Our favorite field dogs were regaled with treats, plenty of playtime, and putting the humans to work. Grilled pineapple, pineapple slaw, burgers stacked high on homemade rolls, and berry cheesecake were laid on the table. Balloon sculptures, ribbons, Happy Birthday garlands, and party hats adorned the tent walls. Smiles and glitter illuminated our faces. Little yips and big howls filled the summer air. All the big fuss was to celebrate our hard work and send off us mid-season technicians.

Who you end up working with in a conservation job can be a roll of the dice. I think my dice landed on the luckiest numbers, whatever those might be. I ended up with people who could show up, perform their duties, cook great meals, and put a little back into camp when time allowed. The reciprocation and tending to the field site isn’t something you see all that often. But here, the legacy of the project holds very strong after about three decades. Hot running water, stairs down to the beaches, reflective signs to mark safe docking areas, upgrading the graveled trails– everything that makes camp life easier was because people chose to use their hands and make it so. For that, I am especially grateful.

While my skills are not fit for constructing much of anything, my hands will readily lend themselves to crafting a memory. As visual creatures, much of the information we take in on a daily basis comes in the form of colors and letters and shapes that translate to meaning. So I arranged some of those, carved them out of a pink eraser-like block, stamped them onto the back of cereal boxes and such, and obliterated my posture in the process!

How lovely it is to be an observer!

A translator.

A maker.

A conduit.

To take the passage of hours, the weight of a fish in my gloved hands, the frustrations of untangling nets, the sorrow of a degraded fishery, the swell of a beating heart, and the joy of working in nature…and alchemize it into an array of inked lines.

❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆

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Between the two phone calls I’ve had today, I will admit to feeling a twinge of homesickness. When I called my boss this afternoon, I let him know that I’ll only be touching back down in town for a few days before I’m back in the TSA security line taking off my boots and checking my bags back over to the East Coast. It’s hardly enough time to unpack. And that’s the thing about living between worlds– the only things that stay the same are the things that can withstand change. Change in time zones, change in wardrobe, change in title, change in relationship, change in climate, change in geography, change in availability. The luggage I’ve had since 2015 will get slammed around in hundreds of unfamiliar terminals and still be the first familiar thing I see, as it lazily rotates around the carousel and I jockey for position with people who have no sense of airport etiquette.

Compared to suitcases, people don’t take so well to being jostled around. Change causes friction and not always a clean break, sometimes a dissolution of confidence in those bonds. With the life I lead, I can’t confidently say that I’ll have both feet in someone’s world with any temporal regularity. Some people and relationships are reliable and constant, like a fork or a spoon, present for every meal. I’d say I’m more akin to a whisk. Wherever it may be in the kitchen, it’s ready for that special recipe when you need it.

Now, I don’t want to invent a kitchen utensil binary, because I can think of a few friends who could be ladles… or Scrub Daddies. But my point is, life is more flavorful when the tools you have are suited for the tasks at hand!

My second call was from Gabi, and I forgot to tell her that I still have a small handful of the dill pickle snack mix with me, and I can’t wait to get a resupply when I see her next. Even in a long distance friendship, it feels like I just saw her yesterday, and today, and I’ll see her tomorrow when we’re both gill netting for fisheries research. Two different sides of the country, two different state agencies, and one shared activity. How cool is that?!

Speaking of cool, it looks like the last rays of the sun have taken residence behind some quick-moving clouds. Sonar is begging me to throw his frisbee and Aris is pawing at some rocks on the shore. I better bask in the breezy weather before it becomes an inferno in the kitchen tent. My boss, Ryan, went to the bigger village that’s downriver from us and managed to find the last remaining potatoes on the Lower Yukon (Josh attempted last week, but with state funds on pause until the fiscal new year, food stamps being issued simultaneously on the 1st, and no barge shipment until now, produce options had been ravaged and he had no such luck). It’s only right that I do these tubers justice and make a loaded potato soup– dairy and gluten free of course.

Time Jump!! ~3 hours later ☼

Soup = Success! No photo, because the crew was hungry.

To round out the evening of culinary goodness, I served it with some pink lemonade and GF+DF strawberries & cream brioche buns! To stand in for the properties of wheat, there are gums and husk powders and flour combinations galore. I’m overjoyed that these were even edible, but it’s the biggest reward that they were enjoyable for everyone! And sure enough, I used a whisk :)

What’s on the Horizon:

There are two articles (more like twenty…) floating around in my noggin that will need a home soon: One on the topic of conservation having a PR problem, and the other is trying to answer the question of if our environments are responding to our grief, how can we recognize it?

And– I’m writing a book. As an experiment. You know how there are quarter-life milestones like getting married, running a marathon, going for a PhD, etc? Well I haven’t done any of those, so it’s time for me to start outlining and character building. This is an exercise of free will, skill building, deepening my connections with the literary community, and an attempt to reduce my scroll-time. What could possibly go right!!

❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆

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When we bring fish out of the water with the gill nets, most of them are released after being measured lengthwise, visually sexed1, and four scales kept. A small sample size is taken back to shore to be sampled. Retention is a formal and documented process to ensure that we aren’t doing more harm than good.

As you can probably imagine, it is nearly impossible to get perfectly sterile conditions when working out in the bush, but we maintain the highest level of cleanliness that’s just shy of not breathing in the fish’s direction. Different blades and different gloves are used for the external incision and internal collection. A few other disposable items like tweezers, parchment paper, and paper towels are also swapped out before cross-contamination can occur.

Before the fish arrives onto our dissection table, it’s done a lot of work. Growing up from small fry to completing a journey out into the open ocean and back upstream again– life is not easy for these creatures.

In a small cavity behind their head and gills, lies the heart of the salmon and the Pulse of the Yukon.

Even after death, the cardiomyocytes (heart cells) of these fish survive due to energetic storage and low oxygen demand. Thankfully I’m not squeamish, because it is surreal to see. It is a bloody and biological mirror into my own mortality.

It is something to be treated with reverence and care. If not for science’s sake, for the sake that how we treat our relatives matters.

❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆

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We paddled around the eddy that our camp is nestled next to for a few hours. Moreso we let the current whirl us around until a cliffside was threatening to capsize us, and then I frantically dodged it while Aris lazed by my feet, completely unbothered.

There’s quite a bit of boat traffic that runs by us, so the occasional wake splashed water on-board and in-hair. I didn’t mind, and neither did my canine captain (she runs things around here). It was the most relaxed I’d been in a while and it felt like the sun was warmly melting my anxieties away and the river was gently encouraging my hopes to float.

And then, *VVVVVVVVVVV*, the hum of two more boats arriving clicked my work brain back on. Three of our colleagues came to visit from Emmonak– which I’m told is over 100 river miles from here and takes 5-ish hours by boat. They came bearing gifts. We traded them some burgers fresh off the grill for some new mattresses, cots, and 2x4 wood planks.

Those three guys didn’t stay long, because the downriver trip was still another 4 hours. The food didn’t last long either. We originally pulled out a few racks of ribs, but since most of our food has to be stored frozen, they didn’t thaw in time. So, we just had a round two of BBQ for dinner! I don’t typically eat much red meat at home, but I’d be endangering myself if I turned down any meals during field season.

But trust me, we’re eating quite well in camp. Yesterday was my day off and I got started on dinner for the crew four hours early. The kitchen tent was hot and the mosquitos magnetized to the propane vapors. First thing I started prepping was a loaf of focaccia so it could proof for as long as possible.

Next up was dessert. Reaching the pinnacle of camp cooking was a success. I was able to make red delicious apples taste good, and in a recipe I adapted to be gluten-free no less! The apple-peach crumble bars were a hit. Savory stuff came next, and mind the sequence– I like to get aromatic in the oven and I find that sweets absorb that essence like a sponge. Things started to sizzle when the Italian sausage hit the frying pan, the red peppers blistered in the broiler, and the onions slowly caramelized. Three packages of gnocchi and half a box of gluten-free pasta went into salted water and came out al-dente. Plates were piled up high and went into the sink scraped clean. Stains of red sauce lingered around smiles and I had a fleck of thyme in my teeth. Telltale signs of a job well done and the prize of “best dinner” earnestly won.

There’s no better satisfaction than doing my part to keep the good energy going around camp.

Rain in the forecast means it’ll be a soup frenzy here soon. I really can’t complain! As my coworker aptly noted, we are very much solar powered, and grey skies relinquish us to our tents. Warm meals are the best thing to gather ‘round.

Bleak weather is no matter because I finally figured out how to keep my hands as dry as possible in my fishing gloves! And, there’ll be a package waiting for me tomorrow– my first pair of binoculars, gifted by a friend whom I believe is a gift herself.

I’m not sure when my next hike will be, but there’s plenty to look out for from where we are. A couple days ago, I was driving the fishing boat and three young bull moose were swimming across the river 159 meters from us, and another two females on our ride back!

The next fishing shift saw a black bear swim across and scurry along just outside of camp too. I’d be on edge, but thankfully Sonar and Aris have been excellent wildlife detection and alert systems for years. We all look out for each other.

Keep a lookout for my next field report, because the King Salmon are coming through and necropsies have begun!

❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆

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And that’s field work in a nutshell!

Plans often reshape to the constraints of time, wind, personnel, temperature, daylight, and diesel. Busybodies like myself love these kinds of jobs though, there are an endless amount of half-finished projects lying around. At the beginning of the season, it’s all about putting hammer to nail and staple gun to whatever needs staple gunning. A little later though, operations start to take shape. I’m getting trained up on the procedures and it feels so good to be doing science again.

My favorite version of science, too. The legwork. Like most scientific endeavors, there’s a brain and there’s the legs. The brain concerns itself with identifying the variables, calculating hazards, detailed reporting, and other brainy minutiae. Us legs, we just keep it all going forward. We drive the boats, handle slimy fish, scribble measurements, and mend the gillnets. Obviously the brain communicates with the legs, and we had a lovely visit from Carl. He’s a software engineer who coded the program that apportions fish counts based on what we see on the sonar and what our nets bring in. I’m grossly oversimplifying2, but it’s very important (and impressive) stuff. Sometimes these brain folk forget what it’s like to be a technician– breathing more gasoline fumes than oxygen, primary social interaction with the same seven people, and sleeping in a bug net that makes late-night outhouse trips an absolute ordeal. My first impression of Carl was the fact that he made us all steak and two batches of cookies that were free of dairy and gluten, and freaking delicious. Food is my favorite form of communication.

Speaking of which, I scored extra points in my interview when I mentioned being a good cook, and I finally got to grace the crew with the most legendary arepas I’ve ever made. To communicate their satisfaction, everyone cleaned their own plates. Literally– we rotate who cooks based on who is off that day, and the responsibility of dish-doing is yours, too. Unless you threw down the best Venezuelan food the camp has ever seen!!

Usually we have long and overlapping conversations in the kitchen tent, but that night, we couldn’t seem to get back outside fast enough. Mealtime is at 8pm to allow for all the shifts to be onshore and it’s hard to miss the announcement. Aris and Sonar howl on command and summon our hungry selves.

After prepping and cheffing for two hours, dinner was gone in ten minutes. The sun was still beaming and it was one of the warmer nights we’ve had. Keela was knee deep in the garden, Josh with a cigarette and a book, I was petting Aris as she gnawed on a frisbee, and the rest of my coworkers were debating World Cup gambling strategies3.

The King salmon are starting to trickle upriver and that’ll kick things up a notch. Also, the mosquitos have yet to arrive. But for now, cortisol is low and contentment is high.

❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆

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A 21-year old woman had a breath-alcohol content of 0.286, failed the field sobriety test, and asked the State Trooper, “Have you ever tried this test with a sober person?”.

A servicemember refused the field sobriety tests, and he instead told Troopers, “just take me to jail”.

In a stolen sedan, another man drove onto the walking trail by the public library. He claimed the car belonged to his mother, and when officers asked what her name was, he said her name was “vehicle”.

Each of these drunk drivers have names, ages, hometowns, and cars with makes and models. They also have religions, parents, jobs, and mutuals on Instagram.

Seeing this public information makes me wonder what happens in private. Working as a bartender for several years gave me plenty of confidence to gauge a customer’s limits and issue limitations.

Off the clock, in the midst of a function, it’s harder to keep those tabs on friends and acquaintances. It’s even harder to be the buzzkill. It’s nearly impossible to shrug off feeling like the Fun Police. At least those difficulties don’t make it to public record.

Silence and dismissal of someone’s substance misuse can have grave consequences beyond columnal shaming. I refuse to be a bystander– and the alcohol service training I’ve received won’t let me. The science and failed relationships and obituaries and PSAs and bodycam footage and watching a grown man be brought to tears confessing that he’d spent thousands to fight a DUI charge won’t let me turn a blind eye. So I have no problem standing my ground and accepting some discomfort.

Yesterday–on my literal ground, I hosted a kickback with a few friends to celebrate closing on my first property and my two year anniversary of living in Alaska. On the invite, I had a box with an X through it to explicitly indicate no alcohol. It’s completely standard for people to bring a six-pack or a cute bottle of wine as congratulations, with the dual purpose of “social lubricant”, but I don’t want to elevate that norm. Too few settings allow for us to be fully present with each other.

At work, we’ve got tasks and obligations and deadlines and screens and bosses to please. At home, we’ve got dishes in the sink and mail we should read and showers to take and work to get ready for. At bars, we’ve got overlapping chatter and bartender’s attention to grab and another round and another round and another round and the tab that always comes due. At the end of a long driveway, we’ve got a fire pit and budding poplar trees and something delicious on the grill and acreage to explore and a sun that won’t yield until summer’s end. It’s a precious thing– arriving at my personal sanctuary, and embarking on this sort of mutual peacefinding. The implication is that we keep our senses sharp and our judgements unclouded.

Part of making peace, I suppose, implies keeping my expectations realistic… because two of my guests brought alcohol. Though my wishes were more than implied, and were indeed communicated– I had to double down, as is to be expected when social conditioning needs to be rewired. Third spaces are not devoid of conflict or confrontation, nor should they be. When making light of my condition (I prefer that to a rigid “rule”), there was no hostility, no threat of exile from community or gathering, and no leveraging of wage or humiliation. Even in this low-stakes scenario, correcting the conduct of people close to me isn’t easy or without an iota of reproach. But the alternative of trying to wish someone into your ideal of health and politeness isn’t possible, despite my best attempts (recall: failed relationships).

Failure and friction are components of harm reduction, or at least I believe so. I also believe that even imperfect attempts will lead to better outcomes. Smaller Public Safety sections in the news, ten less miles driven while under the influence, another mocktail ordered on girl’s night out, and maybe one less man stupidly referring to a woman as an object. Cheers to that!

❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆

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The next morning, I was a year older, and still the youngest person in the room for a collaborative city planning session with other businessfolk and Mayor Mindy O’Neall. I’ve been living here almost two years now, and seen how seasonality shapes the social scene. In the bitter winter, Alaskans aren’t dormant, we’re just dispersed and trying not to dawdle when the degrees are dwindling. Renowned for our state’s wintry stillness, we still maintain the motion of life and community.

Here are my highlights from the meeting!

• More life and greenery where sides of buildings interact at ground/street level

• Activation of spaces beyond 8am-5pm

• Give people a chance to donate their time & increase sense of ownership (modeled after Habitat for Humanity)

• Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED)

• Micro retail pilot program, small storefronts open in the summertime

• Free recreation to encourage participation

• Incremental growth, try & adapt over time, purposefully, at scale

• The Just City Index

  • Resilience, Identity, Democracy, Mobility, Fairness, Choice, Rights, Acceptance, Welfare, Aspiration, Power, Engagement

• “If you travel/have lived outside of Alaska, what kinds of shopping and leisure layouts have you enjoyed?”

  • My hometown of Annapolis was the example I provided, because there is a noticeable gradient to the flow of activity. The centuries-old spires and rotundas of government buildings have their own centripetal force, drawing people inward to the historic capital. As the workdays finish and the deliverables dissolve into a Maryland sunset, the gravitational pull comes from the Chesapeake Bay.

    

  • Stepping outside the white collar employment infrastructure, there’s upscale retail spaces with boutique clothing, bespoke leather goods, and fine art. A few steps down the red brick road, local commodity shops start to blend in with their mix of trinkets for tourists, books, t-shirts, and blue crab memorabilia. When you’ve popped in and out of these stores and window shopped aplenty, there’s fresh caught seafood, drinks to clink, and ice cream to satisfy the sweetest of teeth. Arriving at this delicious endpoint is punctuated by a distinguished skyline of sails along the dock’s edge. Enjoying live music and spillover social settings is not cost prohibitive– it creates cohesive draw towards downtown, and the Annapolitan attitude resonates.

• Workforce attraction and retention; necessary for extending hours

• “What would help build economic security and encourage more investment?”

  • In an agriculture roundtable interview the day before, I heard from a microgreens farmer about part of his business strategy including bulk pre-orders. If we could translate this into a commerce platform that matched small businesses with big buyers and handled logistics– we’d be supporting development in a completely new way. One that enables security, stability, rapport, and continuity.

    • Here’s an example of what this might look like in practice: Say a tour group of 30+ people has an early morning drive down to Denali. On their way out of Fairbanks, they’ve already pre-arranged to pick up fresh bagel sandwiches from the local bakery for everyone. With ample time, deposit in hand, invoice sent, and customers satisfied, one big transaction can propel mutual flourishing. (Yes, I just read The Serviceberry)

• Buildings in the Central Business District can be built to 100% lot capacity, forgoing the need to use rentable/useable square footage for a parking lot, defers to street or garage parking

• Feels like there is a hesitancy to build on the river after the 1967 flood

  • There is a need to restore healthy water culture

• Creating novel experiences and looping the activities [Trolley → Pioneer Park (aka Alaskaland) → River float → Walking tour]

• Small buildings with small footprints are easier to maintain, smaller costs and less brittle financing, & offer more adaptable infrastructure versus Walmart and other monstrously sized properties that few entities could afford/manage

• Roadway spillover is a sign of good activity, often occurring in the summer

• Consistency in messaging

• Our environment, and the context of Interior Alaska already keeps us on our heels, we need to be concentrating resources in a coherent and applicable direction

• I expressed my own hesitancy to going out because I have to plan around early closures and/or sporadic business hours

• Land banking

• $6M properties that won’t be bought unless it’s going to be developed into something huge

• The small businesses do the leg work of increasing property value, culture, and place identity, while larger/commercial landholders benefit without contributing and create artificial scarcity

• Senior and assisted living are some of the bigger buildings downtown with high density, but residents have limited disposable income and spending power

It feels so good to have people in leadership that openly care about building for a shared future, and open invitations to people like me who will be living in it. I will keep using my head, my heart, and my hands to give back to the Golden Heart City so that care will carry on– though I hope this cold streak doesn’t!

❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆

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For now, I’m stuck with speculation and an inner critic to entertain all the uncertainty.

It’s brutal, disciplinary, dissatisfied, and the scrutiny of my inner monologue has scarred my psyche for years. If I fail to catch an error, plot hole, or connotation that’s off kilter, on my own accord, the external critique will keep me up at night. But, I may have become desensitized to the simplest of criteria. Sometimes rejections are issued for incompatibility to the themes, genre, voice, and vibe that are being sought. It isn’t a cognitive failure. That’s what my rational brain tells me, anyway.

Every now and then, the irrational part of me gets to take the reins.

What if the ringer I put my work through isn’t rigorous enough? Where will the audience and judges find the weak link? Probably my transitions, use of conjunctions as sentence-starters that’re sub-academic (and contractions, now that I mention it), or perhaps they’ll attribute their deferral to my alliterative tendencies. I could brush these off as stylistic differences, but then I’m presented with more options. Throw it all to the wind– or rework what I once saw as without flaw? When I’m in the parentally-constructed chasm of conditional love– acceptance feels so safe, so matter of fact. Earning awards and finding a publication with a highly engaged readership where you belong is a sense of security I can only taste in doses.

The essay contests I won in high school are currently wedged in my permanent retainer. The taste is of three consecutive sweeps that I savored several years ago. The crumb of creative recognition still lingers in my mouth because I recently wrote an email expressing my gratitude to the Fleet Reserve Agency members who funded the prizes.

I put all $300 toward my non-refundable deposit to attend Fordham for journalism, which was plundered by the pandemic and near-homelessness, but bore fruit much sweeter still.

I didn’t encounter Manhattan’s ruthlessness compounding on my own, I didn’t have to dorm with divas on daddy’s dollar, and I didn’t have to interview A-holes for A’s on a transcript. I cut my losses, fled to Florida, and started living a life that I’m uniquely equipped to chronicle.

Now in Alaska, and in the New Year, I’m sure that the remnants will be dislodged by the next success I sink my teeth into.

❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆

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When companies pre-collect your consent– it’s hard to Just Say No.

Bernie Sanders released a YouTube video that sounded the alarm for AI overtaking the working class. Put simply, the ease of access and deceptively low cost of computerized labor will swindle millions of Americans out of their already insufficient income. The tone of much other reporting has come across as alarmist, but it is rooted in a reality that’s far from artificial.

Late summer, in the span of a month, I resigned from two jobs. Each of them had some AI infractions, but here’s a tidbit that I find is worth lamenting.

For a year, I had been working for a small business doing social science research here in Alaska. A very place-based, rapport-centric line of work for my boss. Me, on the other hand– I was assisting on miscellaneous things, including framing an oil painting of her dog.

One of my less heinous assignments was to produce a comic to insert in a research report about sub-ice methane. My initial excitement wore off quickly when I realized how daunting it is to have my paycheck dependent on the rapid production of art. I managed to finish in a few weeks, and the final product is something that I’m less than proud of. But every idea, dialogue, character, scene, and stroke of my knockoff Apple Pencil was my own.

Then, we needed a title for it, and my boss circumvented the creator (me!!!) and consulted ChatGPT. They were unremarkable or total-yawn-fest at best. My blood was simmering. All I could eke out was, “Gimme five minutes.” So, I went and collected myself. Luckily, I can create out of spite and fury quite well. I ended up titling my piece “Bubbles Up from Down Below.”

And the five minutes I took cost her a whole $1.67 (based on me making $20/hour).

With a whole human brain at your disposal for the low low price of $20/hour, why not USE IT??

Anyways, here’s part of the proof-of-concept stuff I made :)

My silly human brain loves patterns and wordplay and rhythm and cohesion. So, I latched onto this idea of having a panel for a “Moose in the Spruce”. I spent a good while getting the detail of how the snow dresses the branches of spruce trees. Even though it was background illustration, it is immediately recognizable for anyone who looks out into the winter wonderland of Alaska.

It got completely scrapped.

Didn’t think I’d let it see the light of day after that, but now I’m thinking it might make for a cute sticker!

So, here’s that!

Side comment: You can’t replace the double O with a U, because then it becomes Muse, but the U could be replaced with OO and not change phonetically or meaning. Moose and Spruce are also used as plurals to represent multiple oversized deer or common arctic tree species. My depiction only has one moose, but multiple spruce :)

Epilogue: I struggled to illustrate methane bubbles in ice, because my only depiction of them was from pictures, not experience. A few months later, after a funemployment fall, I visited the UAF Museum of the North during a leadership retreat. The Threshold 32॰F exhibit moved me to tears. I stood before another artists’ depiction of the bubbles, and I swear there was a lightbulb flashing brightly over my head. The techniques for frozen movement were simple but stunning. White dots dragged down created the illusion of the methane moving slowly to the surface. I nearly chased down Klara Maisch as we left the museum. I had to tell her how serendipitous and significant this was for me. The first snow fell around us as we stood outside the entryway, gushing over a landscape that few people will ever witness.

We need real art. We need varying visions of the same subject material. Our perspectives matter. It’s worth standing in the cold for, because craft and creation warm the soul.

❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆

Thanks for stepping into the Frontier Sphere! Restacking ↺, liking ♥, commenting your thoughts 𖦹 and sharing 🔗 really helps me find an audience of explorers like you!

Warm wishes, Jazzy 𐂂

────────

I opened up a TikTok account last year to experiment with a more “casual” social media ecosystem. Instagram had just become a little too serious and curated for me to infodump, shitpost, and do just about anything without meeting my perfectionist prerequisites to posting. I was consuming relentlessly. Creating for a small and completely unknown audience was less intimidating. I’ve been enjoying showing off thrifted outfits in my office, the beauty of Alaska, and the occasional lip-sync, because I wasn’t conventionally attractive at age 14 when Musical.ly was in its heyday.

The followers trickled in and 120 people gave a damn about my self-experiment.

Now, over 1,000 do.

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I didn’t bring a laptop to class that day. Mine is getting the speakers repaired in Texas, and I didn’t want to risk the one that was lent to me in the elements. 16 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes sounds like a recipe for malfunction. My trusty notebook and pencil remain superior. But, for all intents and purposes, I was supposed to have shown up last Tuesday, device-in-hand.

My class was going to be doing a writing session to build our final papers, each of us reporting our findings about disaster mitigation and response in our hometowns. As far left, humanitarian, anti-imperialist and anti-militarist as I might be, the Homeland Security and Emergency Management discipline is where I feel I can make a lot of difference. It’s my minor for all of those reasons & more! The climate crisis is a well-known “threat multiplier”, and the staggering amount of people being forced to relocate is my target for research and policy development. Having your life uprooted and then having to navigate new norms can be an unseen challenge for the survivors of natural disasters. I want to change that.

Such a calling demands humanity, compassion, and a tolerance for suboptimal circumstances.

None of which are in the wheelhouse of Artificial Intelligence.

So, handing over 13 weeks of research and discussion to AI was just unthinkable. As I put on my hat, coat, and mittens to abstain from the exercise, my professor approached me. I politely let them know why I was going to spend my next hour elsewhere.

I had so much more to say, but I just needed to be walking away, moving slower than my thoughts, and cooling down from the raging fire that was in my throat, pounding in my chest, and rising to my face.

It all happened so fast.

I walk out.

I press record.

I talk to a screen.

I call my friend.

We rage about our shitty days.

I get home.

Video gets posted.

Hundreds of thousands of notifications begin to flood my phone.

I realized that so many people echoed my frustration. SO MANY. The swell of support from other professors and fellow academics was remarkable. Truly, I’ve never seen a comment section so unified.

I also realized that while we, as individuals, cannot bargain with billionaires to stop their push for an AI takeover, we can resist in small, but meaningful scenarios such as mine.

Something I’ve learned in my years of advocacy work, is that an action must have an avenue for multiple audiences in order to effect change.

My minute-long, in-the-moment rant reached far and wide (far beyond my aforementioned 120 followers and average 1,000 views), across age demographics from 14 to 60 and above. But it would be foolish to expect meaningful redirection away from AI in higher learning if I didn’t address my professor directly about my concerns.

And so I did. [I also read it aloud for 70,000 people]

────────

Professor X,

I’m following up after class today to express my personal disinterest in using artificial intelligence as a replacement for critical thinking and scholastic aptitude. Even offering to let it “just do formatting” requires me to surrender my Actual Intelligence. I’ve always been a curious and creative person, and enthusiastic about the tools at our fingertips to learn about the world in which we live. I don’t know if you’re familiar, but I’ve had a very unconventional academic journey. Lots of ups, downs, transfers, drop outs– and I just try, try, and try again.

I persist because I value my grit, my work ethic, my rationale, my sharp eye for patterns, my passion for justice, my willingness to be a newcomer, my style, and my substance.

I put all of this into my work, because I have a standard for authenticity.

I expect people to reveal their reasons for persisting in the things they share. Churning out formulaic paragraphs and bullet points stripped and devoid of character lends itself to apathy. And I firmly refuse to participate in watching my peers and mentors champion something that will never truly emulate the humanity it has to steal from. Without you, and your decades of expertise, and without me, and my insatiable inquiries, this Alleged Intelligence wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

So let’s let it fall.

With regards,

Jazzy Jones

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There’s more to this story, and if you’ve made it this far, thank you. I commend your attention span and willingness to share the human experience with me. I spared quite a few details and developments for brevity, because I wanted to publish this segment ASAP! But, for now, I’ve got a conference to prep for and will follow up as soon as I’m able!

❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆

Thanks for stepping into the Frontier Sphere! Restacking ↺, liking ♥, commenting your thoughts 𖦹 and sharing 🔗 really helps me find an audience of explorers like you!

Warm wishes, Jazzy 𐂂

At the end of September, I had a three-day leadership conference that hosted an array of students, faculty, and persons of interest around the Fairbanks scene. In a sidebar conversation that I had with a big player in the University system, they mentioned that in their vision, Alaska needed to compete with other countries who have started ramping up production in the fisheries space. While they can get ahead by developing fish farms, that has floundered in our case (some pun intended). But it was apparent that they didn’t want Alaska to “fall behind” in this race of profiting off of our fish, and going on to spell out how Alaska needs to “be a better brand”.

When that wrapped up, I turned over to my peer, and we both launched into contesting that capitalistic and competitive approach. Earlier in our conference programming, another one of my cohort members brought up the concept of degrowth.

And that made me start questioning… Well– everything.

Can capitalism and degrowth coexist?

What if we were content with allowing other countries to lead the large scale salmon fishery?

What if.

I feel like we rarely take that pause. Western “management” has preached competition and scaling and “bigger is better” and winner-takes-all.

But we all lose in a scenario where all that is left to eat is money.

So what if we adopted contentment into our “branding” strategy? Not only would that give us an extended timeline for allowing salmon populations to bounce back, but it would consequentially allow our ways of life to bounce back. I think it is so beautiful that many Alaskans are so willing and able to put in the time and effort to harvest the things they need. That sweat equity cannot be commodified. The setup, maintenance, traditional knowledge, and generational abundance of fish camps doesn’t have a discrete dollar value– because the dollar does not feed us the same way subsistence can.

❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆

Thanks for stepping into the Frontier Sphere! Restacking ↺, liking ♥, commenting your thoughts 𖦹 and sharing 🔗 really helps me find an audience of explorers like you!

Warm wishes, Jazzy 𐂂

Earlier this year, I learned that my grandmother was diagnosed with Rapidly Progressive Dementia (RPD). And this isn’t a sob story! I dropped everything and flew back to visit as soon as I could. I was too late to visit her condo one last time, but I will remember the plush carpet, bay window, her prized perennials on the balcony, and the wooden goose hanging in the kitchen. Always a wreath on the door, and always greeted with a tight hug. There’s no door to adorn with a wreath at her new memory care digs, and I have to hug her more gently now.

She was quite the traveler when I was growing up. Always in another country and telling me I could join her when I was old enough. Life had other plans for me, and my days of globetrotting began as hers phased out. I wouldn’t have the adventurous spirit I have without her and her stories and many encyclopedias. My Nanna was a teacher and principal, and even after retiring, she taught me that the world was my classroom. The encyclopedias and travel guides can only give you so much, but if you truly want to learn– go. And go far.

And so I went.

Alllllllllllllllll the way to Alaska. Though it’s far, it’s right where she wants me to be. She may forget the time difference, but I hope she never forgets the difference she’s made.

❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆

Thanks for stepping into the Frontier Sphere! Restacking ↺, liking ♥, commenting your thoughts 𖦹 and sharing 🔗 really helps me find an audience of explorers like you!

Warm wishes, Jazzy 𐂂

• Ground ginger

  • Autumn has come and gone here in Fairbanks, so the appropriate spices needed to commence. I made some apple, peach, and ginger pastries and an apricot, blueberry, and ginger sorbet!

• Sheet pans

  • I moved into a new apartment that has a real oven!! Let the one-pan dinners commence.

• Potatoes

  • Versatile tuber, and my Irish ancestors approve.

• Cereal

  • There’s an organic knockoff of Captain Crunch Berries that I consume like kibble. I may need to invest in a slow feeder.

• Eggs

  • Thankfully there were more than three cartons on the shelves!

• Shallots

  • I love onions, but I’m single. Shoutout shallots!

• Cheese

  • Nondairy. I have to say that I’m quite impressed by the strides that food science has taken to improve the meltability of these substances.

• Peanut sauce– sesame oil and chilli paste

  • I ended up grabbing gochujang because I haven’t cooked with it in a while!

• Bread

  • Got some herbaceous ciabatta piccolo rolls, which got moldy overnight.

Yes, there is a break here, because I had to make a separate trip to infiltrate Costco with my best friend. And yes, I relocate my ring to the appropriate finger to dodge any accusations of membership poaching…

• Olive oil

  • Costco-sized jug of EVOO that Rachel Ray would approve of.

• Metal nail file

  • Unchecked, because they do not sell Costco-sized nail care products.

• Tortilla chips

  • Ideal spoon. Need I explain further?

• Leeks

  • Favorite vegetable, the vertical onion ♥

• White pepper

  • Unchecked, because although I would vie for a Costco-quantity of this seasoning, they were unable to supply.

• Soy sauce

  • At first glance, I thought my tsuyu (a Japanese dipping sauce for noodles) was soy sauce, but it did not sufficiently provide the umami I needed for my peanut sauce.

Decision making

– Do I have all the information?

– Is this logical/rational?

– Can I recover from this?

Delayed processing is a hallmark of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. So, when I was having an emotionally jarring conversation with someone close to me, I unsurprisingly reverted to hyper-rationality and tried to logic my way out of my feelings. This was something I espoused, and it made me a hypocrite.

Emotions and feelings are information.

That’s a logical conclusion. But the recovery is gruesome. I’m constantly rehabilitating the mangled connection between my heart and mind. Trying to get signals through a system stunted by years of dysregulation is a fragile experiment.

Costco cheapskate?!

It feels gaudy to complain about the cost of feeding a family of one. I have no dependents, and that is by design. The delicacy of broth so spicy it clears your sinuses is something I must savor in solitary. Costco’s cycling of certain foodstuffs is a pinprick inconvenience, and I take offense to my sodium-seeking being hindered.

Semolina & Soul

I briefly shared some recent cooking endeavors I’d made with a chef at the restaurant I bartend at, and received some holy grail advice. Cigarette is optional.

We will take your evasiveness as a conscience of guilt.

The last thing on my grocery list was a sound byte whose origins I have already forgotten. It was in the context of recent political stressors, but I assigned new meaning to it this week after a conference. Our cohort had the chance to hear from Jahna Lindemuth, the former Attorney General of Alaska. She worked on the case of the Fairbanks Four, which– in short– is a worn-thin recurrence of inconceivable convictions based on backwards “evidence”.

After nearly two decades of wrongful imprisonment, the Four have been exonerated, but one of them held out on the initial settlement offer. Marvin Roberts claimed victory at trial in March of this year, and is set to receive damages to the tune of $11.5 million.

But the police department that manufactured eyewitnesses and coerced confessions are sheltering themselves with the very Constitutional presumption of innocence that they siphoned away from Native youth in our community.

The absence of admission of guilt does not amend the forfeiture of due process. We, the people, will take your evasiveness as a conscience of guilt.

Still hungry for justice? I’ll add that to the list. 🍴

❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆

Thanks for stepping into the Frontier Sphere! Restacking ↺, liking ♥, commenting your thoughts 𖦹 and sharing 🔗 really helps me find an audience of explorers like you!

Warm wishes, Jazzy 𐂂

As the fireweed petals expire

So does my coupon for Vitamin D

The aurora spotters revive

And we prepare to gather inside

I will soak up every ray

And prepare my skin and bones to be in cold storage

And I will somehow supplement the warmth of a star

❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆ ☃︎⋆꙳•❅*❆

Thanks for stepping into the Frontier Sphere! Restacking ↺, liking ♥, commenting your thoughts 𖦹 and sharing 🔗 really helps me find an audience of explorers like you!

Warm wishes, Jazzy 𐂂