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Sep. 20th, 2003 02:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynThe local library is doing a bunch of construction and renovation work. On the 26th, Friday, they're going to close down for an unspecified period of time - they reckon probably around nine weeks, but aren't certain. People are being encouraged to borrow as many books as they like and return them after they reopen. Alas, much to my sorrow they have packed all the mystery novels away - pain in the bum if you ask me, I was just about to descend on them and demand all the Dorothy Sayers in sight - but they've still got a lot of other stuff. I raided the crafts section of the shelves - it's not yet too early to start making Christmas presents, right? And Lord knows I've got damn near all the knitting needles I would need, regardless of size.
That having been said, I am nearly broke just now and am sincerely hoping my mother has forgotten that I would have been paid while I was in Alaska. I have something like two dollars more in my bank account than I usually pay her in rent; I can give her the rent on Friday, when I get paid again, but in the meantime there's maybe $13 to my name that isn't in my bank account and I did want to go into New York on Sunday. Bleah. Bleah, I say. Ah, well. In the meantime I am going to go drive somewhere that does not require a whole lot of gas (what happened to that promise of 'the prices will come down after Labour Day', anyway?) and probably hang out for a while with my knitting needles. Mom's birthday is the 29th and I'm only about halfway through the first mitten of the pair I plan to give her.
I have decided that what I miss most about Alaska is the quiet, or at least the absence of people. One did not awaken to the sound of leaf-blowers and lawn mowers while one was there, or the sound of other domestic hardware; this may have been because one was awakening at 8 AM despite all attempts to the contrary, but still. I think I saw one leaf-blower while I was there. I went out and had my lunch on the back porch today, and I could hear the cars on the highway on the other side of the woods, plus the airplanes overhead (we're on the bad-weather flightpath to Newark Airport), plus someone mowing his lawn, plus other cars... feh. In Alaska you'd have heard a plane maybe once every fifteen or twenty minutes, and that despite the hostel's being directly under the final approach to Fairbanks International Airport! On my trip to the Arctic Circle I was most enchanted by the part where we pulled over to the side of the Dalton and visited the tundra around Finger Mountain, and that was because you could not hear any noises at all made by human beings. No planes overhead, no trucks on the Dalton, nothing. If the other people in the tour group stood still and closed their mouths, all you heard was wind (the birds being largely in hiding at this time of year up there). It was amazing, and I think that silence was worth the price of the drive up and back. Alas, now I am in the most densely populated state in the Union, and seriously proposing visiting New York "Eight? Ten? Twelve? How many millions have we got again?" City on the morrow. Ah, well, I had my silence, and I will remember it a long time.
That having been said, I am nearly broke just now and am sincerely hoping my mother has forgotten that I would have been paid while I was in Alaska. I have something like two dollars more in my bank account than I usually pay her in rent; I can give her the rent on Friday, when I get paid again, but in the meantime there's maybe $13 to my name that isn't in my bank account and I did want to go into New York on Sunday. Bleah. Bleah, I say. Ah, well. In the meantime I am going to go drive somewhere that does not require a whole lot of gas (what happened to that promise of 'the prices will come down after Labour Day', anyway?) and probably hang out for a while with my knitting needles. Mom's birthday is the 29th and I'm only about halfway through the first mitten of the pair I plan to give her.
I have decided that what I miss most about Alaska is the quiet, or at least the absence of people. One did not awaken to the sound of leaf-blowers and lawn mowers while one was there, or the sound of other domestic hardware; this may have been because one was awakening at 8 AM despite all attempts to the contrary, but still. I think I saw one leaf-blower while I was there. I went out and had my lunch on the back porch today, and I could hear the cars on the highway on the other side of the woods, plus the airplanes overhead (we're on the bad-weather flightpath to Newark Airport), plus someone mowing his lawn, plus other cars... feh. In Alaska you'd have heard a plane maybe once every fifteen or twenty minutes, and that despite the hostel's being directly under the final approach to Fairbanks International Airport! On my trip to the Arctic Circle I was most enchanted by the part where we pulled over to the side of the Dalton and visited the tundra around Finger Mountain, and that was because you could not hear any noises at all made by human beings. No planes overhead, no trucks on the Dalton, nothing. If the other people in the tour group stood still and closed their mouths, all you heard was wind (the birds being largely in hiding at this time of year up there). It was amazing, and I think that silence was worth the price of the drive up and back. Alas, now I am in the most densely populated state in the Union, and seriously proposing visiting New York "Eight? Ten? Twelve? How many millions have we got again?" City on the morrow. Ah, well, I had my silence, and I will remember it a long time.
