An Annual Event

My last blog entry was nearly a year ago, so what the heck: I’ll stop by and say hello. Topically, I’m gonna leap around like a playful deer, or perhaps a bee, flying from one idea to the next. ‘Kay?

As we were coming in for a landing on today’s flight to Oakland, my seatmate was watching out her window. Suddenly she took her husband by the arm and spoke with emotion:

“Golf courses must the most beautiful places—in the world.”

What’s all this talk about planes? Well, I just got back from three days in Washington state visiting G2. The adventure did not begin well. As I got on the plane I felt a little queasy. Just before takeoff, I negotiated with the flight attendant to get permission to use the restroom. Since I was at the front of the plane, I had to choose the first-class bathroom, which is an act that doesn’t win you friends in that sector of airplane society.

Before we landed  I armed myself a bevvy of puking supplies. Luckily, I didn’t have to use any of them, and I was fine all the way till we hit terra firma, but then it was: blaaargh. “Hello, Washington!”

G2 picked me up and we headed back toward her house in Renton, where I was to meet, for the very first time, her boyfriend, M. I do believe I made an indelible first impression. As he came to the front door, I suddenly veered and ran under a bush, and presented myself only after communing with nature for sufficient time. There’s no one in the world more neurotically reserved than I am in the arc of restroom activities. However, today my level of self-consciousness plunged. I felt worse as the day wore on and cared less who knew it. G2 and M acted as though this was how a visit was supposed to go. I would like to note for posterity that M was gallant, bringing this stranger tea, consoling me, reassuring me, and generally being stunningly warm to his new friend. G2 was no slouch, either. I alternately slept and puked for the remainder of the day.

Because of a shortage of beds, G2 had to share with me. Luckily, no harm came to her. Coincidentally, each night I was visiting, both G2 and I had richly detailed anxiety dreams about teaching: teaching two classes at exactly the same moment (G2’s dream); allowing your student to go surfing during class, and then watching helplessly as she drowns (My dream).

I don’t feel like writing because I feel aggressively boring. So let me think about any particular highlights that can stand alone like little arms, signposts toward a larger story or signposts toward nowhere, depending.

• Arm One: G2 did all the driving in a rental car, a Dodge Avenger. I spent some time ruminating about what the car’s name says about our national psyche.
• Arm Two: Our destination on the Olympic Peninsula was, I learned, famous. Its massive amount of annual rainfall led to its being chosen as the movie set for Twilight, a series of films about teenaged vampires. Vampires prefer rainy gloom to sunny cheer, you see, so this locale was deemed ideal for a whole heap of bloodsucking. Much of the area (rainforest and sandy coastline) is Indian reservation (the Quileute tribe). Twilight has brought a bit of money into the community, but not enough to change its spirit. The place seemed vacant, soulless: inhabited but not lived in.
• Arm Three: We did a whole lot of sleeping and binging on junk food, and very little movement of the body. I for one was overwhelmingly tired, perhaps caused by medications. I think my lack of energy was contagious.
• Arm Four: Gen proved, over and over again, that she likes homemade s’mores.
• Arm Five: It was strange to see the rainforest on such sunny, hot, dry days.
• Arm Six: Here are some photos. That’s all the comprehensive you get. This blog-writing takes more time and obsessing than I remembered. Click on the photos and they’ll pop in a new window. Click on that photo and it will grow, just like a child.