Beautiful day for bikin'

"Wake up. It's a beautiful day for biking." During my cross-country bike trip this phrase became a euphonism for "Wake up. It's 35 degrees outside, we're in the middle of Nowhere, Ohio, and we have 50 miles of headwind to burn through before we reach the other side of Nowhere, Ohio, so get your lazy butt out of the tent."

However, today reminded me that this phrase can still be said without sarcasm; even in Alaska, in November. I went for a two-hour ride along the ridge above town. There were a couple new inches of powder on the road and I had to earn every pedal stroke - but it's no worse than thick mud. The new snow clung to needles and bare branches, giving the landscape a rich contrast that comes when color is removed. Near the reservoir I met a pack of cross-country skiers on the road. We nodded in appreciation of each other and moved on, crushing through grains of snow as they sparkled in the afternoon sun.

Homer in Homer

This is a painting by local artist Leslie Klaar, who I interviewed today. She had a contagious enthusiasm that you don’t find much, even in artists. We talked for more than an hour about her life story, and I have to whittle it down to a 700-word profile. Sigh. But she showed me this painting that sparked a little de-ja-vu tingle when I first saw it. My camera flash pretty much washed it out, but it’s a painting of the Sterling Highway right before it drops into town. You can see the Spit snaking out into Kachemak Bay in the background. I liked it because this is exactly what I saw when I first turned this corner on Sept. 11. It was like looking at a reflection of my own memory … an abstract illustration of what I was feeling at the time. I don’t know. It’s one of those weird art things you can’t explain.

I’ve interviewed a lot of people since I came to town, and Leslie was more polite than most when I introduced myself … a hearty handshake and nothing more said about my name. Most often I get “Homer. You’re name is Homer? No! Really?” (Stifled snickers).

A few say, “Are you related to the founder?,” which is dumb. I’ve only lived here two months and even I know that the town was named after Homer Pennock, a gold prospector who I guess liked his first name better.

I was starting to feel like the only Homer in Homer until my co-worker met a middle-school-aged kid named Homer Olsen, while attending a shark dissection lab on a Saturday … voluntarily, I might add. “Is he from here?” I asked. “I think so,” my co-worker said. He’s probably a great kid, but man, what a cruel fate. I feel for you, Homer.

I like ... art

This is a picture I took on Saturday at Dramaslam. It was a strange event to say the least – 35 locals got together Friday night and wrote, rehearsed and performed six short plays in the space of 24 hours. Geoff and I arrived at the Beluga Lake Lodge expecting a garbled mess of bad writing and flubbed lines performed for an audience of maybe three. What we found was a beyond-capacity crowd of at least 200, and six plays that were - well – real plays. Witty, well acted plays complete with props, lighting and coherent direction. I was beyond surprised, but I guess my expectations still reside in Idaho Falls, where the only well-publicized art event in the 10 months I lived there was a craft fair. If there’s one thing that unites Homerites, it’s that they love their art … and their halibut.

I wrote a review of sorts about Dramaslam – here’s the link to that and other ART-icles of mine. I feel the need to apologize for the 1994-era layout of the Tribune arts page and the fact that it doesn’t link to anything. It’s not my fault! The Web page was designed long before I started working at the Tribune, and probably will remain the same long after I’m gone. With my extremely limited HTML knowledge and general focus elsewhere, it’s a battle I’ll probably never fight. I’m copy-and-paste girl, I am.

Speaking of embarrassing copy, I finally read through one of my articles today (probably the first I’ve read post-publication) and found a number of typos and other errors. As a former copy editor, this should be the height of shame for me. I should report myself to the Testy Copy Editors Web group (extremely funny site if you’re an anal retentive word cop). But will this prompt me to read my own articles before publication? Probably not. I have an debilitating mental block when it comes to self-editing. There’s nothing that makes me sick of myself faster than reading my own writing. So why keep a Weblog? Good question. I’ll go ride my bike trainer and think about it.

10,000-year increments

The best thing about a late sunrise is being awake to see it. Of course, it's coming late enough now that I'm often at work before any hint of dawn graces the horizon. I find myself going in to the office earlier and earlier, in hopes of catching the last rays of daylight before the sunset. No matter how sunny it is, though, it's hard to coax myself outside when the temperatures hover around 10 degrees. And I think, "someday, someday I'll be a real Alaskan and I will persevere no matter what." I said this phrase to myself when I ran outside at 6:30 a.m. today to start my car. I like to tell myself that when the winter gets to the point where my 1996 Geo Prism (2WD and 140,000 miles) is stopped dead by deep snow or cold, I'll just hop on my mountain bike and ride the five steep downhill miles to work. But today, as I pried the wipers from Geo's windshield and then tried to curl my nearly frozen fingers around the steering wheel, I wondered if I actually have it in me. Still five more weeks until solstice - I guess I'm going to find out, either way.

Homer bound

This is Giant Iron Pterodactyl Man; I think of him as GITMo. He guards the trailhead to Homestead, an amazingly scenic cross-country trail system that begins just a half-mile from my house. I walked by this thing at least five times before I first noticed it. Is that a testament to GITMo’s flawless integration into his environment, or a telling symptom of too much time in Homer? I suspect it might be the latter. Alaska attracts some strange people; strange people build strange things. It doesn’t take long before the topless mermaid statues and 10-foot burning baskets blend in like Starbucks on a Seattle boulevard.

I’ve been thinking lately about how different this place is from the place I grew up. It’s not just GITMo and the mermaid. It’s not just the art patrons showing up at a $75-a- ticket gala in evening gowns and rubber boots, or the environmental art that appears on a nearly daily basis somewhere along the Spit. It’s not what Homer is ... but what it refuses to be.

I come from the perspective of another lost soul from Everytown, U.S.A., growing up in a sea of suburban housing peppered with strip malls and parking lots. And now I live in a seaside community in rural Alaska, in a town that has been in a three-year fight to keep Fred Meyer away. We have exactly two chain stores - Safeway and McDonalds, if you don’t count an Arby’s in a gas station - in a retail community of more than 5,000 people. And, if I’m not mistaken, those stores came in fighting for their spot, too. And part of me believes this is great. That this is the way America actually used to be - locals dominating the local market. Buy Alaska! Feed your neighbor! It’s the American Dream. But a large part of me is nostalgic for the Kmarts and single-tract housing of my youth. Sometimes, it’s not always about what you love, but about what you know.

Transitions

My friend Monika in Ann Arbor, Mich., sent me this picture today. She took this photo of me and Geoff in late August in the Salt River Range of western Wyoming. Several of us had converged from our various corners of the country (me, Idaho; Geoff, Alaska; Monika, New York; and Chris, Utah) in this remote national forest along the Grays River to camp, hike and reminise about life before dispersal.

I enjoyed seeing the photo because I figure it was taken about two days before I found out I had a job offer in Homer, Alaska. At the time I was still heavily conflicted about the prospect of moving to Alaska. It was a vague plan Geoff and I had for a while. But after he left in the early summer I grew more comfortable with my life in Idaho, and more leary of the unknown north. Employment was scarce, distances extreme and, if I suddenly found myself single, as my ex-boss in Idaho put it, "The odds are good, but the goods are odd."

After the trip ended, Monika made her move from New York to Michigan; Chris took a different job in Utah; and Geoff set down the final ultimatum - he was going back to Alaska, with our without me. That same day, the day this camping trip ended, I got the e-mail from my current employer - a job offer.

"So how do you feel about living in a town called Homer?" the e-mail began.

And my first thought was - fine, really.

Two weeks later, I returned from my last spin class, stuck my last midnight shift at the copy desk, and hit Interstate 15. I had been so conflicted, but somehow this transition fell so perfectly into place that it was like merging onto a winding interchange only to look over at the end and find you're still parallel with the highway. Something like that ... but I think, now that I look at this photo, maybe I knew that all along.

Latitude 59

This is my requisite “Northern Exposure” shot - moose in the front yard. I took it this morning on my two-mile (OK, quarter-mile) hike to get the mail. Now all I need is a bear chomping on some salmon, a bright green streak of aurora borealis and someone in a bikini standing next to a snowman - and I’ll have completed the circle of Alaska cliches.

Speaking of cliches, being a “Cheechako” (that’s these Alaska-types’ term for people like me), I’ve spent a fair amount of time explaining some of the more popular Alaska cliches to the people “Outside” (that’s these Alaska-types’ term for all y’all.) And because some (you know who you are, Grandpa) keep bringing up the same myths every time I speak to them, I thought I’d try to debunk a few right now.

1. It’s not dark 24 hours a day here. Not on Dec. 21, not even in Fairbanks. Because Alaska is a very large place stretched across a very round part of the earth (well - aren’t they all), there’s a lot of latitude to cover. Yes, parts of Alaska are dark for weeks on end. Not too many people live in those parts. Down here in Homer, our shortest day is about five hours long. However, in the dead of winter, the sun is never very high on the horizon.

2. Alaska is not universally frigid. Sure, frigid is a relative term (my co-workers from Fairbanks think Homer is downright balmy.) Alaska is just “colder.” That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

3. Alaska is NOT a liberal state. For some reason people think because there’s trees and glaciers here, Alaska must be a state full of hippies. Not so. Alaskans are more adamant about privatization, public land capitalization and state rights than any place I’ve ever lived, and I’ve lived in Texas.

4. Most Alaskans do not drive dog teams to work, shoot grizzly bears for dinner or squat over streams all day panning for gold. They live normal, predictable, semi-urban lives just like everyone else. I know this one should seem obvious, but I spent a lot of my youth explaining to non-Utahns that Mormons don’t have horns.

5. Alaskans do not hibernate. Well, most don’t. My mom has been particularly worried about the fact that I don’t have television, and I’ve spoken to others who’ve asked me “what the heck” am I going to do all winter (you know who you are, Grandpa). The answer is, same thing you are - go to work, read books, waste time on the computer (like now), go to movies and concerts, hike (with snowshoes or cross-country skis) and ride my bike. Speaking of ... it just hit 20 degrees! I think I’ll go right now. (And for those who keep reading, um, disregard yesterday’s first paragraph.)