I had never been to Roosevelt before, only read about it in a crinkly mothball book by the area’s namesake: Theodore Roosevelt. I remember the book because it was the finest: first edition, first printing, gold rimmed, bound in leather, etchings of the brawn, hilly bear country faded yellow from years of sun. I bought the book at an auction, read it, then sold it for profit. I don’t regret selling it—now that I have seen the real Roosevelt I don’t need the sun-stained, gold-painted pictures, the real thing is too green-grassed, blue-skied, brown-barked, white-clouded to compare to any one copy, even the finest.
I stumbled into Rosy after a backcountry backpacking trip, shoulder-sore, sunburned, feet blister weary, and an hour too late for lunch. We were invited back for dinner in exchange for food coupons and were advised to take a hike in the meantime. Jim, the smiling chef, pointed us to Lost Lake trail.
We hiked from the cluster of employee housing down a rough road and past a bridge to a patchwork of switchbacks scaling the hillside. The trees burgeoned ragged; rustic like Roosevelt, trees hanging slack from the bone of earth like an old man’s dentures creaking and clacking. I could smell earth and green things sprouting up from the mold. Streams of sun escaped into the shade of trees creating ringlets of light in the shadow-path. This part of the trail was aesthetic the way an antique store is aesthetic.
Someone had hacked a second trail straight up from each switchback, this one was rough and strewn in sticks, all a-jumble. My friend Robert went straight up as I wobbled along the longer trail, tiptoe careful about my blisters gained from the backpacking trip. I stopped and leaned against tree, breathing hard. He waited for me at each turn, grinning, waiting in patches of sunlight.
After topping the hill and turning a few bends we hit Lost Lake, lily pads buried in blue sparkle, the trail alongside sprinkled heavily in mosquitoes and horse droppings. It had only taken us about 20 minutes to walk the .8 mile and so we went on, very slowly, waiting for the time to go and our meal to be ready.
There were rolling meadows liberally spotted in sunflowers, a snow run-off scar trickling down to the lake from the upper hills which encased our peaceful meadow. Though it’s been years since I have read or heard it, it brought to mind the 23rd Psalm, something Bible bound soft, not hard like Jeffers’ crags, cliffs, stones and hawks.
You lead me beside still waters, you nourish my soul. The classic love poem culled from nature, with all its woolly religious metaphors.
On the way back it was all downhill, a stern breeze snuffing at my hair. I ran the switchbacks, Robert slid down straight, on the heels of his boots.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Backpacking Trip
My internet hasn't been working for awhile, which is why I haven't updated this as much as I want to. I write about my experiences in Word and then wait for a good internet day to email it to myself so I can run to the coffee house and post it online. I have pictures, and I can't wait to show them but that'll be awhile.
I.
Robert and I pack. I laugh at him when he packs his sewing kit. You never know, he tells me, with creased forehead. He places his Stetson sideways on his head, and binds his bags together onto his back. I tell him his back will hurt, and he disagrees. I’ve carried stuff before, he says importantly.
II.
The first mile on the Hellroaring Trail and a gray fox stands with pointed tail, looking at me as if I am about as interesting as a tree; as if he owns this forest, and I am nothing to him. He sniffs a prairie dog hole, puts a dainty fist out, and begins to dig. He sniffs some more. He has walked leisurely within touching distance of me. My camera is at the bottom of my bag, so I just grin at him like a big galoof.
III.
Robert’s back begins to ache and he concedes my baggage point. Next time, he says, I won’t bring the kitchen sink.
IV.
There is a plunking noise as we walk the trail, and I startle, back away. It’s a woodpecker. I see his tail wagging with each pound of beak against bark. I’m happy it’s not a bear.
V.
It is 4.2 miles to 2H8, these numbers are important. We count them, measure them on the map, circle in seconds the river with our swift fingers. Our backs and legs toddle after our fingers and minds, our lungs breathe hard, we sweat. We pause and use iodine with river water and a hot pink nalgene. I drink deep— my stomach gurgles and cramps. Walking and water doesn’t mix in large portions.
VI.
There are sunflowers everywhere and forget-me-nots hidden in the eddies of meadow soil. I remember bringing forget-me-nots to my dead grandmother and I think to myself that my grandmother’s blue eyes are sprouting from the ground, that she is watching me. I bend and touch the green leaves tenderly, swaying from weight of the pack and melancholy.
VII.
There are blood bones, stripped of skin, knobby on the jointed ends, just seconds from our camp site. I turn my head. I hate this part of nature. I prefer the pretty things. Robert digs in my bag and takes a picture of the skeleton. I look again, not able to close my eyes forever, drawn to the blood bones which sink to bleach and rock before me.
VIII.
Coyote Creek is glacier cold and fast like a buffalo on charge. I pour nalgenes of Coyote Creek over my head and scream so loudly from the cold I wake Robert who comes running. I stand barefooted in the dirt and rock with river in my hair, laughing my heart out. I scrub myself raw, then wrap myself into a sleeping bag, shivering.
IX.
In the morning I walk outdoors, still in my flower pajamas, and run right into two deer eating breakfast underneath my suspended backpack. I walk the stretch of the quiet meadow, enjoying the peace before I break camp and head back to civilization. I eat cranberries and listen to the birds. I wait for the sunrise.
I.
Robert and I pack. I laugh at him when he packs his sewing kit. You never know, he tells me, with creased forehead. He places his Stetson sideways on his head, and binds his bags together onto his back. I tell him his back will hurt, and he disagrees. I’ve carried stuff before, he says importantly.
II.
The first mile on the Hellroaring Trail and a gray fox stands with pointed tail, looking at me as if I am about as interesting as a tree; as if he owns this forest, and I am nothing to him. He sniffs a prairie dog hole, puts a dainty fist out, and begins to dig. He sniffs some more. He has walked leisurely within touching distance of me. My camera is at the bottom of my bag, so I just grin at him like a big galoof.
III.
Robert’s back begins to ache and he concedes my baggage point. Next time, he says, I won’t bring the kitchen sink.
IV.
There is a plunking noise as we walk the trail, and I startle, back away. It’s a woodpecker. I see his tail wagging with each pound of beak against bark. I’m happy it’s not a bear.
V.
It is 4.2 miles to 2H8, these numbers are important. We count them, measure them on the map, circle in seconds the river with our swift fingers. Our backs and legs toddle after our fingers and minds, our lungs breathe hard, we sweat. We pause and use iodine with river water and a hot pink nalgene. I drink deep— my stomach gurgles and cramps. Walking and water doesn’t mix in large portions.
VI.
There are sunflowers everywhere and forget-me-nots hidden in the eddies of meadow soil. I remember bringing forget-me-nots to my dead grandmother and I think to myself that my grandmother’s blue eyes are sprouting from the ground, that she is watching me. I bend and touch the green leaves tenderly, swaying from weight of the pack and melancholy.
VII.
There are blood bones, stripped of skin, knobby on the jointed ends, just seconds from our camp site. I turn my head. I hate this part of nature. I prefer the pretty things. Robert digs in my bag and takes a picture of the skeleton. I look again, not able to close my eyes forever, drawn to the blood bones which sink to bleach and rock before me.
VIII.
Coyote Creek is glacier cold and fast like a buffalo on charge. I pour nalgenes of Coyote Creek over my head and scream so loudly from the cold I wake Robert who comes running. I stand barefooted in the dirt and rock with river in my hair, laughing my heart out. I scrub myself raw, then wrap myself into a sleeping bag, shivering.
IX.
In the morning I walk outdoors, still in my flower pajamas, and run right into two deer eating breakfast underneath my suspended backpack. I walk the stretch of the quiet meadow, enjoying the peace before I break camp and head back to civilization. I eat cranberries and listen to the birds. I wait for the sunrise.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
God, or someone else.
There is a boy outside my window who says he is Jesus. I am bigger than this, he proclaims, and knocks on the wooden stairs of the bunkhouse. I create. I am Jesus. I died on the cross.
He seemed so normal at first, your average run of the mill hippie from Nevada who had overdone on the acid hits. Now he is God, and he knocks on wood.
He sits in his bed and reads the Bible. He rocks back and forth. Sweet, he says, sweet. He goes out on the stairs to smoke his Marlboro Reds and talk about what he’s learned. The birds sing around him. There are jackrabbits.
If you do not have a body, Alan counters, you are dead.
I am alive, the boy says, always alive. It’s spirit.
It disturbs me, Robert says. He said: I am a judge. A judge of what? Robert asks. All mankind, the boy says.
How will you judge them?
By their hearts.
What if we are lacking?
Destroy them.
He seemed so normal at first, your average run of the mill hippie from Nevada who had overdone on the acid hits. Now he is God, and he knocks on wood.
He sits in his bed and reads the Bible. He rocks back and forth. Sweet, he says, sweet. He goes out on the stairs to smoke his Marlboro Reds and talk about what he’s learned. The birds sing around him. There are jackrabbits.
If you do not have a body, Alan counters, you are dead.
I am alive, the boy says, always alive. It’s spirit.
It disturbs me, Robert says. He said: I am a judge. A judge of what? Robert asks. All mankind, the boy says.
How will you judge them?
By their hearts.
What if we are lacking?
Destroy them.
Vignettes
I.
There is only now so I see everything in present tense. (Had is such a sad word; will have is greedy.)
Stacy, who is my housemate, drives to Old Faithful with Robert and I. I cram my bunny in the trunk of her car, and when we get there she kisses her boyfriend hard and sends us away. She is wearing a cowboy hat the last I see her, and smiling.
Robert and I rent a heritage cabin—the cheapest with discount. We laugh at the linens. I say I will dip them in mud and then send them to ourselves to receive and count with all the hundreds of other linens.
We plod in the snow, sinking to the waist, laughing. There is a phone booth in the middle of the snow and we sink down to it, to see if there is a dial tone. There is. I call my bank, I talk to the operator, I think of all the 1-800 numbers I could call on a whim.
II.
It is shadow dark and a coyote slinks past Old Faithful’s cone moments before she blows. I take ten pictures. They all come out black, like someone ran over it with a charcoal paintbrush shaped like a Rent an RV.
III.
The cabin is warm. We eat pop tarts and write. He sleeps in his sleeping bag, I take the bed and sleep medication.
IV.
We talk about Joseph Heller and bears in the morning. We see bear tracks and 3 geysers erupt. At Daisy we scream at tourists to walk on the board walk. I’m terrified I will see boiled tourist, camera melded to their blistered fists. “Natural selection,” Robert mumbles and grins at the ground.
On the way an old man with a polished cane nods his head at us. He flings his cane around like it’s an accessory, not a tool. I think about Thornstein Veblen and laugh, I wonder what Veblen would say about geysers and National Parks and tourists.
V.
Stacy gets glared at by tourists as she gases around a bison. “It’s a bison, idiots, you’re in Yellowstone, move along.” Stacy used to be a taxi cab driver from Brooklyn. She tells about it. “You’d have to be dead, not to have stories as a cab driver.” She thinks a little to herself and laughs.
I tell my hitching stories. Stacy tells her story about the drunk guy who jacked off in her car. “I stabbed him in the stomach with a carpenter’s hole punch, shoved him out, and laughed as he stood there, holding his stomach in one hand, dick in the other. Now every time he tries to take care of himself he’ll get a pain in his belly and he’ll remember me. That’s right, remember me.”
VI.
I walk with a friend up a hill and roll down. We stand at the bottom, heaving for breath and smiling.
VII.
I wear my ski mask out hitching, to see how long it will take someone to pick me up. It takes two SUV’s, two minutes.
“Now young lady, try that in summer,” someone dares me.
VIII.
I walk to a graveyard with Robert, and he steals a flower for me. I won’t take it.
It’s his, I say, and point at the slab of granite.
He’s giving it to you, Robert says. It came up out of the rocks. It wasn’t planted there on purpose. You’re not stealing.
I melt, put the flower in my hair.
IX.
At four in the morning the birds are singing and flapping their wings against the trailer full of laundry. Robert and I sit on the steps for break, breathing in sunrise. All we do, we tell each other bitterly, is work, work, work.
We want to go explore, we hate the laundry.
Robert puts in 82.55 hours. I do his time sheet and stare, and call his supervisor up to verify. Yeah, yeah. 82.55 hours. He hardly slept.
X.
When everything else is fluid and flexible I cling to the sturdy books, I can always rely on books. I get a job at the video store to get away from my head, and the things I can’t face. I don’t want to think, I tell a friend. Leave me alone.
I work from 4 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon at the laundry as a secretary. Then I work at the video store until 9. I read about wolves at the video store and wait for something to grab me up, and drag me into what passes for heaven.
I read. I keep waiting. Sometimes I think I’m not being dragged to paradise, but out of my own skin.
In the Arctic Eskimos will kill a wolf by hiding a knife under snow with a dab of seal or elk blood. The wolf, frenzied, will lick himself to shreds. In books about the Wolf Project the writers ponder why wolves are so hated. Maybe because they’re so much like humans, they theorize.
The scientists reintroducing wolves name with numbers, all the wolves are consecutive to each other, one and two and three and four, captured in Canada, let loose in Yellowstone. The higher numbers are more recent. They’re Yellowstone born.
A man with a red beard comes into the video store and says he’s with the Wolf Project. He rubs his hands together. I can’t wait to get back to work, he tells me. He rents the First season of Alias for his wife. I get back to my reading, the reading howls.
There is only now so I see everything in present tense. (Had is such a sad word; will have is greedy.)
Stacy, who is my housemate, drives to Old Faithful with Robert and I. I cram my bunny in the trunk of her car, and when we get there she kisses her boyfriend hard and sends us away. She is wearing a cowboy hat the last I see her, and smiling.
Robert and I rent a heritage cabin—the cheapest with discount. We laugh at the linens. I say I will dip them in mud and then send them to ourselves to receive and count with all the hundreds of other linens.
We plod in the snow, sinking to the waist, laughing. There is a phone booth in the middle of the snow and we sink down to it, to see if there is a dial tone. There is. I call my bank, I talk to the operator, I think of all the 1-800 numbers I could call on a whim.
II.
It is shadow dark and a coyote slinks past Old Faithful’s cone moments before she blows. I take ten pictures. They all come out black, like someone ran over it with a charcoal paintbrush shaped like a Rent an RV.
III.
The cabin is warm. We eat pop tarts and write. He sleeps in his sleeping bag, I take the bed and sleep medication.
IV.
We talk about Joseph Heller and bears in the morning. We see bear tracks and 3 geysers erupt. At Daisy we scream at tourists to walk on the board walk. I’m terrified I will see boiled tourist, camera melded to their blistered fists. “Natural selection,” Robert mumbles and grins at the ground.
On the way an old man with a polished cane nods his head at us. He flings his cane around like it’s an accessory, not a tool. I think about Thornstein Veblen and laugh, I wonder what Veblen would say about geysers and National Parks and tourists.
V.
Stacy gets glared at by tourists as she gases around a bison. “It’s a bison, idiots, you’re in Yellowstone, move along.” Stacy used to be a taxi cab driver from Brooklyn. She tells about it. “You’d have to be dead, not to have stories as a cab driver.” She thinks a little to herself and laughs.
I tell my hitching stories. Stacy tells her story about the drunk guy who jacked off in her car. “I stabbed him in the stomach with a carpenter’s hole punch, shoved him out, and laughed as he stood there, holding his stomach in one hand, dick in the other. Now every time he tries to take care of himself he’ll get a pain in his belly and he’ll remember me. That’s right, remember me.”
VI.
I walk with a friend up a hill and roll down. We stand at the bottom, heaving for breath and smiling.
VII.
I wear my ski mask out hitching, to see how long it will take someone to pick me up. It takes two SUV’s, two minutes.
“Now young lady, try that in summer,” someone dares me.
VIII.
I walk to a graveyard with Robert, and he steals a flower for me. I won’t take it.
It’s his, I say, and point at the slab of granite.
He’s giving it to you, Robert says. It came up out of the rocks. It wasn’t planted there on purpose. You’re not stealing.
I melt, put the flower in my hair.
IX.
At four in the morning the birds are singing and flapping their wings against the trailer full of laundry. Robert and I sit on the steps for break, breathing in sunrise. All we do, we tell each other bitterly, is work, work, work.
We want to go explore, we hate the laundry.
Robert puts in 82.55 hours. I do his time sheet and stare, and call his supervisor up to verify. Yeah, yeah. 82.55 hours. He hardly slept.
X.
When everything else is fluid and flexible I cling to the sturdy books, I can always rely on books. I get a job at the video store to get away from my head, and the things I can’t face. I don’t want to think, I tell a friend. Leave me alone.
I work from 4 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon at the laundry as a secretary. Then I work at the video store until 9. I read about wolves at the video store and wait for something to grab me up, and drag me into what passes for heaven.
I read. I keep waiting. Sometimes I think I’m not being dragged to paradise, but out of my own skin.
In the Arctic Eskimos will kill a wolf by hiding a knife under snow with a dab of seal or elk blood. The wolf, frenzied, will lick himself to shreds. In books about the Wolf Project the writers ponder why wolves are so hated. Maybe because they’re so much like humans, they theorize.
The scientists reintroducing wolves name with numbers, all the wolves are consecutive to each other, one and two and three and four, captured in Canada, let loose in Yellowstone. The higher numbers are more recent. They’re Yellowstone born.
A man with a red beard comes into the video store and says he’s with the Wolf Project. He rubs his hands together. I can’t wait to get back to work, he tells me. He rents the First season of Alias for his wife. I get back to my reading, the reading howls.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Self Portrait--not quite DaVinci
Hitching around in Yellowstone.
Free Box Cont.
Free Box.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Stupid Questions Tourists Have Asked At Yellowstone National Park
At what elevation do the deer become elk?
When do they turn Old Faithful on?
Are they going to cart all the snow out?
Actual complaint filed against Xanterra, whom I work for: They aren't grooming and caring for the animals well enough.
How do you get the bells on the bears? (Asked at the tourist shop about the bear bells used to keep bears away from tourists.)
Is Yellowstone closed because of the volcano?
Is there a volcano in Yellowstone?
Where do they keep all the animals?
What time does the park close?
At what elevation do the deer become elk?
When do they turn Old Faithful on?
Are they going to cart all the snow out?
Actual complaint filed against Xanterra, whom I work for: They aren't grooming and caring for the animals well enough.
How do you get the bells on the bears? (Asked at the tourist shop about the bear bells used to keep bears away from tourists.)
Is Yellowstone closed because of the volcano?
Is there a volcano in Yellowstone?
Where do they keep all the animals?
What time does the park close?
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Housemates to Make Me Laugh.
The pizza was great, everyone liked it, and they threw mushrooms and doughy centers onto my plate (dude, guys, my plate is not a basketball hoop).
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Boiling River Part Two.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
The Boiling River.
Yes. This post is titled The Boiling River.
The earth was dusted in a film of snow when I got up. Leona looked out the window, looked at me, and said, "My goodness girl, you aren't going out, are you?" When I answered in the affirmative she shook her head and tut-tutted.
It was blizzarding when I entered the park, and I had no problem getting rides. I'm a girl, I look cold, people will stop. I went up to Mammoth for my friend Billy (who is an absolute sweetie, I met him in The Blue Goose a couple weeks ago, while he was coordinating an AA meeting). He was still a lump in his bed, and I could hear him groaning as his (very Mormon) roommate looked at me as if I was crazy.
But we went anyway! I have to run, I have the pictures on my computer and they aren't downloading, I think something is wrong with my snapfish account. Be back. Writing group. Bye.
The earth was dusted in a film of snow when I got up. Leona looked out the window, looked at me, and said, "My goodness girl, you aren't going out, are you?" When I answered in the affirmative she shook her head and tut-tutted.
It was blizzarding when I entered the park, and I had no problem getting rides. I'm a girl, I look cold, people will stop. I went up to Mammoth for my friend Billy (who is an absolute sweetie, I met him in The Blue Goose a couple weeks ago, while he was coordinating an AA meeting). He was still a lump in his bed, and I could hear him groaning as his (very Mormon) roommate looked at me as if I was crazy.
But we went anyway! I have to run, I have the pictures on my computer and they aren't downloading, I think something is wrong with my snapfish account. Be back. Writing group. Bye.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Nothing to do with Yellowstone.
I am an Oregonian and will always be an Oregonian. I have fled to Montana for personal reasons but keep an obsessional eye on certain Oregon news, knowing that one day I will return to the greener, wetter land of my childhood. Of particular note lately is the archdiocese of Portland's proclaimed "transparency"; Archbishop Vlazny's words and silences and his legal counsel's spin on the rather strange release of 20,000 new, largely irrelevant, documents of confidential personnel files after a year of balking.
There is so much to say about this, and so much is being said about this that for me, circling the outskirts of this circus on a blog about my happy adventures in Yellowstone seems out of context. But you see, I'm obsessional and I'm pissed off at Archbishop Vlazny. So I'll talk about what I darn well please, and it would be an outrage for me, who loves the Catholic church and at one time considered converting, to remain silent when I'm as righteously angry as I am right now.
This is my turf, my blog, and I'll say here with a nod and love to those who may or may not read this blog who are Catholic and trust Vlazny, that Vlazny is a coward and liar, a brilliant and "baffling" liar, who, through a revered, religious medium, has revictimized those who were raped, sodomized, and disgustingly fondled in the Catholic church by priests and others.
In his most recent statement on www.archdiocesedocuments.org he calls into doubt that many of those who brought claim were telling the truth. "...many claimants received payment even though their claim could not be verified...the release of personnel files in such uncertain circumstances would serve no proper goal."
As far as Vlazny's statement that "other documents are not being released because living priests (or former priests) object to further disclosure" and that he respects that right, he fails to mention that the priest Laughlin, an admitted abuser with a bad habit of lying, is currently in a "multi-million" dollar lawsuit for molestation and that is why he doesn't want anything released. Another point of note-the archdiocese is also named in those multi-million dollar lawsuits, the archdiocese's legal counsel has attempted to force the claimants to reveal their identity and that this hardball legal action is what prompted the plaintiff's attorneys to "accuse" and walk out of negotiation on the release of documents.
Dulcich, a shareholder with Schwabe, Williamson, and Wyatt, seems, along with Bud Bunce, to be the main spokesperson in a recent article by Ashbel S. Green in the Oregonian. Quote: "You wonder if there is some other agenda on the part of the people who continue to complain about the archdiocese as it continues to release thousands of documents."
Knowing very little about Dulcich as a human being I'll refrain from commenting on that, but I will comment on Schwabe, Williamson, and Wyatt's legal tactics, utilizing their own words in response to a therapist's letter to the archdiocese regarding symptoms of anxiety a gentleman endured resulting from his abuse at the hands of a Father Goodrich (part of the first batch of released documentation in 2007):
"Please be advised that my client considers it extremely inappropriate that you have mentioned Father Goodrich by name in the letter. Neither the alleged abuser's occupation, nor certainly his name are relevant to the issues addressed in your letter." http://www.archdiocesedocuments.org/uploads/PD_0027-0030.pdf
Well, Mr. Dulcich, and "Most Revered" Archbishop Vlazny you and I both know that this is legal maneuvering and hardball tactics against both attorneys and the victims of clergy sexual abuse they represent. Cut the bullshit. I believe the victims, and I stand with them and will no matter the cost. There are those of us who will never give up on this fight, no matter the false aspersions and shadows you cast.
There is so much to say about this, and so much is being said about this that for me, circling the outskirts of this circus on a blog about my happy adventures in Yellowstone seems out of context. But you see, I'm obsessional and I'm pissed off at Archbishop Vlazny. So I'll talk about what I darn well please, and it would be an outrage for me, who loves the Catholic church and at one time considered converting, to remain silent when I'm as righteously angry as I am right now.
This is my turf, my blog, and I'll say here with a nod and love to those who may or may not read this blog who are Catholic and trust Vlazny, that Vlazny is a coward and liar, a brilliant and "baffling" liar, who, through a revered, religious medium, has revictimized those who were raped, sodomized, and disgustingly fondled in the Catholic church by priests and others.
In his most recent statement on www.archdiocesedocuments.org he calls into doubt that many of those who brought claim were telling the truth. "...many claimants received payment even though their claim could not be verified...the release of personnel files in such uncertain circumstances would serve no proper goal."
As far as Vlazny's statement that "other documents are not being released because living priests (or former priests) object to further disclosure" and that he respects that right, he fails to mention that the priest Laughlin, an admitted abuser with a bad habit of lying, is currently in a "multi-million" dollar lawsuit for molestation and that is why he doesn't want anything released. Another point of note-the archdiocese is also named in those multi-million dollar lawsuits, the archdiocese's legal counsel has attempted to force the claimants to reveal their identity and that this hardball legal action is what prompted the plaintiff's attorneys to "accuse" and walk out of negotiation on the release of documents.
Dulcich, a shareholder with Schwabe, Williamson, and Wyatt, seems, along with Bud Bunce, to be the main spokesperson in a recent article by Ashbel S. Green in the Oregonian. Quote: "You wonder if there is some other agenda on the part of the people who continue to complain about the archdiocese as it continues to release thousands of documents."
Knowing very little about Dulcich as a human being I'll refrain from commenting on that, but I will comment on Schwabe, Williamson, and Wyatt's legal tactics, utilizing their own words in response to a therapist's letter to the archdiocese regarding symptoms of anxiety a gentleman endured resulting from his abuse at the hands of a Father Goodrich (part of the first batch of released documentation in 2007):
"Please be advised that my client considers it extremely inappropriate that you have mentioned Father Goodrich by name in the letter. Neither the alleged abuser's occupation, nor certainly his name are relevant to the issues addressed in your letter." http://www.archdiocesedocuments.org/uploads/PD_0027-0030.pdf
Well, Mr. Dulcich, and "Most Revered" Archbishop Vlazny you and I both know that this is legal maneuvering and hardball tactics against both attorneys and the victims of clergy sexual abuse they represent. Cut the bullshit. I believe the victims, and I stand with them and will no matter the cost. There are those of us who will never give up on this fight, no matter the false aspersions and shadows you cast.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
The Life of Yellowstone Lodge bedding.
I had a horrific day, and by lunch was stomping around the apartment and crying in the bathroom, trying to call friends back home. That having failed I melodramatically threw open the window and shoved my phone out the window, then sat down and had seven bean soup I'd had boiling in the crockpot. My housemates both peered out at the backyard, where I was told a jackrabbit was sniffing my phone with curiosity.
Back in the office I had the opportunity to enter one of the washing machines on the floor: the tunnel, which is the size of a semi (something only managers are allowed). Bob, the maintenance supervisor, lowered me in by cable and harness. There is a huge chute and, being the girl I am, I decided to slide down head first, and cracked my head on a steel rib in the machine. I started laughing hysterically while Daniel, the guy guiding me through advised feet first might be best.
It was like spelunking in a metal cave, shimmying up the ribs and tunnels--all eight of them. The head engineer could hear me laughing from the outside as I slipped and tripped my way through to the basin.
Later I was sexually harassed by a 60-some year old maintenance man (which two other coworkers witnessed and were fuming about). (Sure would like a hardworking, ballsy girl like you. I'm a man with a capital M. You can't expect me to be faithful. I'm a pervert--this accompanied by a lascivious smile, eyes glued to my Xanterra-badged breasts.) I HATE men like that. Anxious, at the end of the day I crawled under my covers with my stuffed bunny and Szymborska and went to sleep until a friend rousted me for another writing meeting/pity party.
The following is what I wrote:
I can’t write because the sun is shining or the snow is blowing or my head is hurting or the cat is hungry. I can’t write because my big toe hurts when I stubbed it pulling out my laptop. I can’t write because I don’t have my laptop. I can’t write because the smell of smoke and the loud noise in the bar. I can’t write because I am tired and there are things to do. I can’t write because the plant needs watering, the dishes need scrubbed, my head won’t slow down.
I can’t write because there is something inside me that shrinks, that goes to sleep when I pull out the computer. I can’t write because it isn’t perfect, it isn’t right, because I’m not Hemingway or Goethe or Stafford or Szymborska. Because I’m not David Duncan, because I can’t make my words sing, or laugh. I can’t write because if I do, if I do write, my insides would be on the outside, my heart would beat to the wind and air, it would throb and cling, because, let me say this, my words would be bathed in blood.
Slowa we krwi, the Polish say. Words immersed in blood. I keep words on the inside, until a pen stabs it out and my hands are fingerpainting my heart, my life, my soul.
And why do I write? Because I have to, because my soul would die without breath, without beat. I write because the cat is hungry, my friend is sad, my head is hurting, because the sun is shining, because I can draw that sun shinier with my typing, I can Xerox my backside with my bloody words and can post it anonymously to the bulletin board and make my friend smile.
I write because my heart would explode with the backlog of blood, it would be too full if I didn’t leak myself out on paper, and bathe my words in breath and heart, with blood.
Back in the office I had the opportunity to enter one of the washing machines on the floor: the tunnel, which is the size of a semi (something only managers are allowed). Bob, the maintenance supervisor, lowered me in by cable and harness. There is a huge chute and, being the girl I am, I decided to slide down head first, and cracked my head on a steel rib in the machine. I started laughing hysterically while Daniel, the guy guiding me through advised feet first might be best.
It was like spelunking in a metal cave, shimmying up the ribs and tunnels--all eight of them. The head engineer could hear me laughing from the outside as I slipped and tripped my way through to the basin.
Later I was sexually harassed by a 60-some year old maintenance man (which two other coworkers witnessed and were fuming about). (Sure would like a hardworking, ballsy girl like you. I'm a man with a capital M. You can't expect me to be faithful. I'm a pervert--this accompanied by a lascivious smile, eyes glued to my Xanterra-badged breasts.) I HATE men like that. Anxious, at the end of the day I crawled under my covers with my stuffed bunny and Szymborska and went to sleep until a friend rousted me for another writing meeting/pity party.
The following is what I wrote:
I can’t write because the sun is shining or the snow is blowing or my head is hurting or the cat is hungry. I can’t write because my big toe hurts when I stubbed it pulling out my laptop. I can’t write because I don’t have my laptop. I can’t write because the smell of smoke and the loud noise in the bar. I can’t write because I am tired and there are things to do. I can’t write because the plant needs watering, the dishes need scrubbed, my head won’t slow down.
I can’t write because there is something inside me that shrinks, that goes to sleep when I pull out the computer. I can’t write because it isn’t perfect, it isn’t right, because I’m not Hemingway or Goethe or Stafford or Szymborska. Because I’m not David Duncan, because I can’t make my words sing, or laugh. I can’t write because if I do, if I do write, my insides would be on the outside, my heart would beat to the wind and air, it would throb and cling, because, let me say this, my words would be bathed in blood.
Slowa we krwi, the Polish say. Words immersed in blood. I keep words on the inside, until a pen stabs it out and my hands are fingerpainting my heart, my life, my soul.
And why do I write? Because I have to, because my soul would die without breath, without beat. I write because the cat is hungry, my friend is sad, my head is hurting, because the sun is shining, because I can draw that sun shinier with my typing, I can Xerox my backside with my bloody words and can post it anonymously to the bulletin board and make my friend smile.
I write because my heart would explode with the backlog of blood, it would be too full if I didn’t leak myself out on paper, and bathe my words in breath and heart, with blood.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Pretty Pictures
This post is an ode to my old job, at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland. The exhibition is "Touching Warms the Art" and when the going was slow I'd don the jewelry and take pictures of myself like a narcissist. It makes me laugh. These are a few.
My coworkers and I. Hello everyone! I miss you! I hope your new security guard works out.
I kind of like this one.
I was trying to primp myself since I was wearing curlers, after all. It doesn't quite work with the badge, though. A few of my coworkers tried to convince me to put my badge in the exhibition and see if people would try it on. I got bored enough to try and take it off. I tugged at it for a good hour and ripped a fingernail trying for this practical joke. Then, surrendered back to sudoku.
This is the sweetest picture in the world, taken on Valentines Day. The exhibition was boarded on hooks and four organic-looking, artsy cardboard tables, where the visitors could touch and feel and try on low-cost jewelry created by famous artists. They could take pictures of themselves with a Mac computer (which is what I did all the time).A gentleman came in and asked if he could put an engagement ring in there for Valentines, and ask his girlfriend to marry him. The administrators said yes and he did it without a glitch. My coworkers watched the whole thing over the security cameras.
She said yes. Isn't this the sweetest proposal and cutest picture? I smile each time I look at it.
Writing Exercise.
The following is from an exercise the writing group in Gardiner did: write as much as you can in ten minutes, stream of conciousness, about the word spring.
I am wearing white stockings in my dreams, with little pink hearts embroidered measured half inches from each other. They leave marks on my legs, like pillows do. I have hearts ironed onto my little girl legs in my dreams.
In my boots walking to Beaver Ponds I remember this dream, and where it came from, the delicacy of stained glass in church, the cathedral light, the upward swings of ceilings, the discomfort of pantyhose riding to my crotch. I compare it now to the dust, rock, silted snow, the old buffalo, laying his head to the pinched, hopeful grass, watching me beneath his helmet of horn and fur. When I walk the boot zipper makes a small imprint on my leg, progressing into a blister. I let it pop and ooze, wait for the callous, and it has come today, after a week of walking and waiting.
Further down the road there is a snow drift and I fall thigh-high, and do as Fireman Friendly advised to do in case of fire, stop, drop, roll, and doggie paddle my way to the spring grass. The snow is melting and mixing with dirt, a wonderland of desert. It cakes to the seam of my leg. I laugh. My hands are numb and when I pat a poodle named Oliver outside the Visitor Center, after I give up snow-swimming, I can’t feel his curls. I put on my mittens.
I am wearing white stockings in my dreams, with little pink hearts embroidered measured half inches from each other. They leave marks on my legs, like pillows do. I have hearts ironed onto my little girl legs in my dreams.
In my boots walking to Beaver Ponds I remember this dream, and where it came from, the delicacy of stained glass in church, the cathedral light, the upward swings of ceilings, the discomfort of pantyhose riding to my crotch. I compare it now to the dust, rock, silted snow, the old buffalo, laying his head to the pinched, hopeful grass, watching me beneath his helmet of horn and fur. When I walk the boot zipper makes a small imprint on my leg, progressing into a blister. I let it pop and ooze, wait for the callous, and it has come today, after a week of walking and waiting.
Further down the road there is a snow drift and I fall thigh-high, and do as Fireman Friendly advised to do in case of fire, stop, drop, roll, and doggie paddle my way to the spring grass. The snow is melting and mixing with dirt, a wonderland of desert. It cakes to the seam of my leg. I laugh. My hands are numb and when I pat a poodle named Oliver outside the Visitor Center, after I give up snow-swimming, I can’t feel his curls. I put on my mittens.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Plans for this next weekend
I'm exhausted and ready to curl up with a good book. I've been through the dullest manager meetings ever today. I guess, by nature, these meetings are supposed to be boring. But usually they're in the middle of the city, not in the middle of Yellowstone National Park with the sky whining at the window, begging for me to come out and play.
I ended up hitching out to Mammoth again, even though I wasn't planning on it, it just sort of happened. I wasn't even thumbing it this time. I walked further out on the terrace and climbed on top of snow mountains.
My plan this weekend is to go skinny dipping in the boiling part of the river, and bundle up in my hat and scarf on the few miles back, clutching my flashlight in gloved hand. It will be dark, starry, perfect. It might even snow.
More Pictures
Picture for my father.
Okay Dad. I stole this one for you. Aren't you proud? (My housemate took it in October 2006.)
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Here in Yellowstone
We should have started from this: the sky.
A window without a sill, frame, or pane.
An opening and nothing more,but open wide.
I need not wait for a clear night
nor crane my neck to examine the sky.
I have the sky at my back, at hand, and on my eyelids.
The sky wraps me snugly
and lifts me from below.
Even the highest mountains
are no nearer the sky than the deepest valleys.
There is no more sky in one place
than another.
A cloud is crushed by sky as ruthlessly as a grave.
A mole is as enraptured
as a wing-fluttering owl.
A object falling into a precipice
falls from the sky into sky.
Granular, liquid, craggy,fiery and volatile
expanses of sky, crumbs of sky,puffs and snatches of sky.
The sky is omnipresent even in darkness under the skin.
I eat sky, I excrete sky.
I am a trap inside a trap,
an inhabited inhabitant,
an embraced embrace,
a question in answer to a question.
To divide earth and sky
is not the correct way
to consider this whole.
It merely allows survival
under a more precise address,
quicker to be found
if I were to be looked up.
My call words are delight and despair.
My housemate is a 70-year old woman from Sicily Island, Louisiana. She's the Distribution Manager at Gardiner Laundry. She talks in a twang like my grandmother did, and it makes me miss grandma. I cook Leona suppers of potatoes and onions and tomatoes to remember grandma. Leona puts ketchup on everything.
I go out hitching to Mammoth today, on Sunday. I walk from the arch to the check-in station before two men pick me up. They've been in Yellowstone since I was born.
"Forever, for me," I say to them.
"I guess," one laughs. "Makes me feel old.
The air is cold in Mammoth Hot Springs and my face goes numb. I walk out to the terrace. I smile so hard, so long, my face hurts.
On the way back I ride in a yellow jeep with a man from Bozeman. His name is Jeff and he's a land surveyor. Isn't this so pretty, I keep saying. Yep, yep, he always replies. Oh wow, I say. I feel so lucky.
The Trip
Leg One of Trip
I leave. The Greyhound passes a Hooters as we leave Portland city limits. A thin yellow-haired man sitting next to a pregnant woman says he wants to stop, go in. The Canadian sitting in front of him laughs and makes a joke about owls. I stare out the window.
The world changes around me, up and down hills and mountains, flat along smooth ground like a snake, belly of the bus growling. In Olympia an old man with food in his beard sits next to me. You look like an ex-girlfriend, he says. And I need to drink because my medicine makes me a cottonmouth. You sure are good looking.
I hope you're not going to hit on me all the way to Seattle, I tell him. Because that would make me really uncomfortable.
He stops. Morose, he stares glumly at the aisle. I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable, he finally says, then he launches into stories of carnivals. I'm a carnival worker he says. Most of the time I make money. But once, oh man, oh man, these two girls, they looked so little and sweet, but they were the best pitchers in the state of You-Tah and they pitched a whirlwind. They pitched from far away and hit all the cans. Man oh man, my boss sure was mad. I'm s'posed to make twenty bucks a stuffed animal, see. Man oh man, I almost lost my job.
It is Seattle now and the whole world looks like a carnival, the electric gleaming like a foreign, comfortable moon stuffed into the crevice of the earth.
Leg Two of Trip
I swill sleeping pills and lean my head against the seat in front of me. When I wake we are in St. Regis and my hair looks like a bird's nest. It smells of dust and sweat, a white chalk covers the downtown boardwalk.
I buy two quarts of water and split blueberry pancakes at a cafe with a gentle red-haired woman wearing glasses and a blue fleece. She begins to weep when I ask her questions. I hold her hand over the butter and we exchange numbers, smiles, and I tell her I would love to, someday, take a two-month trip on the Greyhound and listen to people's stories.
"Oh, Michelle!" she says. "Take a tape recorder! Half of us belong in the insane asylum."
A grinning, long-haired man in a dress wins fifty gambling, he holds it up triumphant on the way back into the bus.
An older woman with freckles and skin colored like whole wheat flax bread sits next to me when I invite her. "I've slept now," I tell her, "Sit next to me." She was sitting next to a bald, large, red man with two black eyes, and she begins to tear up as she sits next to me.
"He looks like the man who killed my eighteen-year old girl," she tells me. "Thank you." The man, across from us, hears her, and jerks, frowns with sad eyes over at us then turns quickly back to the window. I touch the woman's hand. I give her my cabbage patch doll pillow, I pour her water.
It was a hate crime, she says. He just didn't like Indians.
I have family that was raised on the reservation, I tell her. I've heard about it, the sad things. I'm sorry. It was cruel and mean and pointless, I tell her, near to tears, I'm so sorry. (I don't know what to say.)
I tell her my story about the church, I tell her there are those of us who are fighting back for justice. She cries and hugs me, shows me pictures of her grandchildren, the gifts she bought for them in Spokane. The big bald red man reaches across the aisle and leans back her chair for her when she says her back hurts. She shivers a little and looks at him, vulnerable. He doesn't meet her eyes, keeps his gaze trained to the floor. His big hands are gentle and then he turns back to the window. It's a sweet, careful moment, and I savor it.
I always wanted to raise a bird, Diana tells me, and after my daughter was murdered a little bird came to me. She followed me around everywhere, she perched on my shoulder. And then she flew away, and I knew my daughter's spirit had flown away, too. My daughter knew I needed that, see.
She gets off in Missoula and I hug her long in the aisle, pray in my way for her as she leaves, hope safeness and blessings on her.
When I get off in Bozeman the red-haired girl runs after me as I drag my suitcase into a snow drift, across the road. She hugs me hard. "Don't forget me," she whispers in my ear.
I couldn't.
It's such a wild and sweet world, I don't know what to make of it.
I leave. The Greyhound passes a Hooters as we leave Portland city limits. A thin yellow-haired man sitting next to a pregnant woman says he wants to stop, go in. The Canadian sitting in front of him laughs and makes a joke about owls. I stare out the window.
The world changes around me, up and down hills and mountains, flat along smooth ground like a snake, belly of the bus growling. In Olympia an old man with food in his beard sits next to me. You look like an ex-girlfriend, he says. And I need to drink because my medicine makes me a cottonmouth. You sure are good looking.
I hope you're not going to hit on me all the way to Seattle, I tell him. Because that would make me really uncomfortable.
He stops. Morose, he stares glumly at the aisle. I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable, he finally says, then he launches into stories of carnivals. I'm a carnival worker he says. Most of the time I make money. But once, oh man, oh man, these two girls, they looked so little and sweet, but they were the best pitchers in the state of You-Tah and they pitched a whirlwind. They pitched from far away and hit all the cans. Man oh man, my boss sure was mad. I'm s'posed to make twenty bucks a stuffed animal, see. Man oh man, I almost lost my job.
It is Seattle now and the whole world looks like a carnival, the electric gleaming like a foreign, comfortable moon stuffed into the crevice of the earth.
Leg Two of Trip
I swill sleeping pills and lean my head against the seat in front of me. When I wake we are in St. Regis and my hair looks like a bird's nest. It smells of dust and sweat, a white chalk covers the downtown boardwalk.
I buy two quarts of water and split blueberry pancakes at a cafe with a gentle red-haired woman wearing glasses and a blue fleece. She begins to weep when I ask her questions. I hold her hand over the butter and we exchange numbers, smiles, and I tell her I would love to, someday, take a two-month trip on the Greyhound and listen to people's stories.
"Oh, Michelle!" she says. "Take a tape recorder! Half of us belong in the insane asylum."
A grinning, long-haired man in a dress wins fifty gambling, he holds it up triumphant on the way back into the bus.
An older woman with freckles and skin colored like whole wheat flax bread sits next to me when I invite her. "I've slept now," I tell her, "Sit next to me." She was sitting next to a bald, large, red man with two black eyes, and she begins to tear up as she sits next to me.
"He looks like the man who killed my eighteen-year old girl," she tells me. "Thank you." The man, across from us, hears her, and jerks, frowns with sad eyes over at us then turns quickly back to the window. I touch the woman's hand. I give her my cabbage patch doll pillow, I pour her water.
It was a hate crime, she says. He just didn't like Indians.
I have family that was raised on the reservation, I tell her. I've heard about it, the sad things. I'm sorry. It was cruel and mean and pointless, I tell her, near to tears, I'm so sorry. (I don't know what to say.)
I tell her my story about the church, I tell her there are those of us who are fighting back for justice. She cries and hugs me, shows me pictures of her grandchildren, the gifts she bought for them in Spokane. The big bald red man reaches across the aisle and leans back her chair for her when she says her back hurts. She shivers a little and looks at him, vulnerable. He doesn't meet her eyes, keeps his gaze trained to the floor. His big hands are gentle and then he turns back to the window. It's a sweet, careful moment, and I savor it.
I always wanted to raise a bird, Diana tells me, and after my daughter was murdered a little bird came to me. She followed me around everywhere, she perched on my shoulder. And then she flew away, and I knew my daughter's spirit had flown away, too. My daughter knew I needed that, see.
She gets off in Missoula and I hug her long in the aisle, pray in my way for her as she leaves, hope safeness and blessings on her.
When I get off in Bozeman the red-haired girl runs after me as I drag my suitcase into a snow drift, across the road. She hugs me hard. "Don't forget me," she whispers in my ear.
I couldn't.
It's such a wild and sweet world, I don't know what to make of it.
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