"Tuesdays at the Cabin" are becoming a coveted tradition in my life, occasionally requiring intense guarding, lest I be required to go into town (next week has already been taken from me by a writing center meeting). Many understand the importance of this day to me, but few know why it is so important. As I am currently working on a paper outlining the features of Native Alaskan writing*, it occurred to me that I might write out the features of "Tuesdays at the Cabin" as well, so that others might be able to better comprehend their beauty.


Common features of "Tuesdays at the Cabin":
1. An early beginning.
2. Getting dressed is optional; pajamas may be worn all day.
3. A LOT of homework.
4. Home-cooked meals.
5. A constant supply of tea.
6. Many trips to the outhouse.
7. Picture taking.
8. A short afternoon nap to collect my thoughts.
9. Singing.
10. Dancing.
11. Dish washing.
12. Writing time. (Of course!)

If I were efficient, or had less to do, this day would probably result in an early bedtime, but it never does.

*For those interested in Native Alaskan writing, definitely check out Our Voices: Native Stories of Alaska and the Yukon, edited by James Ruppert and John W. Bernet. I am fortunate to have Ruppert about 20 feet away from my cubicle anytime I have questions.

What I Learned on Thanksgiving:

The cabin is a jungle gym. I have obviously not been enjoying it to its full potential.

Photo Courtesy of Liz E.

Ice, Ice, Baby

Yesterday started out as a typical morning: I got up before dawn, threw my stuff together for the day, ate breakfast, packed up my dirty laundry so I could do it at a friend's apartment in the evening. When I headed out the door, it was raining.

Raining? There's been snow for a month and a half already. Last week the temperatures were below zero. But yes, it was raining. My parka felt a little overkill.

Still, I jumped in the truck and left. The roads in the hills weren't bad at all, just a little wet. I keep forgetting, however, that the hills are warmer than the valley that is Fairbanks, and the farther into town I got, the more slippery the roads became.

I'm not really sure why I continued driving. My rationale was that I had to get there to teach, though, being the teacher, I can cancel class for things such as hazardous driving conditions. I arrived on campus to find half empty parking lots and buildings. While I was on my drive, the e-mail went out saying classes were canceled for the day. The trip was not all wasted though. I took a shower and went to the store for some necessities before making the trek back.

Yes, I drove back on the ice. I was not keen on the idea of being stuck on campus, especially considering the forecast said the rain would continue until at least this afternoon. If I was going to be stuck somewhere, I preferred the cabin. Fourteen miles is a very long drive when you are going ten to thirty miles an hour. But the truck and it's (now working) 4 wheel drive served me well, and I made it back just fine.

The warmth and rain continued all day yesterday, last night, and is still going today. I haven't been out, but Doug went driving around the neighborhood and says the ice is 3 inches thick most places. Doug says in the 30 years he's lived here, he's never seen ice like this. It figures. I wondered why everyone was going so crazy about it. I mean, it was slippery, but we get that in Iowa. The rain is now supposed to last through tomorrow, and classes continue to be canceled until after Thanksgiving.

Not sure when it's going to be safe to drive again, so now I'm hunkered down by myself for awhile, stocked up on food, water, dirty laundry, and hours and hours of writing time. What else could a girl ask for? (Well, other than a shower.)

The Family

Being a new MFA student means being part of a group of displaced writers chasing their dreams. Most people think I'm in Alaska, so I must be meeting a lot of Alaskans. Truth is, we have a couple of those. But most of us are from the lower 48 -- from Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Washington, Tennessee, Wyoming, South Carolina, Oregon, Massachusetts....

With the holidays approaching, we've pieced together our family the best we can. Most of us first years are getting to be good friends. In the office, we rely on each other for help with homework, teaching, and writing. Writing is held as a sacred act. Teaching and homework can be interrupted, but if anyone even mumbles the words, "I'm writing," those being distracting apologize and leave. Most distracting for me personally is Wisconsin, an antsy nonfiction writer whose desk is near mine. Still, I especially relish the afternoons when we're both writing, when I know magic is happening, when he interrupts me every fifteen minutes with, "Hey, Lisa, how does this sound?"

On weekends, we gather to pretend, for just a little while, that we are not drowning under a pile of homework, grading, and revisions. Last weekend, this meant meeting up at Wisconsin's cabin to can the sauerkraut he'd been making in a bucket under his table. There was food, drinks, music, dancing, and, of course, canning. All the food was homemade, and almost everything had to have kraut in it. It was sauerkraut day, after all! Crackers and hummus, pizza with sourdough and kraut, chocolate sauerkraut cake. In all, we canned something like 32 pints of sauerkraut that evening. I like to liken these sorts of events to a barn raising: we get together, get work done, and have a good time doing it. (The picture is from when the "Iowa Waltz" started playing. Of course, I had to dance to it!)

We're making plans to have Thanksgiving at my place. A big turkey-stuffing-mashed potatoes-pie kind of Thanksgiving, the way it's supposed to be done. I'm looking forward to having the family together for dinner.

Saturday night was Dead Writers. This night includes lots of literature related nerdy fun, specifically dressing up in costumes as dead writers and reading their work on stage for prizes. Some of the performances are good, some not so good, but really, once everyone's got a couple beers in them and the heckling starts, the quality of the performance doesn't matter too much anyway. I didn't actually dress up this year, mostly because I spent every free minute (and some not free minutes) last week writing a research paper for my lit class. So maybe next year.

Luckily, I'm back to having enough room to at least breathe, if not enough to relax. I've been enjoying the snow up here for a couple of weeks, although Thursday morning was a bit more exciting than I wanted it to be. I'd stayed up late to work on a paper, then realized I didn't have the books I needed to complete the paper, so I resolved to get up at 6 am the next morning and head to my office to finish. When I tried to get the Jeep up the driveway -- a steep, snow covered ascent -- my wheels started spinning. I had the 4-wheel drive on (supposedly), and I tried it a few more times, before Doug, my landlord, came running out from his house to see if he could help. We determined that the 4-wheel drive is definitely not working, and Doug, continuing in his role of best landlord ever, gave me the keys for his wife's truck for the day so I could get to school. Now I'm parking up on the street until I can figure out when (hopefully soon) I can get it to the shop to get fixed. It's unfortunate, but I'm glad we figured it out now so I can get it fixed before we get even more snow.

If the weather, sleeping, homework, etc. has been tricky, at least my writing is going well. I've been spending 2-3 hours a night on it, sometimes more (the more, the better, in my opinion). I've spent the past month obsessed with one particular story, which will be workshopped on Wednesday. It's nonfiction, and for once, I'm a little bit nervous rather than just excited. Here's hoping it's worth something!

Today, my composition director told me I'm a rhetorician. I'm not sure what all this entails, but I like how it feels on me.

My life is crazy. A few fragments:

I'm trying to learn time management. The problem is I'm good at managing my time -- I just don't have enough of it. I've found it helps to think of work in hours, rather than tasks to complete. I try to put in 10-12 hours a day (including class, homework, lesson planning, grading, etc.) on weekdays and 6-8 on Saturday and Sunday. Then at night I try to spend 2-3 hours writing. Some days I succeed; some days not. At any rate, I think I'm improving. This week I've still been emotionally and physically exhausted, but at least I'm sleeping enough.

The weather was getting chilly last week. We even had some light flurries one day. I have started to notice it being warmer at my cabin in the hills, which is nice. This week the forecast is 40's and 50's though, so I'll be out on the porch swing (where I am right now) as much as I can be.

This past weekend was Starvation Gulch, a celebration (if I remember right) of the founding of Fairbanks and the first winter here, during which many of the settlers starved to death. So Fairbanksans make teams to build structures out of scrap wood and burn them. I'm not quite sure what the point of this is, except that you get to look at really big fires and stand outside in the cold and not be cold.

I'm fairly certain John, Liz, and I (who are all 1st year TA's with cubicles near each other) are slowly going crazy together. I base this assertion on random singing, dancing, rapping, pride in one's hats, conversations about the existence of Tom Webster (my supposed cubicle-mate) and the like.

Last weekend I went with some friends to check out College Coffeehouse, which is just off campus. They had good chai, good music, a discount for college students, and overall, just made me feel at home. Now I just need to find money to spend on chai, and I could perhaps live there and be happy.

We workshopped one of my stories in prose workshop this week, and it went really well. People were engaged and had very helpful comments, so I'm looking forward to revising it more. I'm loving being in this community of writers still. The theme this week seemed to be publishing. At a meeting of MFA students and faculty, people shared where they were going to have work coming out, and yesterday we had Anthony Varallo, writer and editor of Crazy Horse, here for the visiting writers series, so there's been lots of talk about the subject in general. It has definitely motivated me to set goals for myself in getting more of my work out there.

Most helpful advice I have received (from John): "If you get scared, just keep teaching!"

Writers

So I'm sitting in The Pub Friday night with some friends. We spent the evening driving around town for First Friday, where every month there are art exhibits with free wine and snacks. We've settled at The Pub because there's a band playing, and another friend and TA (Teaching Assistant) we know is in it, playing the harmonica. He pretty much makes the band, in my opinion. Behind them the mural is of polar bears, moose, mountain goats. I take a sip of my beer, and that's when I realize: I live in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Took me long enough.

During the past two weeks, we had intensive training and planning for teaching our classes of Intro to Academic Writing, as well as our first two days of school. It took awhile for the TA's to bond, but after we all made a mutual decision to skip out on the second half of the general grad school orientation (highly geared towards the sciences and pretty much irrelevant to the liberal arts) and go to the botanical gardens instead, we've started to feel like a cohesive group of friends.

I'm always in love with getting to know new people, but these are people who make fun of scientists for their nerdy jokes, and then make literary jokes that most of the world doesn't understand. They are men who carry journals tucked in the back of their pants, just in case. Half drunk, they're asking you if you've read any of Rick Bass's fiction. They insist that Moleskin is the kind of journal you want -- but don't waste it on a teaching class. When you ask them to define a difficult word, such as abyss, they quote Milton.

After writing practically nothing in regards to fiction over the past few months, I'm coming to my computer every night with ideas, wanting to write. On Wednesday, we start workshop. I can't wait.


On an unrelated note: Doug made my outhouse pretty and put in electricity last week! Good thing, as it's actually getting dark at night now.

Hiking Up Murphy Dome


I've been spending most of my days lately enjoying the cool weather out on my porch, reading and trying to prepare myself to teach freshman comp. Yesterday, my landlord suggested I take a trip up to the top of Murphy Dome, the hill I live on, and check out the hiking trails. I'm a big fan of hiking, and I'd already heard there are lots of good trails around Fairbanks I'd been meaning to check out, so today, sun bright and air cool, I decided to make the trip.

To get to the hiking trails, I had to drive farther down the road than I have yet. Murphy Dome road, which my road connects to, continues up the side of the hill, winding more through the woods, turning into gravel before it comes to the top of the hill, where there's parking and the hiking (or ATV) trails begin.

This continues my awe at the fact that I actually live here, as most days I can't really believe it. From the top, every direction is mountains, covered dark green with spruce trees close up, and gradually fading blue into the sky behind. I wandered around the hillside admiring the mountains, climbed up a huge boulder to look out over more, and walked down part of the 7 mile trail into the woods. There were flowers, birds, tracks of moose and other animals in the mud, and I even got to see a porcupine.

As I was walking back up the hill, I was contemplating how I would describe this landscape, especially the kinds of specific words I would use. I realized I had no idea how to write it, that I am lacking in the knowledge and vocabulary I need to describe the nature in Alaska. I have no idea what kind of plants I saw. I don't know what kind of rock that boulder is. I cannot name the types of birds, nor can I describe them beyond what I observed in the few minutes I had before they flew away. I don't even know what that porcupine was eating as he sauntered into the brush.

Then it made me wonder if, when I was writing my last short story set in Iowa, I took care to make sure I used these specifics. When I mentioned the fields, did I say if they were corn or soybeans? Did I describe how tall the corn was this time of year and how dark green the stalks get? Was it clear how stifling the humidity was? How the air felt thick in your lungs? Did I say it was a red-winged blackbird, specifically, that perched on the power lines above, how the red on his wings burns red as the sunset?

I anticipated this might happen. It's one of the reasons I wanted to go somewhere different for grad school. Setting is one of the weak points in my writing, and I've been trying to improve on it, but it was easy to overlook what seemed to be so ordinary. I needed to step out of it to begin to realize what is there.

I'm sure these realizations will continue and I'll be able to write Iowa more and more vividly. I'm also sure I'll learn to write Alaska. I'll be learning the names of things, their habits, the culture of the people here, why that bird (I don't know the kind yet) hops through my yard and makes so much noise rustling the leaves I know for sure he must be something bigger. Until we lose our sunlight and it gets way too cold, you can find me on the hiking trails.

I'm in Fairbanks! I have a lack of internet at the cabin right now, and I've spent most of the last few days driving around town running errands. I'm already starting to feel like I know where things are located, and Steph and I figured out hauling water, taking showers, etc. More on the dry cabin lifestyle later – today I want to share the beauty of my new home.

My cabin is located northwest of the city of Fairbanks, and it's a bit of a drive to get to from campus. It's a beautiful drive, however, winding through birch and black spruce, up and down hills. It would look as though there was nothing there but forest, except for the mailboxes that line the road, and the sometimes nearly hidden gravel driveways you might peek down to find evidence of human life. The road is paved most of the way, until just a short stretch before turning onto Richard Berry Dr. and the steep, downhill driveway which I will be sharing with my landlord, Doug, and his family once they finish their new house.

Here's the technical stuff, for those who are wondering: The cabin itself is 20' x 20' with a loft that is half the size of the downstairs area. I'm used to a lot less room than this, so right now it feels like an exceptionally large amount of space for just me. The kitchen has full appliances, lots of cupboard and counter space, and vinyl floors. The rest of the room and the loft are carpeted, and there are plenty of windows, so it gets nice and sunny inside (at least now, while the sun is up most of the day). I even have a beautiful cedar deck to sit on when the weather's nice. Speaking of weather, Doug tells me it stays warmer up here than on campus, sometimes by as much as 20 degrees. I'm looking forward to this. (I'll try to put up some pictures of the inside of the cabin later. I am currently still unpacking, so it's a pretty big mess right now.)

The cabin's got all the normal conveniences – electricity, heat, phone, internet, etc. – minus running water. To make up for this, of course, I have: the outhouse! I'm pretty proud of this little hut. Doug put it in brand new for me, with a foam seat (much warmer than wood in the winter), and he has plans to add electricity and pretty it up with a moon and stars cut in the door. The sink in my kitchen also drains to the outside on its own, so I don't have to carry out a slop bucket. For a dry cabin, it's pretty fancy really. This, coupled with the possibility of my landlord being the absolute best landlord in the entire world, satisfies me. I am already starting to love it here.

All right, less than 48 hours before I leave, and I haven't even started packing the Jeep. Everything's in boxes, but I have no idea how much of it will fit. The driving route, stops, etc. are halfway planned. I would like to say that I'm normally more organized than this, but... I'm really not. The advantage to this is I already know I'm good at winging it, so I'm not too worried; I just hope Stephanie, who is traveling with me, feels the same way.

I am good at planning unnecessary things, such as the list of challenges we've got going for things to accomplish on the way through Canada. SO, here's the game: I've been compiling a list of the best suggestions of random things to do while driving through Canada. It's kind of like a long drawn out scavenger hunt. Probably we will not accomplish all of these, but we will put effort into the endeavor (in varying levels depending on how excited we are about completing the task*). I'll be attempting to get photographic evidence of completed tasks. I'm including the list below as it currently stands. It's possible more will be added to this before we hit the border.

• Sing "Saskatchewan" in Saskatchewan
• Take a picture with a Canadian Mountie
• Find a sign in French
• Eat Canadian bacon
• Have tea with a Sasquatch
• Find a maple leaf
• Hug a Canadian
• Eat fries with gravy on them
• Mine gold
• Keep a running tally of how many times people say "eh" to us
• Find a moose
• Curl
• Find a store that sells only maple syrup
• Count the moose crossing signs
• Visit the largest mall in the world in Edmonton, Alberta
  
• Marry a Canadian**

*Basically this is a disclaimer stating that if we don't feel like doing it, we won't.

**I would just like to note that my 8-year-old brother came up with this one.

In less than two weeks, I am moving to Fairbanks, Alaska to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing with an emphasis on fiction. I'll also be teaching a class of freshman composition, learning to live in a cabin in the woods with no running water, making new friends, and generally winging it as I adapt to my new home.

Why Alaska? you ask.

I reply, why not Alaska?

Really, I'm not sure I have that many good answers to this question, but here's what I've got: I've heard good things about the writing program, I admire the professors' writing, and the scenery is beautiful. Plus, there's the teaching assistantship which pays tuition and a stipend, so that's good – it means I can spend the next three years reading and writing and not worrying about starving, which is pretty much all I ever want anyway.

In the past couple weeks, I've come to realize there are a lot of people here in the Midwest who would like to know about Alaska and what I'm doing and learning there. Hence the writing of this blog.

So, prepare yourself: the blog entries that follow this will be varied and possibly quite unusual. (But then, what else would you expect from me?)

Oh, also, this blog is dedicated to Joe Scott, who will not be getting 10% of royalties if I ever make money from it.

Enjoy!