This weekend my friend Mark and I went to the Massachusetts/New York border to hunt rattlesnakes. I used to hike 4,000 foot mountains with Mark before he developed an obsession with these animals. I was there with him on that fateful day he bought the book about them and I have hardly seen him since. Damn snakes.

I'm not what you would call a 'snake person' but after going insane after ten months of baby-imposed social isolation, the opportunity to get out of the house was too great to pass up. I did this even though it meant driving eight hours round trip and slogging through bug-infested woods to photograph a bunch of poisonous snakes.



The den was a spot Mark had been to before so he knew the area well. Good thing too, because it's creepy roaming around in the woods watching your every step to make sure you don't step on a camouflaged snake. At one point I stepped by a rock and heard an ominous rattle at my feet. Mark said, "Don't move" but I still jumped three feet.

Despite my cowardice, don't get the wrong idea about rattlesnakes. They are extremely docile and reluctant to use their venom. Far more rattlesnakes are killed by humans than humans killed by rattlesnakes. They are beyond easy to kill. All you need to do is throw a rock on them and pow, you just killed yourself a snake. Congratulations. That's part of the reason they are endangered and a protected species in this area.

Because they are so easily destroyed, the location of rattlesnake dens is a closely protected secret by Fish and Game. To find his first one, Mark had to rely on a tip he received years ago and pour over satellite and topographical maps. In his mad pursuit of snakes, he has set up what he calls "the rattlesnake command center" in his home's dining room. His entire table is littered with maps and books on this elusive animal. He has now located something like 4-5 dens.



We spent a lot of time photographing these snakes. Mark took over 200 pictures. I'll spare you all of them and summarize with the one above. But I wish I had brought a camera along to photograph Mark taking these pictures. Since we live in an age of high quality nature photos, viewers can be unaware of the lengths photographers will go to get a good shot. Mark basically stuck his head about a foot away from this coiled snake to get this picture.

We saw a total of 25 snakes. According to Mark, that's his second best day ever. On the drive home he called his snake friend Pete - a man who has dedicated his life to finding all the rattlesnake dens in the New England area. Pete is so fanatical he has a standing $500 reward to anyone who shows him a rattlesnake den in Maine. Mark has stumbled upon a sub-culture I had no idea existed. I dozed for the last hour of the drive back to Mark's place but they were talking like excited schoolgirls the whole time.


All in all, it was a welcome reprieve from the world of work, raising a child, attending funerals and shopping for a house. I'm looking forward to more outings like this one but I will be amazed if this post gets any comments whatsoever.

Reading Roger Ebert's blog today, he imparted two pieces of advice on writing that I wanted to note down:

(1) Once you begin, keep on until the end. How do you know how the story should begin until you find out where it's going?

(2) The Muse visits during creation, not before. Don't want for inspiration, just plunge in.

This notation is as much for my benefit as yours, fellow writers. I have to remember these two points because I've been neglecting this blog for a long time. It's sad to see subscribers vanishing off bloglines.com but, God almighty, I can't think of a damn thing to write at this point in my life. The last thing that moved me was my grandmother's passing but since then, nothing.

So what's going on here in my life? Too much. A baby. Looking into buying a house. Two funerals. Basically my life stagnated for a long time (that's when I wrote a lot) and now it's been completely upended. All of the sudden I'm overwhelmed with responsibilities, long-term plans, confronting THE FUTURE, and moving to the suburbs after seven years of urban living.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. I haven't talked about something non-baby and non-house for a long time. My friends are too busy with their lives to hang. I don't have any hobbies any more. Rowing, karate, drums, climbing mountains, reading books - all gone. Basically the identity I worked so hard to build is gone, vanished with the birth of our first child. I had no idea (well, I had an idea and that's why I put it off for so long) children could be so tiring. I knew they were tiring but not this tiring. Did you know the first child often breaks couples apart rather than bring them together? It's true.

My brother told me the story of when he first moved to the suburbs of Baltimore, he was waiting in line at the Home Depot and he thought to himself "Oh God, I'm one of those people." White, upper middle class shopper in a big box store in the suburbs. Like a head of cattle being shepherded through the processing line. In this modern world, we all need something to distract and/or distinguish ourselves from the herd. I'm feeling a loss of both those things and I don't know how to get them back.