Sunday, April 5, 2009

Gertee's new spring wardrobe

Gold Rush era Gertee :)

Had a fabulous burst of creative energy all week long. The new fabrics inspired me and with every roll I stapled up the transformation was so amazing it motivated me to do even more. I rearranged all the shelves and dressers, finished the kitchen (!!!), and stopped myself when I started to cover a lampshade with the yellow stripes. All I was supposed to be doing was testing how well the fabrics go up and I ended up with a completely refinished gertee. Special thanks to sister Susan for telling me to make my gertees look like my minis, changed my whole outlook.

Here's feedback from the lady who purchased the first mini I put up (and left up) on ebay:
"It is just so nice. Everything, from the wood that was used to the pictures to the items, is high quality and so interesting to look at."
I am having second thoughts about the big trip I planned for this summer. It's so peaceful out here; after three years I'm very comfortable with my neighbors and my surroundings. Putting myself, my gertees and my minis on the side of a busy city road is a daunting prospect. But it's the only way to find out if there is a market for my portable tent huts, and if there isn't then I'll need to find another way to survive. The upside of going is I do like to see how people react when they first walk inside one, and there's a lot more people in Anchorage. The outside of gertee is so misleading and pictures cannot give off the feel of the inside; you have to physically experience it. Plus, right now I have the chance to work with a fine carpenter who is willing to subcontract the frames. He just picked up an application for the Park Service to work on Kennicott Mine and was appalled at the amount of info and blood the feds require of their applicants and employees. I told him I have two requirements of potential jobs: 1. They can't put anything in my body, and 2. They can't take anything out of my body. This severly limits my choices since it's commonplace now to require vaccinations, piss, blood, hair and saliva for just a bartender job.

I've been asked to condense my Quiet Revolution article for publication in an Oregon newspaper, and will be a guest on an Oregon radio station May 20th (I'll post the info later). The editor was not happy to hear I won't be writing much until next winter. Most people just don't realize how much time I've already devoted to the ACL or how many articles I've already written. I'm doing an interview with Chris Katko for the Idaho Observer but after that I'll be busy with my new commercial venture. It will be interesting to see how many communitarian regulations I will be forced to obey and how far Anchorage 2020 plans have progressed since we wrote 2020 there in 2006. I'm sure I'll find plenty to blog about in my new surroundings but ACL articles require a different kind of concentration level, they are a drain on my brain and leave me weak and groggy for days afterwards. Just the thought of building a rebar gertee revives me.

And I really don't want to get a cellphone, which seems to be a prerequisite for participation in modern society. I was over at the Johnson Family blogspot this morning, catching up on what's happening at Mawmaw's farm. It's such a sweet place, goats and beautiful children and ahhh, if only that were the direction I was heading. I will have a gertee greenhouse so I don't have to entirely give up my plans for a garden this summer and I'm going to find a way to order a set of the Heirloom seeds they've already planted (and have sprouts!!!) . I'm gonna make greenhouse gertee my smoking room too since it will have lots of ventilation. That's where me and my grandson can hang out and play in the dirt. :) Or I can stay here and write all summer and starve to death, alone in the Alaskan wild.... become a legend... spearhead a movement of suicidalists!


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