I want to say that my personal hygiene has really taken a nosedive since I started working from home, but if I’m being honest, I didn’t shower all that regularly to begin with. Fortunately, I have enough out-of-the-house meetings and appointments that I’m forced to wear non-sweatpants a couple of times a week (and I’m not even counting yoga pants here!). If you spent a lot of time outside, you are probably at least kind of gross, too. Let’s find out! Continue reading “Quiz: How Gross Are You?”
I am starry-eyed over the notion of buying in bulk; I can’t wait to get those peanut butter-filled pretzels home to weigh and repackage them. It’s my commitment to calorie density that led me to this startling revelation: I love Costco. I don’t want to love it; I am filled with existential dread at the thought that I’m just like everyone else, pushing my giant shopping cart (or, for a really big trip, a pallet—eek!) up and down the aisles of this monument to excess.
I hate shopping. I hate the mental gymnastics of figuring out how much I have in checking (this would be less problematic, I realize, if I were more responsible with money, but here we are). I hate trying on clothes in the harsh lighting of the tiny fitting room, which is perhaps why I’ve been wearing essentially the same three outfits for literally years (my wardrobe can be recombined in endless permutations, and by endless, I mean maybe like five). I really hate grocery shopping, because I resent that I should have to spend money on something so boring and basic, and also because I despise cooking, so it’s like salt in the wound. Shopping is the worst. Continue reading “In the land of giants”
I did the twenty-first century equivalent of tearfully smashing my piggy bank, transferring all the money we’d diligently saved since I started my Big Girl Office Job into our checking account and waiting for it to disappear. I thought of all the meals we could’ve eaten out, of the gear I hadn’t splurged on, of the airfare I’d resisted booking with $2,600. Instead of all that, we were buying a head gasket.
Last week, our trusty 2007 Subaru Forester hit 182,000 miles. The week before that, it needed $2,600 in repairs. Continue reading “Sometimes you’re the windshield…”
I’ll get excited over price cuts on pool noodles, insist on debriefing experiences on personal trips, tell you about the roses, buds, and thorns of my day. I own several visors; my sunglasses perpetually dangle from my neck by a sweat-stained pair of Croakies. I put on my loudly patterned Patagonia-brand baggy shorts one leg at a time, just like everybody else. But goddammit, don’t make me go to the high ropes course.
I’m an experiential educator, and I hate ropes courses.
There. I said it. Continue reading “True Confessions: I’m an experiential educator, and I don’t wanna go to the ropes course”
There’s a guy staggering around, looking dazed and mumbling something about his insurance coverage, blood seeping from his scalp. Two other patients—one of whom has a badly broken femur protruding from her pant leg—are tangled together on the damp ground. “Hey,” I say to the head wound guy, “I’m Emma. I have some wilderness medical training. Can I help you?”
So there I am, walking down the trail, chatting amiably with my companions, when we hear shouting. There, around the corner, is a pretty gruesome scene.
There’s a guy staggering around, looking dazed and mumbling something about his insurance coverage, blood seeping from his scalp. Two other patients—one of whom has a badly broken femur protruding from her pant leg—are tangled together on the damp ground. Continue reading “Hoping for the best, expecting the worst: A Backcountry Serenity Prayer”
my alaskan odyssey 