"Denim blue fading up to the sky.............."

I first thought to write this post a week ago, but I told myself: No, don't do it. It'll make you look self-centered and vain again. All you do is complain about your current states of mind and make broad ethereal grasps toward some juvenile philosophy/musing/stereotype/truism and end up sounding like a Molly Ringwald monologue from 1980s' John Hughes.

Well, I happen to like Molly Ringwald. And I have a ripped-up pink skirt that I bought for cheap at Target and it's lasted me three years and someone always comments that it reminds them of Sixteen Candles. And for the first time since I was three-years-old, I don't have any wearable blue jeans with holes in the knees.

I don't know how to analyze that. And I just watched Annie Hall and it's made me very neurotic and I don't have anyone to talk to right now because there is chaos in the desert and children hitchhiking back to their hometowns and all my friends have been called out to hike and to work, leaving me behind with my stupid third and final dentist appointment for my ninth and tenth final cavity fillings (which may or may not be necessary, according to friend Drew's latest theories of dental fraud).

So I just want to say that I've had to say goodbye to old friends this month. Friends I bought at Rexburg's Rags-n-Tans' Silver Jeans outlet all the way the hell back in the fall of 2000, my freshman year of college. Yeah, man. They're that old. They've been through so many first kisses and sand dune bonfires and Jackson Hole retreats.....and I remember when the holes were first getting formed I got kicked out of Brother Olsen's Spanish 320 course but I cried so he let me stay....... I had other pairs of holey jeans....one I had to retire when I religiously couldn't show my thighs any longer (luckily that retired my overall shorts, as well). Another pair I stopped wearing in 2006 because the hole in the crotch just couldn't be safety-pinned shut any longer. A more recent pair finally wore out on my backside....the fabric just got too thin and you can't sew patches onto fabric like that.

This was my last pair. The pair that Atsuko Sensei told me was a work of art every time I wore them to Japanese 3010. I used to wear tube socks with red stripes on the top because you could see them peeking up through one of the holes. It was my trademark. People shouldn't have trademarks. I don't believe in trademarks. I'm glad I don't have to have a trademark.

While I was making pottery with hippies in Boulder, Utah, a roommate in Arizona saw them in the garage. It was one of the only things in that garage that wasn't hers so I can understand her apparent desire to try them on. Seriously, the garage is filled with her things...she makes me believe that it's possible for people on Gilligan's Island to bring so much crap with them for a three-hour tour. She has thirty years worth of built up baggage out there that she only picks up when she has to move to a different apartment (approx. every three-to-six months). So I can see why she'd want to try my pants on. I can understand they were on her marked territory.

What I can't understand is why she'd choose to do lunges in them. My last pair of holey jeans. She tried to give me a high-water pair of Sevens jeans she bought at Savers, possibly clearance at TJ Maxx, as a replacement for my Rexburg 2000 Silvers with the flared bottoms. I didn't even try her jeans on. It's like trying to replace my dead dog with a trendy new chinchilla. Hells no. I went to my room and lay my pants on the bed with me and we cried together. We wept for all the times we'd had and all the times we'll never have. Then I threw on my swimming suit, put on my pants, and ran around several neighborhoods jumping into pools and rolling around in grass. I plan to make one of those denim picnic blankets out of all my pants because I can't bear to chuck them out.

I'm trying to decide if I should grow out of holey jeans or keep falling to my knees in prayer for a next batch. I'm sure I'm just being dramatic, but I'm a single woman in my later-20s, in a limbo period between commitments, and I don't have a pet or a boyfriend. I'm afraid I need an outlet and right now venting about my lost jeans feels good. "And though you want them to last forever, you know they never will....and the patches make the goodbye harder still." Goodbye, my pants. It's been real--true and blue.

I snuck a camera onto the trail.......

........and these are some pictures that I took. I was only out there from a Friday evening to a Monday afternoon, and I had to hide my camera, so these are some pictures I took while I was making radio check-ins, et cetera--anytime I was wandering around by myself. These may be interesting or they may not be. Either way, here they are.

Due to some dental-emergency-type errands I have to run repeatedly in the next two weeks, I found out I don't have any more full weeks on the trail left. Just a couple more Friday-to-Mondays. It's bittersweet, but we're on fire restrictions now anyway....fires have been replaced by stoves. We still have to bust a coal with saguaro and seep willow and blow the coal into flame with tinder, but once the stove is lit, the tinder bundle is stamped out. It's actually a positive thing, in some ways. Everyone learns to bust coals quickly and efficiently and you never run out of tinder since you can re-use the same bundle a half-dozen times. I busted two coals a day the last week I was out. Anyway, blah blah blah. Pictures of the desert, for anyone with the time to glimpse them:

Here's a picture of my pack. The straps are made out of my army-issued sleeping burrito--what I put my sleeping bag in at night for added warmth. Mine is pretty ripped up.

People claim you can use hooked needles from this cactus to go fishing.

Along with stoves, gaiters are also back for the summer. They supposedly protect against rattlesnake bites, but considering a high majority of bites occur on the arms, face, and hands of men between the ages of 15 and 35 (I'm making half of that up, I think) I'm not sure why our ankles are at such a huge risk. But I like mine because they make me look like I'm wearing bellbottoms and I can run through catclaw mimosa with them.

Much of the wildflowers are clamming up for the summer, but they are being replaced by blooming cacti. Really, really beautiful. And many are edible. Ocotillo is blooming, too.






Oh, and grape leaves are EVERYWHERE. They are a sour treat for any summer hike...they are literally everywhere. I am never not eating grape leaves during summer hikes.

Here's Squaw Butte.

And this is the picture of me when I was in that polygamist colony in southern Utah. I was fourteen and was the seventh wife of a man named Isaiah Jacob Brenneman. Surely I told you guys about that before, right?

Top Twenty Overprostituted Guilty Pleasures

Today did not work out as planned. I missed everything I was supposed to make it to today. It was one of those domino effects....being late to one thing kept me from hitting the next...I ended up spending unnecessary money and wasting time. Just one of those rotten days. But--I never got hit by a car, no one told me that they hated me, I didn't kill any babies. So it could have been worse. WAY worse.

In any case, I feel like somewhat of a waste of space today and it makes me a bit confessional. So here it is. CONFESSIONS.

There is a list of over-played, over-prostituted songs one might hear on the radio that I never tire of. Some of these songs that I love so dearly I will openly admit are repulsive and even poor-quality and I agree with you on how hokey and horrible and despicable some of them may be. But. For some ungodly reason, whenever one of these songs comes on the radio, not only am I pleased to hear it, I get these tingles of excitement that YES, I LOVE this song, they are playing this song for ME, and even while I am thinking this very thought, I also know that I would take that secret with me to my grave. That is, until tonight.

So without further ado, the top 20 list of over-played songs that I will never get sick of, that I will never not want to dance on the tables to, songs that I will turn up loud when I'm driving or doing the dishes just so long as no one else is around, songs that I will scan classic rock and easy listening stations for, songs that I hope people ask Delilah to play for them. *commence kazoo fanfare*


20. Dancing in the Moonlight -- Toploader
19. Crash -- Dave Matthews
18. I'm Not Your Stepping Stone -- The Monkees
17. Play Me -- Neil Diamond
16. Time After Time -- Cyndi Lauper
15. Cat's in the Cradle -- Harry Chapin
14. From a Distance -- Bette Midler
13. Kiss from a Rose -- Seal
12. Everything I Do -- Bryan Adams
11. Everybody Wants to Rule the World -- Tears for Fears
10. Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime -- Paul McCartney
9. Return to Pooh Corner -- Kenny Loggins
8. More Than Words -- Extreme
7. Place in this World -- Michael W. Smith
6. Yesterday -- The Beatles
5. Yellow Brick Road -- Elton John
4. Forever Young -- Alphaville
3. I Saw the Sign -- Ace of Base
2. I've Got My Mind Set on You -- George Harrison
1. For the Longest Time -- Billy Joel

So go on, judge me. Bring it. These songs have faithfully made me grin since before I even hit puberty. I love them! I will never tire of them! I want them played at my deathbed! ...Maybe!! So dish it out now, you hypocrits. What are your guilty overplayed pleasures that you pretend like you hate but secretly get all stoked up from. I'm sure we share some.

(Post Script: I wanted to place Cat's Peace Train and Gordon's Carefree Highway to the list, but they aren't quite as despicable as the rest, though they are quite overplayed. Consider them honorary mentions.)