Even in winter

Terry Tempest Williams writes, "Even in winter, these wetlands nourish me."

She's at the Moab Slough in Utah, but I immediately think of the Lake. I miss the Lake, every day, even now in winter—so much so that it's like the weight of missing a person. I went to the Lake in winter to feel rejuvenated, to find beauty in winter through endless snow, through biting cold, through two-hour commutes and dark afternoons and dread, dread, dread. Then I took a picture of the ice sheets, glass panes, and ice cliffs and incredible stillness, and the dread fell off like a flake of snow. The Lake nourished me in all seasons, but winter was striking.

The winter here is very different. It's like a cold spring, a continual end-of-winter. I miss the Lake, but yesterday I went to the woods to feel nourished. It had been a while since I'd been in the woods, on a hike. Paris Mountain is just fifteen minutes from my house. It's no Blue Ridge, but what it lacks in scenery it makes up for in closeness. I feel at home in the woods, away from a job that gives me knots in my stomach, where I don't fit in, away from the thought that all my friends are so far away. In the woods I have the trees and, at least in winter, the moss and mushrooms and the unwavering sound of a thread-like stream that somehow twice weaves its way across the trail, miles and directions apart. The trees are like friends, constant and kind.

The woods in winter are of course a palette of grays and browns, but if you look closer/beyond you will see the color of winter. The earthy green moss on a wet, dead trunk, the electric yellow moss of a rock, the orange mushrooms sprouting from rotting logs, far off the trail where only those who see may happen upon them.

And then, like Terry Tempest Williams, "I find myself being mentored by the land once again."

Update

Hey, y'all! I guess I might could post pictures of my new apartment and CAT, Smitty. I'm fixin' to start a real nice cat family. So, what else is new, you might could ask? When I'm not working for The Man I like to relax in front of the TV Guide Channel watching such programs as American Idol's Sexiest Contestants and Just Shoot Me. Since when did the TV Guide Channel become a real channel? I don't know, but I am on board.

The South

So get this: today at work they updated their phone tree for "snow days," in case they decide to close the office. BAAAHAHAHAHA! CUT TO: a year ago, I'm driving the two and a half hours home from work in five feet of snow going 4 miles per hour down the freeway, sobbing, with a full bladder, trying to decide between peeing in my coffee canister porta john or just peeing in my pants.

Nawleans

So I think the New Orleans fog has finally lifted from my mind grapes. That city is exhausting! Because it makes you drink! A LOT! How can you say no to a 3 for 1? Four times?

I got there at 8:30am on Wednesday, because I left here at 5:30am, because I got up at 3am. I was on a flight by myself and everyone else arrived hours later. It was too early to check into my hotel room, so I went to the convention center and helped the guys set up the booth and, like, zombie-stacked shit on tables for a couple hours while dying inside. After my roommate showed up and we checked into our hotel room, we met up with our other coworker, the photographer, and the three of us hung out for the rest of the day. He had been there a few times before, so he was our tour guide. We had lunch in the French Quarter and I ate alligator, gumbo, and started my day of drinking with a hurricane. We walked around the city taking pictures, stopped in a few bars, took our beers with us, BECAUSE YOU CAN DO THAT, and ended up at the cemetery where Madame Laveau is buried. But it was closed, so we couldn't get in. My coworkers hoisted me up on the wall/cupped my ass to get some pictures, and I climbed up on another wall where there was a missing brick for a foot hole. I wish we had been able to go in.

We left the cemetery and were walking around on Bourbon Street, trying to find a good place to duck into, when we came upon the red light part of town and my female coworker pulled us into a classy strip club called Lipstixx that showed the girls' silhouettes in the window. This was at around 5:30pm. I was like, "Oh god, oh god." We sat at a table far enough away from the stage, and five minutes later we were joined by this totally wasted stripper who also had fangs. She was a hot mess. She explained her fangs—that some nice gentleman had them custom made for her—and she popped them out and, I can't remember if she was missing teeth, but I'm just gonna go ahead and assume she was. Then when it was her turn to "dance," she was totally stumbling around and hitting her head on the pole, and when she reached behind her to remove her top, and her eye lids were at half mast and it was taking her a good two minutes to unhook herself, we were like, "We gotta get out of here."

The rest of the night is a little hazy, but I know we ate dinner at Acme Oyster House—waited in a long line, and sat at the bar. I had a dozen oysters and I don't even like oysters. But you're in New Orleans, so just do it. At one point my coworker and I bought feather masks and wore them to the final bar of the night, where the rest of our group was. That was a good day. The next day, when I had to work all day, was not such a good day.

I felt exhausted and foggy for the rest of the trip. New Orleans is an exhausting city, but you leave feeling like you've gotten an adventureful. It's at once crazy and beautiful and rough and intriguing—and sated, with culture and stories and good interesting foods, but mostly with booze. I would go back.

New Job

I survived my first week at New Job. I think it's going pretty well, and it's super fun to be one of the only northerners there. It's also really fun to pee in Africa every day (or more realistically, every thirty minutes), since I've never been there before. Hope I don't get malaria from the toilet seat. Jay kay, you know I'm a squatter. TMI?

New Job is also sending me to New Orleans next week for the ASHA convention (American Speech-Language Hearing Association). I KNOW, I can't believe it. I've never been there. And I've never been on a business trip. Wait, how do I act on a business trip? Do I drink more than normal? Do I drink more than normal, then hit on all of my coworkers? At the same time? I just don't know! Oh well, I'm a professional lady, I'll figure it out. I also have no idea what I'll be doing there.

My new roommate and I are getting along famously. We have a lot in common, like having a glass of wine after work and all our TV shows I make her watch. I even cooked us dinner the other night by adding mushrooms and wine to a jar of pasta sauce, which is TOTALLY COOKING! It's so fun to be lady bachelors together. We laugh and laugh and braid each other's hair and then cry.

This weekend I went back to Black Mountain to get more stuff and to finish cleaning someone's house I'd been cleaning before I got a real job. Girl, I was getting very close to scary-poor. I've been paying for COBRA every month, which is expensive, especially if, oh, I don't know, you don't have a job. I'd been working very part-time this summer at Creston with Gary the groundskeeper, doing things like weed wacking and hedge trimming. It wasn't so bad—I got a farmer's tan, got a good workout, and Gary taught me how to speak country. But that ended with the summer and I was left to sell shit on eBay just to get enough money for COBRA. So New Job couldn't have come at a more pressing time.

This weekend I also went to a seance. Because I'm 12. Apparently there's a ghost at the humane society, and Eric's coworker's mom is apparently a medium. So Eric asked me if I wanted to go to a ghost hunt last night and I was all, "Yeah, that sounds weird enough, I'm in." The medium had cameras set up and some sort of ghost reader and night-vision goggles. And we had a seance where we had to sit around a table in candle light and hold hands. It. was. awesome/weird. I felt like I was in Now & Then. We didn't end up seeing or hearing any ghost activity, but APPARENTLY they can review the video tapes and see things that we didn't notice at the time. Allegedly.

Greenville

GOD I hope this is it for a while. My blog header is getting so long it wouldn't fit.

I had an interview with a company in Greenville, South Carolina on Friday and they hired me on the spot, for a job I hadn't even applied for and didn't know was an option—editor. And I start tomorrow. The company makes publications and learning products for kids with special needs. I don't want to say too much in fear of jinxing myself or them reading this, but I will say that it's in a castle and that all the meeting rooms and bathrooms are heavily decorated in themes. So, for example, I can pee in Africa and poop in a moose lodge all in the same day, in a castle.

I'm actually going to be staying with my dear auntie in Simpsonville before I can find/afford an apartment. My cousin just moved out a couple weeks ago and now I'm moving in! Hahahaaaa she'll never have a break. So today I'm moving some stuff into her house. It's a whirlwind!

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