The whole story.

So, I talked to some friends tonight who saw the link to this blog and were like, "Whaaaaa? You're leaving us and the Springs and Newspeak and your wife and you're never coming back and oh my god what the hell?" All I can say is chill. Here's what's going on:

I had a rough fall and winter, as most of you did. Money was—and still is—tight, I was forced to scrap the most visible end of my livelihood, my city was crumbling around me and it suddenly occurred to me that all of the work I'd put into giving our town a truly alternative media voice was going to come to an ignominious end. This was not a particularly encouraging revelation, as you can imagine.

So I decided to take some time away and try to hammer out a book while I was at it. The cabin on Winnibigoshish holds great memories for me, and it's deserted in the winter, so it was a natural selection for this little experiment.

My ultimate goal is to devote a month to creativity, to allow myself the time to write while devoid of distraction. Yes, it's an escape of sorts, but going to the cabin—which, it's just occurred to me, I should probably give a better name than "the cabin"—is more about constructing an environment where what I put in has a direct and proportional relationship with what comes out. If I don't collect snow to boil for drinking water, I die of thirst. If I fail to chop wood, I freeze to death. Every action, my theory goes, should have a reaction. It's Newtonian, a manufactured simplification of the way I live. And that, given the year I've had, sounds ideal. But it doesn't mean I'm fleeing from my responsibilities or my marriage or my community.

This sabbatical also doesn't translate to Newspeak going anywhere. I'll have internet access—although to what extent, I don't know yet—and I'll be blogging and overseeing the site while at the cabin, as much as I can. I'm still doing Newspeak. I will still be doing Newspeak when I get back. I'll hopefully still be doing Newspeak years from now. It's not something I'm about to abandon, because what it stands for and who it belongs to mean too much to me. So put that thought right out of your heads.

The story, in a nutshell, is this: I'm going to the middle of nowhere for a month to write and be alone. It will be cold and foreign and inhospitable and profoundly different. I will be occasionally miserable and often lonely, but I will take long walks through the snow and string together sentences and take pictures to share with all of you. And something good will, I hope, be the result.

Just for kicks, here's a picture of the cabin taken in summer:



And one looking out toward the lake:



It's truly beautiful there. Imagine it sans any green and with a 10-foot-thick sheet of ice over that enormous lake, and that's where I'll be.

Wish-list.

So. I have about two and half weeks until I leave for Minnesota, and this excursion falls right after my 30th birthday. In order to go, I'm going to need to collect quite a bit of gear, both for survival up in the northwoods and for the trip in my ramshackle old tour van. Living in Colorado has robbed me of my stock of appropriate winter apparel, and the consistently below-zero temperatures are going to kill me dead. Here's some stuff I need, which you can then buy and give to me because you don't want to see me die. Plus, I like, only turn 30 once, dude. Pony up, and consider this my Mid-Life Crisis Registry:

GENERAL STUFF:

Long underwear.

Good boots (Sorels, size 10 1/2 or 11).

Warm socks.

Warm gloves.

Good stocking-hat (black!).

Snow pants (wheee!).

Outdoorsy-guy pants (think, like, Cartharts. That's what manly guys wear, right)?

New sunglasses (manly aviators!)

Dog sweater & boots (like me, Annyong is a little hothouse flower).

Sand bags.

Road salt.

Candles.

Road flares.

Sub-zero sleeping bag.

FOOD

Five 5-gallon jugs of water.

Potatoes. A lot of potatoes.

Canned foods (vegetables, soups, chili/chile, beans, etc.)

Meat. A lot of meat. The manlier the better.

Dried foods (beans, lentils, grains, etc.)

Dog food.

STUFF THAT WILL KEEP ME FROM GOING CRAZY UP THERE

Books.

Replacement battery charger for my camera (it's a Kodak EasyShare Z7590).

DSL plug-in to get internet through my cell phone.

Cell phone signal booster.

So that's what I need. And, uh, if you wanted, I wouldn't say no to the Sopranos, BSG, The Wire or any other DVDs. Them Minnesota nights are long and lonely. Likewise, bottles of whiskey will not be turned away.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I'll be close to Bena, Minnesota, a hamlet of about 100 people, predominantly Chippewa that, like a lot of American Indian communities, is quite impoverished and has suffered terribly in recent years from a meth epidemic. Here're a few maps of the location:


There's the tab of Bena, which is about 5 miles from the cabin, in relation to the rest of the state. Bena doesn't have a grocery store, so I'll likely be going to Cass Lake, about a 30-minute drive in the winter, for that. Cass Lake also has a hospital, but it's a Chippewa Nations one. I assume they'll set a bone or repair a bear-mauling if I need them to, though.


A shot of the region. You can see Lake Winnibigoshish (where I'll be) in relation to Bena, Cass Lake (to the west) and Leech Lake (the spidery-looking one to the south). The town of Walker is on Leech Lake. There's a casino and another Chippewa hospital there.


Detail of southeastern Winnibigoshish. The Mississippi flows in at the eastern edge, which is where I'll be. Most of this area is Chippewa National Forest.


The cabin's location, indicated by (duh) the arrow. You can see docks if you look closely. The cabin is part of a strip of summer homes built on the lake in the '50s, when the Forest Service, in a fit of stupidity, let people develop there. The land is still owned by the Forest Service, but the cabins are private property, used as vacation home since the Forest Service prohibits year-round occupancy. The developed area just to the west of the cabin is a resort that close to nobody uses in the winter, except for the rare ice-fishermen. They'll be the ones I'll call if I need the roads plowed.

The lake will be thoroughly frozen, although accounts vary whether the Mississippi keeps a channel open year-round. I should be able to walk or drive across the lake if I need to, although pretty much everything I need will be on the south side of Winnibigoshish. The city of Bemidji, a sort of redneck college/tourist town that has that famous Paul Bunyan statue and museum, is about an hour away. So there's that.