I ran down the road, pants down to my knees, screaming, 'Please, come help me, that Canadian shaman gave a little too much to me,' and I'm writing a novel, because it's never been done before... ...a line from Father John Misty's song "I'm Writing a Novel" I don’t get philosophical about New Year's until…
December 25 The longest week is December 25-31. Christmas is Christmas, and then it's the bottom of the year's exhale until the door of the new year opens. Everyone is digesting their food. It's when you finish up things that are nearly done, theoretically. I know a funny name for this week, but it's inappropriate…
Continue reading ➞ Five Days of the Longest Week of the Year in Retrospect
Today is my 27th birthday. My mom just called to tell me that 27 years ago, she didn’t know if I was a boy or a girl, and I was six days late. I shuddered and said "sorry" but she said it was okay. Last year, I made these resolutions for my 26th year: Go…
It was my fault. Unfortunately, unlit road and dark stop sign and invisible intersection notwithstanding, it was entirely my fault. I bought an americano, proofread my essay about Poo Poo Point, and drove out of La Conner (where I always half-expect to bump into the writer Tom Robbins) for ten minutes, if that. No alcohol…
I finished working at 11, so I put some cheese, an apple, and a day-old pistachio-blackberry croissant in the passenger seat and drove to Issaquah to hike to Poo Poo Point, a knoll on the side of Tiger Mountain. The Washington Trails Association is adamant that Poo Poo Point is named for the train whistles…
Geographically speaking, I have caved in on myself. They say life does that in fall and winter. It caves in and shrivels up and burrows underground. It slows and hunches and reflects. I don’t like winter, so I think about all the places I went when it was warm. Most of the year, I've not…
It was 2006. I was a pasty, pubescent giantess in the throes of what I was working up the badassery to call my goth phase, and Ashley was petite, tan, popular, and sporty. I knew her as the cool girl who took my sophomore-level English and biology as a freshman, and as someone who would…
One day on the camino, I got talking to a woman and she told me this story, this fable: “Sometimes I do some personal assistant work for this older man back in Scotland. He lives downtown, and he’s got a terrier, and the terrier gets a walk every day, on the same route on the…
How do you write about the suburbs? Right now I’m staying in Puyallup, in the big house I grew up in. It’s got new carpets and my room is painted and we have different dogs than when I was a teen, but it’s the same house. Everything is familiar, so what is there? My days…
There is a scallop shell on my desk. It is real. It is the size of a man’s palm. It is smooth and shiny and white, but it has a dark stripe and that is why I chose it. It has what looks like a nibble taken from its bottom edge, no doubt from me…
Just like that. Just like that. Just like that I’m wearing a turtleneck, soaking my feet in hot water scented with spicy healing oils, listening to rich orchestral music, on my second massive American mug of tea, burning a candle, the lights low in the house full of things that are mine. There are root…
Last night, someone asked me to post a blog about my expectations I had before leaving. What came true? What didn't? I'll tell you. I’ll get tired. I’ll get blisters. I’ll wish I never packed this laptop (but I’m going to and there’s no convincing me otherwise). I did get tired, but the exhaustion was worst when I stopped going. As the days wore on, my body ached…
Chelsea the Writer 