Yuletide in Skagway

Keeping true to the original intent of this blog, which was to tell people who don't live here what it's like to live here in wintertime, I thought I'd post some highlights of the holiday season in Skagway.

I've never lived anywhere that was so festive for Christmas - except, maybe, when I effectively "lived" in the mall for those few years I worked retail in college. but that wasn't festive in the same way. That was materialistic festivity rooted in the desire of businesses to capitalize on marketing schemes and get out of the red. Here, the joy comes from a sense of community and somewhat genuine holiday spirit accented by a lot of drinking of holiday spirits.

So, here are a few of the Yuletide festivities that I've taken part in over the years.

Santa Train
Probably one of the more unique celebrations that Skagway puts on. As you may or may not know, Skagway is a tourist town. The main tourist attraction is the White Pass train ride which goes for a few hours up into BC and the Yukon. The train used to run year-round and carry freight and passengers before the road came in; now it only runs tourists in the summertime.

Except for one day in winter when the train runs up the hill through the snow in early December. They clear the tracks ahead of time up to a certain point and then it's on... Santa is on the train and there are both children's and adult cars. The children's cars are where Santa mingles with the kids and does all that cutesy Christmas stuff (actually, I have no idea, because I've never been on the kids' cars). The adult cars are where the rest of us wait for Santa to join us for drinks. (Someone looking suspiciously like Santa is often known to be seen at the local watering hole afterward, spreading more holiday cheer.)

The first year I went, Stimee and I brought the makings for purple motherfuckers, a mixed drink I used to have all the time in Albany. We shared them with everyone and had a lot of other drinks from other people. Last year when I went I one-upped my purple motherfuckers. I had hot fireball cider, made to order. I brought the Jet Boil camp stove, cider packets, water, Fireball, spices and cups in a picnic basket and made people hot cider to keep them warm on the trip up the hill and back. Both times were pretty awesome.

Yuletide Ball
I only went once, last year. It wasn't the most thrilling thing ever. The theme last year was some kind of tropical thing, so Stimee and I got all festive. We wore red union suits underneath beachwear. It was pretty fun. There was a band and food but I think we were just there too early.

Tree Lighting
The Christmas tree that gets lit for the tree lighting is on an empty lot on 5th. It's not a spruce tree that gets cut down for this purpose; it's a tree that just grows there. I've gone to the tree lighting at least twice that I can think of. Everyone stands around in the street while a group sings Christmas songs in preparation for the tree being lit. The pivotal moment comes when the fire truck, decked out in holiday lights, comes up and off jumps Santa. He says hi to all the kids and then gives the OK to light the lights on the Christmas tree.

After the tree is lit, there's a holiday concert that happens at the Park Service auditorium on 2nd. Last year, it was my full intention to go to said concert with my girlfriend. We wandered over there but when we arrived found that the Park Service auditorium was a lot more crowded than we felt like dealing with. So, next best thing... we went to the liquor store across the street, got a couple big cans of Foster's (why Foster's? I'm not entirely sure. But it's the only time I've ever drank Foster's, to my knowledge) and sat out behind the Park Service building by the train tracks in the freezing cold, drinking, smoking cigarettes, and being very very merry.

Eagles Christmas pageant
This tradition was started by the Arctic Brotherhood around the turn of the century. It's carried on to this day by the Eagles, a fraternal order that, unlike the AB, survived.

Because the kids don't get enough Santa, the Eagles makes sure they get to see him on Christmas Eve. All the kids in town get to go up on stage, meet Santa, and get a present from him. It's pretty cute. I only went once, back when I spent a lot of time with a family who had the best 5-year-old ever. It was fun to watch.

Christmas Eve
My favorite holiday celebration in Skagway happens on Christmas Eve. This year I missed it on account of work, but my liver is probably better off for it.

On Christmas Eve, all the businesses in town open their doors to holiday revelry by providing free food and booze and camaraderie. The town crawl may start at either end of Broadway, but the venues are varied. The book store, the Mountain Shop, the hardware store, and the grocery store are the ones that stand out the most in my mind. Beers, egg nog, margaritas... cheese plates, veggies and dip, finger foods... and drunks. Everyone stumbles from one business to the next, getting progressively drunker and drunker as they go. Inevitably most of us will end up at one bar or another at the end of the night, insuring that Christmas morning includes one hell of a hangover.

This year I didn't do any of them. But when I get off work in an hour, midnight will mark the start of Christmas. In other parts of the country people spend Christmas with their dysfunctional families. Since I am 4,000 miles away from mine, I will get to ring in Christmas at midnight with my much more dysfunctional Skagway family at the Pizza Station.

Around the holidays it becomes increasingly more evident how many ways my Skagway family is not entirely unlike a real family. I guess there'a little more choice involved in who you associate with here when it comes to the in-quotation-marks "family," but when it all comes down to it we're all pretty much stuck with each other regardless, just like a real family. And there really aren't very many people I'd prefer to be stuck with at the holidays.

women of influence in my life in Skagway

When faced with the question "who have been the biggest influences in your life," I realized that all of them that I could come up with have been the significant men in my life. Is it possible that the shortcomings that have led me down rabbit holes and into despair have been due to the fact that I put too much emphasis on being influenced by the men, and not enough on being influenced by women?

As I try and think about it, I have a hard time coming up with very many female role models in my life (apart from the obvious - mom, of course you are the exception). All of my heroes have always been men, starting and ending of course with my big brother. When I was a kid, the people I strove to be in games and wanted to be when I grew up were all men - Indiana Jones; the brothers Hanson (make fun of me all you want, I really don't care); Beethoven... as I grew older and started having real ambitions beyond pipe dreams and make-believe, my heroes were still men.

Dead rock stars topped the list of people who inspired me musically and fashion-wise (one need only remember the bright red leather pants or the blue suede shirt with billowing sleeves to see how I was trying to be Freddie Mercury, once I discovered him). Female rock stars never appealed to me. None of their voices, apart from Joan Jett, really had that edge that I so desperately wanted and so blatantly lack. Apart from Veruca Salt, no women played rock guitar. Female rock stars were all actually pop stars or folk singers. There's a time and a place for that, as well, but I never idolized them as much as I did their male counterparts.

Writers seem to be the same. I fell in love with the poet E. A. Robinson and his good friend Robert Frost, finding Sylvia Plath boring. The writers who have influenced me and made me want to write have all been male as far as I can remember.

And then there's the movie characters I'd relate with the most. Always men. When asked which female movie character I would most like to be, I come up staggeringly short. I cannot relate with female film characters. While I'm sure feminist film critics would argue that that's because Hollywood only creates one-dimensional females who have no depth of character, that actually isn't the case anymore. Women in movies represent a vast range of types, especially when you start to look at independent movies. But if asked what movie character I would most like to be, it would be Loki, or Jeremiah Johnson, or Russell from Almost Famous.

Of course, it's increasingly common for women to fall into this same pattern of tomboyish tendencies, especially the women that I associate with. But so many of these types turn out to be independent and strong, as influenced by the independent, strong women in pop culture and their lives that help them become the well-adjusted and good-head-on-your-shoulders types that they are. I'm starting to think that, although the man who influenced me the most, my brother, has been a positive influence, most of them haven't. I'm starting to figure things out a little bit...

When I look back at people who have come and gone in and out of my life, the ones who have had the most dramatic effects have been the men who have done me wrong. Maybe that's why I live with the mindset that I do. All the control in who I've become has been placed in the hands of people that I shouldn't have given it to in the first place. Instead of giving that influence to the women I aspire to be, I give it to the men I aspire to be with.

And that's certainly been the story of my life in Alaska, as well as Albany. Come to think of it, I remember a very depressed and indignant few years of high school after my first romance fell to pieces after a year. And maybe that's why I've always had mostly male friends - I'd rather be surrounded by men who can validate or shit all over my self-worth as opposed to women who can't generally give me the type of attention that I look for.

But (since my blog is ostensibly about my winters in Alaska, I should bring my 3 AM stream of consciousness around to that, I guess) there've been a lot of women I've come to know in Skagway that, as I start to look forward instead of backward for the first time in my life, I would really like to be more like in so many ways. I see women around me who, whether they're in relationships or not, don't define themselves entirely by the men they're involved with. I see women who have families but who haven't lost themselves or their sense of identity to those conventional units. I see women who run businesses and have successful careers, even small-town careers. More than all that, I see women who are single and not afraid to be, not just looking for the next potential Prince Charming to save them from themselves.

All of the pivotal moments in my life can be directly attributed to one man or another. Even my journey to Alaska in May of 2007 was spawned by the guitarist that made me feel so trapped in Albany that I couldn't breathe.

But I'd like to think that my outlook can still change. My Skagway adventure began with a ferry ride from Juneau. At the ferry terminal in Juneau, as I stood eagerly awaiting what epic tales may lie ahead in the story of my life, I met my first Skagway girlfriend. She's still in my life, and, now that I think about it, one of my pivotal Skagway in winter moments came when she had to be medevacced out of town a few Decembers ago and I thought I might lose her. I don't know when I've ever been so scared.

Two summers ago, two of my girlfriends and I embarked on our first Slow Girls adventure - so named for the fact that we all hike slower than most and have no qualms about that. We conquered the Chilkoot together and, through cracking knees and bruised hips, were unstoppable. Slow Girls has become an institution as we go on as many adventures as possible, with misadventures ranging from porcupines to bear poles.

A few summers ago, while I was smoking with a male friend on the deck at the Brewco, a girl came up and started complimenting my friend. I inwardly rolled my eyes, thinking "Wow, look, another girl who's into Jim." As it turns out, the woman in question was not just another girl who was into one of my friends, but my future BFF (and, just because I have to mention it again, Jim's future wife).

The women I have come to be friends with in Skagway have been there in the darkest moments and in the most elated. When I was offered my first year-round job in Skagway this summer, before I was allowed to tell anyone, I got a bottle of champagne and celebrated with one of my girlfriends, the first local I told, and the first person I celebrated with. When Stimee died, the first person who came running to my aid was one of my girlfriends, who came to sit and wait for the police with me, and then went out to lunch with me. Whenever I have needed to go out and drink for celebration's sake or to drown my sorrows, I have been able to rely on my team of female comerades to accompany me. They're the ones who will cheers with me and they're the ones who will let me vent.

Since May my life has been through a lot of twists and turns I couldn't have possibly foreseen a year ago. My consciousness and mindset have been through the ringer and are still in the process of attempting to come out on top. My mind has rolled through a million different changes, and I've pondered how to become a better, happier person. I think tonight I came to the realization that allowing myself to be solely influenced by the men in my life has been to my detriment; I am surrounded by enough women with traits I wish I had that I should give them some of the power.

2012 in 30 bullet points. The positives only.

Because it's easy to focus on the negative things that happen to you when you're still recovering from them, when people post facebook statuses including questions like "what are you thankful for" and "what are you grateful for in 2012", sometimes you want to punch them in the face. But. At the same time, though my mindset has been far from thankful or optimistic at all recently, I decided to reflect on what's gone on in 2012 that I've been grateful for, independent of and concurrent with the things that went horribly wrong.

I know it's a little early. Theoretically, this is a blog post that should be written on December 31st, with the onset of the new year. At the same time, there is that omnipresent possibility that in a few hours we'll all get blown up by a meteor or something, so, with the solstice upon us, the days getting longer so long as we live to see more days, I thought it was fitting to think about my 2012.

I think rather than esoteric streams of consciousness I will write this blog in a logical progression. Bullet points. Here we go. Things that happened in 2012 to be grateful for.

January
1. The best New Year's Eve party I've ever been to in my life. I'm not at liberty to discuss certain aspects of this party. All that aside, we (Stimee, Adam, Brady and I) arrived around 11 PM and left at 4:30 AM. It was an outdoor party at Marsh Lake (Yukon) with a massive fire, bands (one of them played in the time signature of 11/4, step aside Pink Floyd with your amateur 7/8), food, and drinks. And, unlike any other Northern party I've ever been to in my LIFE, no one was sloppy obnoxious drunk.

2. The river froze over enough in 2012 that I could participate in my personal favorite hike in Skagway - the hike on the river. I have found no hike to be more calming and adventurous at the same time.

February
3. I participated in the Valentines Day dance at the Elks by playing bass and piano with the band. It was a good time. It'd been years since i'd openly participated in a group (the last time was Goat Stick and we only played 3 songs). It got things moving for me, musically, that hadn't been stirred in a long time. Namely, it made me remember that at one time I used to like doing that.

March
4. I started babysitting for Adalynn in February or March. Best kid ever, that's all. No more elaborating really needs to happen here.

5. Tomorrow, When the War Began was made into a movie, which I acquired in March. I also re-read the book series and introduced a lot of friends to it.

6. Choose Respect Skagway happened and was an overwhelming success to a much greater extent than it was in 2011. Although I co-chaired the event this year, Kathy had to leave town at the last minute. So on top of giving a speech I also got to emcee the event. The support for the cause (cracking down on domestic violence and sexual assault locally) was incredible.

April
7. My nephew was born.

8. I spent time with my family and friends on the east coast (as a result of #7), who put on a wedding shower and a bachelorette party for me. I rode a roller coaster for the first time since before I moved to Alaska. Although the sense of impending breakup overshadowed the whole trip, I witnessed the miracle of life and the miracle of love.

9. I moved into Deano's boxcar. What a relief. What a happy home that was for me and Merlin.

May
10. The Avengers. Saw it in the theater twice on opening day.

11. I reconnected with an old crop of summer friends and connected for the first time with the new ones. Since I was newly single I spent an awful lot of time with my summer friends and made connections that will last a lifetime.

12. I won the costume contest at trivia night. Small, but if you are aware of how competetive I am, yeah, it was awesome.

13. I played with 4 Over 50 featuring Steve Hites at the Skagway Reunion, my first real bass gig since Five Til Midnight. What a rush.

June
14. 80s Night: For the first time in my life I was a part of a social setting that involved little else besides dancing. in fact, I danced for about six hours straight, in between drinking and smoking. And it was six of the best hours of my summer.

15. I was offered a year-round full-time job in Skagway. Did you catch that? Because I've been trying for five years. And I've been applying for every single job that has been posted. And I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that it would never happen for me. I had been imagining that moment for so long. I cried.

16. My parents came for their third visit. Many adventures were had, and they got to experience the 4th of July festivities.

July
17. I got second place in the arm wrestling on 4th of July.

18. I hung out with the pipe band from Whitehorse, drinking and playing music, getting a feel for the Scottish games i've been missing all these years.

August 19. I moved into a new house. A real house. Back at the north end of town where I belong.

20. I bought a van. I took said van on many adventures.

21. I spent a sunny, gorgeous day on the rocks by Smuggler's watching whales and eagles with Philip. The whales were basically swimming circles around us.

22. Lynx and Northern lights with Stephanie.

September 23. An unprecedented appreciation for friends and family, biological and otherwise. I never could have expected how much support I could have had during the otherwise miserable month of September.

October
24. My brother visited Alaska for the first time. Words can't really describe how much amazing came from that.

25. I started writing songs again for the first time in ages.

26. Harley Quinn for Halloween. The reason I am thankful for this is because I am thankful for the less-than-ten people who recognized and knew who Harley Quinn is.

November
27. Election. I am thankful for the election and grateful for its results.

28. EL MERCADO!! Now every Saturday I can go out and get tacos. In Skagway. In winter. Unprecedented.

29. Being brought Thanksgiving dinner at work.

December
30. Jim and Katie restored my faith in humanity. OK, not entirely, but they sure made me feel like love actually does exist.

Falling in love with/in Skagway

As I now find myself in the midst of my longest stretch of singlehood in Skagway (up until recently, the combined total of 5 and a half years in Skagway was about 2 months single), I've been reflecting on relationships (and lack thereof) here and how everything has fit together for me in the past.

I remember reading one of those magazines where girls write in with their dating problems. One girl wrote in about how all these men turned out all wrong for her and/or broke up with her. The advice columnist bluntly responded by saying "the only constant in these relationships is you." Pretty obvious, but not always relatable when you're in the middle of a situation.

I've been thinking about that column lately (as i always do after epic relationship fails) and, while I've drawn a lot of conclusions about myself and life as a result, I've also been wondering (as so many of us do) if my little town is really the best place to seek out and pursue romantic relationships. A summer friend told me that I should get out and go somewhere that has a bigger pool to pick from. I'm inclined to agree, and if I ever decide I want long-term romantic relationships again I may do that.

My decision that Skagway is not a good place to find a suitable partner for myself was highlighted by a delightful soundtrack including, most recently, Pink Floyd and Def Leppard. I loudly proclaimed that all the men in my past were "just another brick in the wall." Yes, i know that's not what the song actually means, but that was my interpretation after "i don't need no arms around me." (Which, for the record, I don't.)

I had a pretty good spread the other night with a few of my favorite things: While my dog camped out at my feet, I enjoyed a shepherd's pie (unfortunately it was out of a box), a Rolling Rock (once again unavailable at any bar in town), a puzzle (this one is cheesy - unicorns and rainbows) and a classic rock hit list (Def Leppard's greatest hits). Not surprisingly, I was really feeling "Love Bites" to the extent that I pulled up the lyrics online and listened to it over and over again. After exhausting that track to its max potential, I switched over to my personal favorite, in the same vein, "Bringin on the Heartbreak."

It's one of my favorite songs to sing at karaoke because of the inherent sexiness of it. Sadly, most karaoke guys don't have it in their collections (in my experience) so I only get to rock out to it with the original track. As I assembled pink and purple fragments of unicorns on my dining room table I turned the speakers on my computer up as loud as they go and sang to my heart's content - over and over and over. Because sometimes when you're really feeling it, that's what you have to do to express yourself and get it all out of your system.

Drowning my bitchy mood with Rolling Rock and the occasional cigarette (even though "i don't need no drugs to calm me") I was caught off guard when I heard my phone ringing. The music was so loud I could barely hear it. Sadly, in spite of the mood I was in - down with love, men are assholes, etc - when my phone rang there were a number of men who jumped into my brain as being people I would love to be calling me in that moment. That irritates the hell out of me.

It was not actually anyone from my binder full of men calling at that moment. What caught me off-guard was that it was Katie. She and I communicate primarily via text and facebook message when we're not talking in person (when we're in person we communicate primarily via sarcasm, innuendo and bad lip reading). Phone calls are rare and usually warrant worry that an emergency is imminent.

"Did you get my text?" Katie asked. She sounded excited.

"No," I said, explaining that my music had been too loud to hear anything and that I barely even heard my phone go off.

"Well," Katie continued, "I sent you a text asking if you wanted to see a picture of our first Christmas tree. We just put up our first Christmas tree so I was going to see if you wanted to see a picture of it. But then instead of sending you a picture of our Christmas tree I was going to send you a picture of my engagement ring."

And there went Def Leppard.

There went all of it, actually. There went my Alanis-Morisette-circa-Jagged-Little-Pill mindset, there went my recently held belief that anyone getting married is an idiot, there went my cynical exterior and anger toward the institution of romance itself for what it's put me through. And suddenly the soft gooey center was back out again.

I used to cry in movies whenever anyone got married. Whenever I watched the Grey's Anatomy episode (yeah, shut up) where Alex and Izzie get married I always cried, every single time. Anytime anyone went up the aisle or even got engaged the waterworks were on. Since May, when my own wedding was cancelled (another one), and particularly since that robot stage of grief started in September, movies don't do that for me anymore. With the exception of a very weepy Ashley during the end of "Father of the Bride," weddings mean Jack Schitt to me nowadays. Since I decided to no longer plan on getting married it just hasn't been that meaningful.

But i freaked the hell out when Katie announced over the phone that Jim had proposed. They've been planning on it for a while, like most people nowadays before the official rigamarole with the ring and the knee and all happens. But for some reason, the ritualistic action of making it official in their case turned this grinch's heart three sizes bigger. I turned giddy on the phone, hardly able to contain my excitement. Finally it dawned on me and I told Katie : "I've been so cynical about relationships lately, and hate this kind of stuff, but I'm actually really happy for you guys. I'm not even faking it because I love you guys so much."

Well, I guess that settles that. Skagway, as it turns out, may be a decent place for other people to find relationships - just not so much for me. Which all comes back to that advice column. If the constant of Skagway isn't to blame... then the only other constant is me.

At this point, it doesn't really matter, I guess. Now that I'm no longer looking for long-term relationships of any kind, let alone the kind that end effectively with a white dress and a life sentence (shit, sorry, did i just say that?), it's not really important to me to figure out what I've done wrong across the board. Actually, that's not entirely true. What I've done wrong across the board has been a pretty simple act: what I've done wrong that's helped result in choosing the wrong partners has been my age-old Disney Princess desire to do nothing in life other than get married. Ironic, I guess.

All of that aside, there's nowhere better to fall in love than Skagway. The first time I fell in love in Skagway it was concurrent to falling in love WITH Skagway. That was a simpler time. I sometimes wish that I had neither fallen in love in Skagway nor with it. If I had just spent a summer here and moved on, things would have been so much different. A year and a half of my life (or 3 years of my life, if you include the prison time that resulted from our relationship and until the end of which I wouldn't really be free of him) was wasted on Allen and, one could argue, five and a half have been wasted in Skagway. What have I really gotten out of it? Not much that's tangible. A lot of grief over a lot of shit hitting a lot of fans. A lot of attachments that broke apart just as suddenly as they formed. A lot of scars that run too deep to erase, that i'll carry with me for the rest of my life.

Hey you, out there beyond the wall, breaking bottles in the hall! Can you help me?

Today an ex from many, many years ago dropped by my house to bring a box full of my things over. He and I did not end on good terms, in any of the numerous times that we broke up. It's only been recently that we even acknowledge each other's presence with a head nod or smile. I couldn't believe it. My favorite dress. My favorite jacket. My watch. A lot of other articles of clothing. It baffled me that he brought them back. I had just assumed that, after us not ending well, he'd tossed them in the incinerator. But no, he told me, he didn't want to do that because he thought there might be some sentimental value in something I'd left at his house so many years ago.

I'm still wondering if there is any sentimental value in any of it - the clothes I got back from my ex, the memories I've made in Skagway, the five-and-a-half-year's worth of notebooks of memoirs I've compiled in living here since 07. Was any of it really worth it, in the long run? Skagway, just like this enigmatic entity known as "love", has given me some of the best and worst times of my life. They've both had me walking on air and they've both drawn and quartered my spirit. Every rose has its thorn, but is it really worth cutting your finger so many times just to have something nice to look at for a little while til it dies in the vase?

I guess when I start to forget about all of that, there's people like Jim and Katie to bring me back.

The fact that I'm listening to "The Wall" as I write this may make it a little disjointed, disconnected, and I'm fairly certain it all comes together in my head a little tighter than it actually does on your computer screen.

Different - everywhere except skagway

A very cliche struggle that I've had throughout my life is the fact that i'm different from other people. I don't mean it in the way that Ariel felt like a fish out of water because she wanted to be someone else; i don't mean it in the way that Belle was the only literate person in a town full of idiots; i don't mean it in the way it's cool to be depressed and it's hip to say "no one understands me" or "i have low self-esteem." People do frequently understand me, and my self-esteem generally tends to be pretty high.

What i mean about being different is that I ascribe certain labels to myself (or they are attributed to me by forces outside of me) and as a result people tend to assume that I am the stereotype that goes along with that. I almost never am. Christian doesn't mean I dislike gay people or disbelieve evolution. (For that matter, believing in evolution doesn't make me any less of a Christian.) Pro-life doesn't mean anti-choice. Being a fan of Obama doesn't mean I support gun control. Being a smoker doesn't make me an inconsiderate jerk. Liking Grey's Anatomy doesn't make me an idiot.

(To be fair, though, i don't actually like Grey's Anatomy, i just watch it. A lot. BUt i hate it.)

Anyway, all this came to mind tonight as I was debating issues around religion in an INTP forum. My personality type is INTP, and INTPs tend to not be religious, so in these conversations among INTPs i tend to be the only person contributing who actually is religious in any way. And, because INTPs are all about logic and deduction, there is an overwhelming sense among a lot of them that anyone who has faith or religion of any kind lacks reason, intellect, and logic. It's incredibly frustrating to go up against that kind of absolute.

Because, to continue with that as an example, I happen to be religious. I'm just not most people's stereotype of what that means. Other Christians often don't see me as one of them because I don't fit their idea of what that means; non-Christians can't pigeonhole me because I often defy the negative attributes they stereotype onto Christians.

But none of these labels, stereotypes, and pigeonholes ever really caused me too many problems in Skagway the way they do everywhere else. I've been entertaining the idea of not spending the rest of my life in Skagway, but it's things like this that make that tough to think about.

I remember the moment when I realized that I could just be myself in Skagway without worrying about people's labels. I was at Moe's talking to someone who was gay. The topic of religion came up and this person asked me if I was religious. I hesitated. The person asked why. I answered with, "well, yes I am, but you're going to assume that because I'm a Christian, that I'm anti-gay."

The person I was drinking with looked at me like I had two heads. "Did you hear me say that?" No, i hadn't. I had just assumed that because so many gay people I'd known had been put off by the fact that I was Christian because they preemptively assumed it meant I thought they were sinners undeserving of basic rights.

That conversation made me realize that maybe I wouldn't have the same problems in Skagway that I've had elsewhere. Everywhere else I've been, in any kind of social circle or human construct (groups of friends; high school; college; bands; groups of co-workers; etc) I've felt like the black sheep. Before I came to Skagway I felt doomed to always be that one person who just didn't fit in anywhere else like the rest of people seem to. Then I got here and after a while started to realize that maybe this is where all the other black sheep end up.

There's just always been certain things about me, beliefs, views, opinions, past experiences, that I've been hesitant to share with people in any circles because I'm afraid that they'll automatically assume negative things about me that aren't true. (I have to face the possibility, of course, that maybe Skagway isn't any more accepting than anywhere else - maybe SKagway makes me more confident than anywhere else; maybe people care just the same amount but I care less about their reactions?) ..Anyway, there's certain things I've tended to keep to myself until I get to know someone so that I don't offend them, and so that they won't think bad things about me.

In Skagway I don't do that, though. I assert my beliefs whether or not I know the beliefs of the people around me. If they disagree, they disagree; we don't have a blowout or cease to be friends as a result. I talk openly about who I am and what I am because I honestly haven't felt like people have treated me any differently once they learn certain things about me. The only times I've ever felt judged in Skagway (SERIOUSLY judged in a way that actually matters, not judged by idiots for stupid reasons because they're gossiping and making up fake drama) have been the times that i've done things I shouldn't have.

So, when I first got to Skagway, I felt immediately like I could be who I am and not be judged for it the way people in the rest of the world seem to do. That's why I decided I wanted to live here as long as I could.

Giving thanks in Skagway

Aaron Sorkin has done me in again. he does it every time I watch the last episode of Sports Night, every time i watch the first episode of Sports Night, every time I watch the episode entitled "April is the Cruelest Month" (which was the first episode of Sports Night I ever saw) and he's now done it to me twice with the season three finale of West Wing.

It's eleven years too late for what I'm about to write to be a spoiler, so I'm not too worried about ruining it for anyone else. The first time I went through this series (I didn't make it all the way through - just the first few seasons) it was with Andy, Kerry, and Scott. This episode, along with the episode where Mrs. Landingham dies, tugged at those emotional parts of me that make me question if I'm really an INTP sometimes.

The first time I watched the series I, like the character of CJ, was enamored by Mark Harmon's character, Simon Donovan. He was only on the show for a few episodes but he, like so many Aaron Sorkin characters, was likable from the start. He may even be my favorite character on the West Wing.

And then, in the series finale of Season Three, Aaron Sorkin did what he does so well - he made me break down and cry again. The backdrop of Jeff Buckley singing Leonard Cohen (one of the most beautiful voices singing a song by one of my lifetime's great poets) has become somewhat cliche in my mind but Aaron Sorkin ties it beautifully into the tragedy of Simon Donovan getting shot and killed. The song goes on while a Secret Service agent pulls CJ out of the play she's been watching to tell her that Simon is dead.

The first time I watched this episode, I hadn't just lost someone and similarly turned to Jeff Buckley singing Leonard Cohen to silhouette my own emotions. This time it hits just a little harder, even though I knew it was coming.

The other night I was going to write a post narrating all of my Thanksgivings in Skagway. I had it started in my head but hit a roadblock when suddenly, inexplicably, Thanksgiving of 2010 seemed to have been erased from my memory. Instead of going ahead with it and detailing 2008, 2009, 2011, and this year, I lost control of my emotions, broke down, and decided not to write.

I spent three Thanksgivings with Stimee - 2009, 2010, and 2011. 2009 we spent at Doug and Lindsay's house and I remember it well. In 2011 he was out of town. While I spent the day with Tekla and Katie, he spent Thanksgiving at a Hell's Angels bar in Seattle drinking beers with a guy named Slammer. But I can't remember what we did in 2010. It's like The Nothing from the Neverending Story that has consumed a lot of my emotions and actions lately has also eaten that entire memory from my brain. And I couldn't quite handle that.

It's cliche and overdone to spend Thanksgiving talking about what you're thankful for, especially during a period in your life when you're constantly reminded of all you lack. Facebook is teeming with status updates about what everyone has been thankful for as well as photos of people's feasts and festivities. On a night when I have to work and can't have thanksgiving dinner with anyone, on a day when i've been racking my brain trying to remember what I did with my dead ex-fiancee two years ago, those status updates have just served to push me farther into an abyss of not wanting to realize what I have to be grateful for.

But I took the bait. Early this morning, when I got home from the bar, I made stuffing from scratch and gravy from a packet. It was delicious. As I sat and enjoyed my own private Thanksgiving meal with the two best dogs in the world beside me, I reflected on the things that, in the midst of tragedy, I really do have to be thankful for. I, like everyone else, posted a facebook status of what I was thankful for - namely, all the people who've been supportive of me in tangible ways over the last two and a half months.

I figured I'd have five or six people to tag in that status update. Actually, I had to make several status updates since facebook only lets you tag twenty at a time. I tagged fifty-six people altogether, and certainly left out a lot more. Those were just the ones who actually did something tangible for me, which doesn't include the people whose texts, calls, and facebook messages didn't fall on deaf ears.

Later on, I found myself on one of the messageboards I frequent as a great substitute for real social interaction. Someone had started a thread demanding that we post the top ten things we're all thankful for. My list: 1. the people who've supported me the last couple months. 2. the fact that i'm alive. 3. the fact that i have a job. 4. my dog. 5. indoor heating. 6. indoor plumbing. 7. hot water heaters. 8. nicotine. 9. alcohol. 10. (i tagged a particular friend who's been particularly helpful in the healing process).

There's so much more than that to be thankful for. (I honestly can't believe that I'm posting a blog on Thanksgiving about being thankful.) I don't have a family to spend Thanksgiving with, but I'm thankful that I have a friend who brought me two heaping plates of food from her dinner. I didn't get to participate in anyone else's holiday traditions because of work, but I am beyond grateful that after so many years of trying, I have a real job. I don't have a partner to go home to at the end of the night, but I'm grateful for both the memories of the ones who were there in the past and for the people across the miles who i know are thinking about me.

I think what I'm most grateful for on this Thanksgiving day is what Aaron Sorkin evoked in me. I used to cry at movies and TV shows every time anyone got married, had a baby, died, or ended up with Mr. Right. Lately that's not so much the case. I watched the episode of Grey's Anatomy where Alex and Izzie get married - an episode which always leaves me bawling like a baby - and had no reaction whatsoever except to think how cheesy and awful it was. I don't feel like a zombie anymore, but when it comes to having emotional responses to things that I think I should have responses to, I've felt very much like a robot. I'm grateful to Aaron Sorkin for proving to me that I am still human.

Presidential Elections in Skagway

Throughout the evening on election night I spent a lot of time reflecting on where I am during this election as opposed to where I was -- geographically, emotionally, socially, politically -- during the last election night. On the surface, it really wasn't all that different.

They served Rolling Rock at the Eagles in 2008. It was a simpler time.

This year, just as in 2008, I got dressed up to go out to the bars to watch the election coverage. Four years ago I had a short, cleavage-baring black and white dress that I'd bought in Juneau while on a trip with the high school volleyball team, who I coached at the time. I put that on with my knee-high black boots. At the time, they were my only pair of boots. Leather, with the toe of the left one chewed on a little bit by Merlin. I still have those, but I don't wear them very often anymore. I don't have the dress anymore.

This year, I wore a somewhat more formal dress. It was the bridesmaid dress I wore for Jenn and Paul's wedding - was that eight years ago or so? I also wore black boots, but this time they were my new pair, which have not been chewed by my dog. It turns out that both dresses were significant. The dress I wore four years ago was black and white. As I told people that night, the black and white represented Obama being black and about to enter the white house. This year, my dress was not all about race (why is it ALWAYS about race with you people???), and initially I thought there really wasn't much significance to it at all. It was between the burgundy bridesmaid dress and the green one I had for Andy and Kerry's wedding. Either way, they would've been significant, because of this. (<<-Click where it says "this.)

I was hopeful for a win for Obama both times. Four years ago it was a bigger deal to me. Not only had I followed more of the election at that point, but back then we had still never had a black President. The race card was just a part of it... since I had been following the race I had always been an Obama girl. He was the first politician in my lifetime to speak to my generation as if we were actually significant. He was the first one I saw on the Jon Stewart show, Saturday Night Live, and Facebook. He talked in a language that I could understand instead of using terms that I had to research to be able to follow. And I liked the things he had to say. I wanted him to win the primary, particularly against that cow Hilary. And I wanted him to win the election, particularly with that lovely Palin woman on the opposite side of the ballot.

This year, I didn't really follow the election coverage that much. Apart from Bad Lip Reading, i didn't know anything about the Republican primary candidates. I knew next to nothing about Romney. At this point in my life I'm almost entirely surrounded by people who lean toward the liberal side, so the only things I ever heard anyone saying about Romney were biased from that direction. (Eight years ago, I was surrounded by primarily Republicans. Four years ago, it was somewhat split.) I didn't know what any of the issues were on either of their platforms, apart from knowing the intrinsic differences between the left and right side. Because I lean more left these days, and because I've always been an Obama girl, I wanted Obama to win.

I sat at the Elks with my friends for a little while. I think the last time I wore the bridesmaid dress, I wore it with heels, because I don't remember it dragging on the floor and being stepped on so much. Also, i don't ever wear floor-length skirts anymore. I think I should start again, though, because I feel particularly badass when I'm playing pool in such a girly getup. Even if I am constantly tripping over myself, and even if the boning in the dress makes it hard to breathe and keeps poking me. Although it turns out I'm a better pool player when I'm getting poked. (read into that whatever you will.)

The television wasn't on at the Elks. I told Margaret and Katie both to text me when they found something out. Margaret lives in civilization where they have more access to things like important news, and Katie is a journalist, so I figured between the two of them we'd have it covered. I got messages from them both around the same time saying Obama won. With that, my entourage and I relocated to the Pizza Station.

The coverage was on the TV at the Station. Over beers and meatloaf my friends and I watched intently. There were a handful of other people at the bar and we all chatted a little about what was going on. The most interesting thing to me was that on the map of electoral votes, the states that were red or blue that had already been locked in by electoral votes were, fittingly, red or blue. The rest of the states whose votes had yet to be counted were yellow. Alaska, in that spot it always takes on US maps somewhere near Baja California, was grey. Why? Because no one gives a fuck about Alaska.

I kept thinking about how, four years ago, when the election was on, Allen and I were watching at the Eagles. It was interesting to me to be watching it this year from the Pizza Station. I felt like I should be in the Eagles watching for the magic to really work.

Some of us applauded when the electoral votes reached that clinching number. We watched Romney's concession speech. I don't know a whole lot about him (again, apart from Bad Lip Reading), but the concession speech was really nice, I thought. I mean, I know that they have people writing their speeches for them and all... and the only other concession speeches I've watched were McCain (don't remember it, was too fired up about Obama) and Gore (remember thinking his speech wasn't very good)... but all in all, Mr. Fantastic did pretty well. It got a little intense and the bartender switched the election coverage off, so we opted to go to the Eagles.

And so it was that I got to watch Obama's acceptance speech two elections in a row from the same section of the same bar in the same town. With different people. Holley and I sat and watched , holding hands. Four years ago it was Allen's hand I was holding, and I think I got the slightly better end of the stick this time.

Four years ago it was such a big deal. Either we were going to have a black president or we were going to have a female vice-president. Either way, it would be a first. (If only we knew, at the time, that the other either/or choice was either Sarah Palin is our VP or she becomes the reality show representative of Alaska...) I don't really remember much of what Obama said in the speech four years ago but I remember being inspired, not for the first time, not for the last.

This year as Holley and I sat and watched, it wasn't as historic a moment as it was four years ago. But i was struck by how many times the world has spun around since the last time he was voted in. Four years ago, the shit hadn't yet hit the fan for me since living in Skagway. I was so young, naive, inexperienced. My only priorities in life were Allen, cigarettes, and beer, in that order. I was 24, thought i was 34, and acted like I was 14.

So much has changed. It's like in four years I became an adult through all of the things I went through to get to where I am now. Before Obama got elected the first time, I didn't really care about legislation relating to domestic violence and sexual assault. Shortly afterward, when Palin quit and Parnell took over, one of Parnell's first acts of governor was to declare that he really wanted to crack down on those crimes. By that point, it had become very important to me.

Before Obama was elected the first time, I didn't really care about health care. I never thought about the future beyond the next day, so health care for the long-term wasn't really on my mind. I also had never watched a friend be medevacced out of town and have to run through the gamut of MRIs, CAT scans, spinal taps, and everything else to try and figure out what was wrong with her. I'd never had to watch my friend get stuck with bills she'd have for the rest of her life as a result.

Before Obama was elected the first time, I had no idea that the economy has been pretty miserable. I had only spent a year or so trying to find a real job at that point, and hadn't really tried very hard. I was happy with my summer job, having never spent a winter on unemployment. I felt fairly secure that once I started really trying, I'd be able to find a year-round, full-time job with benefits. I didn't realize how much I needed the stimulus fund that Obama gave me, or the extended unemployment benefits he ended up sending my way. I didn't realize at the time that I had another three and a half years ahead of me struggling to keep my head above water before finally, FINALLY getting a real job.

And, of course, the thought that kept weaseling its way into my consciousness... because some things just don't ever really leave my thoughts... Four years ago, when I came to watch the election with Allen at the Eagles, Stimee was still just a random acquaintance, another one of those people I'd run into from time to time at the grocery store, the post office, the bar... He was just another Skagway guy. I was still a good six months away from getting to know him. Yet another way I was, at the time, completely unaware of so many things about how the world works sometimes.

To that end, it was toward the close of Obama's speech that he said the words that really cut into me and brought tears to my eyes. But the tears weren't related to the fact that my guy is going to be in the White House for another four years. The tears were, once again, Stimee.

"I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting."