The Juneau Snow Wars

It happens every year in Alaska, maybe a little less reliably now with winter being somewhat of an endangered species. But when it does snow, you can set your watch by it. 

I call it The Snow Wars. Like loading a dishwasher, building a fire, or training a dog, everyone thinks they are the resident expert on snow: when it's coming, how it's coming, how long it will last, what type it will be, and what to do with it once it's done falling. More specifically, what everyone ELSE should do with it.  

Nowhere does the phenomonon of the Snow Wars play out with more "spirited debate" than on Juneau's innumerable Facebook community pages. I was thinking about this while doing the backbreaking work of shoveling wet, heavy snow out of several driveways only to be thwarted by the dreaded "berm-in" of the City plow. I felt Zen about the berm-in; I know that the berm-in is the law of the land and also there are better outlets for my frustration than this. But it got me thinking about the different types of soldiers in Juneau's Snow Wars. 

1. The City Plow Complainer: this soldier complains about the City's priorities for plowing roads, invariably that they are not doing the right roads quickly enough or in the right order.

2. The City Plow Defender: this solider is the direct foil to the City Plow Complainer, defending the hardworking staff of CBJ who work day and night to sand and plow our roads.

3. The Berm Rager: this soldier is very angry about getting bermed in by the CBJ plow, and resents their neighbors across the street who aren't getting the cursed berm-in. The berm-rager threatens to run for Assembly on an anti-berm platform.

4. The Eaglecrest Defender: this soldier defends all of Eaglecrest Ski Area's decisions and praises it as a crown jewel of Southeast.

5. The Eaglerest Complainer: this soldier rants about how everything at Eaglecrest is broken and fucked up, how no one who works there knows what they're doing, how they never make enough snow, and how they close operations suddenly and for no reason.

6. Private Plow Guy: this soldier is a self-sastified owner of his own snow plow, and looks with pity upon manual shovelers and Home Depot mini snowblower owners. Sometimes Private Plow Guy will offer his services ... for a price.

7. The Teenage Shoveler: this soldier is unreliable, but cheap. Yet despite advertising his or her shoveling services, and having the spry young body to shovel endlessly without physical consequence, the Teenage Shoveler could easily be drawn in by Snapchat when the critical moment arises. Also, don't count on the Teenage Shoveler for early mornings.

8. The Roof Load Warner: this soldier is kind of the Paul Revere of the Snow Wars. Reminding everyone that the roof collapse is coming, and everyone needs to keep an eye on their roof lest it fail under the weight of the wet, heavy snow.

9. The Driver's Ed Teacher: this soldier rants about everyone's driving, tells everyone to be careful (obviously they should be), comments on the general incompetence of Juneau drivers, and lists the number of cars currently in the ditch on Egan Drive.

10. The Libertarian: this soldier defends everyone's right to have government stay out of our business with all of its rules about when we can burn wood or where we can put snow, when our goddamned tax dollars don't go to a single fucking thing they should be going to.

Have I missed a soldier? Which kind are you? 

The Purgatory

I have not written a long-form blog post in more than two years. 

The project that for so long was a fulfilling creative outlet began to feel, most days, like a chore, an obligation, a requirement to produce something clever or profund for public consumption, rather than the inverse and what it started as: authentic personal catharsis that other people happened to like. Moreover, this clunky, outdated format lost its appeal in what could more succinctly be stated in a tweet or a skeet or another pithy social media post of 240 characters or less.

But social media itself, as everyone knows, grew increasingly problematic in the interim: a toxic slurry of ragebait, AI slop, and misinformation that "in these unprecedented times" transformed what was once a fun diversion--and at its best an effective tool for advocacy--into a virtual Superfund Site. I abandonned X (fka Twitter) completely, disgusted by the algorithms and bots ushered in by its Muskifcation. I used Bluesky and Facebook less and less (although still quite frequently). I was a receding tide, and I was OK with that.

In August my children's father, who is still a close friend, was stricken by a sudden, life-threatening illness that put him in the hospital in Seattle, where he remains to this day. It's unclear when he will be coming home. If he will watch our son's first high school baseball game this spring. If he will see our daughter graduate in May. If or when he will play the guitar or ski again. The shock and grief of this event bowled me over: I wept constantly, for any and no reason. I plummeted to the bottom tier of Maslow's pyramid: homing in on my kids, my dogs, my job, my house, and little else. I would never presume to call myself "a single parent." I had (and continue to have) the help and support of friends and family, including my kids' dad's devoted partner, whom I got to know better through our shared trauma.

Throughout the late summer, fall, and into the winter I was biding time, counting days, tracking progress and hoping for slow change--all while watching a parallel macrocosm of my own closely-held strife unspool in the news: climate-driven disasters that struck in new personal ways; the country crumbling under a relentless, cruel, and unconscionably stupid assault on democracy, humanity, empathy, education, and public health; Trump's mission to make us all sicker, meaner, dumber, and more afraid never seemed closer to fruition. Certainly at no time during the decade that I have been yelling about him into the void of this platform have his threats felt more potent or real. 

I envied a friend who had applied for and received Austrian citizenship. I cursed my impulsive, selfish decision to add another giant dog to a small space. I doubted that I would ever travel again to anywhere but Seattle for medical reasons or some drab destination dictated by college visits or sports trips. I paid bills in a grinding cycle. I lost 40 pounds. I woke up, made breakfast, fed and walked the dogs in what had morphed into a hostile, confrontational environment. I worked at my computer and answered calls and emails for my job. I prepared and cooked meals. I rarely saw my friends, nor did I want to. I avoided eye contact on the street. I continued to disappoint everyone. This was all I could do, or did do. "Self care" was a wellness industry racket. Or so I told myself.

Then I came across a passage from Dante's Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, which my mother had once called the best description of depression she had ever read. It wedged itself in my mind and committed itself to my memory. I saw it everywhere, not just in my own life, but in the lives of people on ventilators, people in ICE custody, survivors of America's military industrial complex and its extrajudicial war crimes at the hands of socipaths and incompetents. In people fumbling for the light switch in whatever their own punishing darkness was--the place that Dr. Seuss called "the Waiting Place." Anyway, Dante wrote:

I did not die

And yet I lost life's breath.

Imagine for yourself what I became

Deprived at once of both my life and death.

No words had ever felt more apt. On the cusp of her 18th birthday, I fought with my daugher in unprecedented ways. I explained to my son what "purgatory" was. He got it. As I stumble toward 2026 with a mix of dread and hope, I want to return to Dr. Seuss, not Dante. I want to do what Dave Chappelle said in his most recent Netfix special is the thing we all need to do: "wait this orange N***a out." I want, somehow, to emerge from the waiting place as Dr. Seuss predicted, the place where people are just waiting:

Waiting for a train to go

Or a bus to come, or a plane to go

Or the mail to come, or the rain to go

Or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow

Or the waiting around for a Yes or a No

Or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite

Or waiting for the wind to fly a kite

Or waiting around for Friday night

Or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake (EDIT: I actually have an Uncle Jake)!

Or a pot to boil, or a Better Break

Or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants

Or a wig with curls, or Another chance.

Everyone is just waiting.

NO!

That's not for you!

Somehow you'll escape 

All that waiting and staying

You'll find the bright places

Where Boom Bands are playing

With banner flip-flapping

Once more you'll ride high!

Ready for anything under the sky.

I've never been one to make or take seriously New Year's resolutions. I invariably fall short and spiral into self-loathing. So instead, for 2026, I am keeping my hopes small and straightforward: less Dante, more Seuss.