: About Me

I just turned 35 this summer, and I was surprised that the number was so low. I am a mother of two, a boy and a girl, and the wife of two, though not concurrently. At 20, I dropped out of college, loaded up my truck with everything I imagined one would need in Alaska: a TV, scads of California thrift store clothing, Uggh boots, and the ancient hookah pipe I snagged from my father, untouched for thirty years.

Since arriving in Alaska, I have been padding my experience resume. I have worked as a cook at a mine camp, handyman and homesteader in the Alaskan bush, slung hash and hooch from four star eateries to places where I had to hose vomit off the splintery plywood floor. I've learned to can and put up moose, bear, salmon and pickles, and I can even turn the barest of pantries into a fabulous meal. I finally got my degree after becoming a single mother in 2000 when my first husband lost his battle against post partum manic depression, and I needed Pell grants and student loans to break the cycle of abject poverty. The roller coaster ride of our love plateaued with marriage on June 22, 1997, and started the decent in July when I was diagnosed with MS , then we slid unstoppable through fall, and landed in Anchorage in December where my husband landed in the pokey after kicking out the window of a police car. The adrenaline of our love kept me "healthy" until he ran up to heaven naked in a 40 below windstorm in 2003.

I married again, this time for insurance, as pragmatism always wins out over love the second time around. My current husband gets to pick up the pieces, and often me. I feel so ready to live like old retired folks, but it seems I am the only one. I feel like I have led two lives, three, maybe four. The line of demarcation blurs as years roll on by, like the outline of bruises, leaving nothing but the truism of "wherever you go, there you are."

Home & Garden > Household Cleaning Is the Roomba a fad or the next reality?

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I got a Roomba for Christmas a couple of years ago. My mother-in-law is notorious for throwing money at whatever trend makes its way into her field of vision. It sat in the box for months, having deemed it a waste before the wrapping paper fell away. From my wheelchair I had the perfect angle to see that two kids and spring dirt were winning the coup to overthrow orderliness. I have often said that sweeping and vacuuming are the hardest chores to do from the chair, stretching and straining to reach every piece of paper, lint and dirt. The hated but necessary task always brought the swears ...

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