All in 2 weeks and an update

The leaves are going off and I'm recovering from an accident involving my mountain bike and a car. That's right, I sprained my illial-sacral joint while throwing my bike on top of my car. I've had to take it slow in the exercise department, so enjoy the many (many) photos of leafy walks. 

My days begin at 5:30 or 6:00am. I like to study before my classes in the one Cafe that is open at such an ungodly, albeit peaceful, hour.  Not pictured here are the mornings spent sitting in a lecture room, and the many, many hours in the academic tutoring center at school, scowling over problems of enthalpy. It's not terrible though, I've made one friend. Her name is Maggie. 

Following class, I take the dog into the woods, wander through grocery stores for leisure, get three strides into long run, remember that I really dislike running, continue at a slow walk. I crank out 5 hours of lab, meet friends for a beer, go home, go to bed, stay awake all night regretting the beer. We get out hiking when we can, play cards and shuffleboard, I try and cook, I get depressed when another meal turns out weird. I clean the kitchen over and over and over. I fret about my figure, my weak arms, and my bank account. I fall into bed at nine, watch old SNL episodes and pray for sleep. It comes about half the time. 

Sometimes Dave and I run errands. We shop for groceries or hunt through Good Will. During those times I feel a warm contentment wash over me, and I feel like I'm floating. Like I'm made of air. I am very poor right now and my life is so lovely. 

I just thought I'd give a snapshot of things right now, because I haven't in a while. 

1. North Carolina backroads 2. Monopoly Deal on our porch- I've never won 3. Fifty beers on tap at the new bar down the road 4. dog in leaf pile 5. Erich visited during a break from med school and we hiked along the parkway 6. an impromptu fancy cocktail date 7. I like being outside with him, also inside 8. a Vermont worthy tree 9. I fell in love with this shirt from Holdfast Outfitters, a local Asheville company 10. the game that reminds us all of college 11. Voted! 12. Farm Burger with Molly and Yonton- who is one of the reasons I moved to Asheville in the first place. 

For more photos of bright things, normal things, outrageous things and the dog, follow me on Instagram: @melinadream

Pictures of my dog in an orchard

On Thursday, I finished two grueling exams at school and then I grabbed the dog and we drove out to the country. Autumn in the mountains has been beautiful, my classes are entertaining for the most part, and the red haired wildling I live with gets funnier and more handsome every day.

Yet I've been preoccupied. It seems like dark times have fallen on my family; that's what my sister and I decided the other day over the phone. Cancer and sickness and stress and sadness. And here I am tooling around in the South, far away from everyone, feeling useless. Trying to figure out what to send to the person getting a stem cell transplant, what to say to the person waiting and waiting for the brain scans to come back.  

Sometimes when things feel heavy, I put the dog in the passenger seat and we drive out to where the roads are long and empty. It makes me feel very alone, but in a comforting way, like the way things feel back in Vermont. This time we ended up at an orchard, in a sunny field where I threw apples for the dog over and over. I sat and watched her raw, unbridled joy, her manic tongue lolling enthusiasm for the day- this one bright day. This one bright afternoon. And I thought about nothing, and took a hundred pictures, and here they are. 

The State Secret

I was having this really fantastic day. At 8am I was racing through an exam in Anatomy, getting every question right. Then I went tearing around Bent Creek on my mountain bike. And then the doctor called and put a big spike heal through my week.

I was washing dishes when the phone rang and I didn't hear it. I wouldn't have picked up anyway because I never answer the phone, especially when it's from an unknown number, because I'm afraid of collection agency and doctors calling with tremendously bad news.

And it never is a collection agency or a doctor calling with bad news. Except today, it was.

"Hi Melina, this is Doctor whoeverrthehell from Asheville Family Health Center.  I want to talk to you about the results of your pap smear, call me back, okay then, mmmbye."

I gagged when I heard that message. First of all, CANCER. CANCER? Probably. Also because I hate the term pap smear. I hate it, I hate the whole thing. And now mine had gone wrong and I'd be forced to talk about it and I despise talking about that stuff. I'm very protective of my swimsuit-area, who isn't, and if anyone comes near me with some metal tool in their hand, even a nice doctor, I want to spit at them and punch them. It's just an instinct. I'm not saying it makes sense.

I dialed the doctor, hands shaking, vision shrinking. A nurse picked up. She seemed incredibly put out that I was calling. "The doctor is with a patient. Is this so important that I have to go in and get her?" I said no. Just have her call me.

Well she didn't call me. And I had to truck it over to Asheville Buncombe Technical Community College for a three hour chemistry lab. And I hate chemistry lab on a good day. But this day I hated it even more, since what was the point? Here I was, being stealthily murdered by my vagina, and I'm supposed to be concerned about calculating limiting reactants, nope.

I was so nervous and out of it, I set one compound on fire four times. Each time the flame shot up almost to the ceiling. My lab partner jerked his elbow out of the way just in time, four times.

That evening, I finally got in touch with the doctor. She told me I had a "mild precancerous lesion," and she let the word precancerous linger in the airspace for a bit, just so I knew who was boss. Then she referred me to a gynecologist who would- what, the details were fuzzy- scrape out? carve out? burn out? something-out the bad cells. The conversation lasted for 45 seconds.

I hung up the phone and burst into tears. I said "Son of a fucking goddamned bitch, what the fuck."

Then I sat down on the couch in our nearly empty room and felt very sorry for myself indeed.  Here I'm drinking all these green smoothies every day with the power pellets and the super-powders and the whateverthehell, which costs an arm and a leg, and I exercise all the time and still, my own cells are turning on me. Well Well.

Then fuck it! I adopted a new approach to life right then and there.

That night I drank two twelve dollar margaritas, and the next day, to really demonstrate to the world just how hard I'd become, I slept through my nine AM class. Just slept right through it. I had to call a friend for the homework. Just like elementary school.

Then I got a little bit curious. I realized that I didn't actually understand what 'mild lesion' meant. So I started doing some research. Just a cursory search to begin with, but the more I read, the more I came to believe that this recommended procedure- the details of which were still vague- wasn't entirely necessary. In a lot of cases, mild cervical dysplasia can be healed naturally. The cells grow so slowly that it's not a real risk to give it a go for a while. Then, after six months you go back and get another test, and if things still look weird, then you go ahead with the procedure.

I spoke with a natureopath and did some more research and I felt very good about a holistic approach. I felt much more empowered and in control of myself then I had originally. Then I told my mother and she hit the roof. I mean she lost her fucking marbles. She wasn't onboard.

But the gynecologist office who I'd been referred to, they hadn't called to make an appointment with me. They were obviously in no hurry. Weeks went by. I took a ghastly amount of B-12, drank a whole jar of turmeric and avoided my mother's phone calls.

My natureopath, a very decent man, reminded me that knowledge is power. He advised me to call my doctor and ask for a more thorough review of the test results. That sounded sane. So I dialed her up and sat on the front porch, playing with the zipper on my sweater, somehow anticipating a fight. The annoyed nurse picked up. "But the doctor already spoke to you about the results."

"Briefly-" I said, "but I still have a lot of-"

"Well she's out of town for a while," said the nurse, cutting in. She said she would forward along the results to someone else, a different doctor that I'd seen in the past. (For anxiety! Surprised?)

About a week later, that doctor's assistant called me, sounding puzzled. "He didn't perform that test on you, so he does not know why you're calling."

I said, "Can't he just read the results? I have a few questions. And I'd value his opinion about treatment options."

"You should really be talking to the gynecologist you've been referred to. They'll answer your questions."

I called the gynecologist I'd been referred to. They were not interested in me. They said, "We've never seen you. You should be talking to the doctor that gave you the referral."

So I got angry! And I changed the tone of my voice to reflect that. I called back Asheville Family Health and I said, "Listen, nobody will talk to me! There is medical information out there, about me, and you have it, and you won't tell me! Is my vagina a Secret of the State? Why won't anyone talk to me?"

She said The Doctor Will Call You Back.

The doctor never called me back. I consumed an incredible amount of cabbage and carrot juice, cut out sugar, wheat, alcohol, and bought a cookbook written by an ultra marathoner. Which turned out to be useless. I could have seen that coming. And except for the worrisome nuclear secret I was harboring in my vagina, I felt super.

It had been about six weeks since the first phone call, since the day I'd almost set my lab partner on fire, and I couldn't keep avoiding my mother. By now, the gynecologist office had called to schedule an appointment with me. But I remembered how they refused to talk with me, or answer any questions I had about the procedure, so I fired them. A few friends recommended a new place out near Biltmore. My friends assured me that the doctors there were all women, were all liberal (this is unabashedly important to me), were all pretty cool. I made an appointment.

I phoned Asheville Family Health (me again!) and asked them to send the tests results over to the new office I'd chosen. They said they would.

They didn't. I showed up on a Friday for the Thing, whatever it was, and there were no records for me at all. I started to cry in the little room, on top of the metallic table. But the doctor here was cool. She spent her lunch hour on the phone with Asheville Family Health and finally wrangled the results out of them.

"Oh," she said, studying the sheet of paper in her hand. "This is very mild. You can totally go six months and try to heal it if you'd like."

I considered this. I liked this doctor, trusted her. And I was very curious to see if I even still had dysplasia after six weeks of this strict diet and all the hypnosis and sleep and everything else I'd been trying.  Most important, I'd just swallowed the last of my Ativan: it seemed like now or never. So I said, "You know what? Do the Thing. Let's see if I've cured myself. "

Here's what the Thing turned out to be, and if you're a boy, and you're still reading, I applaud you. They put vinegar on your cervix, which will stain any cell that's gone astray. And when they find those cells, they cut them out and do a biopsy.

So they put on the vinegar and nothing happened. "Looks like you're fine," she said, and I was wondering if she was beginning to regret giving me her lunch hour. "We will scrape a few cells and test them just in case."

And they did, and those cells were fine, too. All evidence of dysplasia, of the mild precancerous lesion, was gone.

Or maybe it was never really there to begin with. That's what my friend Erich says, and he's in med school.

"What do you really think happened- do you really think it was the fact that you...drank....turmeric? Or did some dude just misread a microscope slide."

So anyway. That's what I've been up do these last few weeks. That's where I've been.

All in 2 weeks

1. finally cooler weather 2. alone with the bike 3. the dog loves Wednesday ultimate games 4. heading towards the crag in the Obed, TN 5. early autumn sunlight on the approach trail 6. in the blue ridge for the night 7. weekend of rock 8. lymph system, cardiac system, immunity, thermodynamics, enthalpy and limiting reactants 9. a cold night 9. the best view 10. Nell climbing back after a fall 11. run therapy with Kelli along the French Broad River

photobook: fall night in the Blue Ridge

On Saturday night we slept outside. We had no tent and no tarp. It was freezing. Actually, it was well below freezing.

I have a daily identity crisis over being in school again and having to be more sedentary then I'm used to. I start to feel very bad about myself when I look back through photos of magnificent places in Washington and all the time I spent wandering through them, because hour by hour there is a stark contrast between my days now and my days then.

Then we drive an hour on the Parkway and get to this wild and endless stretch of mountains and those feelings snap away in a cold gust of wind.

Our plan was to sleep on top of the ridge and look up all night at a big bowl of stars. But someone did not bring enough armor against the cold- I'll give you a hint, it's the person with a history of being ill prepared. Even after I borrowed all of Dave's extra layers and blankets, including his gloves and his bivvy sac, I was still too cold to risk sleeping.

So we watched the sun drop, and then retreated down and slept in a grove of pine trees.

It was still a brisk night. I had two stretches of sleep and one long interval in the middle where I shivered myself awake. I needed a sip of water and there was ice in the center of the water bottle.

I love colder weather. I love the way it makes me feel so snappy and alive and grateful of the tiniest comforts. In fact, I was so excited to embrace it that I forgot to pack for it.

But even a little bit of suffering yields tremendous rewards. The weekend drained to its last drop and as I got ready for my early morning class, moving effortless around the warm house, I felt much easier about things. My bed was soft and warm and I fell quickly asleep, which is something I can almost never do.

Check out the unearthly beauty from one night in the Blue Ridge, my home for now, a place I have barely begun to explore.

For more photos of little adventures, follow me on Instagram @melinadream

The Obed

I woke up early on Saturday morning. My two friends and I drove down that horrendous strip of I-40 West, through Knoxville and into the endless cliffs of the Wild and Scenic Obed River. I left behind all the stress of chemistry lab, and the maps of the cardiac system that tend to overwhelm, and all the shitty phone calls from doctors. We brought the dog, Rocket Girl Beer, a complete trad rack and too many ropes and instant coffee. We sailed down to into Tennessee with weak arms and all the dust that had collected on our climbing gear and so much excitement that I don't think I stopped talking, once, ever, the whole trip.

It's been forever since I've been on a climbing trip. I didn't realize that when I left Seattle, when I left Index and Leavenworth and the Exits and the Tieton and Squamish, Snow Creek Wall, Orbit and Outer Space and Heart of Gold and Total Soul and Infinite bliss and all of the rest, that I would quit climbing nearly completely. I never intended to do that, but I fell into other things. 

I sunk a lot of money into a mountain bike and I fell in love with the endless tangle of trails that are right down the road.  Then I fell in love with a redhead who claims to be afraid of heights, although I know that's just code for I'd-really-rather-kayak, and we got a house that needed to be skinned and gutted, and I went back to school, and I got a job, and I got a little lazy about meeting new climbing partners. 

I have a lot of excuses but I think it boils down to this: I let myself forget how purely and perfectly and I love to be outside on rocks, and the cool nights of woodsmoke and the sore, slow early mornings that follow. 

And then Rip moved to the Southeast. Rip, one of my best friends from Seattle, moved to Nashville two weeks ago, and now the Obed is directly between us.

So if you think about it, I didn't quit climbing. I just waited around until my favorite climbing partner to join me. And it took him just over a year.

Thankfully, Nell and Josh were in the same place as me- they'd taken a rest day that had lasted about a year, so we all struggled and fell and slowly made our way to the top of the some not-too-crazy routes. The woods were red and apple green, a mix of sweltering summer and new autumn, and the dog barked at every leaf that twirled down from the sky. 

I remember one glorious moment where Rip, belaying me from far below, said two words, some Arrested Development joke we used to say all the time, and I laughed so hard that I fell off.  I was leading, a foot above the bolt, and I landed halfway down the route. I have rope burns on my back from getting twisted up at the impact and all I was thinking is, "This must have been how Tina Fey felt when Amy Poehler joined SNL; 'My friend is here! My friend is here!'"  

That night we slept at Lily Pad campground with a lot of other climbers. Nell and I drank the Rocket Girls and then the marshmallow lover's hot chocolate with the little packs of freeze dried marshmallows. On the tin roof on top a the shed, a dog named Monster dropped tennis balls on our heads.

There was a crowd around the campfire but everyone was tired out, and sat at Rip's feet and tipped my head back, watching the white smoke turn into a fresh white spray of stars. The crickets were very loud, and in the shed behind us four musicians played Angel from Montgomery and House of the Rising Sun. Hometeam made a few discerning laps around the fire before choosing a young blonde man to curl up with for the the evening. When I went off to bed a few hours later and carried her with me, she was obviously angry at being pulled away from such a scene. 

****

Dave spent the weekend paddling the Gauley River in West Virginia. We got home at the same time on Sunday night, and used our last shred of energy to bike into West Asheville for dinner. Then we went back home and struggled to stay awake through one episode of Breaking Bad before that hard-won fatigue caught us in its jaws.  

I used to climb every weekend in Seattle. But this was the piece of the puzzle that I'd been missing for so long. I'd always been elated to leave the city on a Friday night and drive towards mountains and rivers and rocks. And I still am. But now on Sunday I'm elated to come home. And between the happy leaving and the happy return, I think that covers it all. 

For more photos of adventures, coffee & dog, follow @melinadream on Instagram

All in 2 weeks

 

1. fighting flu season 2. on a trail somewhere after class 3. a caveman feast in the countryside- hands, knives and goblets only 4. lots of raw food lately 5. without her I'd be glued solid to my text book 6. Wednesday ultimate- losing by a lot in a little rain, Ryan turns to drinking 7. Caveman games 8. coffee & chemistry at 5:30am  is, absurdly, a combination I've grown to like (stockholm's syndrome?) 9. post lab farmers' market 10. zonked out on the ultimate field 11. a rare, long, precious solo ride  

If you like coffee&corgis&calculator, follow me on Instagram. And hey, I'm about to leave for a climbing trip, so it should only get more interesting. @melinadream

All in 2 weeks : Embracing Social Atrophy

My friend Ryan, who recently graduated from law school while working a more than full time job (and planning the world's most elaborate theme parties) told me to 'embrace social atrophy' while I'm in school.  Which is something I most certainly did not have to do in college. Fiction writing is an easier degree than anything math or science. For me. Probably for everyone.

My first step in embracing the atrophy of my social life, muscles, and general photogenic quality of my existence, is to admit that I don't have enough interesting photos from each week to warrant a weekly round up.

However, I don't want this period of my life to go undocumented completely, nor do I want to shrink down to a lonely pea. So I'm hoping to get out into the wilds a suitable amount to be able to post photos every two weeks.

As soon as I wrap up school, publish my book or win the lottery, I'll be back to my regularly scheduled All in a Week. Here's hoping.

1. north carolina mountain state fair at night 2. we flew to Jersey for 48 hours 3. sunday's hike 4. the 100 hour chemistry assignment 5. this beautiful cocktail hour at Nell's house 6. Lee, our porch, a violent storm 7. at the gates 8. my 3rd season of Asheville ultimate started up 9. southern style bakery 10. northern style bakery in NJ,  I was so excited I bought a pound of cookies & 2 cannolies 11. fair fish

If you enjoy the 'all in (some number of) weeks' posts, follow me on Instagram @melinadream 

Glimmer

Now it's September, again. This is my 29th September. I'm fairly accustomed to them by now, although I can't remember one ever being so hot. 

It's 90 degrees during the day, and I sit in biology lab and watch through the window as steam rises from the pavement outside. At the front of the class, someone is flipping through slides of the endocrine system, pointing out thyroid from parathyroid, squamous and simple cuboidal, the two lobes of the pituitary. I'm trying so hard to focus, to dredge up some interest from somewhere inside of my brain, but I'm coming up dry. The words, the cells, the slides, seem to just glimmer away before I've absorbed them, like those first light snow flurries in Vermont where the tiny points of snow melt the very second they hit the ground.

I like school. I've always liked school. I love the way it forces me to hyper-organize my things and my time, notebooks stacked by color, coffee cup cleaned and waiting on the counter for the next morning. I love how it neatly dissects my day into blocks, and I always know where I should be- now class, now lab, now driving to the tutor, now opening my books on the kitchen table for the evening.

But this time around, my attention is waning.

I've heard that the golden gate bridge is so long that the people hired to paint it never get to stop. They start at one end and by the time they get to the end, about a year later, the first part needs to be painted again. And so on and so on and so on for as long as there is a golden gate bridge. This is what it feels like when I'm doing one of those long dimensional analysis problems with a hundred different steps. I start out so strong and confident and then I lose it it, little by little; the numbers collect but I forget why they are there or how I got them, and by the time I'm near the end I have to go right back to the beginning.

This happens on a macro scale as well, which often disturbs me. I'll be plugging along just fine, feeling satisfied with myself as I solve little puzzles, or get to class on time, or a row of numbers marches across the page in a particularly neat fashion, and suddenly I'll look up and wonder where I am. Why am I back in school? To become a nurse? Who decided that? When did I ever, ever express interest in being a nurse?

Not when I was a kid, certainly. I wanted to be an author when I was a kid, even when I was in preschool. Not when I was in high school or college. (If I'd had the vaguest idea in college I would have taken one math class and made this whole thing inordinately easier.) In college I wanted to be a novelist and after college I wanted to be a sitcom writer in New York City.

Out of the blue it will hit me that I've given up on all that and I'm living out a plan B. I'm not an introvert, writing is brutal, fiction is terrifying, print is dying, competition is soaring, other people are making it and I'm not and I have thrown in the towel at 29 with absolutely no excuse other than I don't want to work as hard as I know I would have to work.  

Those are the bad days. On the good days, I remember how completely enamored I was with my EMT course, how I felt useful in a way I'd never felt before. And I do love people and interacting with them. I think about how nice it will be to make a good salary and how many, many options will be available to me if I just keep going.

Am I a failure or am I being sensible? Will I grow to love it and what happens if I don't?

When I read a book I'm constantly analyzing the writing. I never would have written that sentence. That joke was perfect, what made it so subtle? That word was unnecessary, where did she come up with that, that's overkill, why didn't I think of that first? 

But that engagement, it doesn't seem to cross over into other mediums.

One of my jobs on the ship was to be a naturalist, and I was surely the worst naturalist that's ever been. My boss told us during one crew meeting that the key to being a good naturalist was to be constantly questioning the world around you.

But I look at birds and I think: "Oh. Birds." And I actually think ferns are really boring.

Once I saw a grizzly bear and my first thought was, "That looks like a man wearing a grizzly bear suit."

Hopeless.

Oh, a pancreas. So that's how it works. Oh.

Look, I'm trying. I have this lemon essential oil and this peppermint stuff, it's supposed to wake up your brain. I'm mixing all these Super Food powders and hellaciously expensive gogi berries into smoothies to stay alert. I have a daily regiment of little logic puzzles that are supposed to boost your concentration or something. I try and see each class as a game that I am going to win, and that's all I can do for now.

Which is ok. It's ok to be ambivalent. Life is many things.

It's been so hot; everything damp and heavy. It's difficult to sleep, and to think, and the dog is miserable. She glares at me all day from underneath the table while I spin circles around my chemistry problems. I can't wait for the weather to turn, for the crisp, invigorating relief of autumn to sweep through these mountains and make everything feel new again.

all in a (studious) week

Things have changed. Sometimes I go backwards in this blog and look at the 'all in a week' posts from last year. So many activities, so many landscapes, each one matched with the perfect alcoholic apres.

Now? Lots of conversion factors and fluorescent lights. The AB tech math lab followed by private tutoring night-capped with my kitchen table flooded in paper. Not much alcohol as it appears I have interstitial cystitis and I pay dearly for every drink I drink. I found that out this week.  

I don't think the Urologist office will make the post because I could not get a fun-feeling photo out of that place. I tried.

I suppose that's what makes this weekly photo roundup interesting to me, though. How things change.   

1. 94 degree days every day, the dog slouches through her walks 2. my highlighter broke open in my mouth 3. chemistry 4. celebrated one year! 5. weekend in Durham 6. bent creek trails as the sun goes down 7. I saw one friend this week, she made me dinner, I remembered that I like having friends. 8. the dog cooling off 9. late night at Cosmic Cantina with Dave's oldest friends 10. my 'quick ride before studying' became a two hour doozy when I got fantastically lost. 

If you love staged photos of tremendous studying, the dog, and the occasional outdoor sport, follow me @melinadream #longroadtonursingschool

The Dry Lab

My chem lab partner is just a little guy. He has neat, close cropped hair and big handle-bar ears. When I sit down next to him, he smiles and extends his hand.

"You must be one of those super-kids who skipped high school," I say.

His skinny shoulders blades rise and fall. "Not really. I'm just doing a cross-over program and taking my science class here."

 I like this little guy immediately. He's much smaller then any of the kids I used to teach in high school. I have the sudden urge to take him under my wing. Show him the ropes. Be the cool older-girl-chem-partner who talks to him about Ipods, and which local hang-outs have the cheapest wings on Tuesdays. I could help him beef up his college essay. One thing is for sure- he'll definitely brag about me to his high school pals. I smile at him and swing my hair off of my shoulder. "Wow!" I tell him. "Smarty pants!"

We watch a half hour video about lab safety. When the video is over, the teacher turns on the lights and tells us to start working on Lab #1 in our books, a 'Dry Lab.' "Mostly just an overview of conversions. Shouldn't take you too long and you're welcome to leave when you're finished."

"That rocks." I whisper to my new friend. He gives me a shy smile and turns to his book.

 The room goes quiet. The only sound is the furious scratching of pencils from all of the students except one. Me. It's been thirteen years since my last chemistry or math class, and the page full of equations in front of me may as well be in Russian. I have absolutely no clue where to start, and the teacher has left the room.

I stare. Across the table from me, someone flips to the next page.

"Um," I say, leaning over to the little guy. "Where did you get that number?"

He opens his book to a page of conversions factors and points.

"But that's a positive number...?" I falter.

"If you put the number on the bottom, you just make it negative before you cross multiply."

"Oh." I say. Then, "Why?"

He tries explaining for a minute, but he doesn't do a great job. He looks a little confused too, although not about the material.

A few more minutes go by. The teacher is still gone. I sketch an octopus on the side of the paper. Eight legs.

Finally, I whisper to the boy, "So, where are you going to college?"

He looks up. "Don't know. I haven't thought that far ahead."

Oh no. "Are you a junior?"

"Sophomore."

Oh God he's a sophomore. He's a zygote. And he's racing through the problems with neat little numbers that all line up. I study his work, trying to orient myself. "Okay, um, how did you get that number up there?"

He looks down at this paper, starts pointing to an equation, and then hesitates. "I really don't know how to explain it," he says, obviously feeling bad. He looks over at my page, the octopus, then up at me, and I see it. In his eyes. Not annoyance, not anger, but pity.

And let me tell you, you've never felt shame like the shame that comes with having your skinny little lab partner, who is exactly half your age, feel very, very, very bad for you, on the first day of what is amounting to be a very, very, very long year. 

All in a week

1. beautiful blue ridge mountains 2. return to algebra- my first day of math tutoring 3. long ride on my last day of summer 4. I made spring rolls. this is not a food blog. but I made them 5. the dog in her mountain nest 6. we are down to the tiny details in the new house!!! 7. queen of the wild blueberries 8. hiking black balsam knob 9. I just really liked this twirly thing 10. lakeside picnic for Dave's school 11. Kelli rides through the green, humid Bent Creek 12. it's much hotter than Seattle, and there aren't bodies of water at the end of every block. Finding swimming spots is my latest challenge. 

If you like photos of the dog or the mountains, follow me on instagram @melinadream 

my big, white bed

I know I'm getting older because I don't take as many pictures of myself. I don't really like the way I look in them anymore. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm ugly. It's just I no longer think I'm pretty enough to warrant being the sole subject of a photo.

But I still take just as many pictures, which has put the load squarely on:

There are a lot of very pretty bloggers out there. Has anyone else noticed that? I daresay there seems to be a correlation between being pretty and skinny and having a popular site.

Sometimes I poke around on those big famous blogs and I've noticed that they all have a few things in common. 

One is cheekbones. Cheekbones and adorably mess hair. 

I don't have cheekbones unless I am sucking a viscous liquid through a straw, and believe me when I say that when someone near me has a camera, I rush to find a drink.

Another thing these very famous blogger all have is a big, white bed. White everything! White sheets, white comforter, white pillow cases over white pillows and a big white wall behind them. There's usually something to decorate the wall, something minimal, like a bone or a feather or a thread. 

The bed makes the big blogs a lot. There are a disproportionate number of pictures of the bed, sometimes with curly haired toddlers messed up in the sheets, or tiny swaddled infants sleeping right there in the center.  

I don't have any kids, but nothing was stopping me from having that big white famous-blogger bed. Colors? Patterns? Not in my house! Not anymore! 

I found all the white linens at TJ Maxx. Then I set it all up and called a few friends to brag about my big, crisp, immaculate white bed.  

"That sounds risky," they said. (I tend to night-eat. And other reasons.)

But I am a grown up so I didn't worry. 

I had a great first night in that bed, in my new bedroom in our new house, although I was almost too excited to sleep. I stared at the ceiling for a while, imagining the fame that was waiting for me right around the corner, now that I had this effortlessly minimal existence. The next morning morning I planned to drink a little cup of coffee on a big wooden table. Later in the afternoon I'd busy myself by placing a sprig of white flowers into a mason jar. 

But instead, I made the bed the next morning and found blood. Little spots of blood randomly dotting the sheets and the duvet cover.

First, the anger hit. Then the frustration. Then the fear. Did that blood come from me?? How? When? From where? CANCER?

Probably. 

Dave came home that night and I sat him down and solemnly explained the situation. I did not go into detail about my hopes and dreams regarding the white bed, and how they were all dead now. He wouldn't understand. I focused instead on how it was probably me who was bleeding, from an unknown orifice, at an unknown hour, and the big bad things that lay in store for me.

He studied my face for just a moment. Then he pulled up his pant leg and showed me the scab on his leg. "I picked at it all day long yesterday," he said. "It was really bleeding."

I was really relieved. But the fact remains that my white bed didn't even last one night. I decided to dab at the the spots with my Shout Pen, but not to pull the sheets off and wash them. Wrestling my feather comforter into that duvet cover AGAIN is too much. It's too much. 

No kids, no white bed, no cheekbones. And not as much to write about these days, because I'm back in school. Back to being the star of Asheville Buncome Technical Community College. 

That's right. 

I don't know who I am anymore.

all in a week

First week back in Asheville after a while, first 'all in a week' after a really long while.

1. a short, sweet visit with Charles and Sarah 2. late summer afternoon on the river 3. fitting in as many long, woodsy walks with the dog as I can before school starts 4. solo art show by the talented Kati Bird 5. back on the bike at bent creek 6. breakfast at Sunny Point 7. rewards after long days of house projects 8. farmers market haul 9. wine wednesday with all. of. the. dietitians. 

Stay.

Every time I leave my childhood home in Vermont, my heart breaks.

And instead of getting easier as I grow farther and farther away from the time I actually lived there, it's getting harder. Much harder. This time, as I pulled away after a luxurious three week visit, I could barely stand it. And I've never had so much to return to, such a complete and comfortable life waiting for me back home.

I've left Vermont before to return to shitty apartments, shitty men, zero employment, a far away city in the depth of a dark, rainy winter. Not this time. Dave owns the house that I live in; a lovely home that we have poured so much time, money, energy and creativity into. Asheville is, in many way, idyllic, and very well suited for my life. It looks like I could be here for a long time. My family even makes comments about joining me down here in a few years.

Which is exactly why it's so difficult to leave New England. Because I feel something completely new, something so unsettling I try and immediately banish the thought from my head, but I know it could be true. That my days of having this base- this huge, beautiful stretch of land with the house and the fields and the woods, the place that had such a stronghold on me when I was a kid that it nearly haunts me today, could be numbered.

I repeat the same prayer every time I drive away, although prayer is the wrong word. It's not a request, it's a command. To my parents, to my aunts and uncles who live with us on the hil.

Don't get old. Don't get sick. Don't sell the land. 

But I can't hold anyone to that.

***

I've been home in North Carolina for a week now, and felt so homesick and dreary that I've tried slapping myself across the face, hard, just to snap out of it. I have slept in till noon every day, which I have not done in over a year. I'll rouse myself, go into my new kitchen, look around the house and feel so unworthy and miserable at my own terrible, ungrateful emotions.  Caffeine doesn't help, and I'm sure exercise would but I can't seem to do anything besides take the dog for a walk twice a day. I feel so bodily tired all day long. 

But today I got tired of feeling tired, so I decided that I would do something. And then something else, and something else, until the day was over and I could go to sleep. That was a tool I used when I was battling depression over a year ago, back when I had so many reasons to feel sad. I decided back then that it was okay to feel miserable, but I may as well be productive. I would make lists of things to do at the beginning of the day (which, for me, was around noon) and then go about accomplishing those things, with no anticipation of feeling happy while doing it. I did a lot of writing, making sea glass necklaces and writing letters and even finding and fixing and selling a lot of my old clothes. 

At the end of it all, I at least found myself feeling accomplished, and satisfied, if not dreamily content. I had a little more space, a little more money, and it was much easier to load up the car and drive across the country to start a new life in Asheville. 

This morning I threw a french press of weak coffee down the drain and actually did some research on how to make it actually have taste. I listened to The Hunger Games (I'm a little behind the times on that one) and it swept my mind away and into the arena as I roasted a pan of tomatoes and garlic for tonight's dinner. Then I left the house, still feeling flat but with plenty of energy, and came back with tape and chalkboard paint. I painted an entire wall in the kitchen, which effectively transformed the room and gave me a bolt of satisfaction so strong it edged on triumph. 

Later on that day, Hometeam and I walked into West Asheville, and found the weekly farmer's market set up on the end of our road. 

Farmer's markets, and the people who run them and inhabit them, are the same no matter where you are. Asheville, Seattle, Norwhich Vermont. So as I picked out cherry tomatoes and corn and a big, bright bouquet of flowers in autumn colors, I felt myself relax a little bit. I felt at home. Not a home that can pinned down on a map, but home as an abstract, a space inside your head that feels familiar, and hopeful, and good. 

But to all of you family who are reading this from the big green fields in New England, my message to you is still the same.

Don't get old. Don't get sick. Don't sell the land. 

Mr. Moon and the Outdoor Shower

I wake up late in the afternoon, which I do not like. It's a real nuisance, starting the day with an enormous dent in it. For a few minutes I lie there, unmoving, wondering what it was that kept me up so late the night before.

Dave and I had been at a baseball game with his friends. Our local team is called the Tourists. Their mascot is a balding geriatric with a balloon face named Mr. Moon. The Wellness bumble bee shows up from time to time, handing out pamphlets advertising Sisters of Mercy Urgent Care Center and pretending to eat popcorn. It's one of my favorite things to sit behind first base and watch as Mr. Moon and Wellness Bee wobble about and interact with children.

I didn't know this before, because I never attended a sporting event in Seattle, but minor league baseball games are not really about the game at all. They are about watching all the little things that go on between innings. Three legged races. Eating dippin' dots ice cream of the future. Two high school girls racing to pull a frozen T-shirt over their heads. Things like that.

We got home around ten and I took an outdoor shower. Then we went to bed and I lay there for hours, watching the ceiling fan spin in the dark.

Last night was my third night in the new house. The place still smells like paint and wood varnish, and the bathroom is unfinished- you can stand on the slate floor and look down into the basement through the holes. But it's our place, that we live in together.  I've never lived with a boyfriend before, not officially. That could be one reason I stayed awake for so long, my thoughts too fast and too vivid for midnight. I know I want to be here, because I've wanted to live with Dave since we started dating. But do I know how? Does anyone?

I mean, which one of us does the dishes?

****

At the start of the summer I went out to Montana. It was my high school reunion; not for my class (I graduated in a class of two) but for anyone who ever went to the Academy. We met up for a long weekend at the Cinnamon Lodge, a cluster of wooden cabins outside of Yellowstone. We watched old movies from our trips, went kayaking on the Gallatin and drank Montana Mules at a roadside bar. One afternoon, we sat in a circle and talked- for the first time since the news became public thirteen years ago- about the charismatic man who started our school, the kayak team, the summer camps, the whole Adventure Quest world that we inhabited for years together. We call him PK, and he is slated to get out of prison this fall. 

He has a new title now. "High risk registered sex offender with a predatory history and reputation for manipulation." Officially. And he will most likely be furloughed to a county in Vermont. 

A beautiful woman who used to be our teacher urged us to write letters to his "caretakers". In those letters we were to express our strong opinion that PK should not be released back to Vermont. Couldn't he go somewhere far away from that little state, where many of his victims grew up, where their families remain?

"What about New Mexico?" said someone.

"How about Siberia?" asked someone else, and there was a murmur of agreement.

Apparently, the People In Charge of these things in Vermont are very good at listening to the concerns of victims and other parties involved. But despite this, the last I heard is that he will be furloughed to Vermont. And soon.

*** 

I'm awake now and sitting at the kitchen table. We painted the kitchen blue and grey, sort of by mistake. It reminds me of a Jetstream trailer from the 70s and we've both grown to almost love it.

The whole house evokes in me a sense of enormous pride. When it first came into Dave's possession, every wall had been punched through, and some of the doors, and a noxious grey carpet covered the floor, even the bathroom floor. Now, after a summer of hard work, it's clean and well lit, the walls replaced, and everything new and working well. Except the shower.  

People get pretty envious when they hear that we have an outdoor shower, and I keep the details vague. I only talk about how invigorating it feels to stand in the fresh air and bathe in cold water. I don't mention that our outdoor shower is actually just a green garden hose in the backyard. That I stand in the basement and rub soap on my dry body- Just like the Europeans! then step outside and hose myself off as quickly as possible.

It actually does feel really good afterward. Your skin tingles and you feel very awake and alert. And think of how much water we're saving! Dave and I look on the bright side, which is something we both excel at. That's a good thing, because we don't know know when exactly the bathroom will be fixed.

And while neither of us know how how to live together (who cooks? Do we have to make a chore wheel?) considering our temperaments, our tendencies to relish the little absurd things in our life instead of make a fuss over them, I think it's going to work out. And then there is the fact that I light up when he walks in the front door. That I am completely content and satisfied just sitting next to him at a baseball game, watching Mr. Moon.

***

A magazine contacted me. They want me to write the story of Adventure Quest. They're far more interested in the pedophile and the deaths than all of the trips and the love and adventures. I do not know how to do that, or why I would.

Everything is much easier when I focus on the good things and try to completely forget about the rest.

Viva Nicaragua

-Coffee, death, coffee, death, Dave says as he taps his finger on my forehead -That's what you're always thinking about. Where am I going to get my coffee and what is going to kill me today?

He's right! Today the answers do not require too much thinking: the coffee will come from a steaming urn on the flight attendant's cart, and I will die when the tiny airplane goes crashing down over the Caribbean. Mode of Disaster is obvious on travel days. Yesterday it was the little sinking boat that took us seven miles from the little island to the big island. I'm still not sure how it managed to not flip and trap and drown us all; it was nothing short of a miracle.

There are three drink choices on the 8am La Costana flight from Big Corn to Managua: rum with seven up, rum with purple drink, or coffee. The rum is clear, and I watch as she fills the Styrofoam cup almost to the top before adding a little splash of soda and placing it on Dave's tray table.

She looks at me expectantly. And here is my dilemma.

If I drink the coffee, vastly preferable over the alcohol, I will remain awake and alert for the duration of the flight. My anxiety will increase, but so will my ability to save myself, and Dave, and maybe even a few others, when the plane starts to go down. I've read that if you're planning on surviving any sort of vessel disaster, you have to be on your guard, hyperaware, thinking one step ahead of the game. Also, wear non-synthetic pants, like jeans.

If I drink that cup of rum, on the other hand, I'll be much more relaxed and maybe even enjoy the ride. But in the event of catastrophe, the one that's always lurking on the horizon for me and everybody I love and care about, I'll be useless. And then if we do land, somehow, the way the sinking boat miraculously pulled up to the harbor at big corn island, I'll be so sickly from all that Flor De Cana, it might ruin the rest of the day.

If there is a rest of the day. There's always the cab ride into the city to consider. The state department's online warning assured me that if we take the cheap cabs, the ones across the street from the airport, I will be held at knife point, made to empty my bank account in maximum daily allotments from the ATM, and then abandoned on the side of the road, if I'm lucky.

And we always take the cheap cabs.

Today, I take all of this into consideration, and then I decide to be brave. I ask for the coffee.

When I worked on the ship, I once got leave at the same time as the first mate and the engineer. We were all seated in the exit row together on the plane from Juneau. We'd been onboard the Endeavour for six weeks and we were still completely in 'crew mode.' When the flight attendant asked if we could perform our exit row duties we took it very seriously. That meant no Ativan, alcohol, Ipod or reading materials. We napped in shifts for the entire hour and fifteen minute flight. Unbeknownst to the other passengers, I was in charge of their safety, and they were in good hands. That was the bravest I've ever been.

I take a little sip of the coffee. It's sweet, ridiculously, unbelievably sweet, as if a brick of sugar has been melted into the pot. -You're not going to drink it, are you? Asks Dave. I shake my head. He's not surprised. He calls me 'The starter' because of my propensity to take a few sips of drinks- juice, coffee, beer- and then forget about them.

He's a 'Finisher.' He won't let anything go to waste, and this morning he finishes his rum and my saccharin coffee. I call it a Nicaraguan Speed Ball. He's in a great mood when, against every odd, we land without incident.

Then we go a block away to get the cheap cab. It will save us ten dollars, the equivalent of about fifteen fresh juices. I weigh the idea of all that juice against the State Department's warning. We get in the cab. The driver is chewing on a match in a menacing way. He has a scar on his face. Dave is speaking to him in spanish which I can't understand. If their whole conversation had been about which fresh fruit would make a lovely jugo, I'd understand. But it's not. We're way past juice and we're going to be robbed and kidnapped.

I lean my face against the window and try to spot significant landmarks to that I can find my way back to the airport after we've been abandoned by the side of the Oriental Market. The state department warned me about that place, too. I see seven glowing cardboard trees and an untold number of Chavez posters.

When we arrive at the hotel, with barbed wire gates and rows of caged parrots, I jump out of the taxi and stand there, rocking on my heels, until Dave has paid the driver and they finish up their conversation. Then the driver smiles at us, says goodbye and leaves.

What luck that we survived another one of the cheap cabs! I am met with an unnatural burst of energy and enthusiasm. For Dave, he's thinking -We're at the hotel. Nice. And I'm thinking, -We made it! We beat the odds! We're alive Thanks GOD! Life is a grand adventure and for the next twelve hours we will be safe (enough) inside this hotel, let's spring for an air conditioner tonight! VIVA NICARAGUA!

My anxiety makes me a wildly imaginative and immeasurably fun traveling companion. But I think that's obvious.

Cheerleading's Dangerous

This place is impossibly green. I keep rubbing my eyes and wondering why it seems to much greener than any other place I've lived. Washington is the Evergreen state and Vermont is the Green Mountain state so surely I've seen this before.

Maybe I've just forgotten, like we all do every winter. But I think it's more than that. In Washington the green is tempered with grey, in New England I remember there being colors everywhere. Flowering trees and lilacs and fields full of orange. Here, in the piece of woods where I walk every morning with the dog, it's just green. Green leaves with green vines twisting like a jungle.

I watched the whole thing this year, the forest shoot up alive after the winter, the lime frost on the branches thickening into yellow fuzz, and then one day, 80 degrees and sun filtering through leaves. Every day I've been in those woods, for hours on end. My two best friends in this new place continue to be my dog and my bike. This might indicate that I've been avoiding the sometimes-tiring work of making real, people friends, but that's only a little bit true.

During the school year I had these weekly bursts of social interactions that always left me buzzing and happy. I sat in the front of the class in Anatomy and Physiology, between two girls who I was friendly with. One of them would crack every bone in her body and then lean in and whisper, "Cheerleading's dangerous." The other one loved bees. 

Between these two and the enormous amounts of coffee I would drink during each class, and the fastidious and color coded system I developed to take notes, full of stunningly complicated mnemonics and indecipherable diagrams, I grew quite fond of school and the effortless social high it left me with.

The panic of a Friday night yawning before me with no real plans was blissfully lost on me, as I could always hide behind my text book and the highlighters with the liquid ink that I love so much. I could fall asleep early and feel like a responsible person, not a lonely one. 

Every Monday night Dave and I go over to our friends' house and watch Game of Thrones. After the episode we watch the trailer for the next week, briefly discuss the agony of poor Theon, agree that Daenerys has bitten off more than she can chew, and then it's off to our houses and to sleep. 

Tuesday I work at the Cider House, pouring out little flights of cider and talking to the men who sit at the bar all evening, and Wednesday I play a game of frisbee with my team on the Asheville Spring League. We always lose, usually by one, and again I go home giddy with the buzz of adrenaline and lactic acid and the charm of that certain awkward, athletic crowd that ultimate draws, the one that's so familiar to me it feels like family. 

All that studying paid off in the end. I finished the class with a 99 and endured the teacher, who would often stand in front of me, knock his fist against my desk and tell the class, "Some people don't think their grade is ever good enough. Some people will never be satisfied." And the girl next to me would whisper, "He's so mean to you!" Then she'd crack her neck and add, "Cheerleading's dangerous." 

Then one day I woke up with nothing much to do. School was over for the summer, spring league was over, and even my bar tending job sent me home one day because it was too slow. I called some friends but nobody was free. You know that feeling when you're suddenly aimless. When you've been very busy and wishing for a long stretch of free time, and then it hits you and it feels kind of like a crisis. 

I'm just a little anxious is all. It seems like I always am. 

It gets weird when it gets cold

I was enjoying mountain biking for hours every day, alone and with my friend Holli, until I did something horrible. Although really it's my mother's fault for thinking she had a tough stomach.

For days before my mom's visit, I was trying to think of places we could eat that would be, how do I say this, lighter than the typical Asheville fare. Asheville has a lot of places with fried things stuffed into BLTs on the menu. But mom landed in a wonderful mood and said she felt excited to "eat Southern" while she was here.

Boy, did she not know what she was getting into. My parents, who live in Vermont, subsist on chicken and lovely salads. Whenever I'm home, and I wander into the kitchen around 6pm and ask my dad what I have to look forward to, it's always the same thing: "Chicken. And a lovely salad."

A few bites of Misty Knowles Farm thigh and salad that won't stay on the fork later, the show's over, and I'm left pining for the days of my childhood when we ate noodles four times a week and it always felt like a treat.

But I take my mom at her word, and when, after touring the Biltmore Mansion, mom wants to treat us both to a Carolina dog, I give her no warning. We each down a hot dog covered in onions and Chile and sauerkraut "n' stuff". I'm fine. I'm conditioned for this type of thing now, but mom's not. And she's not fine.

The only reason I take mom to the Biltmore is because I read in the pamphlet that you can rent bikes and "whiz around 8,000 acres of trails." That sounded like fun. The bike rentals are 15 bucks so I bring my own bike on top of the car, you know, to save the 15 bones. But after her dog she's not feeling up to biking. She barely even notices the Orchid house.

So we go home, and make a few stops, and by the time we get there I've forgotten that we ever intended to bike. I whip into the garage and I scalp the bike and the roof racks right off the car. It's a terrible, loud, wrenching moment that will end up costing a lot more than the 15$ I would have saved if we had whizzed around the 8,000 acres of trails, which we had not.

Yonton and Dave come out of the house, and we all stare at the damage strewn about the yard. I do not cry. I am very adult about it all. "This is my fault," I say calmly.  But I'm thinking to myself, "THIS IS ALL BECAUSE YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD EAT SOUTHERN AND THEN YOU WERE FELLED BY A CAROLINA DOG."

Two days later I'm at work pouring cider in a snowstorm and someone hits my car and crumples up the side, so it has to go to the shop anyway. Without a way to get the bike, which is damaged but ridable, to Bent Creek to ride, I grow fat and irritable. I'm a shut in. The rental car they've given me is one of the GM Recall vehicles and it shuts off on the highway. The climbing gym is too small and walking is too slow.  Running, that agony, is out of the question. I've forgotten how to exercise without the bike and when I don't exercise I'm not very nice to strangers in coffee shops who make mouth noises as I'm trying to study.

A few weeks later it's all been repaired, the car and the racks, so I take the bike back to the Biltmore and whiz around the trails myself. It's so fun. Mom would have really loved it.

Dave and I are driving up to Charlotte with our friend Mike, to attend the Inspiration Ball put on by all the kayakers we thought were dead in Tajikistan. On the way we stop for dinner at a Chick-fil-A.

I don't like Chick-fil-A because I don't like their stance on we-all-know-what, and I don't like how they sued that Vermonter who made the "Eat More Kale" T-shirts. (And won.)

But I ate it anyway. I swore I'd never do it but I did it. I ate a chicken sandwich and some waffle fries and I drank a milkshake. And then I went to the ball and felt beautiful and laughed a lot and enjoyed my curled hair.

But deeds like this don't go unpunished, and I threw up all night long. In somebody's house that I didn't know very well. I'd had a few drinks, sure, but I threw up long after they'd been geysered out of my system. And since I'd eaten the Chick-fil-A in a hurry because Dave warned me it "gets weird when it gets cold", I hadn't necessarily chewed it very well going down, so it came up in big pieces.

Some lessons you have to learn the tough way. I park on the sidewalk now. And for dinner, a lovely salad.

Writing for my rent

A portion of my rent, to live here in North Asheville with an old friend, includes writing one piece of fiction a month.

He insisted. I resisted for five months. He threatened to evict me.

My fiction blog, Then The Radio Died, pre-dated The Wilder Coast by three years, but has been more or less abandoned.

If you'd like to visit and read the ongoing saga of Eve and The Lunatics, head on over to this very strange little place. It can be a little shadowy and even sometimes smokey.

All the art you'll see over there is courtesy of Ali Walsh. It may haunt you.