It’s been a while since I posted

And much has happened in the interim. Sometimes the task of saying witty things about my experiences gets buried under the weight of living those experiences, and for the last few weeks I haven’t had the slightest inclination to write anything down. I realize that many things I said I would write about have gone unmentioned, most notably Sasquatch Fest, but I’ve decided for the time being to let them lie where they are. But much has happened, and I therefore have much to say.

First, there are two as-yet-unmentioned pieces by me in the Daily, a letter to the editor I wrote for Free Speech Friday (columnists are allowed to write letters for that feature) — if you scroll a little further down, there’s a letter under mine criticizing a column I wrote earlier in the week — and my parting shot, which ran in the last issue of the school year. I will point out that the latter, not counting letters and so on, was my 69th published piece in the Daily as well as my last. I’ll leave the implications of this fact as an exercise for the reader.

As per my father’s predictions, Byran’s and my week of backpacking in the Olympic National Park was a wet one. Fire building was usually a forty-minute, two-man ordeal using every trick Bryan and I had up our sleeves to coax a pile of sodden wood into burning. On only one night did we fail to get one started, when it was pouring rain and the only viable wood, a pile of chopped cedar stacked alluringly next to the deserted ranger station, was so damp throughout that the flame seemed to die from lack of desire to live, much like Queen Amidala in Episode III. You may not be aware, but both Bryan and I are Eagle Scouts, and the collective backwoods knowledge we possess is formidable: building shelters, tying knots, lashing things, treating injuries, finding wood for fires, keeping food away from critters, etc. Worrying that we didn’t bring enough white gas to last the whole trip, we built a tripod and used it to cook over our campfire for nearly three whole days. At Enchanted Valley, where it rained so unrelentingly that it sounded like a constant drum-roll inside the tent, we stayed dry outside thanks to a roomy shelter we built with a tarp, a tree, some rope, and stakes carved from sticks. Basically, we kick ass at staying alive in the woods. The Park was beautiful and teeming with life, both flora and fauna. We saw cougar, elk, and deer tracks on the trails every day, and the deer in our base camp at Enchanted Valley came within arm’s reach without fear. The plant life covers every available surface, including other plant life. On the second-to-last day on the trail, I observed that the whole scene resembled nothing so much as a Jim Henson movie set, and once you saw it that way you couldn’t unsee it. Everywhere was vivid green, brown, and red. The only major hang-up on the trip was Bryan’s injury to his heels, which looked like raw hamburger by the fourth day. How he managed to get such huge blisters, I can only imagine.

The trip was very peaceful and reflective, exactly what I needed to rearrange my mental furniture after the stresses of graduation. Being so early in the season, the entire place was basically deserted besides Bryan and I — when we ascended the glacier, ours was only the second set of footprints in the snowfield. We spent six days sheltered from the conveniences and distractions of electricity, email, phones, and the internet, and it was grand beyond words.

What we discovered, however, is that dropping out of civilization for a week has consequences which pile up while you are gone. We hiked out by 10:30 on Saturday morning and made it back to Seattle by 2, only to turn around after showering and drive Kelly and her then-boyfriend to Marta’s graduation / going-away party in Renton, where we ate delicious food from many lands, but mostly Ukraine. After that, Bryan and I met my extended family at Safeco Field for the Mariners game and more food, and then my parents drove me back with them to Gig Harbor for my little sister’s high school graduation the next day. Saturday was busy, basically.

I thought things would ease up after that and I could begin all the loafing about I had planned for my month of joblessness, but my older sister followed me back to Seattle, joined the next day by my little brother, and near-constant rowdiness ensued. All of my friends think Jenn is hilarious (most of them didn’t meet Alex). I chased them out of the house on Wednesday afternoon and had a brief respite before Erin arrived on Friday evening.

The wackiness of her visit was of a different character, owing to the fact that a certain mutual friend of ours came out of the closet a few weeks ago. In case you weren’t aware, last weekend was Gay Pride weekend. Appropriately, we met him at Neighbours, the most notorious gay disco in Seattle, on Saturday night to meet his boyfriend. I hadn’t ever been before, and I must say that, despite the unusual number of people, Neighbours is just like every other dance club I’ve ever been to, excepting the presence of lonely looking drag queens and shirtless gay men locking lips. The boyfriend was indeed cute as promised, but 20 years old, meaning that we had to dance in the “Neighbors Underground” section for underage queers, where the newly gay boys are, if anything, even more exuberant in their displays of affection. I’m not much of a dancer (by choice, not ability) even after downing two double gin-and-tonics to loosen up, but I enjoyed myself fairly well given that fact. The next morning, I woke up hung-over to drive to the gay pride parade on Broadway, accompanied at the last moment by Aiko and one of her friends. I found the parade much more entertaining than the disco. The usual collection of bizarre costumes as well as some really very extraordinary displays of martial arts and such filed by over the course of three hours, and a good time was had by all. Afterwards Erin and I escorted our friend to the festival in Volunteer Park, which was like a lame, queer version of Bumbershoot. Unfortunately, when you choose musical acts based on their sexual preference, rather than on talent, the results are lackluster at best. We left around 4, so hopefully the show improved later in the day.

I must say, I have mixed feelings about the whole gay pride movement. On the one hand, the battle for equal rights for homosexuals is an important one that must be waged with every tool at our disposal. On the other hand, here in liberal Seattle, the entire thing seems like such a non-issue that I have a hard time caring. When people ask me to “show support for our gay brothers and sisters” or whatever by watching a parade, I can’t help thinking to myself, “oh you’re gay? That’s cool, have fun doing that. I’m going to go back to doing what I was doing before you told me.” It absolutely boggles my mind that politicians in this country have nothing better to do than say to their constituents, essentially, “don’t put your dick in that man’s ass! I said no!” As long as it’s not your ass, what interest do you have in the matter, anyway? Let me tell you something, conservative legislators: I’m going to do with my genitals what I please, when I please, and good luck stopping me. Of course, again for reasons beyond the scope of my understanding, lots of people care very much about what two consenting adults do with their genitals. Erin and I went to buy coffee after the parade at the 7-11 by my house, and the clerk there gave us dirty looks. I couldn’t figure out why, until I realized that he was probably a Muslim and we were both covered in Gay Pride buttons, stickers, and so on.

I’ll admit that I’m not a very good host. As much as I enjoy the company of guests, some part of me always wants them to leave me alone so I can get back to reading my book or playing my video game in peace. Entertaining is taxing on my chi. It was nice to share the house last week, but I’m glad it’s wholly mine again.

In news outside my own narrow existence, the Supreme Court just extended eminent domain to private developers as well as the government, arguing that allowing Pfizer and company to tear down people’s home in New London, CT and replace them with new buildings will generate increased tax revenue and boost the economy, thus serving the public good. If this precedent scares you, congratulations! You are capable of rational thought and historical analysis. It frightens me that people write off the Supreme Court with just a shrug. Guess what, ass-hats? The things those nine men say is the law, to an even greater extent than the way congress votes. They get to change the root of all law in this country, and we’re not allowed inside the proceedings, as we are with Congress (for the most part). Disgustingly, the majority opinion was led by the liberal members of the court and lauded by the New York Times. But, in a stroke of poetic justice, a civil liberties group is going to use the precedent to tear down a justice’s house and replace it with a hotel where visitors will receive, rather than a Gideon Bible, a copy of Atlas Shrugged. Really, they’re going to.

Finally, perhaps owing to the governmental creep such as the above, I’ve lately become interested in cryptography. If you have something to say to me that you don’t want others snooping on, you can send me encrypted email at zachm [at] cs [dot] washington [dot] edu using this key. The encryption algorithm, PGP, is provably unbreakable within the age of the universe, so your little secrets will be between us. If you use Thunderbird, which you should, there’s a PGP mail plug-in that will speed this process up. I won’t bother giving set-up instructions; they are non-trivial, and anyone who has the computer chutzpah to follow through on this won’t need my help. Along the same lines, off-the-record instant messaging is not unbreakable but at least provides some measure of authentication and security. Install it iffen you have some sensitive info to pass to me through that medium.

I haven’t given up on this site. Not hardly. A photo update through the present is in the works.