Reality check? Check!

Just in case everyone thinks I'm having too much fun, what with two 5-day work weeks in a row, I spent yesterday freezing my ass off in a metal box (a milvan, or one of thiose big orange shipping containers), inventorying the small and confusing contents of heaps of boxes that had already been inventoried. It was very cold. It's hard to count cold small metal stuff on a dirty floor when your fingers don't work.

I got amazing mail, though.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart:
Aunt Peggy- the yarn is awesome....I especially like the knotty black stuff. Thank you!
Brother-RADIO BIRDMAN!!!!!!!Auuuuggghhh! And a mix! And more good CDs...Thank You
Toad- I'm not sure if I am actually more proud of YOU for manifesting your dream of making your own beauty products and honey from your own bees or if I'm more stoked to get to "eat my home", Happy Valley, while here in Antarctica. Woah. Mykle says the perfume makes me smell like you.

I've really been quite lucky with mail. LUCKY TO HAVE FRIENDS AND RELATIVES WHO SEND IT!! YAY!

This also happened in reality:



Actually in happened a couple weeks ago. It has now healed, and looks really good.
*enormous sigh of relief*
Here is what I wrote to Jess:

I tattooed a chef, named Jeff (it rhymes!) the night before last. He has tattoos up both arms of his own drawings (of sort of sinuous women). I was finishing the last space he has left, his right bicep. His drawing styles was good to do, having only liners, and hopfully I was gentle enough with the small delicate amount of filling in I had to do.
I started with a 5 that was tighter than I realized. I got some fibers from the shitty papertowel i was using in it and had to put in another needle halfway through, and got a looser one...that helped considerably.
I started his tattoo in the ditch! He was not affected by the pain at all, and smiled an d was stone-still and encouraging through the whole ordeal. I went really slow. This tattoo took 4 hours!!!!!! To me it felt like it could've been 4 minutes. I was learning something every second that I tattooed. I learned that I REALLY want some larger needles AND a shader ;), among other things. About depth and focus and how you should have the light in front of you, so your hand doesn't shadow the point of the needle (duh).
It was an excellent experience for me and he was the perfect first victim, I mean, patron. I just hope to got it heals ok. I saw it yesterday and it looked fine. He got really red during the process, but hopefully that was just irritation that will dissapear.
I told him it was free but he tipped me with the gift of a handmade-in-Antarctica flask which are highly coveted items around here. It has the silohuette of the continent etched on it.
Yay!
I am also sure that I am the first person ever to give a tattoo (with a tattoo machine) on this continent! History books, here I come!

Asterix galore!

The Kai spin on Christmas reads thus:

Festivities started with Margaritas on Tequila Beach* in the brilliant sun of Saturday evening, before we headed up to the Christmas Party in the enormous garage** where we ate dates wrapped in bacon and took surruptitious pictures of the loudest and most horrible holiday sweater ever***. I got in a 45 minute conversation with my friend the Catholic priest about Polynesian tattoos. We ended the night with a whiskey-fueled slumber party in Sandwich's room that involved a revolving cast of many and woke up 5 people cozied on a double bed****, the light streaming in the window shade.
It was Christmas Eve.
We missed breakfast and ended up eating granola and Baileys with coffee, still in ridiculous outfits from the night before (Mykle*****) and being serenaded by the elfin maiden from down the hall****** playing the mandolin, the song was "Why does there have to be a morning after?"- that great old bar rock ballad.
Christmas dinner was held in the lounge of the 211 dorm, we pushed tables together and brought food from the galley, rushing across the road with our loaded trays watching for evil skuas*******. It was hard to eat, as the dinner entertainment included a gay couple in formal-wear doing a sign-language interpretive dance to a religious carol (in unison) and a live-action re-enactment of Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" featuring a black Christ from the Alutian Islands and Mykle as Judas.******** I think there were about 20 supper guests represented also, instead of the usual 13.

After dinner we got skis and began our ill fated to journey to camp out in the snow, in Antarctica, on Christmas Eve.
I can make a long story short to say, I am not a skier and have no patience for constant and ridiculous fatigue and falling. I walked most of the way to the campsite in ski boots, a good 3 miles. We arrived last of the group that was going (21 of us in all), and slept in a dugout tube in the snow, which we affectionately dubbed "The Trailer". Others slept in Quincys, which are basically igloos with no blocks of ice, just hardened and hollowed out snow.

Our sleeping place resembled a masoleum to me, dug into the earth like a grave with pitched blocks of ice acting as a vaulted ceiling. It may have been better if Mykle and I had been actually one person, instead of just masquerading as such. I am glad we are not claustrophobics.
I was scared of freezing to death, but that fear was put aside when I woke too early from my intermittent sleep and had to hike back over a mountain in the now blowing snowstorm. We arrived back at McMurdo on Christmas morning dead tired and sore and with very little cheer.
We took showers and lay down, but soon forced ourselves back to life for the event held by our dear friend Sandwich, called "Santarctica".*********
These events take place in many other parts of the world and are usually called "Santarchy" events. A bunch of people dress in Santa suits around Christmas and mob public places and cause a ruckus. In Antarctica it is much the same, although we also had the option of being an elf (which I took).


We suited up, along with about 25 others, and drove out to "The Stellar Axis", which is a art peice a couple miles out of town on the sea ice.
The peice is made up of a bunch of brilliant blue fiberglass balls which sit on the snow in the same formation as a constellation which was right overhead on the winter solstice (we thought it was ironic that since it is always day here at this time of year the actual constellation was never visible).
We had a special permission to go, and soon red and white and green Santas and elves were flooding through the blue orbs in the blowing snow, cavorting and making pyramids as Santas and elves love to do.

I've talked before about the surreal environment here, but this environment was above and beyond. Because of the snow and winds, one half of the horizon was not visible. It was a continuous sheet of white from my feet on up. The light was filtered and flat through all the clouds and ice and such, so there were no shadows. The only sense of perspective you got was through the reative size of the elf or blue ball you were looking at. The balls are all different sizes, so it looked like some were near and some were far, and all looked like they could be floating in white space.

On the way home some of us*********** crashed the rugby game that was going on near the Kiwi base and an elf got the ball and subsequently got tackled***********. It was a great moment for elves everywhere.
Our Christmas ended with Kai and Mykle falling asleep at 8pm. Skis, elf suits, empty whiskey bottles and fake beards littered the floor of our room.
We had literally no more Christmas or any other kind of spirit left within us.

FIN





*the tiny porch of the dorm MMI, or Mammoth Mountain Inn. The porch has some beach sand in a glass bottle strung from the railing.
**The VMF, where they repair all of McMurdo's vehicles, some of which are enormous.
***Worn by the station manager
****It's not what you think.
*****gold lame shorts
******Michelle Ott, town sweetheart and talented individual.
*******a kind of a large seagull with a sharp beak that is a vicious scavenger. Sometimes they give people stitches. We are not allowed to retaliate of defend ourselves against attacks because of the Antarctic treaty, which says that we can't interact with the wildlife. Unless you are a scientist and then you have leeway to inject seals with Barium and do things of that sort.
********I will post pictures soon, I hope!
*********We are VERY good friends. Also, I have dreamed of participating in this event since I saw pictures last year.
**********Not Mykle and Kai, who couldn't move their legs anymore.
***********Elf Chris Light, who was also wearing tights at the time, Tights!

Snowhomish

It snowed yesterday and the sun was out, making the snow glitter like 1970's dance clubs, no, too gold.... like some glimmering soft sparkling white-skied watery-eyed magic-land.
I was at work, in the early morning when the snow was going vertical and everything was darker, driving the pickle around with the wind whipping everywhere, and I almost felt like I was in Antarctica again.
I like attaching things to the forks with big rusty chains and hooks and dragging tri-walls and crates out to where I can get at them easier. Time goes fast when you are working and moving and getting dirty outside among the melted puddles and muddy banks of still-frozen snow, and your nose is running into your scarf and you have to squint through sunglasses or else you'll go snow blind from looking at the radiance of the sea ice. You can't even see the sea ice and mountain ranges without sunglasses most days. They are just too reflective.

On Sunday Sandwich and i went on the Armitage loop road, which loops out onto the sea ice and around Ob Hill. it was pearlescent vistas of beauty out there, so silent and so ethereal, and I wondered why I don't leave town more. I have resolved to do so. We of course had a great time and did some silly picture taking (see image above where I pat the head of "Ob Hill" a cindercone that is the town's most recognizable landmark).

Sandwich is fun with a capital F. I have rarely seen such a zest for life, and sillyness and love and childlike wonder and enthusiam. I am glad to have her as one of my closest buddies down here.
Want to know more?
Sandwich's for everyone! (she is sort of famous on the internet because of this. I met a lot of people on the way down who had gotten introduced to Antarctica through her website.

Gnomies are my homies

Daaaaamn,
Guess who hasn't updated in a while!
I check my normal people (Michelle, Paul, Summer etc.) every day and wonder why they don't post EVERY day for my amusement, but then, look at me. No posts since the 3rd! I apologize.

Some big news:
the LDB launched yesterday, and I would put up a photo of a sublime white upside-down teardrop balloon lifting the payload into the grey sky and up through whisps of clouds, but my computer has bitten it (AAAh!) so you'll have to wait a bit. Mykle and I cut class...I mean, got out of work YET AGAIN (thank you to my supervisor, Mike Poole, who has been incredibly supportive in this matter) to go and see if they would launch. The conditions have to be perfect and yesterday they were. It was not sunny, but the wind was pretty calm and we stood around in the the snow out at Willey Feild (not a feild but rather the ocean, frozen to a depth of about 68 meters) and watched as they inflated just a bit of the balloon and then relaesed it, the now-dwarfed ANITA payload dangling on the end.

Want to learn about ANITA, or pehaps track the payload?
Now you can!~The ANITA Website!

One of the scientists, a happy-go-lucky shorts-wearing Hawaaiian named Christian, has been kindly sending me photos of the launch.
Here's one:





I'm not sure if the scale makes sense, but that little white thing dangling on the end of the string is what i was sitting on to paint. I hope i didn't leave my sweatshirt on there, now that I think about it......





I also participated in the craft fair last Sunday. There are many fine crafters here at McMurdo, a lot of whom had pretty nice setups for their stuff.


I made crocheted flowers out of my now-huge supply of yarns and fibers, and put either a vintage rhinestone button or a tibetan skull bead in the middle of them. (I wasn't sure they were gonna sell, especially the skull one- I mean, crochet and skulls go naturally hand in hand for me...but I have no idea what sporty people down here would think.) I brought 10 pinbacks down with me, but also made a couple that were wrist-corsage style and flapper headbands. I had one week to prepare, but made over a hundred dollars! Yay getting paid for art again!


A bad picture of me at the craft fair:





I have gnome-face in this picture, but I guess I should just embrace that. I am wearing a hat that Mykle bought me at the craft fair, which looks like an eggplant. Gnomies are my homies (don't kill me I had to say it).



This picture is also an ok picture of my half-sleeve-in-progress, that Jessica did the day before i left. Most people haven't seen it. It's very light and subtle and detailed. I LOVE IT, and am going to be sad when it's filled in with color (gasp!) and more beautiful lines and such. It very much blends in with me and my personal style and stuff I wear. Like I wanted it to. Thanks Jess!



In case you were wondering, this is what my arm will look like when Jess is done...it's by Arthur Rackham (of course), from "The Tempest":

Surprise Cake

I like mint tea with really thick cream in it that makes it that milky green color that reminds me of Jordan's eyes.

Staying after work to post, briefly, I feel like I'm coming down with something and so want to go home and sleep/watch videos/crochet, but my birthday was a whole WEEK ago and I haven't written about all of the presents and love and surprise cake-

On Friday I was about a minute and a half late to work, and was all ready to apologize except my cooworkers jumped out from behind the desk and blew bubbles at me, declaring HAPPY BIRTHDAY and laughing. Later in the day Mike and I went to our other warehouse and he took an abnormally long time measuring wire, and taping up rolls of it, and measuring it again, and when we got back I realized it was a stall- the wharehouse was full of electricians, retro folk, and my boyfriend, and it was a surprise party. My second ever surprise cake (it was a carrot cake), the first being from the boys at Electric voodoo tattoo, and it's awesome, especially because all of these people have only known me a couple months.
My Antarctica birthday was great, a day of laziness and sillyness, as it followed Thanksgiving and everyone was in food and alcohol comas. Sandwich made me a dress (I am wearing it in the picture below), and I opened a big package from my mom, which was filled with PARTY SUPPLIES, so I gave away party hats like a madwoman, since they are ALWAYS a good fashion idea.

If I could say one thing about where I am at in this point in my life I would say: I am a girl who is rich in friends. These friends make my life wonderful. I am so lucky to know and love and be loved by all of these awesome people. I think this is my greatest wealth.

Other things:
My life is very surreal and quirky, but/and it is all mine.
I get to be in love with my best friend.
I'm starting on the career of my dreams.
I'm in Antarctica.