The Elk Encounter

I've seen elk before. My family frequents national parks, so somewhere along the way, standing across a river or a pond or a field, I've seen elk. Sure, they're big and impressive, but nothing - nothing - is like seeing an elk up close.

We had two days of cleaning at camp, and breakfast was at 9:30, so it was definitely necessary to celebrate the extra hour and a half of morning. The night between these days, we went to the Grizzly Rose. It was pretty fantastic. I love nightclubs in  general, and this was something I'd never experienced before: line dancing, two stepping, people twirling and moving. I'm used to the typical hip-hop/electronica scene, but this was so much more: a country western Saloon. We headed home late, and it was quiet the eventful night, complete with vomit, 24-hour doughnut shops, and bumming cigs from stoners at a gas station. So we're driving 285 at 1:30 in the morning. My car is full, and three people are dozing off as myself and the last are deep in conversation. There aren't many cars on the road: one would pass by in the opposite direction every five minutes or so, but on my side, I was the only one.

National Geographic tells me elk are 4-5 feet at the shoulder. That's at the shoulder. His neck, head, antlers: that's all above that. I'm 5'3". And my little sedan? That's shorter than me.

Twenty feet in front of me, and there he was, standing in the lane next to mine. If he was in my lane, I could have seen him sooner, I could have slowed down, even stopped... but in the lane next to me, in the dark, he was invisible. It was just his silhouette, but I could see his legs clearly. They were already in my lane, but he took a step back- and I froze. A second later, the beast was behind me. His hoofs were at most two feet from my tire. His head must have been hanging over my car. I had never, ever seen a beast of that size.

I went crazy. My car had almost been totaled. I had almost died. I had almost died with the four other people in my car- and yet I had survived. The elk grew bigger in my mind, the more I ran and ran that image through my head. By the time we arrived back at camp, I was laughing hysterically, completely out of control. That was the scariest thing to ever happen to me on the road. That was The Elk Encounter.

Salmon, and Humans

Reactions to The Great Salmon Race.

I was on the plane recently, and they were playing The Great Salmon Race on the TV. Have you seen those poor salmon? As if swimming upstream isn't bad enough, every step of the way, there's something trying to kill them. Birds of prey swoop down from above, grabbing the poor fish in their beaks, killing them with their talons. Bears carelessly splash in the waters, bite down onto the fish, and there's lunch. But these salmon keep swimming. They swim through rapids, jumping up small waterfalls, achieving amazing height, but if they leap at the wrong place, at th wrong time, there's a bear waiting for them, hir jaw hanging open. The fish may wiggle and squirm, but there's only one fate. But they keep swimming. Night and day, sun and rain, they swim upstream, swim through foaming waters, swim between sharp rocks, swim under the gaze of predators. At last, they arrive, they lay their eggs in the shallow waters. But it isn't over yet: birds open their jaws and scoop the eggs up, eating them, swallowing the hard work of these salmon. And our beloved salmon die. They've completed their life mission, and slowly their rotting bodies are washed ashore, decomposed, forgotten.

How does a creature evolve to so inconveniently reproduce? Couldn't things have been easier, less painful for salmon? Why not evolve to lay eggs in the sea, or in the downstream waters? Why not change, mutate, become something simpler? Why would evolution create something so complex, so difficult? And, if there's a benevolent God, why would he want the suffering of salmon?

And humans. Why must we love, and feel, and wait, and search? Why so complex, with so much pain, so unwise and inconvenient? No science, no religions can explain love. The only explanation I can think of is that there must be some malevolent deity, looking down at us, and laughing at the suffering of salmon - and humans.

Do you like cats?

is officially my favorite question ever.

I was talking to my sister recently, and she was giving me advise on how to talk to people. Standard. "Just ask anything, anything at all," she suggested, "Like, 'Do you like cats?'" I laughed, so she told me a story of how once she was talking to a friend of hers when he randomly asked her "Do you like cats?", which led into a great conversation about cats.

Just days later, I was talking to a dear friend of mine whom I haven't spoken to in a long time, when ze randomly asked me if I like cats! Which was such a wonderful question to be asked, and filled me with such great joy.

So I'm adopting this question. I'll probably ask you soon if you like cats. How can I know you if I don't know if you like cats? All should love cats, because cats are amazing, "self-sufficient", and "classy". Because cats are kind and beautiful, friendly and sweet. Because all my life I've had cats (except when I didn't), and I couldn't imagine life without them. Here's to the cats!