The Trailhead (and so it begins...)

Starting a blog seems sort of tacky to me. It is built on this assumption that people care about what I have to say or about my life. Seems a bit presumptuous. I am moving past this thought though, because I think it will be good for me.

I watched an episode of Northern Exposure (hello '90's!) the other night. Maggie decides to go camping for her 30th birthday and write letters to all her ex boyfriends (who happen to also be dead). Then she sends them off on a river and in the hope that she'll be freed from her past. In true dramatic fashion she gets stricken with appendicitis and must be rescued from her camping trip and so you are never really sure if it worked... but either way, this blog should be a similar approach. Bundle up all my crazy thoughts and spew them out to the interweb in an attempt to keep growing.

As for Northern Exposure, I am neither recommending or poo-pooing the show. I can only say that it kept me company on many lonely nights during my stint in Hoh Rainforest of Olympic National Park. I also hoped that the theme song played at loud volumes would disturb my neighbor through the very thin government-issue walls. It was payback for having to listen to his girlfriend's bird-like pleasure sounds one too many times.

If this blog had it's description on one of the old trail guides I am not sure what it would say. So, you may want to continue reading at your own risk. And you may ask, what is up with all the trail terminology? I like the idea of a switchback as a metaphor for life. Most of the time you don't feel like you are moving forward in life, but you always are, and then, sometimes you feel like you are taking on much more than you'd like all at once. It all evens out into this steady climb. I also need to milk the whole previous park ranger mystique for all it is worth. Sometimes I feel like it is the only thing I have done in life that sets me apart from the pack and one of the only things that has really surprised me about myself. I don't think it defines me, but it taught me a lot. I could be basing the theme of my blog on my favorite movie Mean Girls, in which case it would likely be called The Burn Book and I'd have to use words like "fugly" and "grool." Oh, but I'll probably use the word "grool" anyways because I think it's useful. Either way, if you plan on reading this, you should be happy I went with the trail angle instead of Mean Girls.