Friday, March 24, 2000

go boilermakers! the boys are on fire! i am so psyched that they have come this far....can anyone get enough of brian cardinal? in the dictionary when you look up hustle, there's his picture......
posted by April Fraze 3/24/2000 03:23:30 AM| link

"on the other side of the page, which was blank, mccandless penned a brief adios: 'I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!'

then he crawled into the sleeping bag his mother had sewn for him and slipped into unconsciousness. he probably died on august 18, 112 days after he walked into the wild, 19 days before six alaskans would happen across the bus and discover his body inside.

one of his last acts was to take a picture of himself standing near the bus under the high alaska sky, one hand holding his final note toward the camera lens, the other raised in a brave beatific farewell. his face is horribly emaciated, almost skeletal. but if he pitied himself in those last difficult hours-because he was so young, because he was alone, because his body had betrayed him and his will had let him down-it's not apparent from the photograph. he is smiling in the picture, and there is no mistaking the look in his eyes: chris mccandless was at peace, serene as a monk gone to god."

--into the wild, jon krakauer

i wept. because alexander supertramp fosters a spirit too few know and too many scorn, because his dreams were realized before his demise, because he reminds me of many who i love, because of the obvious fact that he is no longer here to share his spirit with the world in which he touched so many, because if i had known him i could have loved him....wild spirit.....abbey-like and tortured....he found peace in the alaska wild. may the four winds blow you home, my friend.
posted by April Fraze 3/24/2000 02:54:53 AM| link

Thursday, March 23, 2000

"i been warped by the rain,
driven by the snow, drunk and dirty
don't you know
and i'm still willin'

and i've been from tucson to tucumcari
from tehachapi to tonopah
driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
driven the back roads so i wouldn't get weighed
and if you give me weed, whites, and wine
and show me a sign
i'll be willin'."

willin, little feat

this is REALLY a great song......look it up on napster if you don't have it....try to find the live version.
posted by April Fraze 3/23/2000 11:57:29 PM| link

does it disturb anyone else that jennifer love-hewitt is playing audrey hepburn?
posted by April Fraze 3/23/2000 09:59:05 PM| link

i've decided that we really need more songs from "daddy" to his "sweet mama". for instance, deep elem blues:

"oh, sweet mama, your daddy's got them deep elem blues."

there's just something about it. i wouldn't mind being a sweet mama. personally, i hate any song sang to "girl." nope, "girl" just doesn't settle with me well. "girl, you know it's true." "girl, i need you." "girl, you've been on my mind"

to steal a line from ship of fools:

"with 30 years upon my head
to have you call me child."

i guess it's the same kind of thing.....reducing the object of your affection to "girl" seems to diminish the wisdom and experience she holds. i know i'm reading too much into this, but i once dated a younger guy who when angry with me actually called me girl........i flew off the handle....."girl, GIRL! what the hell was that supposed to mean?" seemed like he was belittling me.....but that's my own hang-up.

so, let's try it: "sweet mama, you know it's true." "sweet mama, i need you." "sweet mama, you've been on my mind."

hmmmmmm.....no point here really.....just thinking through the keyboard again.
posted by April Fraze 3/23/2000 04:55:50 PM| link

tomorrow i'm headin' to winona....yeah! i love it there...it really is a beautiful area. the trick is to get a bunch of work done today so i can head out a little early....everybody wish jeff a happy birthday tomorrow. he's one helluva a nice guy....and he's single, so check him out, girls. i met him on the net, so he doesn't shy away easily. :-)

he's having a little shin-dig at his house to mark the occasion, and i can't wait. all the kids in winona are so open and accepting and i have a great time with them. it's funny how easily i've meshed in with their crowd. tomorrow i will probably meet brad's family, which is exciting. it's kind of a big thing for me, because family is important....always want to make a good impression.

saturday i'm catching a bus to indiana. yee-haw.....a 20 hour trip....that includes a 6 hour lay-over in chicago, however....yuck. when i get back i'll have a roommate, which i'm excited about....been alone too long.
posted by April Fraze 3/23/2000 03:49:09 PM| link

Wednesday, March 22, 2000

the sucky thing about long-distance relationships: when you want so much to be there to comfort the one you love and help them out, but you can't. tonight brad, while at work, cut off the tip of his finger or something like that....the details aren't real clear. he came home and sent me an instant message with vague details and then had someone drive him to the emergency room. i wish he could have called me to take him. tonight he signed his message "love you" for the first time. i've been wanting to say it for so long (if 2 weeks is that long....sure seems like forever....but in a very, very good way).

i used to worry that i would never find love, because i was looking for something that didn't really exist.....a kind of magic that came along once in a blue moon, if ever at all. i told myself i'd rather live alone than settle for something less than my expectations. and alone i was.....

now in 2 weeks i've found something that amazes me more and more each day. it truly is beautiful. up to this point everything has been happy and good........kind of like mini-vacations. the distance bothers me more than i expected, simply because i want to be there when he's down or hurt or needy. that's a part of his life that i hope to share one day. i don't wish him any misfortune, but i want to be the one to dry his tears and caress his head as he falls asleep.
posted by April Fraze 3/22/2000 11:34:45 PM| link

during my junior and senior years in high school i was what was known as a s.a.d.d. tutor. it was a spin off of students against drunk driving. the program, which originated in my school, matched student pairs from the high school with elementary classes in the county. we were "trained" in the evils of drugs and expected to teach the kiddies what we learned. i know now that a large percentage of what i was taught was a bunch of hokey....don't get me wrong, there are evils associated with drug use, but it seems so convoluted. i won't elaborate on my views, but it seems so pointless for educators to lie about the effects of certain substances....all they are doing is supporting some corporate giant (i.e. scott towels...those of you who know...know.)

i was assigned to the 3rd and 4th grades at english elementary. my little cousin was in the class and i just never got enough hugs, not to mention the dodgeball.....i love dodgeball. aside from the drug education we were also able to design preseentations that helped build confidence and self-awareness. it was one part of class where book smarts weren't being measured and you could tell the kids loved it. one day i put together a program about believing in yourself and the changes you can make in the world around you. there was one particular piece that i read that came to mind today. over the years i've quoted it to several of my friends, and it only seems appropriate that i include it here. i don't have the exact text or the author, so it will be off and unreferenced, but the message is good just the same.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- a man was walking along the beach just before dawn when he saw another man walking the beach as well, picking up the starfish that had washed up on shore during the night. he was flinging them back into the water.

"what are you doing?" asked the first man.

"if the starfish are still on shore when the sun comes up they will die."

"but the beach is long and there are many starfish. how can what you're doing make any difference?"

the man flinging starfish looked at the starfish in his hand and as he flung it toward the water he said, "it makes a difference to this one."
posted by April Fraze 3/22/2000 10:43:23 PM| link

on the trip home tonight i took a different route....a long way around, but a change of scenery. near the entrance of sakatah lake there were 7 deer grazing in a field no more than 30 feet from the road. they didn't even flinch as i zoomed by blaring "midnight moonlight" through the speakers.

a little further up the road a lone pheasant zig-zagged back and forth across the shoulder. he looked lost. of course, pheasant's always look kind of strange to me. to many they are beautiful birds, but i always think of the roadrunner when i see them tossing their heads, tail feathers erect. the one's i've spotted are always pilfering through the gravel on the roadside....kind of like a defeated king rummaging for a bite to eat still donning his royal robes. pheasants are all dressed-up with no place to go.
posted by April Fraze 3/22/2000 08:05:18 PM| link

Tuesday, March 21, 2000

" 'He seemed extremely intelligent," Franz states in an exotic brogue that sounds like a blend of Scottish, Pennsylvania Dutch, and Carolina drawl. 'I thought he was too nice a kid to be living by that hot springs with those nudists and drunks and dope smokers.' After attending church that Sunday, Franz decided to talk to Alex. 'about how he was living. Somebody needed to convince him to get an education and a job and make something of his life.' "

--from into the wild, jon krakauer

chris mccandless, aka alex, affects a man who gives him a lift.

perhaps the irony of the situation lies in the fact that the elderly gentleman's ideas about where chris should take his future are likely the same factors that would crush the qualities that made chris so endearing to the people who's lives he intersected.

the one track mind of america.......it leads to a common goal. nobody knows when it started. nobody knows why. but apparently there was a point where it became less respectable to fend for oneself and appreciate the reality of the earth and its creatures. paper-pushing, the illegitimate child of the work smarter, not harder credo, has killed the worship of hands in the land and sweat on the brow. it's a pity. i half-way wished for a y2k crisis.....to see who had what it takes to survive when the big one hits. we need more survivalists. they bring meaning to life.
posted by April Fraze 3/21/2000 11:33:41 PM| link

"By then Chris was long gone. Five weeks earlier he'd loaded all his belongings into his little car and headed west without an itenerary. The trip was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that would change everything. He had spent the previous four years, as he saw it, preparing to fulfill an absurd and onerous duty: to graduate from college. At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and material excess, a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence."

--from into the wild, jon krakauer

i first saw the book into the wild when i was in colorado over new year's eve, 2000. it was sitting on mandy's table, and being a bit of a novel nerd, i started checking out the cover. it intrigued me and i thought about it a couple of times.

the notion of the book came back to me on saturday when brad and i were heading to barnes and noble. maybe it's because i'm trying to persuade him to move out to the mountains with me, or maybe it's all of the desires i have to shed my employ, actually, i think i just go through these phases.

the west calls me. it sings my name and whispers about purple sunsets over red rocks. it transmits the sound of aspen leaves cracking in the wind or oregon ferns unfurling their giant fronds. i find religion in the beauty of the american west. it's the destination for free spirits and new dreams.

i am glad i went to college, but i can relate to the story of chris mccandless, who walked into the alaskan wilderness. there comes a point in life where it gets harder to continue your direction based on the expectations of friends and family and typically by the time you get out of college the financial institutions have you were they want you. why do you think freshmen and seniors are targeted for credit card offers? get them when they're of age and hit them before they make money. at the point in life where an individual should be making their own decisions, they have fewer options. i know my parents expect me to have some stylie job and to be better off than them. i'd be happy with breaking even, but i never do....even with the "nice" job i have now.

i yearn for life in the mountains...."going where the wind don't blow so strange."
posted by April Fraze 3/21/2000 12:46:22 PM| link

Monday, March 20, 2000

congratulations are in order!

join me in welcoming ruth ann mante to the world!!!!

terri and shannon, i hope you guys find happiness in your little girl's smile!
posted by April Fraze 3/20/2000 11:05:49 PM| link

well, i set-up the archives page. it isn't pretty, but will do the job until i have more time to mess with it.
posted by April Fraze 3/20/2000 11:02:46 PM| link

Sunday, March 19, 2000

well, i knew nothing about seton hall when i got them in the march madness pool, but man, i've won 2 shows as a result of their hustle....go seton hall....and of course, go BOILERS!!
posted by April Fraze 3/19/2000 07:12:06 PM| link