As soon as I saw it on the map, I knew my fate was sealed. There was really no question in my mind. About my need to visit, I mean. I had plenty of questions.
Why is the town called Booger Tree? Is there a specific tree for wiping boogers on? Is there a tree that LOOKS like it’s covered in boogers? Is there a tree that looks like a single monolithic booger? Stay tuned reader, and you may find out.
Traveling from Natural Bridge, whose provenance is in considerably less doubt, I turned from numbered state road to numbered state road until lady google told me to turn right on Booger Tree Road. She sounded uncharacteristically excited, as though it’s something she doesn’t get to say often. I know the feeling.
The rolling hills of Booger Tree Road are actually quite picturesque, in between the rotting corpses of houses built too recently to be so dilapidated without serious neglect. Some were collapsed now-im-mobile homes, with household objects poking out of the wounds of time and mystery.
Rolling hills offered pleasant views of tall yellow grass. Someone probably thinks it should be mowed. I know this because an enormous percentage of this country is mowed, mostly for unclear reasons. Grass is clearly the evolutionary winner, on account of whatever it did to convince humans to senselessly cultivate it.
The (usually) less-collapsed structures suggested some of those humans could be found inside, or on the porch, or in a chair in the middle of the yard. Mostly though, there were dogs. Collared but roaming, dutifully guarding the piece of dirt, or sometimes grass, their providers call home. So, too, do the PRIVATE PROPERTY and NO TRESPASSING signs protect the inhabitants from uninvited visitors.
I find these signs are most common among the poorest. Once they have three or four rusting vehicle husks and a good sized pile of broken televisions, they start to really worry someone is going to take them. Maybe, having so little, they cling to what they have. Maybe there’s a gang of garbage thieves about which I’m blissfully unaware, regularly casing the choicest piles of porch garbage, waiting to pounce the moment someone brings their dog inside.
Most of them were pretty chill, looking curiously at my “not from around here” vehicle as i passed. The people, and the dogs, I mean. One got so excited as I approached that he spun around three times before chasing me down the road till he made it to the edge of his domain. A Labrador, I mean. The dog kind, not the Canadian one.
There are also trees in Booger Tree.
I was hoping for a sign, or a Booger and/or Tree related amusement park. Or two competing families across the road, each claiming to have the One True Booger Tree, where one could examine the historic booger of George Washington, or pay a dollar to add a fresh booger and take a selfie.
Instead I found a whole lot of people clinging to the idea that Jesus, or the Confederate Army, or Donald Trump would lift them out of squalor, if they could only find the time. I’m sure one of them will be getting around to it any moment now.
Wary of the signs, and dogs, and lack of a safe place to pull over, the best I could do was flick a booger out the window.
H
Category: Travel
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Booger Tree
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Sedona day 3
In every location there is a people density below which mutual acknowledgement is required. Close to the parking lot we have achieved critical density to make interactions rare, but the crowds fall away as the trails diverge and the difficulty increases.
A kid about kindergarten age speeds past toward me, his feet desperately trying to find the pedals. His dad following behind, to me, “Ah! He recovered…” Then to him “Well done Mark!”An elderly woman rides a nice looking bike uphill. She’s loaded for bear, and it doesn’t look like it’s her first trip. Her bell sounds like a windchime.
The trail wraps around but I can see people above me and I wanted to find my own path. Shortly I mount a particularly prominent blob which calls out for sitting. If the sun were out it might not be ideal, but today it’s the right spot. I snack.
Dried banana tastes too much like banana in those pieces that didn’t get dried enough. I like bananas, but these fall into an uncanny valley.
Today I’m climbing Bell Mountain, the Hershey’s Kiss of the valley, a dollop of red pudding plopped into a lumpy cone. I can see the highway bridge again, though this time it points vaguely towards me.
I spent some time in a very pleasant conversation with a barefooted local before pushing up the slope, picking my route nearly randomly at distance but carefully up close. Micro and macro decisions don’t always align.
I’m far past the end of the trail now, heading up paths which exist despite the map. Mostly I’ve been finding my own path, sometimes zagging around one side of a giant stone blob, sometimes the other. In the last bit there seems to be only one viable route. I’m not at the official mountain top, but I’m on a lovely spire that doesn’t look like it will collapse soon, in human scale timelines. Probably.
I’m still very nervous about heights. I was never afraid of them until I visited the Grand Canyon about eight years ago. Something about the immense dropoffs was off putting, knowing that if I fell I’d have plenty of time to think about it on the way down. I’m not incapacitated by the fear, after all I have 270 degrees of view to the valley both far below and at the same time, three little feet from me. But it feels different now, my stomach trying to pull itself to safer altitudes through my ass, and my breath never fully caught.
I made my way down as I did up, with trails a vague suggestion. It’s important not to trample the dirt here, but there are plenty of rock surfaces to bound among. The trick is to avoid being rimrocked: unable to go either up or down safely. Interestingly I’m much more comfortable going down here, but there are places where you can’t see what’s next and avoiding those is my objective.
Across the small vallley I sit in a seat of power, a waterfall between two trees, only there’s no water today to carve the ledge. It’s the perfect height and has a backrest, and I’m facing the mountain I just climbed. I’m playing a game called “find the trail” since I’m far from the official route, but there are lots of options.
I feel alone on this mountain as I try to skirt it. And then I find a hair tie. Fortunately Sedona is very clean, very little trash, so I’m compelled to pick this up. I keep forgetting to bring a garbage bag.
Despite the traffic noise from a mile away, I can still hear people talking and crying on the other mountain. I’m far away but all the exposed rock reflects sound.
I didn’t get rimrocked but I got wrongrocked, unable to proceed without trampling the fragile crusty dirt and microorganism habitat. I loop back. The trail is below me, I need to find a safe way to descend. Fall lines are usually good, where the water slowly divides the mountain. Probably slick when wet, but that’s not today. Still the occasional puddle has tracks next to it. Any dirt there is thoroughly churned and undisturbed by my feet. Plus, plenty of rocks to hop, each slowly rolling toward the someday river.
I’ve made it down to the trail, the sting in my thigh telling me I strayed too close to something green and pointy.
This trail loops around the mountain and doesn’t go to the top of anything, so it’s not heavily traveled. I’d definitely be in the “must greet” range of the human density scale, but I’ve not been within a quarter mile of anyone for hours. Also, it’s getting late in the day again and I expect most have moved back into areas with running water and flush TVs.
It’s overcast today, so there will probably be no brilliant sunset, just increasingly darkening gray. I need to be mindful of the time again, though at least today I remembered my headlamp.
Here there is a large dome, a single blob of red, with rounded sheer sides and a row of eyes at the top. Its face flakes in thin sheets like the bark of the wizard trees below, revealing rawer red after sloughing lichen gray.
The trees begin to smell rain and I, in turn, them. The gray deepens. I choose the shorter tine of the fork.
The second mountain I ringed today is lately called the Courthouse Butte, and the trail I’m ending my hike with is called the Big Butte Loop, depending on who you ask.
I made it back to the the RV before the all-the-way dark.
H -
Cathedral Rock loop in Sedona.
I’m on a red promontory over an ocean of conifer green, speckled with patches of red rock and dust. This varies with height and slope till there’s only the occasional spot of green, some sturdy sunwashed succulent, sucking dropped dew from the rock it slowly splits.
A man chuffs his way past on a bike, chain whirring and gears clicking as he crosses the slabolisk framing the base of my view from Slim Shady trail.
“Do you remember this from the video?” A later biker says to their partner.
I move on, many miles to make today.
I watch them descend on their bikes and start thinking of the features I’d want on one. A bike bell that sounds like a windchime would be cool. Also kick-ass brakes and wide tires.
When I stretch my ankle across my shin my left knee pops out. I just learned a thing I can’t do anymore.
Left turn on the trail turns me into the sun. I adjust the tip of my hat and pull up my collar a little on that side. Onward.
Mountains are connected by lines of energy, the path becoming the path, drawn with feet and tread.
The next biker is going the other way, on only his fat rear wheel. Next “three behind” then “two behind” then “one behind” as they speed past, the rest all using the customary number of wheels. Makes sense who’s leading.
I’ve found another color. I’m overlooking the valley I was just circumwalking, the rolling hills topped with a carpet of bristling grass, or what passes for it in the desert.
Beyond I can now see the highway with cars full of people looking at me, and not knowing.
I learn the color of the wettest mud, and the drier, darker mud, deceptively chunkier with deep tread marks; it’s actually hard and has good traction.
The trail is very steep here, and crowded, with lines forming and operating, following the instructions of invisible traffic lights. I’m earning my views now, scrambling with hands and feet up the vee of the rock face.
I spent quite a bit of time sitting in the crotch between the two peaks at the end of the Cathedral rock trail. It had been a steep but relatively short climb, but I was sweaty all the same under my long sleeved wool hoodie. Leaving it on prevents flash cooling my skin, and it dries it out.
The wind felt great as I watched people take photos of each other on a ledge that looks perilous in photos. I waited for a while myself, behind a group of about a dozen Dutch students and some others from ASU, one of which was definitely a Malfoy.
I asked the guy behind me to take my pictures, since that seemed to be the most sensible protocol, and was followed by most before me. In part I chose him because he had a big camera and was talking about cameras with a friend of his. Sadly this was a mistake, as he took the most hilariously bad pictures possible, given the lighting and position. I almost waited in line again, but in a weird way I am more find of the ones I have.He broke the cardinal sin of shooting directly into the sun without knowing how, and also the sin of not knowing how. Pro tip: the lens needs to be shaded to avoid washing out the image. I do this with my finger frequently, if there is no handy tree. Put your finger somewhere easy to crop out in case you get a piece of it, which is sometimes impossible to avoid for given space-time coordinates and vectors.
Also sometimes it’s good to move somewhere else. Moving around lets your eye fall on different things in combinations with more or less Feng and/or Shui. The photos he took are devoid of either, and any of my normally visible facial features.
The wind picked up and the Dutch students started descending, and I realized it was my time as well. Heading back down was much easier than I had anticipated. It felt like skiing moguls of dusty rocks, scrambling like a spider made of human, butt over rock, supported by all four leg tips.
Rounding the end of the mountain and descending some switchbacks, the view quickly changes. A wet story is being told here, in a tongue of babble. Red rocks still, crashed among bare white barked trees, and well washed grasses gripping those rocks that made it to the river, during this chapter. The smell of animal drifts down a gully, currently dry.
Where it deepens I took off my shoes and waded to my ankles on the soft sandy bank. The cold cured me of any desire to swim in it today. I stuck my wool socks back on my wet feet and they warmed up in seconds, the small volume of the droplets a much easier mitochondrial challenge than that of the frigid flow.
Here in the shade on the back side of my afternoon challenge is a valley of ancient conifers, their gray bark peeling and flaking. These are Ent wizards. Red bark like raw flesh peeks from beneath the flaking scabs. Their bodies are swirled violently, a vortex of fiber, tips twisted into wands and staves of magic.
This one’s bulk lost a battle to insects long ago, but one edge has become a trunk of its own, like a tendon on a neck. It’s using its former tower as a guide, but becoming gnarled in the process, a heavy contrast with the conical spire of wooden insectorium. The living branches wrap like arms around an unwilling dance partner.
Realizing the impending sunset I pressed on. Realizing that I hadn’t looked at a topographical map, I climbed an unexpected mountain. It was a downhill-only double-black diamond trail. For bikes. I was going uphill and dodged a few experts. It would be perilous on a bike, with thousand foot drops punctuating miscalculation or bad luck. I had to press on after dark, which sped me up because it forced me to stop taking pictures.
Now to rest and recharge both phone and body.
H -
Sitting under trees in Sedona
Mountains live very long lives. They speak slowly. It’s tricky for us temporarily tenuous tidbits to tune in to their tales.
Unless we sit.
This is a really good place to sit down. This twisted tree has shaded many sits, here on this hill, just high enough to peek over the pines in the valley separating me from the hulking storytellers.
Their noses and toeses form spires, the places where the story has been told the most. The drama between them is heard in the choruses of crashing cascades and of frequent furious wind.
This spot affords a view the trail below, a great feature if your food crosses there. Today it’s hikers, though there is a distant rumbling sound that’s suspiciously similar to a purr. Stay tuned to find out if I get eaten.
Sign language must have been a big advantage to families of hunters, since it would give a younger brother means to annoy his elder without spooking the game.
“You’re so quiet, I didn’t see you.” Says the lady, whose husband walked their well behaved dog ahead of her, their matching canes clicking on the red rocks as they descend.
“There was no reason to make noise.”.
After a snack of dried orange slices and water, the sun told me to move on as the shade betrayed.
Only a few steps higher and I can see other trees, their dusty desert green telling today’s edition of one river’s tale and just where it pushes the valley lower.
A bigger tree frames a view of a broader valley, and inside it, crumbling columns of its former fibers explain its eventual end, as a source of shade. A dusting of finer powder indicates internal insect infestation. This tree, you see, is living in the “dead” part of its lifespan. It has shaded many.
Higher, rounding the corner, a chest-high platform becomes a seat, where yet more neighboring storytellers show steep sides scoured by wind, man, and the other animals. I don’t need rest but there is a shortage of perfect sitting spots and it would be a shame to waste this one.
Confident that it will be here on the way back down, I continue.
This hill should not be hurried.
It turns out it’s a stage and an altar in addition to being a work surface and sitting spot. There’s no sign, but, since I am one, I can tell how humans would use it. It would be a great place for proclaiming things, the tiers of round red platforms putting IMAX to shame, though admittedly with fewer cupholders.
The pareidolia, or the spirits, are strong here. I can see both valleys from the crotch between the spires, the mountain’s exposed rock sloping gently downward in all directions. Here stepped, there smooth.
I went walking among the mouths and mandibles of the speakers. The tongues of the Titans now left with gaping maws. That which was said was said and the evidence slowly slides down the sandy slope. The story takes a healthy toll.
I followed what are mostly game trails to a large rock spit like a watermelon seed from above, covered in tree seed hullls and near matching sandy bumps, stuck to the rock like pearls poured across it, silted in place. The stippled tongue of stories past.
Further, after the requisite sit, I found I had come to the end of my journey. An ancient tree, on top alive, verdant with tiny needles, underneath pointy with larger implements, curved daggers of itself, peeled away in layers by the forces of the mountain, the wind it makes, and the water it furtively guides, made for me a shelter, enclosed in its Schrodinger’s limbs. I sat, but not long. I’m starting to crave my own sustenance, not satisfied with water and Clif bars.
The end of a journey begins a new one.I decided to try climbing the spire. I got on top of the big head but decided I was too short to be comfortable getting back down, and the consequence of an error would be dire. Meanwhile the red dust kept reminding me that the red rocks are impermanent. The head will speak soon. Its spindly neck supported me, and ten thousand pounds of rock temporarily.
After furthering my attempt to sit under every tree on this mountain I decided to descend.
“If it’s negative and it does not serve you, let it go.” That was said by the man playing the recorder from this same peak earlier. Right now I’m continuing my practice of letting go of places I haven’t been, such as the peak of that spire. I judge the fear as not negative, and I feel it served me and my continued existence as an unmaimed part of the mountain’s story today. Meanwhile there are plenty of places to go, and a restaurant is one of them.
HIm
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Cottonwood
I keep meaning to write, and promising people I’ll write, and then not writing. I think the trouble at this point is that there is so much to say that I don’t know where to start. So, I guess I’ll start right now, which is as good a place as any, I suppose. I have the distinct advantage of not having any data coverage on either of my cellular networks, and it’s too early to go to sleep, so here I am. Of course I won’t be able to post this till later, but that’s the easy part.
Big Bend National Park has restrictions on boondocking, otherwise known as dispersed camping. That means even though the park is over a thousand square miles, I’m forced to find a spot in the limited campgrounds or “not camp.” There’s some curiosity around that definition, since the park doesn’t actually close, so in theory I could be stargazing by the side of the road and accidentally fall asleep. Although the regulations are pretty dumb, I’m doing what I can to abide by them, and so I rolled into Cottonwood park just before noon. Fortunately there were several spots available, and I claimed one by parking in it temporarily, leaving something in it during the day, and filling out the self serve envelope, into which I deposited $20, since I couldn’t come up with $14 without shaving down a krueggerand. Happy to have the spot, I locked my as-yet-unused camp chair to the picnic table and went for a walk.
I went down to the river, that being the Rio Grande, and found it to be at least River Pretty Big, at this point. I ate a sandwich I’d bought in the morning from two crunchy folks running what they call a French Grocery in the town of Marathon, where I spent last night. Marathon is also the home of the absurdly overpriced diesel fuel topping off my tank, and the White Buffalo Bar, a nice but snooty restaurant where I’d had dinner. It was one of those places where the waitress is overly helpful to the point that I felt rushed to vacate my table, the bones of my $27 chicken unpicked. It was the kind of place where you’re supposed to eat chicken with a fork, which I could tell because there were two of them and they were needlessly heavy. I was keen to move on anyway lest I end up in the newspaper for stabbing the elderly man at the next table in the eyeball, with a heavy fork, for advocating genocide against “all the injuns.” To her credit the mom at his table told the kids to pay no attention to their grandpa, but I do feel that a right good murder would have made a stronger point. Also, I’d left my good knife in the RV, and since I hadn’t ordered the $49 steak, I wasn’t provided with a scalping knife. Pity.
After my sandwich lunch I went for a walk along the river. The chalky powdered sand was broken up by hoofprints, clumps of tall sturdy reeds, and the charred remains of scrubby bushes. The reeds hadn’t been burned so the fire must have been a growing season ago or more. Across the river I saw some Mexican horses, on account of them being in Mexico. I was unable to distinguish their dialect.
Having had my fill of that, I returned to the RV and drove it to the westernmost end of the park. On the Mexican side of the river here there’s a prominent ridge overshadowing the river later in the day. In the morning when I drove into the park I’d seen a canyon clefting the ridge, and had mentally added it to my list of places to go. I hadn’t had time to build any sort of plan beyond making a beeline for the Cottonwood campground, once I’d heard from the ranger that all the reservable spots were… reserved, so I was pleasantly surprised when the western road led me directly to the cut I’d seen earlier.
In fact it’s called the Santa Elena Canyon, at least by those of us who don’t know how to say Canyon in Spanish. It’s the spot where the Rio Grande cut through the aforementioned mountain range, and therefore where the international boarder jogs southwest. There’s a trail which crosses Terlingua creek, on a gaggle of river stones, then precariously up and over a steep ridge. The trail is sufficient, but if you lost your step you’d slide swiftly into the shallow swale below, certainly sustaining serious injury. Past that point, the path proceeds placidly, with paved pediments preventing precarious plodding.
There’s an amazing array of tumbled boulders, imbued with the shells of ancient oceanic organisms in one layer, and ferrous fingers in others. Polished bulbuous greys with suspiciously plant shaped impressions contrast with sharp shards of shale and sandstone and quartz. In the steep canyon walls one can make these out barely, but up close among the crashed varietals the rocks invite close reckoning. I took lots of pictures, stuck my finger in the silty river and hit Mexico with a less interesting rock.
As I was leaving the sun was setting, so I set out for a side stop before settling in. The canyon was previously overlooked by two families, the Dorgans and the Subletts, as they tended their herds from high above the valley in adobe abodes. These survive in ruin, straw sticking out from stacked bricks, some exposed after the collapse of the coating. The wooden archways of the facade framed idyllic views in the failing light, as the warmth of the day rapidly receded. I took lots of pictures, trying mostly to capture the breadth of the sky, an impossible task, for a screen smaller than THAT.
As I returned to the RV I encountered a man and a rotting rig I’d passed in the morning as it puttered along. He is from Dallas and has been here nearly every winter around this time since the 60s. This explains the ancient RV, but more importantly he advised me to follow a long hiking loop to see a picturesque part of the park called the Basin. I’ll be getting up early and pushing hard all day to follow this track, but it correlates well with my guide, so I’m in. Besides what else have I got to do tomorrow but see what I can before I have to go find internet and get back to work?
I didn’t bring my actual backpacking pack, but I should have enough room in my 16L day pack for water, food and a few other things. He said it was 17 miles, which is more than I’ve ever done in a day, but there are a few ways to shorten it if needed. I’ll be waking up early to get to the ranger station when it opens. I need to buy some more portable and dense food, since I won’t have room for a stove to prepare the mountain House freeze dried packages. Worst case I’ll pack a bunch of peanut butter sandwiches, which will keep me from dying, at least in one way. I’ll drink a ton of water before I go and carry all I can. It’s not hot out at all, so I feel like I will be ok.
Supposedly there is WiFi at the ranger station, so I’ll post this then. Meanwhile I need to sort out dinner and get to sleep early.
Happy New year!
H
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StaRV
Short flight so this will just be a short catch up.
I drove the RV down from my home in Massachusetts last Tuesday night. I started Tuesday because Wednesday was the day before Thanksgiving and a notoriously bad travel day. I made it to the second rest area on the new Jersey turnpike, having accomplished my target of getting past the Hudson River, and sleeping less than 100 yards from the world’s worst hot dog. It rhymes with Schmathan’s.
The next day the drive was pretty good, though I broke one law for sure and maybe another. I went through the Baltimore harbor tunnel, not realizing the propane tank on my RV precludes that route. Apparently propane tanks are banned from most tunnels because propane is heavier than air and it would settle in and never leave. There are different rules in some tunnels but most have some restrictions. Live (thankfully) and learn I guess.
The other probable transgression was the commuter lane bypassing traffic between DC and Richmond. It had digital signs and mentioned a hefty toll but no specific HOV restrictions. My only other passenger was a Batfrog, and I don’t think stuffed cryptids count. I was very happy to be in that lane, as the main road was backed up for many miles.
Regardless I remain uncaught, which is just as good as being innocent, if you believe the GOP defense of tRump. If caught I could just draw a passenger in with a sharpie anyway.
This flight is 53 minutes, according to the captain, who probably should be believed, no matter what Jim Jordan might have to say about it. A short hop in a CRJ200, which I think is the thumb-destroying model that took me to Paducah. It has, if you recall, overhead bins the size of a preteen girl’s jeans pockets. This time though I was ready with my sleek backpack, which is four rows ahead over aisle 7, because I’m back in group FU, aka Basic.
Strange though that on this flight I am allowed a carry-on plus a personal item, vs the last time in Delta Basic when I wasn’t. My bagception works well regardless. The turducken of bags, a sil nylon Matador 16L inside the svelte outside bag. The Matador holds what I would use in the plane, and slips easily in and out of the back pocket of the bigger bag. Even the bigger one, a Timbuk2 Jet is still quite small, at 30 liters, and will fit under airline seats which don’t have some obstruction underneath, such as a video entertainment system or Rudy Giuliani. I pack light.
40 minutes left, as the surprisingly well distributed eastern seaboard lights slide beneath me. I think it’s because the air is clear and I can see any dim light rather than only cities. It looks a bit like the sky is reflected by the ground. I took a photo but airplane pictures never match what I see with my eyes.
Really remarkable, eyes. Too big a subject probably for 36 minutes, but I’ll try. Every square millimeter, and most round ones, are awash in an immeasurable spectrum of electromagnetic waves. Anyhow you look you find them, though only those that wiggle to particular tunes twiddle our optical meat enough to tease meaning out of darkness unaided.
Each photon of light is both unique and the same. Predictable but chaotic, for years counted dozens to billions, a wave state has propagated in your direction. Other directions too, nearly all of them, space being what it is, empty to a rounding error. To the entire universe, eventually, subject to light cones and the backs of too-tall heads at concerts. All other light from all other things as well, bounces, stumbles and gravitically lenses in your direction, to be bent again, inverted and focused on a nerve built for the purpose. If you don’t blink.
A few faint photons fallen from firey furnaces flit frantically for you alone, or no one, ever. Our opportunity to observe optical oscillations opens only for us. Big brains bask beneath balls of brilliant burning brimstone, alone. Look up.
Told you it was a short flight.
H
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Nothing in Particular
I don’t really have a topic in mind that I want to talk about. I have plenty on my mind, but I don’t think I’m ready to talk about that yet.
I’m flying again, back to Atlanta for one night. I’m already regretting not making it two, but I made my decision some time ago and past-me must have had his reasons. I’m flying for business, slowly racking up points on JetBlue. I seem to hate them less than most others. Today so far the only annoyance is a TV that won’t work and also won’t turn off. It has some sort of seizure inducing flicker instead, presaging the chaotic heat death of the universe in a low res LCD. I won’t live that long, even if I succeed in uploading my consciousness to the cloud. Meanwhile to keep my meat brain from shorting the fuck out I’ve made good use of the snack menu as a sanity shield. Left neighbor’s is off, but right neighbor’s suffers the same fate… Passed my persuade check and that one is covered too now. Bonus: he suggested taking a picture and asking JetBlue for a voucher for my troubles. I’m sure my pull as a blogger will help… I have practically tens of readers.
Flights are usually not stressful to me once I get to the gate. Prior to that I am a stress ball for more than a day. I lose track of time easily and being late for a plane has annoying consequences. Today was worse because I cut it close, arriving less than an hour before takeoff. Mostly because I decided to visit the Renaissance Faire to support my friend who had written a book they were showing. Also, to see some friends who were visiting and others working there. I arrived less than an hour before I had to leave, but it wasn’t my first trip this year so it was ok. It helped that I was in the RV and I just camped out in their parking lot after arriving last night, but I had some work to do when I woke up that delayed my entry.
Before that was a mostly unhurried trip up from rural Pennsylvania, which I can confirm was a right good choice for William Penn. There I visited a couple of friends who I seem to see once a year on this same weekend, ever since they moved.
Continuing my reverse chronology, that was but a short jaunt from the instigation of my travel: another game convention weekend. This one was Traveller Con USA, to distinguish it from the one in the UK, where the extra L comes from. It’s a small one, something around 65 people, but tightly focused on a single game. Three guesses what it’s called. As a small convention it’s easy to get to know people from year to year. As people arrived Thursday night our table at the bar was repeatedly extended amid flurries of good natured razzing. It’s like coming home to a house of 20 older brothers, each with stories to tell from the past year.
Now that I’ve reached the end of the beginning I’ll return to the middle: the games. They’re all four hour slots, and there are two Friday, with 1 to 5 being open and unscheduled gaming and 7 to 11 the first scheduled one. Saturday has three slots and Sunday has one. Last year during the open slot I ran a pickup game of Scum and Villainy in a Traveller setting. This year I played in a game a friend ran wherein we were stranded in space and had to mine fuel to rescue ourselves before our life support ran out.
I just realized I skipped the explanation of Traveller, but I’m pretty sure everyone reading this has been in proximity to me for more than a few hours, during which it is highly likely I’ve already explained it ad nauseum. If not, ask me sometime you have a few hours to spare. Maybe I’ll write about that specifically sometime.
Throughout the day I was distracted by my need to finish planning the game I was running Saturday at 08:00. I had done 80% of the mental effort, that of creating the character concepts and their interrelationships, and 20% of the administrative work, which consists of making standees, character sheets and actually writing some stuff down. In the end the worry paid off, as it tends to, when and only when it’s directed towards productivity.
Many people struggle with anxiety and worry, but it’s important to understand that it is perfectly healthy in moderation. My brain was trying to tell me something important. It wasn’t dangerous in any physical sense, but an RPG is a collaborative story, and the GM is the hub on which the spokes are attached. I don’t have to be the whole wheel, but we won’t roll if I don’t do my part. My brain was reminding me that I wasn’t done with my commitment to my players, and the worry was a result. It was right, in that if I hadn’t heeded the warning it wouldn’t have been nearly as good. So, thanks brain for making me spend the effort.
I find thanking my brain helps a lot. It reminds me of my friend who thanks her dog when it barks in alarm at a noise outside. It’s a productive way to acknowledge the value of the signal, even when it’s not needed. Once acknowledged the dog and the anxiety are often silenced. The trick is to learn how to recognize whether our own intrusive thoughts are valuable in the moment.
For example I could be stressed out right now, sitting in my sky chair. I could start with the simple understanding that gravity spends every waking moment trying to squash me into the Earth. I could wonder whether the engines are as functional as the TVs. I could think about hijackings or lightning. I could make myself miserable every moment of every day if I wanted to. Instead I work very hard not to choose that misery. It doesn’t always work, but it does more than it doesn’t, and since life is just a series of moments spending more of them unmiserable is winning.
This bit here is Buddhism, or whatever you want to call it, since nothing he said wasn’t said by someone else at some point. I find it easier to hold on to when it’s labeled, but when held lightly it can be seen everywhere namelessly. So, lightly then and without labels I’ll continue.
Some of you may be asking how. How to stop thinking the thoughts that make us miserable? Well you can’t stop, so step one is acknowledging THAT. That’s a hard thing to swallow, but it’s actually good news. It turns out our brains are a cacophony of voices, thoughts, ideas and distractions, and that’s OK. So step one is accepting that you’re a weird twisted temporary lump of goo powered by chaotic flickers of electrons. You’re ok.
You have the thought, the impulse, the fear and… then what? What do you do next? Do you yell loudly at the barking dog in your head? Take a guess what effect that has. Chemically it’s a cocktail, but the brain bartender reaches for the cortisol first. Cortisol: The preferred cordial of fighters and flighters everywhere, guaranteed to get you out of a jam, in .04% of situations! Step right up everyone and chug the anti-rampaging-wild-boar drink, it goes great with confined spaces like airplane seats!
On second thought, maybe try to save that drink for when you need it. If you have accidentally imbibed, it’s hard to step off the ride, but you sure can’t do it by drinking more. I find that looking at my body as though I wasn’t piloting it helps. Oh look! That guy is clenching his jaw, and tensing his fists and hey… It looks like he’s getting ready to fight a boar! The good news is that cortisol peaks only take about ninety seconds to clear out, but only if you don’t have another swig. So once I am aware of what I’m doing physically I just change that. Deep breath, unclench, de-boar. It turns out that changing the physical response usually short circuits the chemical cycle. And then I say thanks to my brain for practicing boar defense protocols, which could be really damn important some day. This too is Buddhism but that also doesn’t matter.
Ok but what if there is a boar? Or really what if we don’t know whether or not there is? That’s when we have a conversation with ourselves. It helps to have a script, since cortisol is a hell of a drug.
- Is this real?
- Is this now?
- Is there anything I can do NOW to change this NOW, or have a measurable impact on a likely future NOW?
So, first: Can I see, smell or touch a boar at this moment? Did someone I trust just inform me of any imminent boar attack? Did they sound serious, or did I just arrive at a game convention?
Second: Is this a thing happening now, or is it just leftover boar tracks? Am I just remembering something? Am I simply listening to a story my brain made up? Maybe one it’s told me before? Would an objective observer, undosed by the bartender, scream at the movie screen that I should run for it?
Third: What, in all seriousness, can I do at this moment to deal with the boar situation? Can I spend my time making a spear? Building an anti-boar fence? Buying an automatic anti-boar-invasion machine gun? Don’t answer that one.
What about the plane crash, is there actually anything I can do? Yeah, turns out there is, and the flight crew instructs you about it every time you get on a plane. Do you listen? I do, and I count rows to the nearest exit. Plus, I keep my shoes on, my feet on the floor, my head back, and my seatbelt tight during takeoff and landing. That’s all I’ve figured out, feel free to let me know if you have other ideas. Once I’ve done all I can do I thank my brain for working to protect me and then I pull out my phone to write to you. Or read a book or listen to a podcast, or otherwise do anything else at all but pointlessly fuck up the next few hours of my life drinking cortisol cocktails. There are a million ways I could die today, the plane is just the one most likely to make the evening news.
Behind me a child has a meltdown, because his sister closed the window thwarting his airborne boar defense. Ten minutes of screaming and sobbing later and he’s back to his video game. Pictures of boars are less scary when you can hit them with pictures of Spears. (Google capitalized that and I’m leaving it in, in support of her own famous meltdown. Rich beautiful young women are probably surrounded by hundreds of vipers and boars. We don’t often see them, but they do. I don’t blame her in the slightest. )
Engines spooling down,
Gravity begins to win,
Probably safely.Quick apology,
Sister forgives his outburst,
Crisis averted.Still no sign of boar.
H
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On the Subject of Airplanes
Probably that’s what this will be about. I’m as anxious to see how it turns out as you are. Probably moreso.
Anyway, away I go to Seattle again, to visit friendly faces and places and eat tacos. I’m certain there will be tacos.
I made it, to the flight, not the tacos, lobster sliders notwithstanding. To go, those, which is a lesser experience, but still I’m the only one on this plane who is eating giant fucking lobster claws hanging out of buttery, well-toasted buns, with a side of steak fries. We’re all on the same flight, but mine’s the best so far.
(I had to manually enter the apostrophe in the last sentence. (The second one.))
Or was. Eating lobster. ok? I lied up there. I’m writing this from after the fact. From the future. Not in the present despite the tense. I am on a jet after all, which is pretty futuristic. Flying though the air. Not falling. (Spoilers.) Super earthius. Superterran. Above lesser mortals.
Canned.
Centrally located over the wings, where they keep the fuel and engines.
Which is the heavy part, of course. The heaviest kept with the heaviest, clustering the center of mass over the center of lift.
These few rows only are full, of the plebes among the superterran social class. And me. Most of the customers crammed in the “Basic” section.
Is it a caste when it’s not cast? It feels like it, when walking past the squishy seats, but I suppose it’s a choice, to associate with our fellow frugalites. Our temporary social group.
It would be difficult to maintain a social organism solely of those aloft, excepting, of course, pilots who talk to each other on the airwaves we licensed them. And the flight crew who Downton their flying Abbeys, surely. ( which Google tried to incorrectly apostrophize.) Or so I imagine.
…Or it’s Abbies. Or Abbiezes.
Afterward, attend abord another airplane. Serial bottle episodes of suborbital intrigue.
Except most of the dialogue consists of asking people what kind of chips they would like.
I couldn’t decide, so I got both. Cheezits and a granola bar. I’m flying to Seattle, I’m pretty sure it’s a local ordinance to always have a granola bar handy. Preferably in some sort of holster or readily accessible pouch.
I got ice, which is fine, but also increases my risk profile with regard to this trip. Not a lot, but the ice could have mold or something. Probably lower on the list than the tons of fuel jiggling us between itself. On a long flight especially, the heaving fuel tanks are mostly what the engines are carrying through the air, we’re just along for the ride.
Apparently it’s not turbulence. The captain just called it “unexpected rough air.” I wonder if that’s policy now or just his own phrasing.
The cheezits were a mistake. 0% Maksa. Dusty crumbly air, hinting that once, long ago, it had been in the same room as cheese.
It’s unfair to judge them on the cheezeit to buttered lobster scale. Sadly for them, the C2BLS, as it’s known to scientists in the EU, is very punishing to the dry cracker end of the scale. If it were judged among its peers the rectangular orange thing would rise to a fair middle. Or less when the third judge tries putting lobster on them. A Mendoza-line-dwelling cracker among those flights where people eat lobster. Spoiler: I’m the only judge.
The granola is a Kind bar. I don’t know what kind, because it was dark and the font is small and I couldn’t read it more than I could care what kind it is.
I’ll report back later.
This flight is to Minneapolis, which Google remembered how to spell. I’d have gotten close anyway. I’m no Alice Cooper.
[Edit: I realized after I published this that I totally fucked this up in several ways, but I can’t fix it without fucking it up more. Oops. Such is the nature of my writing. ]
For those of you who got that reference, you’re awesome for validating my childhood memories by also remembering them. For those of you who didn’t, a Cooper is someone who makes barrels.
I have a layover (still different from an overlay) there. I don’t have to tell you this because that’s the only reason anyone goes to Minneapolis. (Shout out to my Milwaukee peeps!)
Just kidding; I literally know nothing and no one there that Alice Cooper didn’t introduce me to.
Ok, I know a few things, like there’s an airport, for one. And probably lots of very fine people.
I think
Google assistant on Android needs Gboard. I tried to set a reminder, but it wouldn’t without WiFi. Ok Google, report a bug. I was going to type that into their bug reporting interface. But there isn’t one. Also the keyboard is literally the worst. It would be nice if Google would use the keyboard from this new startup I heard of called Google. It’s on the app store, er, I mean the “Play Store”. Stupid name, Google. (P.s. hire me)
I’ve spent a lot of time making a lot of money for other people, in exchange for not dying. Literally that is where we are as a society. We are letting people die of diabetes and other preventable diseases because they can’t prove to someone they have surplus value. The self sufficient are driven off the land. Where they built the airport. I learned that from Alice Cooper while he was standing on a rock.
Or, they’re driven out of the woods, or their tent on the street, where they need less, but not nothing. Maslow knows why crime grows among those. Your nose knows too, as it turns away from them, so as not to also point your eyes at them. Them that need the most help. Them.
And I too do, unpoint my nose at them. Because, like you, I’m afraid of them.
I’m afraid of you too. In varying degrees from Manson to Mom. (M2M according to NATO treaty and HIPPA regulations.) Because we’re a terrifying, brutal, blood-soaked species of ape. Apex Apes. Angry finger waggling, forehead wrinkling, capillary busting, teeth baring, weapon inventing apes. Dangerous because also afraid.
It’s not just you.
It’s all of you, with your easy to infect social memecosphere. The memosphere. Memes are really what we are. Ideas exchanged. Individuals coopted, reprogrammed to repeat. To consume and produce. From crock pot to crusade.
It’s not a bad thing, it’s just a symptom of our vulnerability to code drift and descent into fragmentation, each neuron slightly differently timed and tuned. A wave of human in electrical form. An orchestral ocean of organic -ones (and -ines and -amines) squozen on either end by neural oozing.
You, know, every day stuff.
And all your stuff has to work right or you’ll die. Even the exoskeleton we’ve built around us, our oxygen pumps, our jet engines, our internet interface, our power. If you can pay for it, of course. If you have enough working stuff to extract more stuff. And you have to have enough stuff that you don’t get arrested for being stuffless while the government decides whether or not your kids get sick because you can’t afford to get out of Flynt.
Let them drink Coke?
Taking care of each other is what makes us human. Sharing our ideas to reprogram each other a little. The problem is when the program hurts the host. When the meme is malignant. A twisted-off piece of the overall organism, a ball of bile and bad things, an infection of intellection. A handful of hate.
Handed at arm’s length, but still taken,
if often involuntarily,
imaged in arc-bright advertising light
Neurons following the program.
Program.
Interrupting introspection.
…
Landing, will try to post during my layover.
Share the best bits of yourself with each other, please?
H
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Returning
Backwards again, only this time on a train by the name of MARTA. Quick trip across the city, direction not withstanding.
…
It’s slightly weird watching people board after and behind you when you’re already on the plane. I normally don’t go for the upgraded seats, since I have tiny legs, but I wanted a window seat and the money man said he’d approve it. I feel pretty justified after yesterday. Also I already read the exit row card, and I think I have the emergency procedures covered if necessary, so I feel good about that. It’s not first class but I’m not complaining. I doubt I’ll ever fly first class. I saw the first class seats on my flight to India and they were nice, but the price difference was insane. I someone told me they would pay me nine thousand dollars to sit in an uncomfortable seat for 18 hours I’d do that every day. In this case it’s thirty bucks, and it’s not my money, so I’m in.
Landed already. Time passes differently in varied cases, and in this case I had a case of writeus interruptus, on account of a very pleasant conversation with a flight attendant from another airline, heading to Boston to meet friends and enjoy a bachelorette redux. For me this means my night was enriched, and for you this means less writing from me. Such is the nature of things which are bound by human energy. The flight went quickly and smoothly and I learned quite a bit about the airline industry and her experience therein. Also, beaver butt goo.
Her regrets included staying in uniform, since it prevented her from having a glass of wine. I told her she was in charge if I had to operate the exit door, and fortunately neither of us were called on to affect an evacuation. I had no regrets.
Today was overall good, in as much as a day can be, marching on as they do indifferent to the various organisms along for the ride. I finished another major milestone in an ongoing project and had a tasty burger, worthy of the affection of Jules Winnfield, whose name I just had to look up. With internet access my writing is different. I’m not sure I like that.
Anyhoo, it’s driving time, and then sleep time and then work time, so it’s bye time.
Bye -
Adventures with a microphone
Kill. Ing. It.
I had my big client meeting today, after months of preparation. Our last one wasn’t good, but this one went well largely due to hard work by our team. I knew I was going to present the slides, but what I didn’t fully anticipate was the size of the audience. I’m generally ok in small groups but I get really nervous if I feel like I’m “on stage” or even thinking about being there.
So, there I was in the gaping maw of the 40 person conference desk, in front of giant screens with slides I’d revised twenty times clutching a microphone to my chest and trying to act like I’ve done any of it before. I did an internal dry run last Friday and it was awkward and horrible. And I was nervous as hell.
Just before I walked up though I pondered what my chances were of being eaten by a puma, and decided I’d be ok.
And I was. [Spoiler: not puma-eaten]
Sure I was still nervous and my voice wavered a couple times, and when I handed off the microphone it was a slippery mess, but I did it anyway. I answered some questions, dealt with some curve balls and when I sat down our company was in a far better position than when I had started. Great success.
Afterwards one of the client’s engineers asked me for some time. He said I’d been recommended, and asked if I could work my magic on his team too. We sat down in front of our screens and hashed out a couple of problems, and he went home feeling like we are on the right track. Another huge win.
At the moment I’m doing my nudist Mr. Rogers routine in the hotel, taking a break from my clothes before I head out to dinner. I don’t have a sweater to change into, but the mindset is the same I think. A fabrical gear shift, a reset of the mind, a leaving behind of the past, a rebirth into a new moment. I don’t ascribe to the mechanics of reincarnation, in the traditional sense, but I’m fully in board with the idea of rebirth into opportunity. Each day, and indeed each moment is a chance to decide again who we would be, so that we may do what we must to get there. To construct ourselves intentionally. To become by deciding to be. To make, with effort often, a new organism unbound by prior definitions. To be someone who is pretty OK at presenting to a group, and didn’t even drop the microphone once. Try changing your socks.
Off to find calories to keep my brain meat running.H