The enemy of my enemy

I am my own worst enemy. I always have been--except for a brief stint in the seventh grade when that bully-girl Nikki was my enemy. In retrospect, she probably had a crush on me and turned aggressive when I failed to love her. I had no idea, and even if I'd known, I'd have had no idea, you know? These things happen.

But otherwise, it's me.

I've internalized all of the negative talk I've ever heard about myself: I don't have any feelings, I'm frigid, I'm too stubborn to know what's good for me, I have terrible taste in music, clothes, books, movies, other people, I am gullible, selfish, lazy, willful, preoccupied with all of the wrong things. I think about these things and the people who said them to me all the time. I am the over-sensitive little boy in Down at the Dinghy.

I know that none of these things are true. I can point to empirical evidence that disputes every one of those things--but here's the thing that I can't disprove: I often give the impression that I'm a total wreck, because I often feel like a total wreck.

I often feel like I am hanging on by a thread, even if (experience has shown this time and time again) everything will work out, I will get done what I need to, I almost always reach the goals I set for myself, and I do, in fact, know what I'm doing when it comes to taking reasonable care of myself and those I care about.

And yet. To get my shit done, I always have to run myself to this same crazy brink. My most productive time is spent staring over an edge of my own creation, working like mad. Panic-stricken that I will fail to meet my obligations. Guilt-ridden that I will let down everyone who has helped me. Frantic to tackle all of the things before the world turns back into the pumpkin of abject failure. I cannot manage my time or my finances or my self-talk without fear. I admit it.

Everything (and one) I know assures me that this is not healthy and must be fixed. But everything (and one) also says that I will be the happiest if I can just learn to harness whatever I consider my weaknesses to be. So... I need to learn to run on my dis-ease? Because I would like to be the happiest. I really would. I would like to know how this madness can somehow be converted into nourishment. What a metabolism that would be.

In the meantime, right, I will just keep making my way. I will continue to do it my way, as it is the way I can always see, even in the dark. I get how some of my weaknesses are gifts. Stubbornness, for example, is a gift, as is terrible taste. After all, no one is ever in line for my tickets, and the thing I want is almost never sold out.

Drawing

Yesterday I was able to sit for several hours and just draw. It was frustrating and wonderful at the same time. Our drawing workshop of sorts, was led by Katrina Van Grouw, artist and author of The Unfeathered Bird (note: you should buy this book, but if you do using this link, I will make a few cents).

Frustrating, because I used to be able to make my hand do what I wanted--and wonderful, because O! the luxury of just sitting and looking and moving my hand and not-thinking. I write and read, because I cannot imagine any other way to spend my time. But, I do the other things I do, like knit, cook, draw, practice yoga, run--all to keep from flying apart into a million panicked, crazy pieces.  

The less time in the day I can devote to those things that comfort me, the more likely I am to rail against the universe and cry randomly. Sometimes it's easy to know a thing and still forget it, is I guess what I'm saying.

The drawings that came out of the workshop weren't great works of art, but that's beside the point. I loved the shiny silver smudges along the the skin of my hand, loved the sound of the graphite scraping off slowly in arcs.

I've also gotten a few acceptances in the recent past, which I hope to share news of soon. Until then, I'm going to re-arrange my schedule a bit to make sure I can get in that good stuff more as the semester draws to a frantic, harried close.  

New digs

I've moved the blog to Squarespace. Still arranging everything just so, but this will be the place for the next two years or so. Let me know what you think.

Driving is different from riding

In the morning, I get to take a left turn at Albuquerque. Driving is stressful for me. As a result, I eat poorly on the road, play the music too loud, and get into weird pissing contests with other drivers. I get the crappy food and music, but I don't know why that last one happens.

Part of it must be a deep-rooted sense of injustice. I think: Aggressive drivers should not be able to push other drivers around! They should be sanctioned or reprimanded, or at the very least be made to understand how their jerky behavior impacts others. Not like I'm some avenging freeway angel or anything--I think I just want to stand up to car bullies. But, that can be dangerous. And when I'm full of soylent green from a truckstop and my synapses feel all bare and ungrounded, I forget. And when I forget, what's really going on (a road trip, not grade-school recess all over again), I slip into outrage too easily. And then I am on the offensive. What a silly spiral.

When I checked into this fancy pants Motel 6, an AARP member (he asked for the discount when he checked in after me) held the door for me and said, "You kept passing me." I chuckled, amiably, I hope. He didn't seem pissed off--but as I walked away, it occurred to me that he might be. Was I an asshole out there to him?  I imagined how I'd've felt if he were any one of the esteemed septuagenarians who have shared their knowledge (or homes) with me in the last year. How mortified would I have been to have accidentally (or, more honestly: unintentionally) been a road ass to Paul J or John W, for example? Ugh. And then, shouldn't everyone be worth the same respect until they've demonstrated that they don't deserve it? Double ugh.

Tomorrow, in any case, I will try to channel Bugs, rather than Daffy. I'll try to have more empathy, if kindness isn't yet possible.

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At the zoo-oo-oo / At the zoo-oo-oo

zoostrip

This morning, I got to meet two new species of African vultures and hang out in and around their exhibit at the Phoenix zoo. Their senior keeper is fantastic and will be a great help in the future. Man, I sure hope someone pays me for this job, someday.

For the gallery, click here: Africa via Phoenix

How traveling is like drinking too much. Or, on the eve of my departure.

You always regret the last drink you had. The one you think knocked you over the edge of this is one heck of a hangover into the pit of am I dead? Maybe I'm dead and this is what hell will be like forever. If it weren't for that last shot of Jamesons.. oww my head.  Never the fifteen beers before it. This is the second summer in a row that I have traveled at length on my own. Ever, really. I'm not sure if I'm getting better at it or not, but at least this time I remembered q-tips and aspirin.

Some of the feelings I had in certain cities surprised me (I'm looking at you, Amsterdam & Vienna). It's hard being a good capitalist consumer-tourist when you know too much. And, Paris. Oh goddamn you, Paris you piece of shit heart breaker. I definitely did not see the town of my art-school-girl dreams in either of our best lights considering the crowds and all my money troubles, but I'm willing to give it another shot someday. Next time, I won't do that city on my own.

Part of the reason for this trip was to see if I could come up with enough material for a book chapter or two, and to see if it was a subject I'd want to keep exploring for a year or two more... And, wow, I have some thinking to do, which is all I'd like to say about that at this point.

I made some new friends and had some wholly new experiences, which should be the two most important aspects of travel (in my opinion). And I learned a little bit more about my limitations. Didn't I once love crowds? That time has passed. Also, to not spend money, I really REALLY really need to just not have it. Good thing I've picked the career I have.

Gardens. I lust after them everywhere I go... but I still don't know whether that means I need a more like forever home or a just a hot gardener.

Below are the pictures from my tourist day in Paris. When I post my Instagrams, you will see how hard I tried to be stoked, even though the cold and the crowds and the asshats and the credit card rejections and the junk food. Because, MONTMARTE and NOTRE DAME and CREPES and the SEINE and etc. It's a case of expectations, to be sure... but in this case, I didn't realize I had them until my trip was in full swing. They grew organically out of an otherwise awesome trip. In other cities I had friends (or friends of friends)--and this makes a lot of difference when you don't speak the language.

>>>But for the record I TRIED TO SPEAK THE STUPID LANGUAGE (she raged, bitterly). Yeah, my French is shitty and Jeanne Bangs would be appalled--but I did try.<<<

And so Paris becomes more and more like a night of binge drinking--beginning with such good intentions and ending with a litany to justify one's regrets.

Each long trip seems to end so stressfully--is it because I know that it's all over soon and I don't want it to be, or is it that I am already lamenting everything I couldn't do and taking it out on myself? Or is it just that I am tired of not sleeping in my own bed and not doing my laundry and not knowing where anything is or how to use the freaking toilet (sometimes it's a hole in the ground and sometimes it costs €.70 and sometimes it is "sanitized" after each use which means you need to hurry the fuck out of it)?

I know, for one thing, that I am very tired of buying each meal. The next time I travel for an extended period of time, it will need to be somewhere with a kitchen. My favorite breakfasts all month were at the homes of friends, and two of the best later-in-the day meals I had on this trip were in a kitchen in Haringsee, Austria. The first was a Niçoise salad with  homemade dark sourdough and the second, simply potatoes and asparagus--both farm-fresh. Don't get me wrong, I had some great food... but I ate way too many cheap white rolls and not nearly enough eggs, too.

Speaking of eggs, I have got to get a couple of egg cups. All over Europe, the coolest thing to do is soft boil eggs. By the time I finally got some eggs, they were all soft-boiled, and they were the best ever, so I want to make them a habit (so much more tidy than poached! plus, cute egg cups!). Granted, the egg thing sort of detracts from my drinking metaphor. I'm so damn tired that I'm okay with that.

On that note, I am going to try to sleep for the next 10 hours so that tomorrow involves a bare minimum of defeated/exhausted crying jags. Here are my pictures from one day of Paris tourism, where I seemed to have missed almost everything REALLY great, but managed not to miss even one single heaving mass of tourists. Click here.

5 reasons that bad travel days happen to good people

1. Lack of sleep. I have been going to bed late (the sights to see are too many! the conversation is too good! so many photos to download and upload!) and getting up early (travel always seems to require getting up early--need to work on that for next time). Part of this is weird time stuff, part of it is middle of the night texts from people who have forgotten or didn't know I'm abroad, part of it is weird hotel/motel/nature sounds that wake me up (since when does anything wake me up? since now, apparently) and part of it is...
2. Poor nutrition. I mean, it's not like the bread on bread on bread on cheese on pancetta on wine on black coffee is bad for me, per se. But I am bloated to within an inch of my clothes, I'm over sugared and under-worked. And I'm just not drinking enough water or anything else liquid-like. I don't care how much strolling you do through a capital, you aren't going to walk off a croissant and brie with jam for breakfast and then a baguette full of local delicacies for lunch. Not even if you only had HALF a baguette. I was suffering from a serious brain-sugar imbalance by the time the shit was really hitting le ventilateur today. It didn't help my mood or my ability to deal like a grown ass woman. There's a better way to prepare for this kind of travel; I just haven't found it yet. (Where in the luggage do the nuts and dried fruit go, and does that mean no books, because I did buy two books?) And to be fair, speaking of preparation...
3. Failure to properly pre-plan. I can and must and will take some responsibility for my disappointments today. (And while I do, I will acknowledge the smoothness of other transfers and my ability to handle a lot of crazy on other days.) So, I got totally fucked over on the (triple the expected) cost of my metro pass because I didn't realize quite how far out of town my hotel really was. However, I did call the hotel in advance to make sure they could accept a PIN transaction for the room--they said yes, which turned out to be incorrect. As far as the extra fees and shitty treatment at the Lyon train station, followed by the dirty looks on the train and in each subsequent station when I asked anyone for help?--well, I don't know. Maybe if the whole train ticket business had started better, I wouldn't have noticed. Or I would have been able to laugh it off. I don't know. The problem is...
4. Comparative awesomeness of previous days. Yesterday I was hiking in the French Alps, for fuckssake. Even the longest car ride ever the day before yesterday was spent sitting next to an endangered bird. OF COURSE a day of crowded trains full of pissy commuters would be less amazing. Which segues nicely into...
5. Expectations. I really wanted to get to Paris early enough today to meet with my next vulture expert. It really should have been possible, all other things considered. But it wouldn't have been, as too much chaos was unaccounted for (see #3)--and that was a bummer. It is hard not to let expectations rule the day, especially after nearly 3 weeks of almost everything else working out. Expectations are the biggest buzzkills of ever. However, one big bowl of French risotto with chicken and wild mushrooms and a solid glass of red later, and I feel a bit better. Still let down--that's my brand of unshakeable crazy--but calmer at least, and feeling good (to be honest it's more like less dismal, but I'll take it) about tomorrow.

Back to vultures... Austria to France

I spent the last week or so being a tourist with old and new friends in both Rotterdam and Vienna. But now I'm back on the job. I have to get up early in the morning, so a couple of gallery links will have to suffice. The first set is of my first day at Hans' breeding and rehab center, wherein the bird from Helsinki gets his wings bleached and some medical attention given to a broken flight feather. The center has a ton of birds (in addition to vultures, mostly corvids, falcons, owls, and eagles) and other animals. Click here.

The next set is packing up Helsinki, a press conference at Schonbrunn zoo where bird number two gets named "Gerlinde" after a mountain climber, and a drive across the Italian Alps at 140 kph. With one stop. Oof, my back. Click here.

I'm not ashamed to say that one of the highlights was having dinner at a truck stop that served fresh (and perfectly al dente) pasta pomodoro with a white bean salad and an olive oil bread stick. The main highlight though, was sitting next to the vulture the whole way, and having one of those eyes looking at me every now and then.

Mechelen - Day 6 at Planckendael Nature Park

I am too tired today to write a whole post. That happens.

An owl died today; I saw some amazing vulture behavior at the nature park outside of town; I ate another sweet waffle.

To see today's full gallery of pictures, click here: vulture culture

Day 5 in Antwerp - they can't all be winners, kid

By "they," I mean "lunches." Chipz had potential... a deep fried variety pack, a deep fried burger, and fries (no mayo, please). Except, like many good romances, it always looked more delicious in my dreams. Bicky Burger and the accompanying "mixgrill" were all highly processed. So they had that strange spongy quality of tofu lunch meat, or cafeteria chicken. Two of the tots were actually some sort of spicy rice mix, which was good. And the fries, I mean short of frosting them in a condiment, no one can really mess up fries.

So, my hostess is now teasing me for picking the unhealthiest and least satisfying fast food in the whole city. She had suggested McDonalds, at which I scoffed. After we got our burgers, she said that at least McDonald's came from real cows.

I mentioned that I could say with certainty that the chicken that composed a percentage of my chicken tot had almost certainly ate its mother. She replied that the pineapple on her "hawaiian" burger had eaten its mother, too.

I told her, and I still believe it, that McDonald's might have had a better burger, but Chipz ended up being a better story.

Today in observations, we saw the parents being especially attentive. Snowflake fed the chick for the first time in several weeks, and Sir brought new nesting material over to spruce up the nest.

happyfamily

Tomorrow, we will visit the dating aviary at Planckendael nature park. The flooding in parts of Europe as well as administrative delays mean that my road trip is up in the air. The breeding center in Vienna and the reintroduction site in the French Alps are supposed to be amazing... So I hope I don't miss either one. Cross your fingers, everybody!

For the full Day 5 set (a small one, today), click here: eating the inedible

Antwerp - Day 4 small dramas, human and animal

Moving backwards in time, I just got back from the supermarket a short time ago. Nothing will make an American feel quite as privileged as going to a supermarket pretty much anywhere else in the world. Do you want a cup of soup you can microwave? Good luck. How about baby carrots? BABY CARROTS? Laughable. We have salami and head cheese. No, we do not have granola bars. Do you mean a bag of muesli? There is pink lemonade-flavored soda, but no real fruit juice. Here is a tower of the toilet paper they carry. And here, a bin of the bar soap. Do you want a bag with two full-size microwavable hamburgers, each with condiments, cheese and a bun? You will not find Lunchables (though why on Earth were you looking?) or anything even closely resembling them. However, there are 356 kinds of breakfast-cookie-biscuit things with or without chocolate, and an entire shelf devoted to jarred shellfish.

My hotel (and the zoo) are on the edge of a large Orthodox Jewish neighborhood. I got many long stares and dismissive side-eyes at the market. But I was at the market because the bartender at the restaurant across the street/alley from my hotel would not serve me any food. There are half a dozen wooden sandwich boards out front with "Soep mit Brood" and "Koffie en Gebak" and "Bief en Kip" and "ontbijt, lunch en diner"... but when I go in, Do you have any soup? No. Dinner? No. Coffee? No, she says, drying a coffee cup with a bar towel. Everyone in the place staring at me. Okay, I understand, no soup for me. Okay. There was not a single facial expression in the place: they were all as impassive as stones.

K and I spent some time walking around today. I think the coolest thing I saw was 1) Argus pheasant feathers (how are any of these left, anywhere?!); and 2) Cut-throat finches (Amadina fasciata).

We left the zoo to track me down some stamps and sock yarn (not at the same place). We watched many animals for awhile, including an antisocial penguin, standing exactly in a crack in the fabricated rock wall; the heron, back to watch the tigers; a poor female duck being chased by two males in the hippo enclosure; and a bloodthirsty gull trying to snatch a fluffy ball of moorhen chick out of the moat around the lions--but the parents chased it off. They can't fly well, but they still threw themselves at the gull, twice their size. First one, then the other, leaped at the stones on which the gull perched. Three times, the gull swooped down over the water and was beat back by the little brown-black wings and red bills. And in the end, all seven little nerf balls of baby down made it back to their nest box.

Before that, first thing in the morning, I got to see mother and father Eurasian black vulture go into full defensive display when two keepers had to rake up their leftover bones and scrub out their wading/drinking pool. Such flapping of wings and erect shoulder, ear, and tail feathers! Sir and Snowflake turned into hopping bull-headed turkeys with 10 foot wingspans for a moment, and then Snowflake settled down in the nest alongside the chick, as though nothing were wrong at all. K calls this "pretending there is no chick." She flattened down low in the bowl of the nest, her puffed up feathers relaxed down, and turned her head almost away from the keepers. Meanwhile, Sir continued to spread his wings and hop from stump to stump.

It wasn't until the keepers were not only out of the enclosure, but back to the front of it with the rest of us, that the birds both calmed down. Even little Orion had made like a rug and had to shake out a bit after.

For a full set of Day 4 pictures, click here: zoo-tastic

hippo

Day 3 - Antwerp: Belgian eats, Rubens' house and the botanical garden

I woke up as late as I could, which turned out to be eleven. I'm still struggling with jetlag, and keep popping awake at 3 am--here's hopping I'm cured. Before I mention what I saw today, here are the things I ate:

• Breakfast: two slices of fresh wheat sourdough, a croissant, and a piece of baguette, with a tray of toppings, including butter, hazelnut chocolate spread, and fruit jams. Plus orange juice and coffee. Multiple breads and jam is such a standard breakfast that you can get it at fast food restaurants. I paid way too much for mine, however, because it was touted as organic. I would have had eggs, too, but 2 organic eggs was €3.90. Or, over five bucks.
• Snack: a Belgian Waffel with chocolate. WORTH EVERY WARM MELTY BITE.
• Lunch: another local specialty, Belgian fries. The women in front of me topped their fries with mayo, peanut sauce, and onions. The frietjes shop (they are sold in their own shops, like ice cream) had many toppings, but I couldn't imagine most of them tasting good. So I just asked for some mayo.

  

  What I got, was so much mayonnaise that I wasn't sure I could eat any of the fries. I scraped most of it off onto one of the several little sheets of newsprint paper they gave me. I used to like dipping fries in mayo... I'm not sure I can ever eat that again.

• Dinner: The Belgians had frankly let me down. I got a "Scandinavian special" sandwich on my way back to the hotel. It was a sunflower seedy, crunchy dark baguette with salmon, cream cheese, capers and escarole.

I wandered through the Meirstraat district again, but this time everything was closed. What a world, where every shop is closed one day a week! The pubs and restaurants and museums were open, so it would seem to be a day to do things, rather than buy things.

The first stop was Peter Paul Rubens' house. The entrance fee was not substantial and I hoped to play a bit voyeur. But the house is so well-traveled that it is roped and arrowed into a force flow path. The walk is so narrowly defined that it's more display than home. I went through twice (which must be rare, as it weirded out at least two of the guards) and tried the second time to imagine the rooms as spaces lived in. I looked at the paintings of game on prep tables and tried to imagine having to light all those fires and the house dogs fighting over bones. I tried to imagine the dailiness of going to the garden, twisting out the linens, and painting in a studio with 30 foot ceilings and high windows letting in the diffuse northern light.

(The kitchen)

(The garden)

I'm not a rabid Rubens fan, but the house is full of a variety of period artists. My favorite paintings were "Peasants going to market, the 1630s" by Jan Boeckhorst and Frans Snijders (the hissing swan! the artichokes on their stems!),

and "Two dogs in a pantry" (fighting over a cow's head) by Snijders, alone.

Finally (of course), "Still life with dead birds" by Alexander Adriaenssen. This painting was over the oven/cooking hearth. The kitchen was too dark for a good picture of this one (though you can see a bit of it above), but here it is in full glory on the Rubens house website.

Next, I went to the botanische tuin. It was a small, free affair with a sign at the entrance that boasted of their large collection of  medicinal herbs (I noticed several valerians and Artemisia absinthium) and tried to dispel the (still lingering) rumor that the garden once grew leeches in its ponds for St. Elizabeth's hospital. The garden had a really wonderful mini-exhibit of strange ceramic "flowers" in one of its lawns. Only the entrance sign was translated, however, so I don't know any more about it.

Mostly though, the garden was an opportunity to lie down on the grass in the warm sun for a moment.

I could see many tourists rushing off to their next site, and it made me glad for my modest goals for the day. I hurried through nothing. (Except that waffel. MAN.)

For the full set of Day 3 photos, click here: tourism.

Antwerp - Day 2, wherein I fall in love with an owl

I am so tired that I might fall asleep while I type, so this will be brief. Today, I watched the Eurasian black vultures (EBVs) with their researcher for a bit in the morning, and there I fell in love with a beautiful Milky Eagle Owl. In the early morning, before the zoo guests arrive, the owls and other raptors are much more animated. By the time the sun was coming out, this pretty girl was falling asleep. She is big and when she was up, was very cat-like and pouncy, hopping around her enclosure and coming up to the gate to see us, in case we had a bucket somewhere with some mice. THOSE EYES. Also, I watched the EBVs' next door neighbors, the Andean condors, a bit. They have the largest raptor wingspan in the world, and they spent the morning stretching out dramatically.

The scientist studying Snowflake and Sir and their baby, Orion, is charmed with the tenderness exhibited in the very shared parental care. They nuzzle the chick and circle the wagons if something out of the normal is happening, like trash cans getting empty nearby.

I bought a veldgids (field guide) to birds of Europe in Dutch. And I am way too enamored with the Dutch bird names. Phalaropes, for example, are "frangepoots" and the European version of a red breasted nuthatch is a "boomklever." The book includes Latin names, so I can figure out any bird I see in it, with some help from the Internet.

Tomorrow is my tourist day. My only plans are to sample some Belgian specialties: fries and waffles and beer. Maybe walk around some very old buildings and the botanical garden.

To see the set of pictures from Day 2, click here: More raptors!

Antwerp - Day one, at the zoooo

There's pretty much a rule about travel writing and airports--but my flight out of DC was delayed about 2 hours, with boarding and sitting and deboarding and reboarding. So, I feel at least like mentioning it. Also, over the Atlantic I watched Cinderella Moon, a retelling of the "original" story from 768 AD China. (And some Law & Order and some Big Bang Theory because I cannot live on culture alone.) I slept terribly, if at all, despite my comfy safety orange neck pillow and eye mask combo. I was very cold. Then, on touch down, it turned out that I actually got here a day later than I thought I would, because I just looked at my ticket without thinking. You know, about how the Earth is curved and shit? The ticket didn't show the added day, and since the last trip (in the other direction, I realize NOW) lost a day there... Anyway, I feel like an idiot, but there you go. I was charged as a no-show for booking the hotel a day early and I've lost a day in the zoo that I thought I would have. I need an assistant to book my travel, apparently. BUT, the great thing is that all that doesn't matter, because ORION.

In the above photo s/he's looking around while Sir, the attentive father, keeps an eye on me. Both parents share equally in chick-rearing duties. When I came back later, Snowflake had swapped spots with Sir.

The Antwerp zoo is quite lovely and I actually saw an animal I'd never heard of, the takin. It is a goat-antelope, according to the Interwebs. It looks like a little shaggy water buffalo. I kind of want one. I also saw another fave, the okapi (including a coltish and cute as hell calf).

The raptors are well represented in Antwerp, with several caracaras, owls, vultures, and even a couple of Andean condors. I think Sir and Snowflake are much prettier than the condors--but I don't think I count as an impartial judge.

Tomorrow I will get some research reading done and observe the researchers monitoring the chick.

For the full set of day one pictures, click here: Antwerp - Day 1.

Last minute prep, breakdowns, and turning 40

Thanks to the internet, I was able to buy books without going to a bookstore on my birthday (although it is NOT THE SAME). Poor Betty freaked the fuck out and died on I-10 while my sister and I were headed to Changing Hands Bookstore. There are only a couple of things I like more than buying books. She might need a new alternator--but I am pretending that I didn't hear that, because I need to leave in the am.

I am printing out last minute information before my vulture chasing trip which starts at 8:30 am when I fly to DC to Brussels.

If you are playing along at home, here's what might happen: upon arriving, I might hop a train to Antwerp where there is a darling Eurasian black vulture chick named Orion to meet. After hanging with him/her and his/her devoted researcher for a bit, I may train to Rotterdam for some downtime with an old friend, and after that, a long train ride through Germany, with Vienna as the final destination. A friend of a friend could take me to some classy concerts, and I may explore some cobblestones for a couple of days before I meet another researcher and his young ready-to-be released bearded vulture. We might then drive that youngster back over the Swiss Alps to a huge National Park in the French Alps where he/she will be released. Then, I could high-tail it up to Paris, for a visit with a biologist who has created what might be the best king vulture breeding program in the world just outside of town, then back to the city of lights, where zookeepers are hand-rearing a palm nut vulture chick. And finally, I may exhaustedly train back to Brussels for departure. OR: Three and a half weeks, vultures from three continents, three amazing scientists, six countries, one good friend (and x number of new ones).

I say might because I am trying to maintain flexibility and minimize expectations.

Bien sûr, I will try to update the blog (which is being hosted at a new temporary location until I get back, so please excuse our dust) whenever possible. I will take as many pictures as I can.

Also, I turned 40 today. Which so far doesn't feel any different than 39 and 11/12ths did, but I think today's freeway breakdown did give me at least one new gray hair.

If you see any vultures during your own travels, be kind. And wish me luck!

"We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing..."

I've been seeing only a very few birds over and over. Northern mockingbirds, mourning doves, curved-bill thrashers, house finches and sparrows. I think I saw a phainopepla yesterday, but my mother and I were driving and it could have been a grackle. I'd like to try and insinuate some bird language into our conversations, to replace or refine some ideas that I personally find lacking in their current definitions.

First, hedgerow sparrows are known for a curious kind of unofficial polygamy. A male and female pair will bond and stay together throughout a breeding season, but one usually finds a "beta" male slinking around the bushes waiting for the female to get a spare moment. The beta male was probably unsuccessful at finding a mate that particular season. The female-beta male trysts are consensual and cause the alpha male to go into a fair bit of a tizzy. Since one of my top 10 major dislikes is slut-shaming of any kind, let's drop the word and the notion. It always takes two to tango--if there's only one person waving their arms around, then that's not a tango. SO. No sluts, no home-wreckers. Intention ain't nothing but assumption. And, once some action does happen, IF it's any of your business, and it probably isn't, it's just a couple of sparrows in the hedgerow.

Speaking of shady business, ducks are assholes. The biological term for what ducks do is "forced mating." Which is not what I call it. So from now on, call it like you see it: if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, do not let it buy you a fucking drink. And if it tries to drag your friend out of the bar for a night swim, call the police. Goddamn ducks.

But let's not end on sad notes. Let's first talk about scrub jays. Male scrub jays are most successful at defending a territory with which they are familiar. In other words, they stay in the neighborhood, and if they can't find a place nearby of their own, they often stay with their parents and forgo mating to help ensure their parents' continued success. The female birds fly far away (ahem). So, rather than using a term that makes mothers seem like something one is supposed to outgrow--let's call these men scrub jays and let's appreciate their loyalty and call it a strength.

And finally, albatrosses. Oh ALBATROSSES. Leave the fast, jumpy lives to the warblers! These are not harbingers of doom or bad luck at all. Albatrosses live a long time--at least one is known to be over 60 years old and still laying eggs--as a result, they take a long time to mature. Each year, the young male and female albatrosses come back to the breeding grounds that hatched them, and they practice mating dances. These dances are complex: they have what researchers call their own "syntax"--and the birds understand it from a young age, but can't "speak" it until they're older. When they finally arrive one year, dancing like adults, they find the mate who speaks exactly their language and they stick with them for life.* Ever after, they will know their mate no matter the miles between them, because they memorize one another during that one season of dancing. RIGHT? Now if you have already found your albatross, go tell them you love them. And if you haven't, just keep dancing until you find someone who really gets you. Don't settle for less.

* I feel like I would be misleading you if I didn't mention that albatrosses DO sometimes get divorced. While humans may decide not to reproduce on principle, no other animal yet is known to do that. After *several* years of unsuccessful breeding, albatross pairs have been observed to go their separate ways. Which is just exactly as sad as it sounds.

"What a black and blue bird, what a loon"

Before you read this post, know that there's a soundtrack for it, at the end and embedded within--open the links in separate tabs. Sing along if you know the words.

*

I am a lonely person. This fact is not impacted by the number of friends or lovers I have, or by the level of sociability I am exhibiting or not exhibiting. It is a part of my personality. I feel apart, often.

Apart. This is not the same as alone. I think that's important. I don't feel alone, exactly. Unless I actually am. Separate, apart--this is closer. I don't know how else to explain it, but I used to fight the hell out of it. For most of my life I have put up with terribly selfish or outright cruel relationships, platonic and otherwise, because even being hurt was better than being by myself.

That's a hard thing to think about myself, but there you go. And this is very important: just because it's hard, doesn't mean it's sad. This isn't sadness or depression, this is something else entirely. I don't want to feel sorry for myself; I don't want anyone else to, either. My fish are not dead; they'd just like to be by themselves sometimes.

What I'm trying to do is cultivate more compassion. This isn't always easy, because no one has higher standards for me than I do--I know when I am half-assing things, especially loving myself more. I want to be so much better some days. In all things, not just my emotional state, but that's especially clear and faulty-feeling when it arises. For so long, I wanted to just not be lonely. Which for me is sort of like wanting to not be short.

Instead of cultivating deep friendships and surrounding myself with a few people who loved me for who I was (crazy and kind and analytical and driven), I frantically shmooshed all sorts of people around me like a dyke against the sea. I put up with a lot of bullshit so that I wouldn't have to see that ocean stretching out like constant drowning to the horizon.

But loneliness (first of all) isn't going anywhere, not matter how high I build that bodywall, and (second of all) isn't the worst condition I could have. It must have taken most of 40 years to realize these two things. This doesn't mean I don't still sometimes react ... un-ideally ... to my fears and panic, but you've got to admit, it's getting better all the time.

This is what I was thinking about during my 90 minute meditation today. I was thinking about what I've let go of in the last couple of years, and what I've found to replace it: best friends, great views, so many wonderful words.

When I quit smoking, there was this mantra on quitnet.com (a great place for quitters, fwiw): "Your cravings will continue whether you smoke or not, so you might as well not." This is exactly the same thing as the ache that washes over me at intervals--it will recede whether I fill my moments with other people or not, just like it will come back.

It's busted wiring, an everlasting gobstopper of a craving or the over-sensitivity of an artist or a fucking gift that allows me to see things really hard and beautifully, because sometimes I think that the seeing's all I have. It's like a birthmark, and rather than try to lance it, I'm gonna rock it like Marilyn and Madonna.

When I'm on the open road, there are long moments, when scenery slides past like herds of elephants in white and black and brown and green, when I blast the music and sing along to the saddest bastard music that I've got on my iPod--and I laugh like a fucking loon, a beautifully broken loon.

That weird thing where time expands and contracts

Have you ever read My Pretty Pony by Barbara Kruger and Stephen King? It is an expensive art book that I COVET (and will someday possess), but more importantly, it is a book about time: how it is chimeric and how it will deceive you if you don't keep a close eye on it. (It is also a book of Kruger's awesome and iconic imagery, but that doesn't really fit in with what I'm talking about.) This week is progressing very slowly--which is good. I'm having long, delicious dinners with my family, I'm getting some reading done. I'm working like crazy to cut 2000 words from an essay with a tight-as-hell deadline (only 480 left to go). I have so much shit to accomplish before I leave the country--hotels to book, figuring out which countries I'm even going to get to. The molassal pace is good.  And yet, I know this pony runs slow then fast.

Yoga seems like days ago, but for those following along with the at-home game, day 2 was this morning, and it went GREAT. I didn't get dizzy; I stood when I was supposed to stand and I was prone when I was supposed to be prone. It felt fantastic--like crossing a finish line. And that's another thing about time, it's just exactly like that damn river you can't step in twice. Yesterday's disappointing performance meant nothing to today's exciting one. That's every day. Every day is a chance to be your best damn self, to be exactly who you want to be. Yesterday ain't shit.

And then, I hovered around in the pool for a few minutes. I'm getting a tan. My mother gifted me with some new walk-all-over-Europe shoes. I had kale salad with my beef stew. THIS DAY, I MEAN COME ON.

The challenge then, is to neither fritter nor fret away the days. In My Pretty Pony, a grandfather gives a boy a pocket watch with a second-hand so that he can always know exactly how long a minute is. I am trying to use this page like that. Each day is exactly one day, no more no less.

And now here's something I feel weird about, but am going to go ahead and say it anyway. My blog host annual fees are due, and I haven't got funds at the moment. Consider this my one and only membership-drive-type message. If you'd like to contribute to the upkeep of Roaming Cowgirl, you can paypal a small tip or donation to deva_sarasvati  at  yahoo etc. If not, I understand, and I'll figure out some other way to keep this thing up. Thanks to you all for reading either way.

Orion

I will soon get to see a little miracle named Orion. And maybe a few of the birds that inspired medieval griffons.

In other news, I went to a Bikram yoga class for the first time in two years. I was sick as hell. But, I stayed in the room.

There is this part of the script where the teacher says that focus is the most powerful muscle in the human body. Each teacher has a different way of saying it, but I tried to think very hard about that as I saw spots and felt dizzy. I sat a lot and I even had to pre-emptively get into corpse pose a few times.

I'm going back tomorrow, because you can't build muscles by quitting.

Party's over, country girl

My writing intensive is over, for all intents &c. My scholar-collaborator and I are still busting our ass trying to finish our piece, but the communication from here on out will be virtual.

I have many feelings. But, after several months of being told exactly (and only) how a certain type of story should be written, I was so so pleased to race to back to my folks' place, pick up Between Song and Story: Essays for the Twenty-first Century and read Tom Bissell's essay about his father and the Vietnam War. While there are characters (and setting and all that other stuff), it doesn't start with a scene, and it takes ages for a single line of dialog. And I didn't pass out from boredom.

I would suspect, but I can't confirm, that there also might be more than just a little re-creation going on. Bissell may have turned a couple of cab drivers into a single cab driver. He definitely composited the flow of tourists. THANK GOD.

It is always good to learn new skills, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to work with all of the amazing people I have met--that alone was worth the price of admission. So many awesome science and nature writers! So many fascinating scholars! Plus the editors and agents and authors, oh my.

But right at this moment, I feel a little bit like the private who loses the taste for mashed potatoes after she had to peel 200lbs of them by hand.

Back to the book though, man--you should get it. Besides Bissell, there's Ander Monson, Lia Purpura, Naomi Shihab Nye, Pattiann Rogers, Dinty Moore, Philip Lopate, Jamaica Kincaide. I mean, those are just the people I love.

Monson's essay is about snow and includes a million ellipses, so the whole essay appears embedded in snow, while Bissell's aforementioned piece is a fairly straightforward personal narrative. There are longer pieces and shorter, there's crazy stuff and kick you in the pants stuff. Plus, the table of contents includes alternate groupings, for pedagogical purposes.

This is a lovely and broad survey of the contemporary essay. If you teach nonfiction, or just love it, you should check this one out.