Ever have one of those days where you get kinda frustrated because you’re trying to figure out how to deal with new blogging software and you kinda know intuitively what you need to do but the coding sort of escapes you and you try all different combinations and your head starts to feel like it might explode because you’ve tried every conceivable angle except the one that works and before you know it you’re writing these massive run-on sentences…

Yeah. Like that. What IS it about wanting to get a blogsite set up that can consume almost all your life, time, day, resources, and natural-born children? If you had any, that is. Or resources, for that matter.

So I spent the day wrestling with WordPress, which is sort of like “Dancing (-es) with Wolves” except I would have had better luck with the wolves.

Now, let’s not get too carried away. These here blogs run off WordPress and that’s fine n’ dandy. I like using WordPress to do the actual blogging, since it’s pretty easy to figure out. It’s the dinking around with templates and &#^*&^%&*#* like that…THAT makes me a little tired. Okay, a LOT tired. And when you spend a good chunk of your day dealing with the SAME little issue–a matter of trying to figure out how to code a link–rgh.

Yeah, I know. I’m doing something wrong. I know that. I accept that. Because HEY I’m good enough and I’m smart enough and darn it, people LIKE me! Or something. Anyway. Yeah, blogging. Wooo. The greatest thing to hit the internet since Al Gore invented it. Well, Al, if you’re not too freakin’ busy, could you stop by this week and code this (*^@&*&*%^(*#&%( link for me?

Anyway. May you all have a fabulous week and remember, the most interesting things can happen when you least expect it. Like, maybe me figuring out this software…

Posted on April 27th, 2008 by Andi
Filed under: Havin' ISSUES! | No Comments »

All right, I don’t pretend to be the world’s greatest mountaineer. That’s a job I leave to qualified professionals and assorted wildlife. However, I am a pretty outdoorsy and active person, so I figured I’d be okay on the hike my colleagues dragged me on yesterday.

Bless my heart, as they say in the South.

First, I haven’t done a hike like that in about 4 years, because the hills in Middle Tennessee look something like this:

Look beyond the bovine-type wildlife. See how the ground kind of slopes up? Okay. Now compare to this:

Just sayin’.

Not to diss some of the hills in Middle Tennessee. There are some good ones. And of course the Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee are another matter entirely. Anyway, my point is this: I’m in pretty good shape. I’ve been running out here since January, getting acclimated to the altitude again. I ain’t no pushover. But holy hell, yesterday kicked my ass! I made the summit–dragged my happy butt up there, after several pitched battles with scrub oak, mud, snow (yes, snow still lingers up there), and a pissed-off cactus.

But by god, I did it. Me. Fifteen years older than my outdoor-livin’ and lovin’ colleagues. So damn right I got up there and did a serious butt dance to commemorate the event. And then we went down. A hell of a lot faster than we went up. So every muscle I ever thought I might have in my body got put to good use. Today I feel like somebody hitched me to a team of sled dogs and ran the Iditarod. Without a sled. SO not a special feeling.

So here I sit, popping ibuprofen like pez, wondering if it’s possible to sprain your butt. And I think “what the hell was I doing up there?” And then I remember the astonishing view across the North Fork Valley, where the border between earth and sky is marked by mountains and on a clear day, like yesterday, you can see the San Juans and maybe, if you look really close, you might even see the deep-down parts of yourself, and feel how the wind can knife right through your clothing and your skin and sandpaper across your bones. And you might see the way life and death close a circle, in the carcass of a deer melting into the hard mountain soil and the track of a cougar on the summit’s ridgeline.

And talking to friends and colleagues afterward, watching antelope steaks and salmon cooking on a grill, I raised my glass and toasted the way the rhythms of predator and prey and seasonal changes feed me, body and soul, and I breathe deep and smell spring in the new buds of trees and the rich odor of wet earth and I remember that cougar track and I know that maybe on some other day, I’d be like that deer carcass, leaching my blood and body into the dirt of a snow-carved wash.

Yeah, it was a hard-ass hike. And yeah, I almost didn’t go to the summit of the peak. But something made me do it, something made me haul my butt up there. And in the wind and cold and on the cloud-shadowed spine of that microcosm of the world, I think I saw some of the deep-down parts of myself.

Thanks for stopping by and happy hiking, y’all.

Posted on April 20th, 2008 by Andi
Filed under: Andi's Take, Life | No Comments »

Bienvenidos, mis peeps, a mi casa loca.

This week’s “deep thoughts corner” deals a bit with acceptance, freak out, and inner weirdness. In other words, pretty much what most of us do all the damn time. I’ve been thinking a lot about things like the past and how heavy it can get if you carry it around all the time and I thought I’d explore that a bit here. So if you’re expecting a stroll through my usual zombie-fied corners and intergalactic portals, you may be disappointed. However, it is a little skip through allegory-land, a place I’ve been visiting quite a bit since that whole hoo-ha with the imaginary friends (refer to “Fake Friends” blog).

All rightie. C’mon, Grasshoppa!

Read more…

Posted on April 13th, 2008 by Andi
Filed under: Andi's Take, Life, Therapy Corner | No Comments »

MIS PEEPS! How are you? Here’s hoping you have a fabulous week.

Some of you may have to do some traveling. Business, pleasure…for the hell of it. Well, it has come to my attention that I am currently living in a part of the country that offers an alternative to those annoying travel websites. No longer do you need to call up _________[insert annoying travel website here] and slog through endless options, trying to find just the right price only to realize that there are 14 connections involved and that you’ll be routed through Argentina to get from Denver to Boston.

Helpful tip from yers truly, livin’ large in da holla: interdimensional portals. Yep. Right here in western Colorado. Avoid those annoying “extra fees” tacked onto your plane tix. The “security fees.” The “what the hell can I and can’t I take in my carry-on?” The long security lines. And don’t EVEN worry about how many tiny-ass bags of peanuts you’re gonna get.

>p?Because you can bypass all of that and access a portal to…well, we’re still working out the kinks on that. But I’ll bet wormholes are cool this time of year. Anyway. I’m always looking for travel bargains and cheap fares. Why? Because I AM cheap, dammit. Less money on actually getting some place means more money to enjoy yourself when you get there. Whether it’s food, drink, a place to stay or…well, whatever.

So I think I might be checking out these “portals.” They don’t ever go down for “maintenance.” They aren’t ever delayed (no word yet on how often and where they’re open–hmmm, kinda like airlines…), and no matter what you take through it, you’ll probably end up butt-ass nekkid on the other side, anyway. Did you see the original Terminator? Any time you make a leap through some kind of portal, you’re nekkid on the other end. And in the Sarah Connor Chronicles. Same thing. Nekkid on the other side of a portal. Think of the money we’d save on security if we implemented interdimensional portals at airports. I’ll bet they’d let you take those bigger-than-3-oz.-tubes through.

So if you’re looking for a bargain and you don’t really care where or when you end up, join me on Grand Mesa. At the very least, it’s a nice view of the night sky. And no, you don’t have to get nekkid BEFORE you go through.

“Uh, you first, Jim. You look better nekkid then Vulcans do…”

Posted on April 6th, 2008 by Andi
Filed under: Andi's Take, meaningful mundanities | No Comments »

Greetings, mis peeps.

The web can be a powerful tool. And as with any kind of tool, it can be used for good or for not-so-good things. I’m sure everybody here has some kind of story about somebody “freaky” they met online. And also some stories about some pretty cool people they’ve met there, as well.

Writers use the web quite a bit. Not to suggest you don’t if you’re not. But in the changing world of publishing and promo and networking, writers tend to be online a hell of a lot. And because we all want to believe the best about people, maybe some of us take a little too much for granted when we’re cruising around out there in the ether as “virtual selves.”

This is a tale, dear readers, about love, loss, and life. It’s got a little of everything. And I hope it serves as a warning, reminder, and maybe confirmation about the importance of following your instincts and doing your homework.

So get yourself a cup of coffee or tea or whatever you feel like drinking. Settle in. Put your feet up. And let me walk you through some dark corners of the net. Click the link below. It’s a convoluted tale, a little longish, and not as “blog-like” as some people might like. Not so much “sound-bite” culture as it is “about culture.” Online and offline, I suppose. Anyway. My tale awaits below.

Read more…

Posted on March 30th, 2008 by Andi
Filed under: Freak Shack, Havin' ISSUES!, Life, Therapy Corner | No Comments »

Did you ever wake up one day and realize that “hey, the last 3 months have been entirely too insane”? And maybe you thought about taking a break or building that tiki bar in your back yard so you could watch all the games during March Madness pretending you were on the beach in those beer commercials, but you got caught up in hoo-ha that might mimic what Dante envisioned in the various levels of hell.

Or, alternatively, you realized that you were living life in a Dali painting. Like maybe the one at the other end of that link there. Everything seemed outta whack, but you kind of recognized some of the elements of it all because they looked remotely recognizable. They just weren’t quite…right.

And because you woke up in some Spanish surrealist painter’s dreamscape, it makes perfect sense to go Yeti-hunting and then do a little fishing in Loch Ness. Why the hell not? Maybe even try a little golf on the Moon while you’re at it.

“Trippin’” thus can involve multiple meanings. One, you’re, like, TRIPPIN’ and you totally need to chill. Translation: your perspective is way skewed, dude, so let’s assess. Or two, you’re taking a trip somewhere. Like maybe to the Himalayas to get a picture of an elusive hairy creature that roams the upper reaches of the icy, windblown, largely inaccessible but somehow alluring mountain crags. And three, things are so entirely freaky that you just stop one day and think: “whoa. I’m trippin’.” And yes, it’s entirely possible to trip in different ways all at once. If you can do that, you, too can be a surrealist painter.

I bring this up, dear readers, because as spring…well, springs, I strongly recommend the number two option above with regard to trippin’. That is, travel. Go somewhere. If you can’t/won’t, try something new and different where you live. Turn your stereo on really loud and have a dance party on your porch. Teach your dog a new trick. Teach yourself one. Buy that leather jacket you’ve been thinking about getting. Or get that tattoo that’s been calling you. Watch a sunset and then read a new murder mystery.

GO trippin’, rather than BE trippin’. That’s an important distinction. Make your verb active rather than passive and open some possibilities. Like, say, that fishing trip to Loch Ness.

But dance parties on your porch are nice, too.

Posted on March 23rd, 2008 by Andi
Filed under: Freak Shack, Therapy Corner | No Comments »

You have SO got it. Don’t EVEN try to lie. C’mon. You’ve got Colbie Caillat on your iPod and you’re dreaming of West Coast beaches and your beat-up cargo shorts and Birks and you tell yourself that this is the year you fall in love with yourself, the year you move to LA and learn to surf. The year you get out of that rut you’ve been in, pack up your vehicle, and just drive off toward the sunset. Or maybe the sunrise.

And then you look out the window at the gray, shitty weather and the snow floating to the street below and you think: “jesus god WHEN is this going to end?” And you go to your closet and you put your shorts on ANYWAY and your Birks and your tee and you dance around the house singing along to Colbie because your body, friends, KNOWS it’s spring time. And you cannot deny the natural rhythms of the world. In this hemisphere, north of the equator, it’s spring time and every little cell that fires messages through your infrastructure knows it. They’re ready for a beach party.

As am I. Sign me up. I know every freakin’ song on Colbie’s first album and yeah, I’ve been wearing shorts in the house since February, desperate for the first hints of warmer weather, for the presage of summer. Desperate to get on with it, to shed the baggage that winter seems to hide in your closet.This past winter has worn me down in a lot of ways. It’s left me empty at times, trying to make sense of life and how fragile it is, how things can change in the space of minutes and how everything you thought you might have a handle on you suddenly realize isn’t your damn carry-on anyway so you let it go, leave it on the tarmac as you board a flight that you don’t have a ticket for.

Sometimes you’re left to your own devices in the middle of uncharted territory. This past winter has been a topography I know in some ways, but I don’t recognize in others. It’s the buckled and blasted western vista of myself, terrain at once familiar but also different than the last time I traversed it. Parts of it have a hell of a great view. Other parts…not so much. But that’s okay. It’s spring time, after all.

Time to reassess, rejuvenate, reacquaint. This spring IS the advent of my new year, the recognition that yeah, I’ve got work to do and things to sort through. I have some grief I need to acknowledge and lives I need to celebrate, including mine. This spring, more than many others, I feel the stirrings of new beginnings and the solidity of knowing the road I need to take.

So I’m taking this old baggage out of the car–I don’t need it anymore. And I’m bringing the things that serve me best and reflect the inner reaches of my deep-down. I’ve got my camping gear, too, just in case. And my mountain bike. Oh, and look at this. A surfboard.

I’ve always wanted to learn to surf.

It’s spring time, after all.

Surf’s up, y’all. Let’s go.

Posted on March 15th, 2008 by Andi
Filed under: Life, meaningful mundanities | 1 Comment »

All this talk about zombies and ribcages got me to thinking about armageddon. Okay, so I think about that a lot, anyway, because I grew up in…um…”unusual circumstances,” with parents who have been concerned about the “shit hitting the fan” with regard to the collapse of world economies and complete and total freak-out.

And that’s why, friends, I grew up in a small town on a farm raising goats, chickens, pigs, rabbits, and hell. My sister and I are, thus, “free-range children” and as a result, I have a rather twisted view of things. Amusing, but twisted.

So for today’s apocalypse tip, keep an eye on trains. Those are your indication that all is right with the world. I grew up watching trains from the deck of our farmhouse. Trains were my connection to the outside world, which I sometimes forgot existed outside the mountain valley I was in. So my fondness for trains started early. They proved that there was something outside the holler I grew up in and I’ve taken that with me everywhere.

In THIS holler, where I’m currently based and where I’m finding all kinds of amusing anecdotes about small-town livin’, there are lots of coal trains (this is an old coal-mining town) that go right through town. Right next to the office, shaking the cups on the desks and bringing all conversations to a stop because it’s so dang loud. My officemates tease me when the afternoon train rolls by, about 3.20 PM MST every day. One will say: “Whew. The world hasn’t ended yet.” And I say: “you laugh, but if the trains stop, it’s a sign that something’s not right out there and we need to hunker in the bunker.” And of course we all practically wet ourselves laughing.

But one never knows, does one? I just blogged over at my office site about that seed vault 600 miles north of Norway (yes, that’s my scholarly name). Telling, that a publication like High Country News has a blog tag called “apocalypse” on it. The end of the world–whether as we know it or in other ways–is on a lot of minds these days, it seems. And I know that not all those people grew up like I did, so something in the water or the air besides toxins and chemicals and global warming freak-out is fueling this odd streak in the ether. But, I’ll say with a MUAH HA HA, apocalyptic talk is part and parcel of human existence and you’ll find it throughout this country’s (and the world’s) history. Some of us just get a little more steeped in it than others.

11.02 AM MST. There goes the Saturday train. I hear its whistle now. Whew. I can post this, thus, and know that all is right with the world.

Let’s review.This:

means you don’t get this:

There. Aren’t you glad you have me here to help you negotiate this complicated world we live in? Always glad to share the tips and the love! So keep it tuned here and I’ll keep you tuned in.

Have a great week and remember this very important mantra: Trains are good. Carbon footprint notwithstanding.

Posted on March 1st, 2008 by Andi
Filed under: Andi's Take, Freak Shack, Life, Therapy Corner, meaningful mundanities | No Comments »

Jogging. Here in the holler. Minding my own business.

Okay, and maybe other people’s, too. Kind of goes with the territory in a small town. You may LOOK like you’re minding your own business, but the reality is, you’re minding everybody else’s, too. You’re looking around, scoping the neighborhood, seeing who’s out and about, who’s not. You automatically file details like “oh, so-and-so isn’t home this weekend. Haven’t seen the car since Friday.” Or “So who’s so-and-so doing? I don’t recognize that Chevy…”

So there I was. Jogging. And I saw the Toyota 4X4 parked on the side street. Nice truck, hunter green. Newer model. Pick-up. Camouflage seat covers. “Nice truck,” I thought. At this point, as I drew near, I slowed to a walk to cool down, since I’d run a couple of miles or so. I checked the truck out, since that’s sort of what you do.

And that’s when I saw it.

The back. Or rather, what was in it. Not that there’s anything wrong with a giant-ass skinned ribcage propped against the wheel well. And of course, stuff like that ALWAYS makes me think about stuff like this:

Not to suggest that it was a zombie in the back of that pick-up. Or even George Romero trying to make it look there was one sprawled out on the bedliner of that Toyota. But I have a macabre sense of these things and a big-ass skinned ribcage just sends me right down Apocalypse Avenue. And in my view of things, the end of the world ALWAYS has zombies.

Anyway. Bright, sunny day. Crisp and cold. Dead thing in back of truck. All is right with the world. Funny how your thinking changes, when you immerse yourself in regional culture. Remember, I grew up in a small rural town. But I haven’t really been back in a while. Still, certain primal things surged up out of my depths and as I walked past that truck, studying that ribcage, the second thought that came to mind (after “Quick. Check for the apocalypse.”) was: “Good thing it’s cold out. Flies won’t get on there.”

So let’s go over this lesson about how Andi’s mind works.

This

plus this

equals this

Perfectly logical. And why yes, I was just on my way to therapy. Thanks for asking. Until next time, have a good week and check your armageddon watches regularly. Peace!

Posted on February 18th, 2008 by Andi
Filed under: Life, Therapy Corner, meaningful mundanities | No Comments »

Greetings, mis amigas y amigos. Been a couple of crazy weeks. The snow has decided to relent and give us a couple of days of sun. It’s currently abut 35 degrees F today and I’m wearing shorts. Funny, how we adjust to climates. Here’s a piccie of the holler, in case you wondered where I am for the next 4 months.

Nice, yes? So I must regale you with a couple of tales from the holler. There I was, working away in editorial at High Country News and we kept hearing this noise. This high-pitched whine, like what you hear in the waiting room at a dentist’s office. Not the kid in the seat next to you. No, that whine from the back. The sound the drill makes in your half-numb mouth. THAT noise. So finally, one of the editors says: “what the hell IS that?” And we all look out the window at the market next door and sure enough, out back they’ve got a big ol’ frozen elk in the bed of a pick-up and they’re sawing it all up for generalized consumption. And that elk’s legs were all stickin’ straight up in the air and they were goin’ to TOWN on that thing.

Mmm. Elksicles. The market next door sells organic and game meats, and I’ll tell you what, I have had the best chicken-fried elk there EVER. Maybe anywhere. Here in the holler, “meat market” has a whole ‘nother meaning.

And yet another tale from the holler. There’s one movie house in town and it alternates between art flicks, regular flicks, and live music. There is a HELL of a music scene here. At any rate, if you take your own bowl for popcorn, you get 50 cents off. Well, my roomie and I not only do that, but we take our own glasses for beer. Yes, you can drink beer in this theater. And they’ll charge you 50 cents less. Of course, since this IS the holler, we drink our beer out of Ball mason jars. For you urban folks who might not know what that is:

Here’s a tip. Take the lid off before you fill it. I’m just sayin’. And put the lid back on if you don’t finish your beer. You can drink it later. Yep.

I gotta tell you, though, that this town is a wonderful mix of ol’ skool ranchin’ types, hippies, musicians, artists, and people who just don’t fit elsewhere. I’ve been in more small towns than I care to count and this is the first time I’ve come to a small town and felt like I was automatically part of the milieu. I can’t really explain it. People here just kind of accept whomever stops by. And anywhere there are more than, say, 5 people in a place, here it’s a party. I’m still trying to figure out how to describe this place and when I do, I’ll let you know.

All right, friends. Off to drink a bit more coffee and seek meaning in tea leaves.

Share the love and send some good ju-ju to the southern states that got hit by those heinous storms last week.

Peace!

Posted on February 9th, 2008 by Andi
Filed under: Life, meaningful mundanities | No Comments »