My Heartbreak? Mt. Redoubt, no doubt!

Well, because I am a sick person, my biggest disappointment for the week has been the eruption of Alaska's Mt. Redoubt. The Alaska Volcano Observatory reports that its continued violent eruption will likely wear out quickly. Today Alaska Airlines resumed flights over the area, and the ash has not spread as far as Anchorage.

So not only has this been a boring eruption, but I was not there to see it. Yes- if it is severe, and weather related- I want to be there. I'm the idiot standing there poking the lava flow with a stick, not showing the fear or reverance that a mighty volcano deserves.

So now because I am not standing in the middle of a natural disaster, I find myself bummed out. There are other volcano's on the "yellow" list for the observatory, but I want to see some destruction. (I know- sick!)



Meanwhile, this eruption has provided some lovely photos...

Post this on your blogs too....

Beer Wars- Watch and learn how corporate america is slaughtering our souls, feeding us budweiser and telling us its a great American Lager, feeding us McDonalds and calling it food, and then leaning back and smiling as they make a buck off of idiots...In other industries, I'm less hard core about this stuff...but with Beer?

The people making craft beer are so involved at every step. It is like the difference- literally-in drinking a bottle of boones and a 100 year old cab sauv. And people get duped by it. The truth is you are supporting large corporations that provide low wage factory jobs.

Wouldn't you rather support a local business with a 10 times better (at least) product, where the person who made it cares about it, cares about you and their employees, and wants to know what you think? I think so!...Go see this movie on the 16th of April, support its production, and support local beer.

I love college, but I am really looking forward to it being over.

<----Me right now. Just in case you were wondering.

I am listening to new albums from Razorlight and the Decemberists trying to chill my brain out after a truly painful week. It is helping a little bit.

Not as much as really really fresh air and visible stars...though a rock-opera about a girl named Margaret, her shape-shifting, forest dwelling bf, an evil queen and a murderer does to a good job of taking me someplace relatively far from the flourescent-lit education cave im sitting in.

These are the circumstances that lead my mind down a wondering path...like what if we had natural light and not flourescent light in all class rooms. Would I feel more chipper? What about tanning bed bulbs. That's an idea. Or what is with pageant kids- and more importantly, whats with their moms? And why are they all southern? As you can see my mind is a veritable steel trap- and it is also largely useless lately. Focus is the car I drive- and certainly the only type of focus I posess.

In a land of ice and snow and limited cell phone and internet access, I certainly hope I can quiet the more demonic aspects of my very unruly brain into something that can once again find focus and strength of purpose. I mean I have like a 400 pg. novel completely written in my head. Putting it down on paper should be nothing, but I can't find the internal focus to do it- even when I am not doing my homework either. I am over-stimulated and under-paid. I need to find a way to reverse that- less stimulation, more money. I am guessing it will take me at least a month to clear out all the random un-filed thoughts floating around up there...assuming I find some way to take it easy on any extraneous thoughts for the next few weeks, and assuming Alaska doesn't turn me into someone who cares about bristol's break-up.

Dear Michigan Summer...

I'll miss you most of all. Your big thunderstorms rolling in on your nice, sandy beaches, your perfect mix of warmth and humidity...your green, green trees...let's face it- Summer is about the only time of the year that it is consistantly gorgeous in Michigan, and you would be hard-pressed to find a better summer anywhere. It's winters, im here to say, can suck it! It's springs are moody and wishy-washy, and while fall is lovely, it is eclipsed by the fact that it comes right before winter, so it too sucks. Kind of like sunday being awesome except that its passing brings on monday...
No- I am most definitely a summer girl. And I will miss sunday v-ball with my family, and walking all over GR...I will miss summer beer fest, the 4th of July at the Lake..Venetian festival...
But, its just one summer, and i'll never be up-rootable like this again. And so I will wave good-bye to Michigan summers...and hunt down some sort of lighthouse/pier thing in Anchorage. I probably won't swim though- im guessing the north pacific is a bit chilly.
A breif aside...

Dear Chicago Socialites w. Second Homes Here...
I will not miss you. Please stop making our beaches as disgusting as yours. And tip your servers better if you insist on showing off how much money you have. And drive better. I will be back in sept. w. my driving finger ready for you- in my absence I expect my fellow Michiganders to pick up the slack.
<3 Maggie

OK now that that's out of the way...if anyone from Alaska stumbles upon this blog, I:
A- Would love to hear what's great about Anchorage in the summertime. And...
B- Promise not to be anything like rude Chicago people in your lovely state...really we don't even consider them to be mid-western.

Michigan Summer, tu me manques...Save a brat for me...

The Real Reason I'm Going to Alaska

OK not really, but this struck me as funny. The video explains the basics, but in essence, this small town had a male to female ratio of 10-1- and the one woman who is represented had clearly seen better days. As it would seem ( though I'm almost certain...almost...that this is a joke) the men of Ravenstoke wanted to attract more women to town. To do that, they did the obvious thing- the sprayed the whole kit and caboodle down with what appears to be some mixture of pheremones and axe...talk about your heavy chemical pollutants! I thought it was clean up there! Anyways, it appears to have worked as the town is now flooded with women and over-sexed animals...but thats just one town out of thousands...In all liklihood the sausage fest continues, though I have no intention of taking advantage of these odds- I'll just be dispatching back for all you bachelorettes out there.

Questions I Have for Myself

As I embark on day 2 of this projet brillant, I find myself wondering many things, some of them superficial, some very serious, like:

• What do the distribution patterns for Michigan Craft Brews look like? and,
• What about my stupid boy? and,
• How can I, of commie-loving, folk-music-adoring, energy-efficient fame, ever really hack it in the land of gun-toting, Sarah Palin-electing, taxless Alaska ?

I ask these things not without concern. As strange as it is, I am highly partial to Michigan Beer, and I don't see much in AK that isn't macro-sludge, or the moderately better Canadian macro-sludge. My mother would call this a notable boon to my waistline, but who has two thumbs and is serious about craft beer? This girl right here. Perhaps I could get the secondarily mentioned stupid boy to ship me a supply... Or maybe you can get the West-Coast micros up there. I can deal with that. My uncle is shipping me some Pliny...If I like it I'll convert my beer-ituality to a more west-coast hop-head style.

And stupid is an unfair label for the boy- he is really one of the smartest people I know, and the person to whom I come home...who loves to tell me about his day when he's not being crabby. I will have to be confident in our excellent telephone skills, and supress the crazy welling up within. Hopefully when I get home, he will actually have missed me.

Regarding the last bulletted point, there is an actual fear there. If the previously mentioned boy can make me almost totally give up my argument on why guns are bad, what will happen to me when I'm surrounded by energetically conservative meth fiends. I have prepared many fool-proof-but-polite protective arguments to shield my values and ego, but what happens when I feel them attacked en masse. Can I possibly withstand it, or will I feel myself cowed into Zombie-Republicanism (the worst form that requires willingly placing pieces of your brain into the mouths of the 7 hounds of hell; Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, and Big Oil).

I feel I am strong enough to withstand the pressure, but I'm not sure I can do so warplessly. I will probably quit joking about abortion or something...it will only cause my soul to fracture a little bit.

So...what am I going to do up there for all that time? I will definitely be looking for a real job, and a little part time one while I'm there. I will be exploring, but that is in my nature where ever I roam, I will be helping Mo, and I will be doing A LOT of writing. There is free-lance for the taking up there- there is a novel to finish, and a sitcom to collaborate on with the boy. My expenses will be minimal. Almost non-existant. And after 5 years of college, my spirit is feeling a little splintered. I will be repairing it, and I will be having fun.

Cementing a Plan

How exactly does one just wake up and go...f my life...im moving to Alaska. In truth, the plan had been kicking around the old noodle for a while, and like all things preternaturally pre-ordained by...well...by whatever, I just had to wait for a way.
Given that the word plan enters my vocabulary very infrequently, and even less when the words long-term come before it, this moment of clarity is quite shocking, so I thought, gee...I should document and share with the world. But the story doesn't start here.
It starts with a quarter-life crisis, like every other great adventure story...and you folks were hoping for some originality.
Maggie was lost. Two college degrees, a rocking internship with a U.S. Senators Office, and she still had no idea what to do with herself, or where to do it. It seemed she had picked the worst time imaginable to graduate college and start looking for a job in Michigan. After a lot of hopelessness and one very long night spent contemplating the adult ads on craigslist, she realized she had to get out.
Sure she had furniture and a boy who loved her...kind of...but thats what storage is for...well..not the boy...but you get the picture...Who knows what they want to do at 22 anyways? It sounded like a good time for a crazy plan. She used to be the queen of them, and she had been recently disappointed by her boring, non-spontaneous, churlish and overall lack-luster life. What better way to thin an apartment full of crap and a life full of half-committed relationships, anyway? - She would be back in three months to see if any of it was real.
At the exact same moment, hear dear friend Mo was having a crisis of her own. Her hubby had dragged her all the way to Anchorage, dropped trou, stuffed her oven full of bun, and marched off in to battle...and so she found herself in Alaska, lonely and hormonal. She begged and pleaded with all her freinds to visit...and Maggie thought...why not...you should always help the diseased...I'll do more than visit! I'LL STAY! Facing down the front end of her dream to live among the moose and caribou, she somehow talked her roomie into ending their lease, her sister into taking her car, and Expedia into agreeing to very low plane fare. Thus, a crazy plan had cemented itself and destiny was taking shape.
Approximately 90 days from now and she would be collecting her degree in the mail, having a rummage sale, moving to Anchorage, and buying a bike...if she was going to live in the wilderness, she may as well get her ass in shape...