Chipping Away

Know any escape artists? I love that term -- it implies the exact mix of awe and resentment that that phrase contains. Escape is an art - I've known many people in my life who have escaped, i.e. shirked responsibility, in a positively artful way: with aplomb, with finesse. I'm sure I have done that too. Wait, no, I actually haven't.

I got lost in the woods in Northern Maine in a lovely no-cell-signal weekend. Well, not really lost per se, but we couldn't find the trail, so that qualifies as "lost," dunnit? I stepped in a lot of moose-droppings and got a decent scratch on my shin, the marks of an excellent backwoods hike, I say. Being lost is a relative term, after all: my mother was lost in the woods overnight as a child with her friend, and has never forgotten the experience; we this weekend were kinda-know-where-the-car-is lost. Not the same thing at all as two frightened little girls huddling under a tree all night listening to the unseen life-forms around them hooting, crying, calling.

This weekend feeling lost felt safe, because I was with both my parents and my husband, the people I'd probably choose to be lost with if I had to be lost, but it was also troubling. I both crave and resent the feeling of disorder in my life: want control, but hate being the One in Charge. There's probably an astrological sign or cereal-box explanation for this personality type. (It's under "M" for "Maniac.")

I suppose I could over-overanalyze (!) this idea of order and chaos (odor and chaos?), but lest this blog become TOTALLY self-indulgent (too late!) I'll feed you the following factoids I learned this weekend:

1. The meaning of the (apparently made-up) word "tetravate": to putter or tinker with something
2. The name for a group of turkeys: a rafter (and not t + herd = "terd," as I had suggested)
3. Several theories as to why my eternally fascinating uncle has wrapped his Direct TV receiver in an agra-shindi rug, then ripped strips of the rug away from the front of the device
4. The distance one can huck an apple on the end of a whittled stick (it's a dollar if you hit the roof of the fishing shack down the hill. I forgot to ask if the prize increases on the rare occasion that the shack might be occupied)
5. That ceiling fan Does Not Work

If you're still with me, the two of you that read this (I should really introduce you two, you have at least me in common), I should probably bring it back to the original theme - that would be my style, and would be orderly, wouldn't it?