I dream a strange dream of noise and silence

The closing credits to the movie, Rum Diary, with Johnny Depp, based on the work of Hunter S Thompson, photographed with my iPhone just before Margie and I left the theatre.

Today I had one of the strangest dreams ever. It began close to noon and lasted until about 2:30 pm, although it was interrupted three, maybe four times, by phone calls, but after each call it resumed.

I am trying to remember what time I got up this morning, but it is unclear to me. Was it 7:00? 8:00? 9:00? It was somewhere in that stretch. There was a piece of work that I had to do first thing so I did it, but the whole time I had the feeling that my density was increasing, that I was becoming heavier and heavier and pretty soon my weight would crush the chair beneath me and I would fall to the floor, then through the floor, then into the earth and I would not stop falling until I reached the molten core.

That is the feeling of pure exhaustion, sleepiness, sleep denied.

I had to sleep, so I left my desk, left my office, walked through the near corner of the garage into the living room and then lay down on the couch. It is kind of funny - if I am in my bed, I cannot lie on my back at all. It just aggravates my shingles too much and leaves me no hope of sleep. There is only one position that I can lie on in bed and that is on my right side, tilted towards the front.

The shingles start on the left side of my back, pretty close to my spine, wrap around through my left armpit and across my chest in an ugly, dark-red, mottled, blistered band that seems to range between three and four inches in width and then stops right on my sternum.

I cannot lie on my left side at all. So I hold that one position on my right side, all through the night. I do not sleep through the night, but only in brief periods - but that's good, because before I started taking the drugs I couldn't really sleep at all.

Oddly enough, I can lie on my back on the couch. I think it has something to do with the pillows that I put beneath me and how they position me. It still hurts my back to lie like that, but I can handle it.

So that is what I did. I lay down on the couch and closed my eyes. The cats, Jim and Chicago, happily came to join me. Both wanted to step all over my chest until they could find just the right spot to curl up and nap with me, but I refused to let them. I kept picking them up and pushing them down to my legs. Finally, they got the idea. One settled down on my thighs, the other in the gap between my calves.

Then I closed my eyes, fell asleep almost instantly and began to dream. Margie had the TV on - tuned to the news channels. Even as I slept and dreamed, I could hear and was cognisant of every word and sentence that came from the TV. I followed the conversation, but as I did, in my dream I was in the midst of a big crowd in a warm and sunny place and there were green trees and flowers and stores. It was not Alaska. Maybe it was in the tropics somewhere - but it looked American, so maybe not. Florida? Arizona? Puerto Rico? People were talking, people were waving their arms - others were driving cars and motorcycles; airplanes kept flying by, low to the ground, so low that I could see the faces of the pilots.

Dogs ran past, barking.

Many more things were happening.

All this - the conversation, the shouts, the pumping of pistons, the spinning of props, the barking of dogs was taking place in complete silence. I could hear no voices, no engines, no props roaring, no dogs barking. The activity before me was furious and mouths were flapping - in silence, making no sound whatsoever.

Picture a lady with curly red hair tied back with a checkered kerchief, standing two feet away from me, looking right at me, the motion of her mouth, lips and teeth telling me that she was talking loudly but not a sound came from her.

As her jaws worked, what I heard was Rick Perry, saying "oops!" I could hear, understand and follow everything that was coming from the TV. Perry, Herman Cain, Romney, the recent horrors at Penn State and a whole lot of serious nonsence being debated by left-wingers and right-wingers, with a moderate or two thrown in for the heck of it.

And then the phone would ring and I would want to ignore it but there were critical matters pending, so I would take the phone and someone would say I should donate money here and someone else asked for John and I told him he had the wrong number, there is no John here and he said are you sure and then someone called wanting to use some of my pictures in something - and each time I fell back to sleep at practically the moment I put the phone down. The dream resumed as if it had never stopped and once again I was perfectly following the dialogue from the TV as the cats napped happily upon my legs.

Then a call came about a completely unexpected matter that absolutely had to be dealt with immediately and so I disrupted the cats, staggered into my office to my computer, talking on the phone, trying to grasp the pertinent details and then I opened the appropriate software and began to type and calculate but kept making mistakes and a task which should have taken maybe ten minutes at most took me about half-an-hour.

Had that not happened, I think perhaps I would have lay on the couch dreaming a silent dream as I followed everything that was actually happening around me for another two, three, four, six, ten, hours or so.

Maybe it was the Vicodin. 

This is what pushed me into a state of such exhaustion and stress that I wound up getting shingles. Not by itself, mind you. It has been a long chain of events beginning in early summer or maybe late spring, perhaps even winter or earlier, including the completion of the Kivgiq Uiñiq that so closely preceded this one, including my almost sleepless eight or nine days in New York, death here and there, and a few other events that I will not bother to detail, but in the end it was the 12, 16, 20, 30, 40 hour days that I repeatedly put in over the past couple of weeks in order to finish this thing.

But you know what? If you moved me back two weeks in time but kept the memory of these shingles and how painful they are alive and vivid in my mind and then said, "You are stressing yourself too much. Go ahead, push it aside for awhile. Because if you don't you are going to get shingles and you are going to think for awhile that you are at death's door and then even when you find out you are not going to die you will still have to bear this miserable pain of shingles for at least two weeks, maybe more. Push it aside and rest." I would not push it aside. I would do just what I did, even knowing the pain that was coming.

That is what I would have done and I would be suffering just as badly now as I am, but not as badly as I would be were it not for Vicodin.

This is just a proof copy. It is at the printers and will be there for awhile so it is not yet available to be read. But it's coming.

It's got some huge flaws in it.

It is a work of love.

Love is the only way I know how to work. It is good to get money when it comes, and it may not come again for quite awhile now, but money has never motivated me.

Love, and love only. That is my motivation.

To those who do not understand I cannot explain it. To those who do, I need not explain.

I am going to go to bed now. At 4:00 AM, I can take another Vicodin.

Don't worry. I will not become another Dr. House.

2010: How it ended; 2011: How we have spent the year so far

To close out 2010, Margie and I drove to the new Tikahtnu theatres on the near edge of Anchorage to see a late afternoon matinee showing of "True Grit."

Here we are, approaching the theatre.

Right after we had we taken our seats in the theatre, before I had silenced my iPhone, a message came in. It was from Lavina. She and her boys were roaming about elsewhere in Anchorage and Kalib had found himself holding a snake, surrounded by dinosaurs.

It was a damn frightening scene to see.

As for True Grit, we enjoyed it. It had some moments in it that were extremely emotional for me, due more to the connections they caused my mind to make, rather than to what was happening onscreen itself.

It is at such moments that one appreciates the fact that it is very dark in a movie theatre and that no one is looking at you, but at the one bright spot in the theatre - the screen.

2010 ended with a shockingly warm blast of air sweeping in from the south Pacific, causing a 55 degree rise in temperature at our house, from -10 F to 45 above. Even Fairbanks warmed up, but not quite so much as we did. The roads became wet, dirty, and slippery. By the time we headed home, the temperature had dropped down to 25 and the highway was very slick.  Not everyone who drove it succeeded at staying on it.

Some even wound up upside down.

I hope no one was badly hurt.

After we got home, Margie watched a little TV. I seldom care to watch TV, but was too tired to do anything else. So I sat on the couch next to her for awhile. Outside, on the other side of the marsh, someone was shooting fireworks.

In fact, all over Wasilla and any other place in South Central Alaska where people live, people were shooting off fireworks.

At the moment the iPhone flashed midnight, we toasted in the New Year. I do not precisely remember the toasts, but they did mention grandkids.

I stepped briefly outside to see what I could see. The air smelled of burnt gun powder. Country music blared from two houses down, where people were partying. I shot this image of a rocket blasting over that house and then stepped back into our house.

Margie and I did not last long after that.

2010 had ended hard and had left me exhausted.

I did not get up until about 10:00 AM. I figured a young couple such as us should not dirty dishes on the first day of the new year. "Want to go to breakfast?" I asked Margie, as she lay groggily in bed.

"Sure," she answered.

So I started to the car with the remote.

Soon, the Ford Escape was ready to drive us into the New Year.

Here we are, on Lucille Street, approaching the four-way stop at the intersection with Spruce. Metro Cafe sits just beyond, but they have been closed for two days. Carmen and Scott are in Arizona. Shoshana has been running the shop, but she and her boyfriend headed for Chena Hot Springs to celebrate the New Year. 

I had been a little bit jealous of that idea, to think how nice it would be to soak in those hot springs in the midst of the -40 degree cold, but with the big warmup, I was not quite so jealous anymore.

Still, it would be great fun to be in Chena Hot Springs today.

I wonder if I could ever get Margie to do something like that?

As we walked from the car to the entrance to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, Ubiquitous Raven flew over us. "Chooo'weet!"

The seat in the corner against the wall was not available, so I had to risk getting shot in the back. Still, this is the snuggest, coziest part of Family Restaurant because you are close to the kitchen and can feel the warmth of it.

Not that this made much difference on what is proving to be another very warm day, with the temp above freezing.

I hope it cools off soon.

I hate this kind of weather.

Especially on New Year's day.

As we we prepared to drive away, I saw this doggie in the car window next door.

The scene as we drove away from Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, looking into the new year with both anticipation and apprehension.

I know for a fact that the year ahead will be a terrible one, and it will be an excellent one. This is the conflicted state in which it has begun and in which it will remain, because that is the state of all of our lives, all of the time.

May the excellent times outnumber and overpower the terrible ones.

That is my wish and prayer for the new year, for us all.

View images as slideshow

Airplanes, ice cream and the need to escape; the final picture of the living Royce

I just want to escape for a bit now - not forever, not for years, not for months, perhaps not even for weeks. Days would be good, but I don't have days to spare. Hours, perhaps?

Just for a bit - and then while I am in escape to imagine that this little bit is forever. I want to climb into my airplane as I once used to do and go up there, into the clouds, into the sky, as I witnessed someone else do here, above me, late yesterday afternoon or early evening as I pedaled my bicycle.

But I want to be more free than the folks in this plane were. They were in the air, but they were completely controlled by people down on the ground, people who gave them orders as to just what altitude, heading direction and speed they could fly.

I want to be in the air, my hand on the stick and my brain free to choose what direction to push that stick and if I should push it that way and then change my mind and decide I want to go the other way and climb or descend to a different altitude than that is what I want to be able to do.

I want to fly into the updraft and then just let go of the damn stick altogether and let the wind carry me; see how high it will lift me into the sky before it turns me loose, and then to see what the view looks like from that perspective. There will be many mountains to look at, I assure you, and fields of ice and snow. 

I know, because it has happened just this way before.

And if I should come upon an eagle, bald or otherwise, I want to push the stick so that the airplane goes into a hard bank, to fly a tight circle with the eagle at center, it's pivot point, close enough to my cockpit window so that I can see the eye that it locks upon my eye.

When this happens with an eagle, even though one is flying a 360 degree circle around it and it is matching the turn degree for degree, the eagle appears not to move at all. The only hint that the eagle is rotating is that the areas of light and shadow upon the eagle change. Only the rays of the sun mark its turn, for its eye stays connected with yours, it's eye looks right into your's, and does not blink. It's wings do not flap, it's body appears to remain stationary.

But my airplane is broken and I cannot do such things now.

Yet I must break away for a bit.

What will I do?

Will I ride my bike, on and on, never stopping?

No, I am not fit enough right now to do that.

Will I walk, hike, up in the mountains?

I don't know.

But I've got to break free for a bit, somehow.

Of course, there is always ice cream. We have a Dairy Queen in Wasilla and I love their soft ice cream. This is from one week ago. Jacob, Kalib and Jobe were visiting us while Lavina went to Homer with Sandy for Sandy's early bachelorette party. She is getting married September 4 at Lake Lucille, here in Wasilla.

So us boys went and got ice cream. The chocolate coated cone Jacob is grabbing is for him. The other one is for Kalib. The milkshake, strawberry, is for me. Poor Jobe! He got none.

He didn't feel bad, though.

It didn't bother him at all.

Kalib, with his ice-cream cone.

Remember the patch of dandelions in the black and white series that Royce defended from Happy the dog and then floated above? This is the very patch, 15 years later. And that's Kalib in it, the little boy that has emerged from the baby that Royce loved so greatly.

If Margie were not spending her week days in town, babysitting Jobe, there would not be so many dandelions here. She loves to spend the days of late spring pulling dandelions out by the roots. There have been years where it has appeared that she has gotten them all, but, of course, with dandelions, you never get them all.

The dandelions are always there, surviving, even when not seen, even when the ground is frozen solid and the snow piled atop it. The dandelions are there, preparing to proliferate again. To a young boy, this is not a bad thing.

To a young boy, it is a magical thing, one that supplies him with many tiny parachutes to launch into the breeze.

Oh, dear! I have gotten things completely out of order! Chronologically, this picture should have preceded the ice cream shots. In it, we have just begun the trip to Dairy Queen. Muzzy needs a little exercise, so he runs alongside the Tahoe as Jacob drives down Sarah's Way toward Seldon. When we reach Seldon, Jacob will stop the car and Muzzy will get in.

Then we will continue on to buy the ice cream.

Now I am in the car. I have just stopped by Metro Cafe where Carmen and Sashana presented me with smiles and a cup, plus a muffin and I did not pay for either one. Someone out there, one of you my readers who refused to identify yourself, felt badly when s/he read about Royce and so bought this cup and muffin for me.

It was a very nice thought and I thank you.

So I proceeded on, to escape as best I could while drinking from the cup and eating the muffin. I passed by Grotto Iona, the Place of Prayer, and there were horses there.

On my way towards Grotto Iona, I came upon a place where a vehicle had gone off the road and was down in the bushes. A tow truck had just arrived and there were a few guys there. Before I could safely turn on my camera and get it ready, the picture was behind me.

On the way back, I knew they were there. As I passed, I lifted the camera as high as I could, hoping that it would catch the vehicle down in the bushes, but it didn't.

Out of chronologically order again - here is Carmen, before the Grotto and the horses, before the vehicle off the road, even before I got my cup and muffin. I have not even reached the drive-through window yet.

Metro Cafe, headed to drive-through window study, #32.9: Carmen and Branson

Financially, though I have managed to go far and do many things, these past few months have been hell. But finally my latest contract has been activated and yesterday I got my first check. I took Margie to the movie in Eagle River - Jonah Hex. 

In many ways, it was an absurd movie and the bad guys came to predictable ends, but it was fun. It was escape and I enjoyed it. Afterwards, Margie and I dined at nearby Chepos.

The food was good and the atmosphere pleasant. 

And then, last night, as I was going backwards through my largely neglected take of the past week, I came upon this, the very last picture of Royce, alive and aware, that I ever took or ever will take.

Since his passing, Chicago has been a very needy cat. She wants to be with me constantly. As much as is practical, I let her.

A blustery, burnout kind of day; Kalib - just for Riana

It was a blustery, total-burnout kind of day. I couldn't work. I couldn't even take a walk. I could hardly make myself do anything. In fact, I photographed only two scenes today: this one, blowing snow seen through the windshield of our car as I drove Margie past Wasilla Lake on our way to Eagle River.

There would have been more choices in Anchorage, but Anchorage was too far. I did not want to drive all the way to Anchorage. So we chose Valley River 6 Cinema in Eagle River and drove there.

Although Gift of the Whale is out of print, I still get quarterly royalty checks and last week one came in for $79.22 - not enough to pay any bills but enough to go to a movie and buy some popcorn, so that's what we did.

Shutter Island, with Leonard DiCaprio and Ben Kingsley is what we saw and it was just the break I needed.

At first, Margie did not want to see it, because she thought it was a horror flick and she hates horror flicks. It did not look like a horror flick to me, but a 1950's cop drama and they can be fun. She decided I was probably right and it was playing at the right time so we chose it.

As it turned out it was neither a horror flick or a 1950's cop drama, but a pyschological thriller that involved a 1950's cop and a taste of horrific horror.

I won't say anymore about it than that, because I don't want to give anything away to anybody who hasn't yet seen it but still might.

Above is the second scene that I photographed today: the highway as we passed by Wasilla Lake on our return home. You can see the snow is still blowing, but more lightly than it had been three hours earlier.

These are left-overs from Friday. I am including them in here just for Riana - my ten-year old reader who keeps me from swearing all the time.

This is pretty hard on me, because I like to swear, damnit.

But for Riana, I have been cutting back.

She left a message today. She typed the word, "hell" and told me that I was busted for typing it first. She said she missed Kalib, who had been absent from this blog for a full day. 

So, Riana, here is Kalib. This is what was happening:

"Where's grandma?" Grandma asked.

Kalib pointed his butter knife at Grandma.

"Where is Grandpa?" Grandma asked. Kalib pointed the butter knife and me and actually touched me with it.

"Where is Momma?" Grandma asked. Kalib pointed his knife at Momma and touched her, just like he touched me.

I don't feel as burned out as I did this morning, but I still feel burned out.

No telling what will happen tomorrow, but, like I wrote last night, I could blog lightly all week long. Then again, something dramatic might happen.

Riana, I've got a couple of really good leftover picture stories of Kalib and his cousin Gracie that I still want to post. They both will require some editing time, but now that I know you are there and that you miss Kalib when he does not appear, it is more likely that I will actually get around to posting them before everybody grows too much older.

Kalib eats Kiwi Fruit; Mayor Edward Itta in front of my old photos; all of my Anchorage kids except for Melanie - but I did get her cats; I see Avatar

I have been flooded with angry complaints, all of which go something like this: "Where is Kalib? Why has he disappeared from your blog?"

Here he is.

Today I went into Anchorage to do a couple of things and after I did the first, I headed over to Kalib's daycare center. I arrived at lunch time, which explains the bib, and just before naptime, which explains why he looks so tired.

He was surprised and excited when I first stepped through the door. That was kind of nice.

He's eating Kiwi fruit. Think about that: a Navajo/Apache boy eating Kiwi fruit in Alaska in January.

That's the kind of world we live in now.

This is Edward Itta, Mayor of the North Slope Borough, which, of course covers the Arctic Slope with headquarters in Barrow. Even so, it is essential that the Borough keep an office in Anchorage. Mayor Itta had come down to take care of some Anchorage business, which gave me the opportunity to go in and do a little interview with him.

See all those photos on the wall behind him?

Those are mine and I made those prints probably about 20 years ago. Many of the people pictured have since left this life.

"Where's your camera?" Mayor Itta asked me when he first saw me. "I never see you without your camera." He was very surprised when I pulled the little, tiny, palm-sized pocket camera out of my pocket.

I had lunch with Jacob and Lavina...

...and Lisa, too. I got maybe one hour of sleep last night, and it is now getting late again and I am just too tired to recount any of the conversation or even to recall topics discussed.

It did feel real good to have Lisa put her head on my shoulder.

Jacob, looking sharp in his US Public Health Services Commissioned Corp uniform.

The view in my rearview mirror while stopped at a red light on my way to take care of another piece of business.

I have no idea what happened here.

This is Jack King of Camai Printing, and he is handing me a color proof from a job Camai is printing for me. 

After that, I went by myself to watch the 3D version of the movie Avatar. I won't review it, but it was definitely a threshold movie. I know - there have been 3D movies before this one, but I do believe this is the one that is going to mark the moment when 3D started coming at us for real.

It did not feel at all gimmicky. It took a fantasy world and made it real. If only, at the end, the movie makers could have risen above formula and cliche, it could have also been a great movie, like the Last of the Mohicans or Little Big Man, or Dead Man, because its the same story, really, and the movie did get off to a fanatastic start, story-wise.

As to the effects, fantastic from beginning to end. Soon, I suppose, such effects will commonplace, expected.

Melanie had to work very late and I did not get to see her. I did go to her house, though, and see her cats. Here is Slick, or Bear Meach, as he is also called.

And here is Diamond, the sweet ornery one.

And here's Epizzles, or Poof, who is actually Charlie's cat, but is staying with Melanie and her cats right now.

As for Royce, the results came back. It is a thyroid deficiency. Now, he must be medicated twice a day for the rest of his life. Other than that, the test results showed no problems.

It was Rex who let me into Melanie's house to see the cats. Now that Stephanie has gone, he is temporarily living in Melanie's basement apartment along with Cassie, the 11 year-old dog that Stephanie brought into the marriage.

Some of you will remember Box Car Bean, the very beautiful cat that I rescued and gave to Rex and Stephanie a couple of years back. I loved that cat from the moment I rescued it and brought it home. I never wanted it to leave the family and that's why I gave it to Rex and Stephanie, but when she left, Stephanie took Boxcar Bean with her.

Rex says Stephanie needed to have Boxcar.

Here I am, driving out of Anchorage.

And here I am, on the Palmer Hay Flats, almost home.

Now, once again, it is very late  - early the next morning, actually, and given my one hour of sleep last night, I am extremely tired. So I have already made up my mind - after I get up, I'm going to Family Restaurant for breakfast, even if it's closer to lunch time.

I know. I should stay home and cook oatmeal. Eat a banana.

But I'm going to the Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant.

I'm just going to do it. I don't care about economics, wisdom, or practicality. I'm going.