Escape to Vermont

It’s been hot here as everyone knows. We have one old air conditioner in our house and it lived in the Chickenbone Penthouse as well as Meghan’s place in Winooski, where it remained on for many days during the summer.

Only the other day did we realize it was time to clean the dust collector. And what a good dust collector this thing was. I removed the cover to find a relatively thick layer of khaki dust and stuff collected and blocking the air flow through the cooling machine. I had to clean it, but not before realizing the millions of tiny particles of skin, hair, breath, books, food, any particle that passed through the last 3 homes I have had.

The dust collector on my air conditioner contained particles of my past, the invisible garbage of the air around us for the last 3 years. And I washed it down the drain, it came off easily, but refused to go peacefully. It clogged the shower drain for a few minutes in brown chunks of wet dust-goo. I picked it out, forced it down and flushed the dust.

I take solace in the fact that for the past few days, we’ve been collecting new dust, new particle memories that are a little more positively charged, with a little more potential. I am not sure if I’ll wait another three years to clean the filter, especially now that the air conditioner works so well. And you know what, we all need to move on faster.

In another fit of Vermont-removal, I got my new license plates for our car. No more green mountains. Oregon evergreens adorn our Chevy and Volkswagen. And I also washed the last of the Vermont dirt off the Chevy just the other day. Took it to the Washman, downtown. Dudes did a nice, nice job on both vehicles. ‘Cept the wheels could have used a little more love. Oh, and I got a new passport as an Oregon resident. Last step is to take the driver’s test and replace that ugly-ass license.

While more and more Vermonters contemplate the move to Portland (which I wholeheartedly encourage for all readers, just let us buy a house before you get here), Meghan and I are making the trip back east in…how many days honey? Not many, maybe 30 or so. We’re achieving marriage in Dorset, Vermont. I hear it’s been hot there too. Hot and wet. Hot and dry I think is better than hot and wet. But it really doesn’t matter for me because if it’s hot, I’m wet.

I’ve had some thoughts about Burlington and Vermont from afar, and I’ll share them with you here:

• It’s small, and people there think they’re more influential than they are.
• It’s pretty hippie, about the same ratio of stinky long-hairs as Portland
• For a small place, it does have a lot going on, but the music scene is beat. Hasn’t been good since the mid nineties. The Burlington music scene died with The Pants.
• Vermont moves slowly, including Burlington. See the first point, above.
• Vermont is an amazingly beautiful, diverse landscape for such a small state. Riding a motorcycle down or up Route 100 is like nothing else. I miss small, cramped forests!
• Vermont has great, great food places, and Burlington is home to many of them.
• There are many bars like Esox, but there’s only ONE Heather, at Esox. She made many Friday nights better and in doing so, made very little money for Esox and more for herself. Too bad most of it went up her nose.

I feel a comeback in the future for Burlington. I forsee throngs of big city dwellers in NYC, PDX, CHI, LA, SF making their way home to Vermont again, stoked to be back where things happen, but none of it really matters. Yet everyone there is real good at pretending it does, which is why everyone gets along so well.

Here’s a wedding card we received this week. It almost feels like us: cute and well written.