Day08 == Alaska not to Anchorage me any further...

I'm afraid that getting sick has broken my stride, so to speak. It's starting to seem like a larger and larger effort each time to tie up my boots, gather up my gloves, find my hats and face the cold, just to walk to the same familiar spots I've found within walking distance of my hostel.

That's the problem: walking. It's not that it takes a particularly large time investment to walk anywhere, but it does take a huge energy investment. In addition to the procedures delineated above, there's the plowing through snow that comes up to my shins, waiting for my glasses to un-fog (because I'm too stubborn to look for anti-fog spray, as was advised to me) and feeling stupid because I don't have anywhere to go. I don't mind having an open schedule, but walking around my square of Anchorage is turning desultory. What can I do to re-vitalize?

There's a zoo to the south of downtown, but it's pretty far south. The public transit bus only takes passengers to within ~four miles of the place, which I'm not willing to walk following my exhaustive six mile round trip hike on Day03. There are a few museums further into downtown, but they illustrate a more salient element of my dilemma: I don't really care. Has my enthusiasm run out, or am I just suggesting boring things to myself? Also relevant may be the fact that I forfeited spending Christmas with my family in favor of the potentially interesting things to do up here, and all I ended up doing on Christmas day was hanging around my hostel on the Internet.

What's my problem? I was having an amazing time until I got sick. Since then, I've just been zoned out. And maybe going a little crazy...

I gotta find somethin to do

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So here are the only pictures I took from today:



remember how I showed you it was snowing on Christmas? That's all the snow, piled up, from the parking lot of the place I go.

But that's unimportant. The real reason yesterday was interesting was that I caught a wider glimpse than ever before of the twisted world of my roommates. I'll start with Scarecrow, who it turns out is named Philip. He's a 47 year old homeless man who is staying at the Qupqugiaq until the new year on the kindness of its owner. He's also a street minister, and his congregation are the homeless of downtown Anchorage. First, a few short videos (the camera refuses to cooperate) to give you an idea of what Sca- er Philip is like:







Notice that I don't seem to care what he's saying. That's because he's spouting nonsense. A whole lot of it. He's apparently a sort of Messianic Jew who favors the "Old Convenant" teachings that explain how he was able to raise a dog from the dead. I swear if my camera worked any better, I would have dozens of minutes of footage of this guy being so weird. I eventually had to get a friend of mine that I was talking with online to call me to give me an excuse to duck out of the conversation. A little bit earlier in the night, Philip came in to repeatedly stack boxes of books in front of me. Apparently they're all the Bible, or some variation of it.

Good God, his teeth are awful.

But that wasn't even the more awkward moment of the night. Unfortunately, I don't have any footage or photographic evidence of what happened earlier, but I will try to convey it in the milieu of my time: snippets of IM conversations I had while it was going on:

me: Tracey

the homeless woman who stays here

is crazy

1:52 AM and she's stomping back and forth between her room and the turkish kitchen

hollering about how Chino, the indian guy, his accent isn't an accent but a voicebox the jews put there

friend: Wow
me: HAHAH

HAHAHHHAHAHAH

oh god this is so ahrd not to laugh

2:04 AM this Turkish chef

oh my

AHAHAHAHA

2:05 AM Tracey just told the turkish chef straight to his face she wanted to assassinate him

friend: ...

O_O

me: because he's part of the jewish pyramid scheme

friend: this is ridiculous

and insane

me: and he told her, real quiet, right to her face, inches away

2:06 AM "Please...please stop. You're hurting...my business. You're hurting....my feelings."

friend: hahahaha

oh man

me: i am not making ANY of this up




Soooo......yeah. Merry Post-Christmas, everybody.