Mary Haley

old-tyme cures

2009-11-07T09:50:00.002-09:00

I started battling the illness with Italian penicillin. Forget the Jewish treatment of chicken noodle soup, I made some zuppa toscana. Then I moved on to Indian penicillin - fresh paneer curry. I also started the "drinking tea" plan and gargling with warm salt water.

Yesterday someone suggested eating something cold to soothe my throat, so I just had malted milk sorbet for breakfast.

Best. Illness. Ever.

melodramatic behavior ... again

2009-11-03T09:33:00.002-09:00

I have taken ill. It's not as bad as in the past, since I have yet to proclaim that I am dying or demand that someone care for my cat after I am gone. But still, I am under the weather. In fact, I am taking the day off from work to recover.

The day after the Harvest Ball, I got the chance to celebrate Diwali. No, not just celebrate Diwali, but perform at the UAF Diwali celebration! Cold Fusion did three Indian choreographies, and then the gorging on Indian food began. We don't really have Indian food in Fairbanks, unless you count the secret menu at Pizza 4 Less, so normally if I want it, I have to make it. We got an overwhelmingly positive response to our performances, including several people who commented on how authentic the dancing was. That made Rachel, our main Indian choreographer, very happy.

So to sum up, great dancing, delicious Indian food, and a date with a student. Oh, did I not mention that part? On Saturday, I went to a coffeehouse with a grad student I met at Diwali. We talked for more than an hour, and I didn't get bored. Given my tendency to get rapidly bored with most people, I am taking this as a good sign.

when it's good...

2009-10-25T00:48:00.003-08:00

Sometimes I love Fairbanks. Saturday was one of those times.

My main goal for the day was to get done up for the evening. It was not just any evening, but Harvest Ball, the biggest gay event of the year. Naturally, Gary was my date, but he had promised to dress up for me. In turn, I took a shower around noon and set my hair in fingerwaves. I've been obsessed with vintage hairstyles for a while, and my fingerwaves have been coming along nicely. With my hair and makeup did, I pulled out my trusty prom dress. Vintage green polyester with some nice beads - I got it for $1 at a flea market in 1993 or 1994 and wore it to my senior prom. Since I'm still wearing it 15 years later, I'd say I got my money's worth. However, it lost the "best bargain" title because I also wore my full-length fur coat. $0.99 at Value Village!

Gary, Liz, Hayley and I met up at the Carlson Center. Being a gay event, naturally there was a drag show. I've seen some of those ladies give better performances, but the crowd was still going crazy.

Liz and I also performed a poi fusion routine. I was conflicted, because generally in a drag show, performers collect tips. Collecting tips form the audience while dancing is just too close to stripping for me. I already have a co-worker who refers to every performance as a "hoochie coochie dance." I have no issue with other performers collecting tips, and honestly I think we should be rewarded for our work, but we certainly weren't going to deviate from our choreography to accept crumpled dollar bills. Sorry, it's not something we work on during our two hours of rehearsal each week. However, while we were dancing, several members of the audience came up and quietly placed money in a tip basket near the stage. I assume it was shared among all the performers at the end of the night. I don't know, since we were long gone by then.

Rather than sticking around until the bitter end, the four of us grabbed some more folks and headed over to the Boatel. If you've never been to the Boatel Sleazy Waterfront Bar, it's pretty much summed up by its named. One fellow bought Liz some Scotch to celebrate her passing another milestone for her Ph.D., and I had an unfortunate martini involving green bean juice, as they were completely out of olives.

As I left the bar that night, I saw my first northern lights of the season dancing across the sky. It's still unseasonably warm, so I stood outside in strappy sandals and my senior prom gown, taking in the beauty of the aurora. Sometimes that's all that it takes to make me happy.

heard (read) on chat

2009-10-19T14:39:00.002-08:00

I think I did the right thing.
And by the right thing, I mean the not-as-wrong thing.

--Me. I am the queen
of justification.

It was a weekend of creative endeavors. To wit: I appreciated the creative endeavors of others when Dara, Joel and I went to the Pub to see Paper Scissors on Friday night. Have I mentioned that the band just plain rocks? I'm glad Craig is back in town for the winter. I ran into David there, who taught me some basic salsa. We attempted a Viennese waltz when the music came up, but the dance floor was very slippery due to dirty hippie students spilling beers. After David nearly wiped out twice, we opted to sit out the rest of the song. We were the only ones dancing, anyway.

On Saturday I finally had the materials, power tools and will to buckle down and make curtains for my bedroom. Well, most of the materials. There was some annoying math involved, as I was sewing in a blackout lining that would only cover the window but the curtains were pretty much floor to ceiling. I could have taken the easy route and done a full-length lining, but I didn't want the curtains to be so heavy. I managed to do one window perfectly, but had to wait until the next day to go buy more grommets. I did manage to finish the other window on Sunday. Pictures to come.

Since I had the sewing machine out, I decided it was time for a curve-hugging dress a la Joan Holloway. There was some great stretch suiting at the fabric store, but it had vertical stretch, not horizontal. Bizarre. This involved more math to figure out how to lay out the pattern pieces in the opposite direction. Again I say, pictures to come.

Liz and I also met up on Sunday to rehearse a choreography we're performing at the Harvest Ball this weekend. We made a costume run to Value Village for new tights since we've destroyed our last pair in a few performances.

This coming week should be interesting. I have to wrap up one aspect of a large project at work, and I have two performances. I don't really have any free time scheduled until Sunday night. Apparently stress is part of my daily routine.

heard at dinner

2009-10-18T00:54:00.003-08:00

Do you think I can fake a pregnancy long-distance to get the money?

--Girl #1

No, what you need to do is steal a baby...

--Girl #2

The conversation didn't really improve...

heard in the office

2009-10-14T09:43:00.005-08:00

Yeah, I'll stop singing that song soon.
Just like I stopped singing "Do You Know The Way To San Jose?"
once we got to Costa Rica.

--Me

(falsetto) La la la la la la la-la-la.

--Co-worker #1

Dun dun-dun, dun dun-dun.

--Co-worker #2

Jeez, if I could teach you to dance life would be like a musical.

--Me

I know I'm kind of late to jump on this bandwagon, but I have started watching Glee and am in love. I'm sure it's surprising. Who would have guessed I would like a musical with lots of dance numbers? I think I was a very flamboyant gay man in a past life.

the pain

2009-10-13T17:19:00.005-08:00

You know you had a good weekend when even your toes are bruised. It's not as salacious as it might sound. On Friday, I joined Liz and Rachel for pizza and some T-shirt designing early in the evening. Then I headed out to the Marlin to see Paper Scissors play. I have a few friends in the band, and naturally I ran into a few more in the audience, so it ended up being a very late night. The late night led to my choice to have brunch with Gary and be lazy on a lovely Saturday. Some weird weather systems combined to bring us a few warm, sunny October days.

Saturday night I embarked upon a trip across town. It did not begin well, as I got pulled over less than a mile from my house. I wasn't doing anything wrong per se, but I did have a headlight out and cops will use that as an excuse to pull you over on a weekend night to see if you're drunk. I was stone cold sober and also had the replacement bulb in my passenger seat. Back on the road, Mary 1, Cops 0. Across town, I found my dance partner, changed my shoes and hit the floor. About three hours later, I was exhausted and pretty thoroughly danced out. Cha cha, two step, waltz, swing, triple step - it was just too much for my feet.

I decided to swing by the Marlin again on my way home. Mistake. The place was filled with GIs looking to score and I was not in the mood for the band. In retrospect, I should have gone to Ivory Jack's to see the Pickup League, but I didn't feel like getting pulled over again for my headlight.

The weather held through Sunday, giving me the chance to blast some Otis Redding while I replaced the headlight and did a little bit of work on my car. I did not get motivated enough to clean the garage out, but I did make it about halfway through a new dress. I felt the pain of the weekend catch up with me on Monday when I ran intervals before work, then went to tango class afterward. I need to take it easy, because next weekend we have two performances (Harvest Ball and Diwali) and I need to bring my A game.

heard at the dance studio

2009-10-09T00:23:00.000-08:00

"Chaos" is not a pattern.

--Me

heard in a blog

2009-10-05T23:25:00.001-08:00

Someone should really come up with 0 calorie booze.

You're tellin' me we can put a man on the moon but I can't be thin and drunk?!

holy s$%

2009-10-05T22:55:00.001-08:00

I just realized I own a house. No, nothing broke. I think it just finally hit me.

weekend shenanigans

2009-10-05T15:45:00.005-08:00

I needed Saturday to recover from Friday. Then Sunday happened.

On Friday, Cold Fusion performed at a dance recital put on by Tundra Caravan. Since Rachel rarely gets a late-night babysitter, we took advantage and went to Brewster's after the show for potato skins. My friend (and fellow dancer) Liz has been dating my coworker Craig, so he came along too. I don't know if he was mentally prepared for the thought of Mary and Liz together or for the possibility of several hours of dance conversation.

On Saturday, I spent the day doing dance workshops with Eva Cernik. Her sword workshop was very helpful, but I did not enjoy her zill workshop. After the workshops, Joyce opened her studio for a hafla. Lots of live drumming and dancing. Liz and I decided to go out afterward and went to a 10 p.m. showing of Whip It. I think I might be more of a curmudgeon than a misanthrope, because I couldn't believe the amount of kids at the movie theater. Damn teenagers.

I got up extra early on Sunday to make apple cider doughnuts. The only kitchen store in town did not have a doughnut pan, so I was attempting to make them with a mini bundt pan. Do not make this mistake. I have already ordered a doughnut pan. Dara and Joel picked me up and we went to brunch at Stephanie's house. In true small-town fashion, I realized when we got there that she rents from the Haighs. They are the people I bought my lawn mower from that I knew from Hidden Hill. What was going to be a quick brunch turned into an epic meal with lots of champagne. I got no chores done on Sunday.

Despite all of this, the high point of my weekend came in an e-mail on Sunday night. We've been asked to perform at Diwali. Three songs. Dance domination continues...

what a difference 6 years makes

2009-10-01T23:23:00.005-08:00

No, actually, this is not a sappy post reminiscing about my 6+ years in Alaska. Today I received a copy of Lonely Planet's Trekking in East Africa, the 2003 edition. Why 2003? Well, it's the most recent edition, and I desperately wanted to get my hands on some info about hiking in Africa. Sure, there's Kilimanjaro, but what else is there?

The book only covers three countries: Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. In fact, so far it's all about the Rwenzoris in Uganda. Uganda is perhaps not the safest place to visit these days. The book skips Rwanda entirely, and yet I have not ruled out some time in that country.

Besides planning for the trip, I am getting ready for my first winter in my new house. Since dance friend Jeff is also my neighbor and a contractor and was the owner of a plumbing and heating repair company, I feel confident that my house will be in good hands. I've got to get the weatherization teams in here for some free repairs too, though. I know this place could be more energy efficient.

isn't it ironic?

2009-09-26T11:48:00.004-08:00

Alanis Morrisette has ruined that word forever.

There are only two telephone companies in Fairbanks. Currently, I am being pursued by collections from company #1 for telephone service at my ex-boyfriend's apartment, where I never lived. He is being pursued by collections from company #2 for an unpaid bill at the Baurick Court house in March 2009. He moved out in June 2008.

After some quality time on hold with company #2, we discovered that when the bill finally switched over to my name, it was technically a different account. And even though both accounts had my credit card for auto pay, they never processed the balance from his account for March. They were demanding a late fee for the unpaid bill, but they quickly backed down. They had payment, they just didn't use it. It would be like charging me a late fee because I sent them a check and they didn't bother depositing it until the next month.

Company #1 remains a mystery, as they clearly have an account set up in my name at that address. Too bad I was living at the commune at the time.

Our first snow has arrived. It's melting away as I type, but I did wake up to a white lawn this morning. Last year the first snow also fell during Starvation Gulch, but it never went away. I recall getting pelted with snowy hail while standing next to the massive bonfires on campus, then driving home in a furious snowstorm. I think it's time to get the snow tires back and put them on the car.

it's the time of the season

2009-09-22T09:55:00.002-08:00

Fun fact: It is raining at home. It is snowing at work. The two locations are less than 2 miles apart.

Last year, as I recall, the first snow never really melted. It started during Starvation Gulch and hung around until April. I hope this year is not the same. I want the snow, just not yet.

heard at the watering hole

2009-09-19T02:50:00.003-08:00

I stared at that thing for an hour like a monkey doing math.

--Nate, who couldn't read the hat

heard at rehearsal

2009-09-16T23:06:00.002-08:00

Well, if you think it's too raunchy, then we should definitely change it.

--Biscuit

For the record, I was the only single and chaste girl in the room. This reputation is undeserved.

bumpits

2009-09-15T17:29:00.000-08:00

I like big hair and I cannot lie.

blame it on the social media

2009-09-14T23:15:00.003-08:00

I think part of the reason I haven't been writing on my blog much lately is because I've been on Facebook. Once I've written something there, it doesn't make much sense to write it here as well, right?

I'm throwing myself back into a busy schedule. Tonight I had a private cha cha lesson, followed by the first of a 6-week tango class. Tomorrow night I start a zymurgy class with some of my friends. Wednesdays are still bellydance rehearsals, and Thursdays I have ATS class.

The cha cha is one in a series of private lessons I've been doing with an instructor who is a friend of mine. It is very conveniently located at a private studio 4 hours down from me. Tonight, the studio owner popped upstairs. Lo and behold, it was my dance partner Jeff! I don't know Jeff very well, but whenever I go to the Silver Spur (small text=big shame) I try to hog all his time. Not only does he own the studio and live down the road from me, but he is a general contractor who just sold his plumbing and heating business. Now there's a friendship to cultivate! Plus, I can just lay on the horn outside his house and force him to go dancing with me!

Tango is a new experiment. I chose it because it was the most interesting sounding of the Monday night classes, and I don't have much in the way of free time. My friend John Gimbel is in the class, as well as a sort-of coworker, Nicole. I got paired up with another guy named John, a big fellow who seemed pretty decent on his feet though he didn't give enough indication of an upcoming change. Near the end of the class, all the partner-less people had to switch to a different lead, which is how I got paired up with Tom. Now, I was already tired and had been wearing my dance heels for a long time. (And one of the instructors followed me along the dance floor for a bit, admiring my custom-made dance shoes!) Tom and I did not dance well together. Sure, he gave great cues, but our bodies weren't compatible. He was a smaller guy, and our legs kept bumping and I felt like there was no tension in our dance frame.

Still, several weeks of upcoming classes, plus the possibility of being able to stalk Jeff and go dancing regularly has me quite excited.

delayed pictures

2009-09-14T17:14:00.008-08:00

I promised to post photos from my trip along the Denali Highway, didn't I? And I never did. Well, until now, that is...

The start of the road. The second day was mostly overcast like this.

I have a Gorillapod, and I'm not afraid to use it. Also, I have on a lot of clothing but no bear spray. Oops. There's no excuse for the sullen look.

Can you find the hunter in this picture?
Along the McClaren Summit Trail. The weather started to clear up a bit. And by "clear up" I mean the clouds moved from one side of the trail to the other.

I picked a lovely spot to camp. Those random white bits in the picture? Bones.

Lots of bones.

Including this partial leg I found near my tent.

Dismembered animals weren't enough incentive to move my camp, though. Perhaps a nice fire will keep the bears away.

The weather was quite nice the next morning. Until it started to rain as I was breaking down the tent.

The view is lovely, but you can see why you shouldn't drive too fast. Most of the road is like this.

I tried for a better shot, but failed. What, you may ask, was I trying to get in the picture? If you look very, very closely, there's a bald eagle. But my zoom is not so good, and it flew away when I tried walking closer.

[this space left blank]

2009-09-11T21:28:00.002-08:00

I feel this way every year. Every year since 2001, there has been mourning, ceremony and memories. And every year I get angry, but it's not the anger you'd expect. Maybe anger isn't even the right word. It's hard to explain, but here it goes:

My 9/11 was not your 9/11. And I don't want to spend my time talking about what the day was like for me. I certainly don't want to hear about what it was like for you. The sensation gets stronger now that I live in Alaska. I don't care about hunters who were stranded for days because planes couldn't fly in to pick them up. I don't care that you woke up to a phone call. I can't quite put it into words succinctly, and I've already devoted more space to it than I ever wanted to. Just let people have the privacy they might need. I'm not going to put my emotions on public display.

heard in the tech lab

2009-09-02T22:10:00.003-08:00

It's the lyrical smackdowns that hurt the most.

--Kylie, as my robot team was
beating Patrick's robot team

It's....there was...you see....oh, you just had to be there. Robot races at work. Coming after the free cookies and smoked moose ribs, it kind of just capped off the day. I like my job.

denali highway

2009-08-31T22:59:00.006-08:00

My impromptu trip across the Denali Highway was, naturally, off to a late start. I had my weekly massage after work on Friday (health insurance pays for it, so I'm not going to cancel the appointment) and then I took a quick shower to rinse off the oil and started throwing stuff in the car. I had a full tank of gas and a game plan.

I headed out past North Pole and had the minor thrill of veering right in Delta Junction. By golly, I was driving on roads I'd never driven on before! In the largest state in the nation, there's very few actual state routes. Those that exist are known more by name than route number. I believe I was traveling on Alaska Route 4, but I just know it as the Richardson Highway. My goal was the one campground marked in the Gazetteer. It had been raining steadily since I left Fairbanks, and I wanted to set up camp and go to sleep. The campground turned out to be more of an RV sort of affair, at least as far as I could tell from the car, so I continued south toward Paxson.

It was closing in on 11:30, and I wanted to go to sleep. I finally just pulled off the road into a paved turnout and found a dirt trail leading off of it. It looked vaguely camp-able, so I set up the tent in a cold drizzle and hopped in. There were no niceties such as brushing my teeth. Instead I decided to play any old favorite game: How Will I Die? Round One: Bear Attack vs. Serial Killer

The next morning I was still alive, and it was still raining. I coaxed myself out of the tent and simply threw all of the bits and pieces into the trunk. As it turns out, I was only a few miles north of Paxson. Having never been there, I expected a typical Alaska highway town: 1-2 gas stations, a store, a restaurant. Nope, not Paxson. One building, which contained the gas station, store, restaurant and bar. It did sell Diet Dr. Pepper, so +1 for Paxson.

Paxson also had the dubious distinction of where I officially turned onto a new road. Technically I've driven the Richardson Highway before, even if I never drove that particular segment before. But in Paxson, all was shiny and new as I turned onto Alaska Route 8, aka the Denali Highway. It was all paved and lovely, at least for the first 30 miles. Then it reverted back to the potholed gravel I had grown accustomed to. It didn't matter much to me, as I was willing to drive slowly, and I had an iPod full of NPR podcasts.

Hunting in Alaska is a tricky subject. Some hunts, it seems, are already open, whereas others don't start for a while yet. So it's hard to say who was legally hunting. But as I came around a corner and spotted a black Honda Civic stopped in the road and a man standing in the road, pointing his rifle toward the hills, I was pretty sure I was seeing something, well, illegal. As if hunting from the road wasn't foolish enough, there was his vehicle choice. How, I ask, are you going to get a carcass home in a Honda Civic?

Around McClaren Summit, I decided to hop out of the car and enjoy some hiking. My friends had been of two minds about my solo trip: One group thought I should bring a gun, while the other thought I could adequately protect myself with a really big knife. I demurred on both accounts and opted to bring bear spray. It kept me safe on the Chilkoot Trail, so I figured it would keep me safe once again. About a mile into my hike, I came across a large pile of bear scat. At this point, I realized I had left the bear spray in the car. Nothing for it but to keep going, right?

The rain stopped while I was hiking, and I was rewarded with a merely cloudy view of the mountains on either side of me. After staging some photos with my new Gorillapod (love it!) I decided to head back to the car. The clouds shifted long enough for me to spot several men with guns wandering around on the hills. I was thankful I wasn't wearing my moose jacket, even though I'd heard everyone was wearing them this year.

After one cold, rainy night of camping, my mind started wandering in the car. Specifically, it started wandering south. I decided the most logical thing to do was to drive to Cantwell, call some friends and head down to their place in Chickaloon and enjoy the rest of my weekend in the Valley. Hey, I could even go shopping at Target! (Don't you judge me! The nearest Target is 300 miles away. It's a treat to go there.) I was pretty much set on this plan, until I decided to take a random dirt trail off the highway and found a nice flat area with a couple of fire rings set up. At this point, the sun was starting to peek through the clouds, and it seemed like the day might turn around. Plus, I really wanted to take a nap.

I yanked the still-soggy tent out of the trunk and let the sun and wind dry it, then set up camp near one of the fire rings. I went looking for firewood, and as I wandered back into the bushes, I kept coming across more and more bones. Not, like, a random bone here or there. More like a set of shoulder blades, a spine and ribcage, a leg with the hoof still attached. Perhaps this wasn't the best camping spot. But laziness prevailed, and I decided to take a nap rather than move on.

As the sun set later that night, I lit up my pitiful supply of wood and enjoyed breathing in smoke. After burning a few holes in my fleece, I went into the camp to try to accomplish my goal of the trip: figure out my game plan for upcoming travel. I can't say it was a huge success. I've decided to maybe go to Belize in Dec-Jan for a 2-week diving vacation. But I will definitely be joining Cara in Africa this summer to summit Mount Kilimanjaro. If I have to dump the Belize plans, so be it.

Before drifting off to sleep, I decided I was too narrow-minded in my think and played a game of How Will I Die? Round Two: Aliens and Zombies Could Get Me, Too. In the end, I decided I would most likely meet my maker at the hands of Nazi ghosts. Specifically, this guy:

Hey, nightmares are nightmares. But the next morning I was still alive. It was freaking cold, and I laid in my sleeping bag for about an hour, whining about getting up. By the time I was rolling up my Thermarest, it had started sprinkling again, and I was able to get the tent bagged up before the skies opened.

The drive home was a continuing orgy of NPR, interspersed with the occasional song or two. I can now confirm the theory that a full tank of gas will get me from Fairbanks to Healy via the Denali Highway (with several miles to spare). After two nights of hip cramps from sleeping in a tent, I was looking forward to getting home and sleeping in my new marshmallow of a bed. I also eagerly anticipated a long, hot shower. Since sleeping in just isn't an option when you're camping (especially when you're a morning person), I was back in Fairbanks around 12:30.

i'm not dead yet

2009-08-30T19:27:00.003-08:00

I survived the weekend of camping. Please hang up any phones on which you may have dialed 9-1 and waited....

I'll share the story of the trip later, when I can add photos. For now, I will tell this tale...

On Friday I decided to play a game with my co-workers. We have a chat program set up for the office. I put my status as "Marco" and sat back to bask in the glory of a million "Polo" chats that were sure to come my way. The results were not so impressive, especially in light of the conversations my "Is zymurgist a word?" status provoked.

out of office auto reply

2009-08-28T18:46:00.001-08:00

I'm heading down to the mountains in about 15 minutes. I'll be enjoying a weekend of solo camping and hiking. If you don't hear from me late Sunday night, a bear probably ate me.

oh noes

2009-08-27T00:16:00.000-08:00

I have heartburn and the hiccups. Is this what getting older feels like??