author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Hi! So, it's been a hot second since I blogged here last, so why don't I break the ice with business-NOT-as-usual? Today I drove from Boulder to Salt Lake City.

Pictured here: My flight of tasters at Epic Brewing, which I had not been acutely aware was in Salt Lake City. My first experience with Epic was their "Brainless on Raspberries," whose ABV is quite high, which effect was magnified by the excruciatingly spicy pasta I'd chosen to prove my capsaicin machismo with. This was at Backcountry Pizza lo these many years ago, and by the time I'd finished both food and drink I felt half out-of-body. Definitely not safe to drive. Opted to leave my car in the lot and walk the two miles home. Turns out, everything Epic brews has a quite high 8% ABV. Despite a heavy meal at La Cai Noodle House, after 16 ounces of Epic goodness I was remarkably glad I had walked, not driven, from my hotel room.

(More pictures going up into a gallery on Imgbox throughout the weekend.)

But let's back up a moment. I'm in SLC breaking the 12-hour journey to Boise, where on Saturday the Boulder County Roller Derby "Flatiron Phoenixes" will play against Bellingham's and Treasure Valley's A teams in a round-robin tournament at the Expo Idaho. This is actually my second trip here this month; our B team, the "Rockslide Bolters," played Treasure Valley's B team that first weekend in May, and I was on that roster too. Several friends were like, "Twice in a month? I woulda noped outta that, hard!" But I love a solo road trip, especially across such a gorgeous and geologically fascinating region. (Link goes to a review of a book that a teammate recommended after hearing me rhapsodize about the landscape along I-80 through Wyoming and Utah. I've snagged myself a copy of the audiobook for the drive home.) Besides, breaking my journey in Salt Lake affords an opportunity to visit with one of my oldest and dearest friends. Circumstances prevented us meeting up during both of the outbound trips, but we spend a lovely Mother's Day overnight on my way home last time. I hope Sunday sees us similarly fortunate.

In any case, a 12-hour solo road trip requires SNACKS and LISTENING MATERIAL. As far as listening material goes, I kept myself occupied last time with the audiobooks of Gregory Maguire's Another Day trilogy (which pick up directly after the events of Out of Oz). This time I meant to get into some Librivox downloads, but mostly I just spent today listening to tunes off my flip-phone and singing along for hours like a one-woman karaoke special. I think that's why I've been so high-energy all day, despite getting far too little sleep last night. Even for me, I mean. I stayed up way too late reading, and that's on top of my tendency to wake up every hour, hour and a half, every night, all night long. The app SleepScore is happy so long as I get more than a total of six hours sleep, but I think the lack of continuous sleep counts for something, and not a positive something. I tell my friends that my life now resembles a Paul Simon song, and unfortunately that song is "The Obvious Child":

Well I'm accustomed to a smooth ride
Or maybe I'm a dog that's lost its bite
I don't expect to be treated like a fool no more
I don't expect to sleep through the night

There's also the bit about thumbing through one's high school yearbook and observing that "some have died" - unfortunately, yes, though not students from my particular class, that I know of. Several of my teachers, certainly.)

But yeah, most trips of this length involve at least one 10-minute nap at a rest area. Today I just never felt the need. Never stopped for a meal, either. Stopped only to fill up the car's tank and empty my own. Ate out the ice chest, mostly. I spent a couple hours yesterday turning two cups sushi rice and a package of Omni brand "plant-based meat-style luncheon" into vegan Spam musubi. HOO BOY WAS THAT A GOOD IDEA. I don't have a musubi mold, but after a night in the fridge it held its shape and it tasted PERFECT. I sauteed those suckers in a home-made teriyaki glaze and that was JUST the right amount of flavoring. Anyway, that was breakfast, along with a bunch of fresh raw veg from Friends Farm, whose first CSA share pick-up was Tuesday - carrots and radishes and turnips OH BOY.

So here I am in the downtown SureStay, still a little muzzy from my visit to Epic and a lot full from spring rolls and beef-with-basil at La Cai. I am going to sleep SO WELL tonight, at least for values of SO WELL that apply to me at my age and in my particular body.

"At my age"--I turned 49 this year. Going to have to plan a party or something for the big Five Oh next year. But this year it was a Wednesday like any other, and that meant scrimmage. Dad calls me up the next day with happy birthday wishes, says to me, "Your old body still tolerating that rough sport?" And I'm like, "Listen, you got this backwards. Roller derby is how my body tolerates getting old." It's true. I had a pretty nasty cold last week, which along with other circumstances resulted in my not going to practice for, what? fourteen days? and that resulted in every dang joint in the lower half of my body (especially my right hip! omg!) getting stiff and hella sore. Motion is lotion, as the physical therapists say, and nothing else in my life promotes healthy hip flexor motion like roller derby, I tell you what.

But this is the Actually Writing Blog. Am I actually writing? Yes and no. Natalie Goldberg talks about "the dead year" in her book Wild Mind, meaning that first year after you decide to be a writer. "It comes back to test you often in the following years, but if you get through the first year, then you know about it. It will never have the power to defeat you again." I try to have faith that this is so, as I plod along, day after day, doing morning pages and writing practice/freewriting/idea generation and trying to catch the Friday Fictionette Project up to schedule. And that's it. I haven't done much in the way of submissions to paying markets beyond the twice-yearly poem for Eternal Haunted Summer--which reminds me, I need to submit something for Summer Solstice 2025. Deadline is June 1.

Anyway, I did my "dailies" today after I got into Salt Lake City: not-in-the-morning pages at La Cai, writing practice at Epic, and, hey, look, I'm blogging tonight at my hotel! First blog post in a good long while. I've missed it. I've missed having a journaling outlet. I've lately been incorporating journaling/personal writing into my daily freewriting lately--I describe that practice in this week's Monday Muse post--and it feels good.

Since I can't check into my hotel in Boise until 4:00 PM, there's no reason to get out of Salt Lake early. So I'll be sitting at this very desk tomorrow morning, doing tomorrow's writing dailies. With any luck I'll post tomorrow night from SLC and tell you how that went.