Confessions of a Human Nerve Ending

Chama River Wilderness One assumes, from close inspection, the CDT, Continental Divide Trail, travels unbroken from Canada to Mexico, yet upon running into it haphazardly in the Chama River Wilderness, it's no different than the myriad of cow trails that dot wild grass and sagebrush that sneaks up on the river like an advancing army. Does this trail, marked by sign and woodburned post really mark the spot where water spills into the polluted gulf and vast Pacific? Or perhaps this is some spur to the trail itself? The wind is cool as I write this under the wide canopy of a lone fir tree. From this vantage point, you'd never suspect that there is water nearby, but upon bumping my shin I'm reminded that the river dumped Mindy and I. Until now, I didn't even notice the Navajo Sandstone and red granite bluffs that protect the castle above. Only-there isn't a castle above- only more trees, wind, and rock. May 30, 2010

The Biggest Loser Videos stream the oil dumping from a pipe 5000 feet below the ocean surface, and the brown, goopy, molasses like substance is scooped up in a reporters hand from the side of a boat. Interviews are granted, soundbites, political observations, independent investigations, destroyed fisheries and marshlands, birds coated in oil, fat. A black cast iron skillet warms on an electric stove: water beads then steams off as I drop a chunk of butter on the surface. The butter melts and becomes what it is: fat, oil. Tabloids announce this diet caused this: Glossy prints, before and after, inches gone, belt sizes shrunk, photographic evidence of the trimming of fat, oil. I look at my oversized gut and see the molecules and globules of fat just below the surface of my skin. Oversized cells storing fat for some explosion of energy that my body doesn't use anymore so it sits there, jiggles, obstructs my view. A bear pokes at a raspberry bush, digs grubs from a downed tr...