Wed. night

Ice Climber began almost a year ago in the Odegaard Undergraduate Library here at the University of Washington. I'm here again tonight after a bit of studying. It's always fun to come here. It's like a fashion show, no kidding. The 18-20 year old young women in here seem to embrace one of two extremes: either pajamas in public (a pet peeve of mine) or full-on, hair styled, make-up'd, skin-flashing near tartness. Not that I'm complaining. It's the guys, too. Right now I'm looking over at a dude wearing that multi-colored, vertical-striped dress shirt that I know I've seen in Macy's for $55. It's nearly midnight, so he got the hour right, but he forgot he is in the library and not Club Medusa...or wherever kids these days like to party. And this other dude has salt-and-pepper hair but there's no way it could be natural. How the hell did he do that?!

Anyway, the photos from Black Boy haven't been sorted out yet. In the meantime, I'm going to put up my notes from last week's camping trip...a process neglected earlier this week, again, because of the play. So read and N'Joy like non-dairy creamer.

This color is for writing done onsite.
This color is for writing done tonight.

I stole the term "backblogging" from the Texas Cooking Woman because that's what I'm forced to do for this field trip. I have my phone but there is no reception up here in the woods so there will be no audio post. Damn T-Mobile. It's all good. Practicing writing in the notebook is a good idea.

Four-hour drive to get up here to the Olympic Mountains. Naturally, I'm more interested in my classmates than our surroundings. Everyone here is an up-and-coming naturalist, for sure, but a couple of guys have their own band, one woman is a bartender who looks like a combination of Rachel Dratch and this girl Haane I met in college. Lastly, the three professors along with us are very good-humored. Evidently, they both attended Cal and they've been working together for the past 30 years. So, by now, they've established a little bit of a rapport. Anytime a grown man can say to another grown man "you stupid son of a bitch" and it's absolutely no problem between them...well, that's a sign of true friendship.

It's ten minutes after twelve and we've gotta wake up at 6:30a to go bird-watching so maybe I ought to wrap up. Also, my head is killing me after a margarita, two tequila shots, a Smirnoff Apple and a Lucky Lager. Oh, and Brite Crawlers. How can you top that? Best field trip ever.

Oh, snap! Saw a coupla bald eagles today. One of 'em flying around with a twig! This afternoon, my classmates and I got down and dirty searching for salamanders in a creek. It was cold as FUCK. WhatUpThen is not the outdoor-oriented person, but I certainly didn't want to stand out or otherwise hold the class back. So I put on my rain gear, raised my Leaf Shield and dove headfirst into the brush, baby! Before long, they're gonna start calling me Wood Man.

Spirit of the Woods