Night of the Albanian Cab Driver

This happened in the first week of my moving to Alaska:

October, 1999

Friday night I ate dinner with Fat and Crazy and her Quiet Because There's Not Much Going On Up There husband - big night in MONA: dinner and a movie. But there was excitement in town; the maintenance guy across the street was drunk and got in a fight. The police were called. Everyone in F&C's building was watching from their balconies while the cops cuffed him. F&C and I took a picture. The cops waved at us.

I called and cab and ended up riding with Louie, one of the many Albanian cab drivers in town. Louie knew I was new in town and so offered to show me MONA. We rode around for about two hours, listening to Bob Dylan, picking up drunken teenagers and, to my surprise, hunting foxes. As we were pulling through the mud on the outside of town, Louie screamed "There's one!" We raced through the mud roads of the tundra with a small red fox in the headlights. I asked him if he was serious about mowing down the fox. He said "Yes, I want the tail." I told him they all have rabies and that if he touched it he would have to get vaccinated. He believed me (I checked on this later and found out that I was actually telling the truth).

Sunday I moved into my new house. XX and XY bought a cactus for me to make me feel at home. My first meal in my new home: moose steak and green beans. XX is my age but I think she really wants children - she keeps making me tea and cookies and fixing my bed. (Later I found out just how creepy her attempting-to-treat-me-like-her-child behavior would get.)

Monday night I saw the Northern Lights, a green hand of fog, stretched over the sky, with fingertips touching the tundra. The silhouette of a giant raven's head looked up from the horizon, black against the lights. They move like clouds in slow motion and flash - not like lightening - more like a flashlight in the fog. We have an arched window that reaches the ceiling in the den. I lay on the couch and watched the stars and the lights. I saw a shooting star and made a wish.

The lights stretched out over half the sky, like someone put their fingers in them and pulled. I moved to my bedroom and watched the lights from my bedroom window and that's how I fell asleep. This morning, the first snow fell. It's still not very cold.

I marched with the Tundra Women Group against violence today. I met a cop who has promised to let me ride with him and give me a scoop on bootlegging.

Miss you all.

Send food, clothes, Joaquin Phoenix, toys, etc.