OK! I think I have finally recovered enough from the holidays to blog again. My waistline, perhaps, has not recovered from the many pounds of cheese, potato chips, and pizza consumed during my ski trip to the Methow Valley in Eastern Washington--but I overcame my post-holiday blues during a single day of frenzied closet-cleaning and am now back to my usual level of productivity. (Sleep: Nine hours per day. Work: Four hours per day. The rest: Who knows?).My trip, thank you very much, was delightful - full of blindingly blue skies, powdery white snow, freezing temperatures, and mountains seemingly devoid of people except for us.
They all teemed along the groomed cross-country trails on the valley floor. On "The Methow Valley Community Trail", you can ski for miles and miles past farms, through forest,over charming country bridges draped in snow.
The smiling, spandex clad skate skiers probably teemed along the many other groomed trails too - however, we were too cheap go on those trails, since they cost you a whopping $20 a day. Besides, we hate people.
And once we stepped off the groomers,it was as if we had the entire valley to ourselves. Including one area with wide-open powder slopes and expansive views (only minutes from the road) that we yo yo'd up and down with great gusto, because what more could you want? (Except maybe a lot of money, a book on the bestseller list, a vacation home on an island, and eternal life).
Now I'm back in cold, rainy Seattle where there is no structure in my mostly-unemployed life except that which I create myself. However, I've mostly gotten used to that, carving a structure out of nothing: one that consists of sleeping a lot, spending much time in coffeeshops, working on the feeble second draft of the novel I wrote in November, applying for fun and rewarding-sounding jobs that pay next to nothing, and both dreading and anticipating my return to Hotel Californiasoft two months hence.
When, just over a year ago, I returned to the place from which you can never leave, I meant to have an alternative plan in place by now: one in which I had my ideal combination of jobs and was supporting myself with them but alas, I'm still figuring out what that combination looks like, and failing to make money at any of them.
Though I must send a shout-out to the store "Yeah Baby" in Fairfax, California, which sold 16 copies of my book (on consignment) in under a month! So it's not fair to myself to say I'm not making "any" money doing things I love. I earned enough from those sales to pay for two tanks of gas! Yaay me! And yaay Yeah Baby!
It feels great to know my book can fly off the shelves in the right circumstances. On that positive, caffeine-fueled note, I bid you adieu. Until next time, enjoy this wacky ski video starring yours truly!
