of lawsuit (kidding) regardless, my overnight accommodations were decent and not very expensive.

* * *

The train arrived in Martinez, on schedule, later the next morning. Unforgettable, that place is. . . my "stop over" time there was a few good hours and likewise did I make the best of it. Only, instead of strolling the crowded mall or city streets, I strolled the quiet city sidewalks. . .

One of the things that rings distinctive in my mind is the Martinez thrift store. . . hundreds upon hundreds of thrift stores, all of them teeming with old antiques and artifacts from centuries aged.

The scent of the ocean becomes a familiar and sometimes unnoticed or taken-for-granted aspect of oceanside living. . . but those that don't live nearby or become accustomed never fail to notice or to become enchanted. Salt. Salt and H20.

Afternoon brought some dark clouds, fog, and a splattering of rain. The bus traipsed up and up -- up into the redwoods of Northern CA. I was overtly awake and worried.

Indeed, after three days of the journey, I could not help but feel anxious that I'd somehow miss the destination stop. . . that the travel would have been in vain. But eventually it came. . .the final destination on the end road-map: Eureka.