Could it be possible to hate Austin more than I do right now?

No.... not possible.

Frontier House, or Why I Feel Skill-less

A few weeks ago I Netflixed (it's a verb now) a PBS reality show called "Frontier House" that was created in 2002. I first watched it when it originally aired and loved it then. It was just as good the second time around. The concept behind Frontier House was to take three families, put them out in the Montana "frontier," and have them live as if it were 1883. They wore the clothes, built the houses, split the wood, the whole shebang.

These three families had to go through a sort of boot camp/training session before they were let loose on rural Montana. They had to learn essential survival skills like milking cows, starting fires, operating wood-burning stoves, riding horses, chopping wood, etc. And I'm thinking, That's funny, we have to teach people skills so they can survive in the United States in 1883. We are so removed and so cushioned from the basic functions of life. I certainly don't have those skills.. I tried to milk a cow last Valentine's Day and totally failed.

This has been something in the back of my mind since I read Don DeLillo's White Noise three years ago. He has a passage that reflects this idea, when the main character is asked if he could make a radio from scratch. He couldn't. I certainly can't. I feel particularly skill-less. We should all be so lucky to have a Frontier House experience.