And bingeing on electricity. It’s hard, it’s so hard, hard, hard, in the land of TVinterernetIceCreamChocolate, to be a good person, in those hours when I get home from work, and read about making birch-baskets, and work on my dance moves, and write stories about important, dry and unglamorous things that move at the speed of life, which is not very fast, nor very bright, at least when you’ve had two thousand bowls of thin-mint ice-cream and nothing is fast enough, or bright enough, and you just want to beat your fists against the wall and scream at the parrot who won’t stop screaming, who screams like a human screams, againandagain and again, and so you do, and then you feel a little bit better. And the parrot cocks his one eye at you, astounded, his emerald colored head-feathers like a wonderful cap from a far-away land, and you open the metal door of his cage with its flaking white paint and fill his bowl with weightless green and red “fruit” pellets, which are, it turns out, made from soybean meal and no fruit at all.
How do you manage it, bird? How do you make feathers from soybean meal?
And you, how do you manage it? How do you make stories from ice-cream?
At the end of this month I will have a paycheck, at the end of next month, another. And then my job will be over, until I find a new one. And I will take my monies and I will go out into the world and I will buy-
-insulation for the sauna, some mats of it, bright yellow stuff, because I have neither vehicle nor motivation to go out and find someone who has sheep, from which I might collect raw wool to pack the walls, nor do I have the patience to gather moss from the forest floor, for the same purpose. Someday, someday. Sheep, chickens, goats, a potbellied pig dragging its belly in the snow, maybe, all of it, none of it. A homestead in Alaska! For now, bright yellow fiberglass from the home depot.
-Then! And Then! A chair, a table, a counter-top. A mat for my bed, which I will build. A small window for the smoke, the insufferable wood-smoke!
-a cutting board of decent size. A grater, too, for grating beets. For salad.
-a blood-sugar test at the doctor. For diabetes. To explain constant thirst, irritability, etc.
-one small tub spirulina/wheat grass powder. For moral.
-one tired head of kale, limp with homesickness. Dear brassica, you’ve come far!
-one tank of gas, owed.
-an amalgam fillings removal-procedure, from a dentist who knows what he’s doing.
-a plane ticket back to Portland, in the fall, to get my things, also to see said dentist, who knows what he’s doing.
-gold caps for all my molars.
-a plane ticket to Mexico, the land of Reasonably Priced Dentistry, where I can get said Gold Caps.
-I’m getting ahead of myself here. It’s just two paychecks.
Oh, capitalism!
CARROT QUINN 
I was thinking the same thing as I read along: getting ahead of yourself!! I have the same dentist issues — well, similar enough — it’s pricey!! Two years of paychecks, not two months!
Good luck with the insulation. I used foam board insulation for my recent insulating job in my cabin in rural Vermont. Mice don’t like it as much as the fluffy stuff.
Hi Carrot!
About the diabetes: do you know anyone that is a diabetic? If so, you can do a very easy, simple, free check of your blood sugar with their “blood sugar meter.” Or, you could offer $1 to pay for that test strip. It just takes a drop of your blood and about 30 seconds. All able-bodied people will have a blood sugar level around a 100. My hubby has type 1 diabetes (he’s insulin-dependent) and whenever he checks my blood, I am always at 100. The normal range for a diabetic is 80-120. So, if your blood sugar is higher than 120, then you might want to consult a doctor who will check the sugar level in your urine which gauges long-term effects on your system.
BTW, have you lost a lot of weight? Like 10-15 pounds in a week? This is also a big factor that indicates diabetes, but I haven’t seen you mention this yet which is a good sign that you are not experiencing pancreas failure.
It could just be changes in your diet and environment that is causing the thirst. I’m hoping that is the case because diabetes can really derail the path in life.
I’m writing this to you because I think that the first step can be done easily and for free and without a doctor. In other words, you may be able to knock this off your list pretty easily!
I love reading about your adventures in the woods of Alaska. Can’t wait to hear what happens when you finally get the chance to get some bearfat!
With love and respect,
lotus
i’ve heard of old jeans making good insulation. not sure if it’s enough for alaskan temps…
btw i love reading your blog.
Kate- foam board? That’s a good idea.
Lotus- thanks for the tipz. I haven’t lost any weight, although I’ve had the excessive thirst thing for about four years now, if not longer.
Matsya- Jeans- wouldn’t they just mold in the walls? Also, it’s a little depressing that we live in a world where there’s so much excess clothing that we insulate our walls with it… btw, thanks for reading glad you like my blog!
That’s right, Carrot. It’s long boards of compressed insulation. About the same price as the stuff in rolls. Much better for mice problems. Home Depot sells it. Generally, the thicker the board, the better it is for insulation. I got the one with a silver backer, highest R value. I think it’s polystyrene. The pink ones and the blue ones are made of something else, and cheaper.
a good item to add to your shopping list, especially if your job entails lots of contact with lots of people, would be Purell-type hand sanitizer. If the new swine-flu starts spreading as fast as the WHO and the CDC seem to think that it will, the alcohol-based hand gels will be really hard to find for awhile, until production catches up with demand.