August 7th, 2010 (old entry)

(NOTE : I am posting random entries and tidbits from my journal trying to catch up to present day)

One week left here this summer. One week till I can put one more notch in my belt of a summer at the lighthouse. Sad to say, I feel so blasse about the thought of my remaining time. As if I have written all of this before. True, these are the same feelings I always have around this time, and in that sense they are familiar and confronting. But, well.... I don't know what to say.

Trinket, the resident baby seal, begins mewling and the noise redirects my thoughts. Four people show up just before 11, rain soaked and loud. The usual conversation of sailing here and there, of a 12 pound ham they have been using for a week and the need to pump their tanks. I wish I could avoid listening to such a banal conversation. They are so loud and occupy a major portion of the porch. Silence might only be found in the woods. I am elated when one of the women says she is cold and should get moving. I am happy they are retreating to their boats and Costco salmon burgers. The rain starts falling harder, Rose curls deeper into herself.

A slow day, a good day, a day that I read a whole novel from start to finish without much interruption. Robert Louis Stevenson "The Dynamiter". An appropriately sized green book with the visage of a young man embossed on the cover. The typeset almost a 3/4 of an inch from the edge of the page. A somewhat absurd margin that made the book thicker then what it should be.

From out on the water comes elevated voices, a father and a teenage son aboard a sailboat ironically named Nirvana. They are yelling at one another. In transiting past the point, they cut it to close and fouled their prop in kelp fronds. The father jumped into the dinghy while the son fiddled with the boat hook. The offending kelp finally freed, the boat turned towards Bedwell Harbor and disappeared into the fog.

June 14th, 2010 (Old Post, catching up on posts)

14 June 2010
The sign in the waiting area encourages people to use mass transit. Twilight Tolstoy’s have written their smarmy quips about taxes, Schwinns, and poop smoothies. It’s so infantile and yet I add my line amongst them. “Plus bikers aren’t fat” On the ferry the locals read their papers and sip their coffee in silence, while tourists chatter to shake off the morning groginess. A few stretch out across bench seats and catch a nap. Work boots hanging over the edge and sweat-washed ballcaps blocking the light. A few tables over, someone shuffles a deck of cards and another man turns the pages of his newspaper.
While off island we went to all of the usual stops, a sea of consumerism with strip malls extending out on to the pavement like awkward angled jetties. The hardest was WalMart. Fat women in tight capris and stilletos dragging their fat bawling children. Men with bellies hanging miles past their belt. Forcing them to create ballast by thrusting their heads backwards and adding bags of cookie dough to the back of their calves. Everyones shirts are so tight their back rolls appear as a pack of sausages made by an inexperienced butcher. I feel so out of place, nausea begins to take over. A couple of women walk past that are perfect examples of real behead. They don’t waste their money on styling gel, they just use the sculpting power of unwashed stringy locks. I want to run out the front doors and breath in the sweet rain perfume air. Dan pipes up “Oooooh, Scrubbing Bubbles, I love scrubbing bubbles.”
It strikes me as utterly hilarious and I can’t help giggling as we walk towards the checkout lane. I only feel completely normal again while sitting in the ferry line. A Ford Focus with Oregon plates pulls up next to us and a nun steps out with her dog.