there are no questions about your own life that you don't already know the answers to

i feel melancholy and a bit homesick now. today was beautiful: clear, sunny, warm enough to create huge puddles out of the snow. we drove to girdwood. en route i stood along the arm and smoked in the wind. the ice floes were moving quickly, soundlessly; the mountaintops were encased in mist. i will never get over how fucking gorgeous this place is. the kids slept the entire way, their fingers glued together with condiments, deceptively calm. they are all getting colds, leaking grotesque amounts of chartreuse snot, snoring endearingly.
the mormon church along the highway was engulfed with flames. firefighters were stationed on huge cranes, directing multiple hoses, the dark smoke contrasting rudely with the blue sky. the cause is still under investigation. the roof was completely gone.
i used the loo (and had stellar vanilla tea) at the brayton kaladi's. larger, yuppier, still smells of burnt coffee. the parking lot is still filled with potholes. i spent so much fucking time there when i was a teenager. coffee was $1; we would make a horrid mess at the upstairs counter, turning our drinks into sludgy powdery pastes, then take up space at the tables for hours, loudly playing cards. when i was seventeen i showed off my freshly pierced nipples in the upstairs bathroom. it is at times validating and mortal to be in a town composed nearly exclusively of memories, though the same can be said of pretty much anywhere, really. everything apart from RIGHTNOWTHISSECOND is a memory. and then we die.
s' s husband likes his meet raw. he gave the girls small hunks of his steak. the youngest gummed her piece, blood dripping from her chin, grinning angelically; when i pried the remains out of her hand she smeared spitty steak on my jeans. ("you're a vegetarian?" her husband asked last night, not trying to disguise his horror. "yeah" i replied abashedly. "i figured that wouldn't fly very well in alaska."). afterwards the w clan and i went to noble's. the three girls en masse have only ever been to denny's, and once. they threw an absolute fit once we were inside the restaurant. it was surreal, horrible, and more empathy-inducing than anything else i will possibly experience whilst in anchorage. s is an amazing fucking mother. i have so much respect for her, and for anyone who has ever raised a child. and despite these instances of absolute and utter demonic chaos, i love these kids. we walked back to their house in bright evening sun. it was fucking cold. the oldest held my hand. we walked around piles of dirty littered diapers in an alley, past crappy cars commandeered by glowering shifty men detroit leanin', past a young boy in only a t-shirt riding his bike alone down the middle of the icy street. i could not help but compare this life to mine. parenthood is a choice. i no longer feel quite as flaky to opt for weird cats and too many plants and "it's one in the morning i think i'll go drive around aimlessly whilst high la la la". or rather, i still feel terribly flaky, but very fucking lucky too.
my parent's old house looks exactly the same, apart from somebody else's vehicles parked in front. the snow along the sides of the roads is brown and filthy. i clean my windsheild every few blocks. the rental car has only radio; the last song i heard before i turned off the engine was motley crue's 'kickstart my heart.' produce is expensive. petrol is cheap. i remember why i drank a lot whilst living here. i love being around s and i love the mountains and i love how the air here doesn't feel like it's already been exhaled by a million other people, but i miss seattle. so this trip has been a good thing after all. it is nice to look for something (in this case, clarity?) and actually find it.