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I got out of Anchorage for nearly three days. David, Daniel, Denis, & I took a trip to McCarthy & Kennecott in the Copper River Basin. Kennecott is an old mining town that was abandoned in 1938. The trip was beautiful, therapeutic, and well-deserved by all of us.

Honestly, I imagined great tension and possible distance on our return, but the four of us play very well off one another and if I can get over my jealousy that the other three live in two adjacent houses far from me, I think we’ll continue to have a strong relationship.

I’m not a nature person… so I say, but I do really enjoy getting out and doing things like this trip. I mainly say these things about not being a nature person to prevent people from inviting me on adventures that I can resent them for going on later. I should see someone about that, but for now I will just admit it and try to deal with it. I seem to be all too willing to sabotage my own happiness. Curious. I think getting a little nature all over me was good.

My pictures will be around soon. Too tired to care tonight.Continue Reading

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10th & Cordova

I’m working on feeling unconventional
in a world of unconventional people.
I’m melding with others,
with those whose lives barely cross mine,
I am again like a loose bit
dangling from a ragged tree branch.
And I feel love. Love.
Quantified love. Finite and sequenced love.
Quantified?
I know I’m last. The love left is different,
the love is coated with a sticky doubt.
Denis is made up in shades of green,
needlessly feeding himself pain, gorging himself on his own thoughts.
His love is ranked, ordered, defined by hierarchy.
Denis uses his love to feel closeness,
and he wraps that love in money. Family.
Quantified? Finite?
David makes diplomatic concessions,
talks in circles and understanding tones, tries to hold together
things that aren’t in danger of slipping away.
He spends his time adding on to the structures, stroking egos,
helping Denis find even brighter green vestments.
I can’t even seem to get attention from myself.
Love? Love. It’s possible.
Expanding, filling the room, I feel uncomfortable
and take up too much space. How can I be ignored?
Sometimes I deflate the elephant and shrink to almost nothing,
transparent.
I shrink into a corner and watch my family below grow ever closer
without me, saddened by my own inability to include myself.
Daniel has come in, found David, taken him down a path I cannot see.
The fields of sweetly scented flowers cover the trail.
There is an increased interest in green.
I try to figure out how to be seen,
how to understand quantified love.
Denis longs to not be green, but I only know about this too late,
after I have purchased green tinted glasses that I wear when I look at him.
David and Daniel playing in the flowers makes me
simultaneously happy and enraged.
Enraged at me, at my ignorance, at how insufferable I’ve become.
Daniel brings back flowers and shares them with me,
and I am happy enough. Family.
Quantified? No.
David keeps tabs on the situation, sometimes,
very occasionally checking to see how I’m doing.
It’s easiest when he speaks about Daniel, about secrets and sex,
about the fields of flowers down the path.
I feel happy when he mentions Daniel, free.
The cracks are forming, and we are all distracted with our efforts.
I’ll soon need to purchase another pair of glasses, this time in rose.

Notes

Written 14 June 2008 in McCarthy, Alaska. Revised 1 October 2018 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “10th & Cordova” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)Continue Reading

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Before Kennicott

Even before it begins, I want the end
Age has made me inflexible and cantankerous
I don’t want to live in the moment
don’t want to live
don’t want
don’t

I beg forgiveness for being inflexible and cantankerous
Waiting, sitting, forgetting why I agreed to do this
Sigh
I’m over heartache and jealousy
Clichés
I can see happiness in front of me, my arms outstretched
It is simple to vacation and so hard,
busy people all frantic about different things
personalities that barely mesh in the relative ease of our daily lives

I feel my rage staying near the surface
ready to explode at any moment and I hope I can suppress it long enough
and then scream into my pillow later
They’ve never seen my rage
I don’t like it
I feel like a child
Spoiled, inflexible
Things should stay as they are
As they are
Not quite
Not this
As they are
As I am
Inflexible
Cantankerous
Impatient

We’ll find ourselves soon at a lodge
a disappointment to my urban sensibilities
to my immaturity
and I’ll feel ashamed to not be more connected to nature
or Nature
Connected to the universe
I am clichés
waiting for a beginning I want to end
longing for moments I fail to experience
I’m waiting
and Daniel is sleeping

Written 13 June 2008 in Anchorage, Alaska.  Revised 1 October 2018 in Glencoe, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “Before Kennicott” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)Continue Reading

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I paused to bend your ear [it didn’t go well]

Secrets whispered make this place
tolerable, despite crumudgeons
who’d have it otherwise.
Would-be librarians shush us,
make get-back-to-work motions.
My face goes blank like a yokel
with nothin’ in my noggin ‘cept dust.
I’m animally staring into
the headlights of disapproval,
amazed that people think
themselves as so much more
important than they are.
I forget the secrets for now,
pretend to obey these adults who
wish to again be hall monitors.
I’ll wait and shout bits as I pass by
to show you that I still include you.
Together we’ll prove ourselves here
and these asses will fall away
to make room for our ascent.

5.20.2008

I’ve discovered that I wasn’t the only person to want to create a Title Wave book. Now, having discussed it with a coworker, I’m going to try hard to make it happen. He proposed donating profits to a charity, which I think is brilliant. We wouldn’t be in it for the money anyway. Now, choosing the right people to run it will be tough. One of the strongest resources is not a supporter of the project, so we cannot count on that person or the knowledge from them. I think it requires people who are willing to get things done, so I’ll be working on staying on other people about it, as well as myself.Continue Reading

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{get that sheep out of my mouth}

It was January 2007 when a traumatic experience during a Greek pizza resulted in the eradication of meat from my diet. I don’t crave it. Making the decision to not ingest animals was one of the most positive things I’ve done in my life. Although I still maintain that this is what works for me and is by no means the right thing for everyone, I think the control it has given me over my own life is very rewarding. I no longer feel guilty for enjoying a meal. The lack of meat in my diet — and dairy (in December 2006 I stopped digesting milk, as often happens) — has lead me in various culinary directions. I have discovered a world of soy foods and have embraced Indian food greatly. I’ve found that when I am forced to read every label before buying food, I often no longer want to eat things that are completely meat-free. Not eating such things is better. Going forward, I hope to eat even healthier foods.

{nomadic life}

Relying on the generosity of relatives I hardly know, I was able to stay in Alaska and get back in the black financially. That time came to an end, when I was ushered out of the apartment I was living in. This is hardly a tragedy. I hated that place and my life there was lonely. My family next door seemed as far away as the one’s I speak to regularly and people rarely visited. Last winter, there was no heat until mid-January, making it unbearably cold. I was more than happy to leave. I did not have anywhere to go and David took me in, allowing me to stay until mid November. At this point, I got my fourth Alaska address in two years, more than I had in seven years in Tulsa. I am living in David’s old place and it really suits me. It is small, but not confining. Although I know I will have to move in another year, I will enjoy my life here while I can.Continue Reading

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It is December 20th, the shortest day of the year. In places like Fairbanks and Barrow, this is a much bigger deal than it is here in Anchorage, but our days are short enough. The sun will rise at 10:14 and will set at 3:42. To make matters darker, today will be a cloudy day. And actually, that is quite alright with me. Clouds mean warmer air — relief from the negative numbers is far more important to me at the moment than relief from the darkness. As I write this, it is -8° outside. That is the lowest I recall so far this year, but it has hardly been much warmer for several days.

I finished Winkie . It was excellent to the very end. I think I convince myself to not read books because I am rarely satisfied the ending of them. It isn’t the endings themselves, but a realization that I am never going to know what happens to these characters next. Winkie was no different. I will get over it and over the next week, I will realize how much I enjoyed the book. Go pick up a copy; it is well worth your time. Next on my list was to be The World Without Us, but I finished before I had a chance to purchase the new book. I will move on to Holidays On Ice.Continue Reading

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Alexander Supertramp

I finally finished reading Brendan Wolf by Brian Malloy. I didn’t throw it across the breakroom like I wanted to either. It frustrated me, but the events that upset me were ones that were obvious from the beginning. I think it was worth my investing in the lives of these characters though.

Throughout the book there are references to Alexander Supertramp, the name Christopher McCandless gave himself while traveling around the country. Alexander Supertramp died in Denali of starvation in 1992.

Brendan Wolf has assumed this name and his real name isn’t revealed until the end of the book. He is hopelessly obsessed with Alexander and the books Alexander loved. He reads them — devours them — over and over.

The plot of the book is a scheme hatched up by his brother and sister-in-law. The plan is to steal money from a donation truck during the March For the Unborn, an anti-abortion rally. Brendan has to become a trusted member of the group in charge of the rally, Babies First, and get a spot as a driver during the rally. Meanwhile, his personal life has started to get in the way. He ends up living with Marv, an older man who Brendan has refused to sleep with, but who had a stroke during an argument about a living arangement. Brendan feels guilty and takes care of Marv when he is released to his home. He is also falling in love with Sean, a hopeless romantic who only knows Brendan by the name Pierre Bezukhov.

This is an amusing read, but one that begs for a sequel. I want to know more about these characters.Continue Reading