Scribblings

And now it’s gone

Posted on by Elise Patkotak

Our beautiful snow is melted and the crud that is in our streets… and certainly my deck and back yard… that we shouldn’t see until spring is staring us in the face. I could clean up my deck. Or, I could pray for more snow to cover it and give me a few more months before I have to start shoveling the shit.

And for what it’s worth – if you feed birds on your back deck and seeds fall to the ground, you get all kinds of interesting things growing in your yard when spring does finally arise. Continue reading →

Columns 2017

And Anchorage snow day

Posted on by Elise Patkotak

Alaska finally seems to be getting the winter it deserves, which is full of snow and cold. Also, it’s full of a white, frosted beauty that only real Alaskans seem to be able to appreciate. So after way too many years of waiting for winter to happen, I finally had the one that eliminated any excuses for not cleaning out my closets and garage.

I must say, it was revealing. I have apparently not done this since moving down from Barrow. That would explain the 30-year-old backpack tossed into the top of my closet. Or the twenty-five mug warmers that Continue reading →

Scribblings

Hmmm… do I see a pattern here?

Posted on by Elise Patkotak

OK, correct me if I’m wrong but haven’t the last two Republican presidents, the Shrub and Orangeman, lost the popular vote? And didn’t Obama win the popular vote BOTH times he ran? And now Hillary Clinton carries on the proud tradition of winning the vote and losing the election. Just in case anyone wonders who the American people really wanted for president.

Continue reading →
Scribblings

My Friday

Posted on by Elise Patkotak

And how did I spend this day when, above all else, I wanted to be nowhere near a tv or radio or Internet? I spent it with two lovely young men emptying every closet in my house as well as the utility room and getting rid of stuff I brought down from Barrow 16 years ago that I have never seen or used since. Can’t believe how much space I have now. Tomorrow, one last closet and then reorganizing the garage with all the stuff we moved into there, all the stuff that needs to go to the dump (one Continue reading →

Columns 2017

How we treat mental illnesses

Posted on by Elise Patkotak

Once again we face the dismal reality that as a society, we have made little to no progress in understanding and treating mental illness. Over the centuries, people with mental illnesses have been considered touched by the gods, possessed by the devil and full of the wrong humors. Once we understood mental illness was just that, an illness, you’d think we’d have come up with a rational way to deal with it. But this, of all illnesses, seems to be the one we can’t wrap our heads around. No matter what society says out loud, privately most people just want Continue reading →

Scribblings

How are we doing?

Posted on by Elise Patkotak

How are we doing in Alaska in dealing with people with mental illnesses? How has society as a whole progressed since the day we thought that people with mental health problems were either touched by a god or possessed by the devil?

Check out my blog tomorrow to read my column from the Alaska Dispatch News on this very important topic. Continue reading →