Hello and welcome to An altitude Problem, written in an second-hand leather armchair that eats everything that comes within three feet of it, including, but not limited to- loose change, bicycle shorts, scarves, cameras, ipod cords, computer power cords, apples, silverware, head lamps, small chunks of firewood, dog toys, entire throw blankets and pillows, coats and hoodies and hats. All have been lost, then found deep inside this chair. It's slick leather surface and the way the cushion folds around the person sitting in it acts as a funnel, and once the person sittin in it gets up, it clamps shut around whatever it has managed to grab while occupied. And the things it eats do not merely stay between the cushion and the backrest. This chair has a deep channel between the backrest and the seat that goes nearly to the floor. I would not be surprised to someday find Andy, or a small child in there.

I do have a power cord now, and now, my manic need to write has passed. I spent an entire day in this chair, bent in unnatural positions, coaxing copper strands to connect so I could write just a few more lines. What was I writing that was so important? Nothing important. I got all jazzed about an idea for a story, and yes, I am finally admitting to the world that I occasionally write stories. I just do not finish them. I have never, not even once, finished a story. I write obsessively for two days, rarely more, and at the end of those two days, I suddenly look around me, surprised to see sunlight and life, feeling queasy and ashamed that I have wasted so much time and I re read what I have so far and it is total rubbish, and implausible, and the storyline suddenly seems stagnant, and it is sent to the cobwebby place on my hard drive where many other hours and days of manically tapped writing is stored and waits to die, which it does when my computer inevitably crashes. But it did serve a purpose, when the need to create was almost causing physical pain, it was a tidy way to scratch the itch, a way that did not involve spreading paints and canvas and jars of water and brushes all over the house, only to end up with more worthless crap to store, if I finished at all. I am beginning to suspect that most people are not like me. They are fulfilled by reaching goals, attaining personal bests, crossing the finish line. Why I cannot be more like that, I have no idea. I am perfectly fine with not finishing something, after my need to be doing it, and doing it well, has been met. It is frusterating even for me, let alone those who interact with me. I burn bright and hot, and then I fade out, and have no interest in what I lived and breathed while I was doing it. Fix me, faithful few. I don't like being this way. I need direction, and an end in sight exciting enough to keep me going in said direction.

Eddies of snow swirl outside my window, the window behind my stuff-eating armchair, the window that is at the moment sending a cold draft over my arms and bare feet. We need new windows. But we live in a trailer house that we are unlikely to be able to recoup any of our money back out of when we sell. All our improvements have to be something that we do for us, not to improve resale. And old windows, while drafty, are compensated for by our wonderful glass-doored woodstove with a blower that sends warmth to at least the main living ares of the house, if not the bedrooms.

We were supposed to get a lot of snow. We got no measureable amount. Twelve to fourteen inches, the weathermen said. We knew better than to hope. Although waking up to nothing but the wind blowing what tiny skiff we got against the house, swirling it under the eaves, was almost enough to reduce us to blubbering crybabies. We are still walking on bare ground. If not bare ground, than asphalt-hard packed snow. Yesterday, while mountain biking, I even found lingering green grass under a big old fir.

Behind my stuff-eating armchair, enjoying the cold draft while lying on the bay windowsill and occasionally sticking a cold nose in my ear is a stuff-eating dog. He has been a terror today. You try being used to four miles a day of
scent trails, pine needles, snow drifts to roll in, squirrels to chase and ice to skid over, and then try going a day without. So far, he has completely shredded a squeaky toy in the form of a fuzzy gray wolf in the space of about five minutes- it was in the mending pile in need of a limb reattachment, and several minutes later, it was total carnage- stuffing everywhere, three more limbs torn off, plastic squeakers found in the disembowelment and killed. I swept up all the stuffing, then tied it's shredded torso together so it is a gray wolf's head now, with a knot where it's neck should be. While picking up frozen poop in the minefield known as our front yard where he does his business twice a day, I couldnt help but notice the amount of cotton stuffing lying out there. It's a miracle there hasn't been a major internal blockage yet. He has also eaten a hole in the pocket of my fleece inner jacket, part of my new, originally $420 dollar new coat (that I paid $60 for, but still.) because he was trying to get to the pony tail holder in the pocket, he has eaten the brim off my totally cute green hat with the buttons on the band, he has tried to eat a glove, he has carried off two Christmas tree ornaments, even while trying to shake the unpleasant taste of the bitter spray I used on them out of his mouth, has been banished to the front porch twice, then came back in to race in manic circles around the house, has tipped over the laundry basket to drag out a stocking hat that laid on my car floor for a week and got good and musty in the mud and melted snow, dragged food off the counter, dragged toothpaste off the counter, ate the handle of my hairbrush, and has snuggled up to me and laid his head in my lap, utilizing full-on puppy eyes when I yelled at him for all of the above mentioned transgressions.

I am trying to decide if I should leave the house. Yesterday I worked, and sat at the computer in the office and pretended to work, then actually worked, and got about four billeable hours in the eight I spent there. That was depressing. And I left nothing for myself to do today. There are no arrivals. B talks out of both sides of his mouth these days, telling me to enjoy to slow time because the 15th is fast approaching and I will not see the inside of my house by daylight until after New Year's, then, in the next breath, telling me that my paycheck is suffering because of all of my time spent not working. What's a girl to do? I spent this morning cleaning my house, readying it for "church" wednesday night (at least, the only church we get these days- a small group of friends, a Bible study or a debate, a meal). I have fallen back in love with my house and it's me-ness, even in it's still unfinished state. I wonder how I lived in other people's houses for so long, while all our possessions were back in Kansas and we rented furnished apartments. I did not domesticate, I know that. I lived in the space, but I never claimed it.

If I left my house, it would be to go to our company's storage unit in Silverthorne to find a bedframe, then to the store to find some lights to put under my cabinets in the kitchen, to illuminate my countertops. I also want to find some leather-ish looking suede vinyl material to cover a board with, to make a headboard to hang on the wall. I want to make the office, with it's mattress on the floor, look like a real room. We had big plans to build a Murphy bed into the wall, surround it with bookshelves, and in a pinch, have a real-ish bedroom as well as a lovely, roomy office the fifty weeks out of the year when the bed was not in use. Now we do a bit of research and find that to have a bed, even one folded into the wall, would cost us our home office tax deduction, which, being self-imployed, we desperately need, and we legitimately use the room as a home office, as well as sleeping space occasionally when we have guests. So the bed cannot be permanent. It must be small and light and moveable, in the rare event of an audit. We cannot fit a sofa bed through the hallway leading to the room, maybe a futon bed that we assemble in the room. I must admit, it is kinda nice to play Susie Homemaker once in a while. Yes, faithful few, my life is not all biking and skiing and snowboarding and hiking and being all happy in the great outdoors. Occasionally, in order to feel as though nothing is missing, one must spend time in one's own nest. That is important. It is a basic human need, to feel sheltered and at home. That is the kind of day I am having. A Basic Human Needs day. There has been food and shelter and the touch of a furry yellow beast and chocolate and warmth and I have brought order to my space.

I do not read these days. Years. Havent actually read, except for during vacations, ever since we lived in Kansas. Four weeks ago, I brought home three books from the library. A vegetarian cookbook, A Fool's Progress by Edward Abbey, and some insipid guilty pleasure read with a pink cover with martini glasses on it that promised enough vapid moments to escape from any sort of real-life drama. I thought two weeks would be more than enough to read all three. Two weeks later, I had read exactly three pages of A Fool's Progress. I renewed them for another two weeks. I read nothing at all. I finally took them back, overdue, two days ago. But I occasionally get a literary fix by downloading an audiobook and listening to it on my iPod while doing other things. I have put away probably a ton of laundry while listening to the adventures of someone or other, run miles to short stories, cleaned house to abstract bits of writing from some podcast or another.

Today, I began listening to In Search of #6 by Damon Timm. It is the recounting of a bicycle trip from Seattle to San Fransisco with his best friend-nay, "heterosexual life partner"- in search of his sixth kiss. Since he achieved his goal four hours into the trip, it is rather about leaving #6, with whom he promptly fell in love, to experience five weeks of early summer on the open road on the pacific coast, the recounting of experiences and friendship more close than many share with their actual significant others, although, as is stressed, their friendship is, and always was, and always will be a heterosexual one which they also share with their respective women. I am wondering who are these men who articulate feelings of cameraderie and a deep connection with each other, who observe the pungent effects of eating a dozen hard boiled eggs one moment and the glorious connection of sharing the beautiful sight of Mt Ranier with a lifelong friend the next. Not such touchy-feeley words I would expect to hear from any of my nearest or dearest, male or female, for that matter. I might say such a thing, or write it, and many of my faithful few might titter politely and turn away a bit embarrassed. It is okay, we were raised in the midwest. And I have never known when to not articulate such things. I suppose there is a time and a place. I have not yet finished the book, there are about ten hours of listening in it, so I cannot recommend it yet. But so far, as I have been scrubbing and organizing, I have also been watching the projector inside my head throw images of snow capped peaks, old growth forests and sheer cliffs, rolling hills and wildflowers, and have been laughing out loud at the ready wit and blindside humor of someone who has spent a lot of time in places less traveled, and has the imprint of his love for the outdoors stamped all over his storytelling.

And now, back to it. Miles to go before I sleep.