Notes On a Quest.....

What's that secret dream job you've always believed you'd be good at, but never gone for? 
Submitted by wedgeh.

The secret dream job I knew I'd be good at was becoming a bush pilot.  Indeed, I've been flying airplanes since I was about 9 years old (my dad was a pilot and an aircraft mechanic).  I learned how to fly in a seaplane initially.  An old 1940's era Aeronca Chief on floats.  He kept it anchored in a slough that wound through a landfill in the armpit of the Bay Area....Alviso.  Often he took me there on the weekends and I would play, unsupervised, in huge piles of scrap metal, junk, weird classified documents from the Navy, and around the strangely colored salt ponds while he wrenched on the engine.

Then we would go flying.  For the first 5 years, I was sick the whole time.  I always threw up in the barf bag.  I couldn't get used to the vinyl smell mixed with gasoline in there.  And the steep turns.  But eventually I adjusted.  When I was fourteen I started taking glider lessons at a local airport in Fremont.  And by the time I was sixteen I had my pilot's license before my driver's license.  That's when I decided I wanted to fly the bush. 

The closest I got to the this dream was a lengthy trip my father and I took up to the Arctic Circle for a bush pilot convention.  We fought the whole way, of course, but still took turns on each leg of the flight.  When we made it up there I met a lot of other women in their twenties who were bush pilots too.  They were women who one could have easily mistaken for sorority sisters with the exception they were flying bear hunters out into the mosquito infested bush every day for a living.  And they were quite modest about it.

I spent a week up there running around Yellow Knife with them.  Making some forays in our planes right up to a lake that was smack dab on the Arctic Circle (so i could say I was there) and traipsing about in the bush.  An unforgettable journey.

And no, I never did make it onto being a bush pilot.  I lacked the money for the rest of my training and was still too inexperienced (I felt) to really just go up to Alaska and throw my hat in the ring.  So with around 2,500 hrs of flight time under my belt, I quit.  Money, money, money.

And now I'm a poet.  But I still think about those days a lot.  Some of the best times of my life.

I'm sitting here at my stipend job just screwing around.  And why not?  It's a fairly boring job, but who can argue with full tuition reimbursement and a stipend?  Usually I do the web programming for their web site, help them write grants, and stuff like that.  Meanwhile, outside, spring actually decided to make an appearance.  We're talking temps in the 70's folks (without humidity)!

This will probably last for a week and then we'll wake up to temps of 102 degrees and 80% humidity.  Yea New England!  Then we'll all start wondering what the hell was so bad about winter after all....

I had to take a mailing from my office two doors down to the campus post office.  I had no idea we not only shared the same building, but the same floor, as the post office.  This makes me nervous. 

The VT shootings have been in the background of conversations here on campus.  On one hand, I don't really feel like discussing it all too much.  On the other, I wonder what I would have done if I were teaching my class and I heard the shots ring out.  We don't have windows that allow us to jump out in my department's building.  The other thing I've noticed, is how people are using the words like "pure evil" to describe the shooter. 

Turns out the kid had autism.  That coupled with a possibly abusive environment at home or lack of understanding of his disease, no resources to treat it coupled with a pressure for him to achieve may have all been deciding factors in his rampage.  I say this, not in his defense, but rather to understand how human beings morph into rage driven machines.  I mean, think about life in Iraq.  Yesterday 182 people were murdered.  But that's different.  It's war.  Yet, the people driving it I think are very psychotic.  Anyway, the whole VT thing, I wonder what change will come of it in the end?  How can you prevent people like him slipping through the system?

Enough with all that.  It's a beautiful day out and I'm going to a Yo La Tengo (which means I Got It! in Spanish) concert tonight with friends.  This will be the fourth time I've seen them.  And still, I leave the ironic tee shirts and horn rimmed glasses at home.

Well, I've decided to really give Vox a go.  Mainly because most of my blogosphere friends have switched over to here.  I will probably try and keep my Typepad blog going for a while more, but it does have a monthly charge. 

Anyway, hi everyone. I'm an MFA graduate student studying poetry somewhere in New England.  I'm from San Francisco and I've lived in NY, Albuquerque, East St. Louis, and five years in Oregon.  

I'm a sometimes Burning Man Burner...

I've been to many Jazz Fests in New Orleans.  I'm going again this year and I'm nervous about what I'll see since I haven't been since Katrina.  Any other Festers on Vox?

And now onto the Vox question of the day:  Have you ever had plastic or elective surgery? Did you tell anyone? Why or why not?

Answer:  No, I have not.  But I've considered it.  And I still am.  But I doubt I would tell anyone outside of my closets friends.

And a screaming came across the sky......