Good morning! Hello there. Greetings from Raven Landing, Fairbanks, Alaska, for the last time this trip. Also it is barely morning here, so almost certainly not morning where you are. Apologies. Had a lot to do this morning. Mom doesn’t eat enough so Aunt Bonnie told me she likes mixed nuts without peanuts, so I bought a bunch of them for her and now she’s munching on them and I feel like I contributed to some good in this world.
Also you wanna hear something heartbreaking? There are a bunch of scars in my mom’s LVP (luxury vinyl plank flooring) where it was all messed up from my dad’s hospital bed during his hospice care. And my mom has rearranged the room so that it is, for some reason, right in front of where she sits. This was accidental. But now she keeps asking to have it covered up by this carpet. Like she doesn’t want to have to look at this constant reminder of her husband of 50+ years passing right in the room she’s sitting. But she doesn’t want the room rearranged.
That’s some intense shit right there.
Also there was this amazing vase made out of a birch tree in my hotel room and I loved it and it was made, unsurprisingly in retrospect, at the venerable Great Alaskan Bowl Company, so I ran over there and bought a birch tree vase. They are really nice.
Then I had to get another one of those delicious breakfast burritos from the little burrito hut drive through my sister took me to the first morning I was here.
Then I had to go to the Good Cannabis company because Harper told me they home-make their gummies in-house and well I need to try some of those. We’ll see about getting them home.
Then I went to the post office to mail home three more copies of my Uncle Jack’s magnum Opus, True North in Alaska: Memories of Indians, Eskimos Bush Pilots and Us. It really is a stunning read. And there aren’t many copies left. I got the master files from Jack and some day, when I have a bit of free time, I will be making a second edition, including a digital edition and a two-volume large-print edition, but it is going to be a few years and right now the book is pretty hard to find so I am excited to get a few more copies.
I also mailed home a giant pair of scissors that my mom gave me that have been laying around in her house since I was a child. Emily Taylor would be very excited. Going to drop ‘em in some Evapo-Rust and then sharpen ‘em. up.
Evapo-Rust. That shit rules.
You know what else rules? KSUA. Man. It is so good. I am so proud of this. I’ve been listening to it the whole trip and everything is good. The death metal, the post rock, the polkas, the jazz, the protest music, the political commentary, just all so, so good. I’ve not recognized a single song and I’ve loved almost all of it. There was a guy talking today about how its been twenty years and KSUA is still standing and it’s not going anywhere and I felt so good about it. A real thing to have contributed to the world. I hope people in Fairbanks listen to KSUA all the time. Man. What a gem.
My friend Ryan told me he is slowly deleting his tweets one by one, using the Twitter advanced search functionality and searching for a narrow date range, going through them all, then searching for the next two-week-or-so period. It struck me as extremelyup my alley, and I’ve been meaning to delete my old Tweets for a long time. SO I started back in 2008 and I am up to 2013 now, deleting them one-by-one as I sit here with my mom. It’s a great trip down memory lane, a F-U to Elon Musk, and a useful internet privacy action all in one. Strong recommend.
Val had a birthday bonfire last night and it was lovely. Well, the ground was wet and there was poop snow, but the people were lovely. Saw my old friend Kristen, whom I’ve basically known since she was born, and my old friend Harper, who I’ve known since the 80’s. And his wife. It was great. Met a bunch of Val’s other friends. My cousin Laura and aunt Bonnie came. And it all ended at 9 and was very civilized. It was just great.
Then back to the hotel for more Youtube and my Chinese sci-fi show which is not good but the plot — from a book (The Three Body Problem) I love so much — is great so I just keep watching and I am very happy about it and I am like the only person in America watching it and that’s just fine. Game of Thrones guys are remaking it for American TV and I am worried they’ll westernize it which will be sad. I hope they do not do that. I also hope that they keep the time period around 2007 or so because there is not enough fiction that takes place in early mobile internet, pre-iPhone days when shit was interesting. I guess Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge, actually I should read that again. But yeah I worry that Benihoff and Weiss (I am not going to google them apologies for the misspellings) will make it all American and modern and that will be a huge bummer. Because it seems like you could just change the nationalities but you can’t because the plot is so intertwined with Chinese history that in the end it would be a major re-write.
Heading home tonight (and not getting home till tomorrow evening oof). When you next hear from me, I will be home. I will miss Fairbanks. I mean, no, not really, but there are some great things. I am very into the 11 PM sunset that’s going on right now. I’m very into the fact that sunset is, like, three hours long, that is amazing and beautiful.
Not so into the pollution, though. No EVs, like I said. It feels like it shouldn’t make a difference, but.. I really smell exhaust up here everywhere in a way I don’t in equally-rural/urban North Carolina. Came across this interesting map the other day - changes in pollution in the last six years. This, at least, bears out my theory a bit.
Also, lots of people still smoke here. Weird.
It’s coming up on 5PM on the east coast. Another hour or two and my coworkers will be winding down for the weekend. And I’ll have a whole day still. That’ll be nice.
I think my mom just wandered off to take a nap.
Anyway, thank you all for bearing with me on this chaotic travel week. Looking forward to my routines again I am an old man I love my routines.
Last of the nostalgia mixes this week. Sorta running from 13-16 years old in this one. Some songs from my piano lessons and bands Dylan (RIP) got me into. Lotta Dylan nostalgia this week.
See you Monday from jolly ole Chatham County, NC