July 2006 Archives

beer will be served.

(in five weeks.)

(ooh! another five for the EPA!)

she's a bubblin and she smells beery. well, actually, cidery. hopefully we'll ferment nice and dry like i want, but this may be as fruity as any of my previous fruity beers. can't say i'll cry too much at that.

last night i purposely entered into what could be coined a "pissing match" with 203. under traditional definitions and rules, i would have difficulty arguing that i "won".

i suppose i could have held on a little longer but from my vantage point i was ready for us both to just let go of things. to get things back to flowing the way we liked them. so i said so, and we did.

at the end of the day, when it comes to this sort of thing, i don't mind, once in a while, ending up on the bottom of the heap.

after all, as they so cleverly say: "it's better to be pissed off than to be pissed on."

back in 2005 and early 2006, i was on a "dune" kick. i read all the novels and watched the disappointing miniseries.

i walked around thinking like a fremen, which was fun and not particularly challenging since during that span of time i found myself often hiking alone in the desert without enough water. i loved the series and cursed death for taking frank herbert before he could write another sequel, since things got boring in the middle of the series but were really picking up toward the end when he died.

i got the miniseries and was disappointed that with decent actors and modern sfx they couldn't do much better than they did. at least, though, the miniseries stayed kind of close to the plot of the first book. i wanted to see the david lynch film, which i could never find.

until yesterday, at fry's. so i bought it.

oh fuck me, does it suck.

i'm two hours into the three hour extended version because i can't stop watching because i paid for it, dammit, and i can't take it back. i'm hoping it gets better but it doesn't. it has patrick freaking stewart in it and it still sucks. that just doesn't make sense! i'd heard that it was "trippy" or "weird" or "oddly compelling" but that's all crap: it just plain sucks. argh!

and it doesn't even suck like the miniseries did. the miniseries is basically a faithful retelling of the novel. this one alters the plot for no apparent reason and obviously with no gain. why all the focus on the stupid emperor? he's not even supposed to show up until the end, really, and then only to get whacked. the jamis scene -- about the only "action" so far in the movie, at about 2 hours in -- was so badly done i nearly cried. sigh.

oh well, it passes the time.

one of my straight razors is the dovo all stainless model. it's nice to look at and it's nicer to maintain, which is to say, it requires very little maintenance because unlike all my other razors, the blade is stainless and won't rust (technically, it will rust, but probably not any time within the next decade). the only problem: i can't seem to get a non-irritating shave with it.

i mean, i really want to like it, because it looks cool, i like the feel of it, it gets the job done on the cheeks, and putting it away is a matter of a wipe and a shake, i don't even have to be careful about droplets. there won't be a time when i open it up to exclaim, "shit! i missed a droplet and now it's all discolored and corroded," because that won't happen. i thought i had its usage down today until i looked in my car mirror in natural light and saw how irritated the neck area is.

i want to keep with it until i get it right but i have a hunch that i can go back immediately to non-irritation with the TI and i'm strongly tempted to do so. that's likely what i'll do. sigh. the TI already has a discolored spot because i somehow missed a tiny droplet of water when i put it away for the day once upon a time. i'm out of the metal conditioner that i need to remove it, i think. bah!

the epa is coming along in a very much not-dead fashion. now, whether that's yeast or bacteria partying ale-style on the top of my wort remains to be seen (or smelt, rather) but i suspect it's good old burton #23.

(also, new category. whoopie.)

(now i gotta go put old beer entries into the category as they shoulda been put into originally.)

it's not looking especially pale. i chose the yeast numerologically rather than technically. #23 doesn't have particularly good flocculation compared to my other choices, so, even though i was aiming for p in my epa, i might not get it. considering all the hurdles to this batch, however, i'll just be happy if it's tasty. which i'm sure it will be.

yum. goldings.

speaking of goldings, i have a funny relationship with the hops. i don't really like them in my beer, except when i do. i mean, one of my favorite beers is "hop rod ale", the drinking of which is like chewing on hop pellets. but i also really want a malty toasty sweet malty brew like my past beers and this one i'm making now.

but when i open up that package of hops on brew day, mmmmm. i want to chew them like bubblegum. yum yum yum. i'm so conflicted!

story of my life.

heh. i'm dumb.

those weren't 6 1G bottles of water, they were 6 3L bottle of water.

guess i should double check next time. sigh.

the whole apt smells like brewing beer. if i could manufacture cologne, i'd make "brewing beer" and "roasting coffee". nothing smells like either of them and they're both mmm mmm delicious.

the eris pale ale is living up to its name already. for all five batches i've bought bottled water. 6 gallons of bottled water to make 5 gallons of beer. 2.5 for the boil, then add 2.5 to make 5 gallons, except it won't, because some has boiled some off, but no worries, that's what the extra gallon was for. well, evidently the boil was rather extra-vigorous today. after i'd spent the extra gallon i was still at least a gallon short.

so i topped the batch off with tapwater from my "pur" water filter which had been residing in my fridge as of last week.

now, since this is an EPA, i'm not really concerned with reproducibility, since reproducibility is decidedly aneristic. that (and the fact that i'm lazy) is why i didn't bother to take an OG reading. and that is why i'm not too concerned with the funky blend of water that went into the beer.

my only worry is the cleanliness of the tapwater. well, i guess i should be worried about the chlorine content also, but that should be diluted enough and overpowered by the beer and the bottled water. but the tapwater hasn't been boiled or anything and the PUR filter thingus isn't exactly sterile.

but we all know the homebrewer's motto: relax, have a homebrew! i'm not tremendously concerned. after all, this is probably the fewest number of screwups of any beer i've brewed so far, if that can be believed. now all i need to hope for is continued mild weather and we're set.

it doesn't look like it will be as pale as i'd hoped it would be. so it goes. maybe the P in EPA will have to stand for Pale-ish or maybe Putrid if the water wasn't sterile. Ha!

it's brewing day.

the last time i touched my beer gear my love was in town. not only in town but it my home. she helped with the bottling of batch #4.

the next time she helps with the beer, it won't be in my home.

[17:10] maury_cohen: i have no bananas!!!
[17:10] maury_cohen: this is truly a great crisis
[17:10] s*******v: ??
[17:10] maury_cohen: what am i going to put in my cereal tomorrow in the midst of this dearth of bananas??
[17:11] s*******v: why don't you just go buy some?
[17:11] maury_cohen: i tell you, i cannot eat corn flakes in milk WITH NO BANANAS?
[17:11] maury_cohen: dude, it's 5pm
[17:11] maury_cohen: only losers go to the grocery at 5pm on a saturday
[17:11] maury_cohen: no sir
[17:11] s*******v: wait 'til 12am
[17:11] maury_cohen: i'll suffer banana-free cornflakes to preserve my image
[17:11] maury_cohen: oh yes, 12am on a saturday is when the winners all go out to shop
[17:11] maury_cohen: the winners, who don't do drugs
[17:11] s*******v: hahah
[17:13] maury_cohen: okay
[17:13] maury_cohen: well, i just got back from a hike and am not wearing deodorant
[17:13] maury_cohen: i'm gonna go see if i stashed any bananas in my shower
[17:13] s*******v: tmi, tmi!
[17:13] maury_cohen: hah!
[17:13] maury_cohen: tmi is my middle initial!!!
[17:13] s*******v: siigh

rhus ridge parking to black mountain trail to hidden villa then back up to the top of black mountain and back down. 12.5 miles total, started at about 10:30 ended about 4. that's.. uh... 5.5 hours meaning uh... 2.27mph. ow, that's slow. is it? indeed it is. maybe because i was carrying 5 liters of fluids plus a little bit of gear and 20lbs of iron. i rested a lot. wunderground.com says the temps were only around 75F today, but that's bogosity for sure because my car said it was 80F when i finished at 4, so i rather suspect it was at least 90F up there in the sunny spots.

i think i've proved to myself i'm a tough guy, can i just go on hikes for fun now?

no! this one was fun. when i got back to the car. otherwise it sucked. the only thing worse than the uphills was the downhills, because the downhills are unpleasant on the knees, not to mention the hips, shoulders, calves, and the rest of the body parts i forgot.

ha ha! I kid! I kid because I love! really, i enjoy a tough hike with extra weight in my pack. FOR ME TO POOP ON.

i saw lots of people with big backpacks today. i wondered if they were all carrying as much weight as i was, and whether they were enjoying it as much as i was, and if they were as bushed as i was throughout, and if not, what their secret is. oh, they probably don't cross-train as unwisely as i do.

i have just one more tough-guy hike on my schedule and then it's fun from here on out. oh, until 203 comes back and then i gotta be a tough guy. i don't think it'd feel natural to be un-macho on a hike with her.

crikey! i didn't realize the hidden villa portion was so piddly compared to the black mountain part. that splains why i was so much more tired at the top of BM than at the top of the HV portion.

my dead-iraqi shirt seemed to reveal a little more gutosity than i'm used to. how'd i get outta shape? i swear i nearly saw abs yesterday post-lifting. what the dillyo? (i know what the dillyo, actually, and i'm not telling!) (okay, i'll tell: it's this bleeding cross training. poor old boddy-woddy can't figure out if it's sposed to lift, hike, or run, and how to reconfigure itself accordingly.)

depending on how you do the counting (which is the motto of my life with 203) i confessed my love for the-not-quite-yet-203 on our fifth non-hiking encounter.

now, my memory isn't what it used to be, but here's my count:

1 - b st. billiards after my first desert death hike
2 - post-hike bbq
3 - ps visit
4 - drinks at the gay bar
5 - the neck-hold that rocked my world and changed my life forever.

how could any option be more attractive than that?

the dude in the homebrew store, after looking at my recipe and preparing my grains, said, "there's only gonna be 5 gallons of this shit in the whooole world". now, because i was there, i heard where in the sentence he put the emphasis and happen to know that he meant that in a good way, which, unsurprisingly, is precisely why i am "into" homebrewing, not just of beer but of many things. writing, cooking, decorating (heh), lifting, etc. all come from a base desire to create something unique, because somewhere deep in my sy-kee (see, there's an example of "creativity" where i actually know how to spell "psyche" but chose to invent a spelling because i'm creative uhuh) i happen to know that only by acts of creation can i differentiate myself from the drooling masses.

i saw someone (multiple someones) using the terms "drooling masses" on slashdot the other day. wtf? yeah, i agree most people are dumber than average, but those people are voters, man, please try not to totally alienate the 'tards or they'll vote us into some sort of hellish 24/7 surveillance police-state/autocratic-dictatorship under constant threat of war with eastasia. or was that iraq? i can't remember.

anyhow, properly differentiated by my one-of-a-kind 5 gallon batches of homebrew i can go about puffing out my chest and feeling righteously superior to the sort of folks who are swayed by the canning materials to buy particular brands of alcoholic beverages. go me!

Over kufte kebabs at lunch today, Victor accused me of not thinking clearly about where my life's going. I'm not one to have witty comebacks ready at a moment's notice, those tend to be available only long after the fact, or when I'm writing on unrelated topics. So I didn't have a snappy reply. Instead I took a moment to reflect on recent events and then changed the subject.

Victor may be right. I used to be a pretty level-headed guy. I was never so studious as Victor, I never hit the books like he did and still does, but I also never wandered around drunk all the time like Buckyman Jim tends to do. Much like X-rays, Bucky's great to be around in small quantities but with extended exposure he tends to cause brain failure in lab rats. The past exploits of Buckyman Jim serve as a good foil to illustrate my own steadfastness.

But that was all years ago. Buckyman Jim moved away to work on Wall Street and Victor... well, Victor's still Victor. Back when the three of us would cruise around town, blasting Metallica from Bucky's grandma's ' 87 Cadillac deVille, Victor would pretty much disown the two of us as soon as we stopped at the T&F. They'd always sell us beer at the T&F, even though I, in my braces and long hair looked all of 15 years old, which I wasn't, and Bucky could pass for maybe 14, which he wasn't, and Victor... well, Victor still looks like he's about 17 years old. None of us looked even remotely like 21, but that never stopped the clerks at the T&F. So we'd pick up a sixer of Miller or maybe a couple bottles of Colt and head on down to the overpass on Colson and 48th. We'd cruise by first to make sure there weren't any bums or crackheads or anything, then park a couple blocks away. We'd found from experience that if we parked too close to the overpass the cops would notice the car and come hassle us.

Once we got under the overpass, Bucky and I would lay into the beers, but Victor never drank. Victor didn't start drinking before he turned 28. He'd always just say we were morons for getting drunk, and that he didn't want to act like an idiot so he wasn't going to drink. That was always fine with Buckyman Jim and me, more beer for us. So Victor would sit there and do double duty looking out for cops, bums, and crackheads with one eye and staring us down disapprovingly with the other. Buckyman Jim was the talker. He'd talk and talk and talk and he had to be making most of that shit up. Victor kept on his mask of disinterest but Bucky and I both knew he listened to every word. Our favorite story (well, officially "my" favorite story, but as I said, Victor was listening too, and it was obvious he liked the story too) was the one about how Bucky found a dead cat in his backyard. Well, not so much "a dead cat" as "two dead cat halves." It looked like it had been torn apart by a dog or a coyote or something. Probably not a coyote in the middle of the city, but how a dog got over Bucky's 6 foot fence, twice (once to get in, once to get out), to tear a cat in half and then leave it un-et, nobody will ever know. Anyway, Buckyman Jim claims he came home from school and found the halves in his backyard when he went out to check on his sun tea. Buckyman was always brewing sun tea. He'd set it out in the morning before going to school, pick it up after school and put it in the fridge, and then it'd be "ready" the next day. It was horrible stuff. Nobody would drink it but Buckyman, not even his parents.

So he was out fetching his jar of hot tea when he saw something furry and red. He went over to investigate and found, much to his simultaneous horror and delight, half of a cat. The posterior half. Two legs and a tail but not a lot else. He looked around and spotted, at the other end of the yard, another furry, reddish blob. He bounded over to investigate and found, to little surprise, another half-cat, this time, a head and two legs. Both pieces, he'd tell us, were surprisingly clean. Sure, there were guts and chunks and miscellaneous red stuff coming out where the cat had been torn apart, but it wasn't splattered all over the yard or even all over the cat-halves.

What does one do with a pair of cat-halves? Well, if one is to believe Buckyman Jim's story, if one is Buckyman Jim, one looks around the yard for a couple of sturdy sticks, and, having located those, goes into the house for some paper towels. According to the story, Bucky used one stick to carefully but none-too-thoroughly re-attach the cat halves, used the paper towels to clean up the minimal mess that remained to give away the fact that the cat was not, in fact, well, and used the remainder of the sticks to prop the cat up into a somewhat lifelike pose of repose.

That taken care of, Buckyman took his tea and spent papertowels inside to refrigerate the one and dispose of the others. When his sister and her friend arrived home from basketball practice, he asked them, with, no doubt, quite the poker face whether they'd seen the cat that had been hanging around in the backyard all day.

Buckyman Jim's little sister had always wanted a pet cat.

So the two girls bounded outside to find the wayward feline, and Buckyman Jim grinningly took up an observation position to enjoy the ensuing scene of what he always described as "delirious, screaming, chickens-with-no-heads running-about behavior" and "the funniest fucking thing i've ever fucking seen." No doubt it was quite the laugh riot. For Buckyman Jim, that is.

Victor and I always doubted the veracity of this tale. Well, not always. Always up until the day we found, under our very own drinking bridge on Colson and 48th, a pair of dog-torn cat-halves. Three jaws dropped that day, as a trio of beer laden misfits sauntered up from 46th to enjoy a pair of 40s and found their recreation interrupted by the happy presence of dismemberly death. "Holy shit!" said someone, probably. The particular details of the conversation escape me, but I do remember the important part: my plan. There weren't any sticks under the bridge, but there was plenty of rebar of varying lengths. Much like the cat that Buckyman Jim supposedly had reassembled in his backyard, this cat was relatively unsullied by gore. It could be done.

There was a playground two blocks further down Colson. It was 2:30pm on a Sunday. In those days, of course, parents let their kids go unattended to playgrounds. There wouldn't be any adults to get in the way of our gruesome prank.

I let it be known that we should reassemble the cat and transport it, in the grocery bag we had used to transport the forties, to the playground to be discovered and hopefully petted by some unwitting comic genius. Victor put on a show of being far above such shennanigans, but Buckyman Jim suffered no such pretensions. After some argument, we agreed to abandon the 40s to make room in the bag for our reassembled but not-ready-for-prime-time deceased feline. We drained the forties, there under the bridge, and dedicated the puddles to our "homies". The bottles we tossed, as always, from underneath the overpass up toward the unseen oncoming traffic. Who knows if we ever hit anything. The lack of angry motorists looking for culprits (us) suggests that we never did.

Our taxidermy and concealment finished, the three of us departed toward the playground. Victor let us know how stupid our idea was and that it wasn't funny at all, merely childish and disgusting. He was only coming along in case the police showed up, he claimed, because that's when the real funny stuff would go down. Buckyman Jim and I nodded at each other and rolled our eyes.

We arrived at the playground (which isn't there anymore, having been paved over as a parking lot a couple years after this very incident) and found the scene much to our liking: six or eight young girls, no boys (who'd just spoil the whole thing by finding our Frankenstein's monster just as awesome as we found it). They were occupied on one of those spinning disc things with the handlebars. You know, sit/stand on it and someone starts it whirling, then jumps on. I don't know what they call the thing. Anyways, the girls were all paying attention to that and not to us. We elected Victor to deploy the cat ("Why do I have to do it?" "Because, it's two against one. That's how democracy works.") and as Bucky and I took cover behind a bush, Victor crept toward the park's bench with his cat-in-a-bag. Once he got to the bench, according to my plan, he'd delicately dump the cat out of the bag (ha!) onto the bench, which faced toward the playground, and stealthily retreat to our position behind the bush, to witness with Buckyman Jim and me the unfolding of our masterpiece.

Just as Victor came within striking distance of the bench, I was beset by a soul-shaking sense of just how wrong this thing was that we were doing. I mean, it was one thing for Buckyman Jim to tell us (dubiously) how he played a prank on his deserving little sister, but it's kind of a different story to inflict a dead cat upon unsuspecting, underaged, and possibly undeserving random girls on a playgound. Pranks were pranks, and this one had seemed like a damned good one in the planning phases, but now, looking at the innocent little faces of the happy girl-strangers, I was having second thoughts. Thoughts of Hellfire and brimstone, thoughts of my angry, disappointed mother, and thoughts of traumatized innocent little girls growing up to be hookers or crack ho's or something. Also, I had noticed a police car approaching.

So, these moral considerations in mind, I picked up a pebble and beaned Victor in the head. He turned angrily and I motioned for him to abort the prank. He gave me the finger. I suppose that after all the pressure we'd had to exert to get him to take this mission, he wasn't planning to give up easily. But as he was turning back around to resume his approach (and, coincidentally, no doubt, as his field of vision shifted to include the approaching patrol vehicle) he had a sudden change of heart. Victor grabbed up his cat-monster-bundle and duck-walked back to our hiding spot.

"What the fuck?" he asked.

"Dude," I said, "we can't do this to these little girls. We don't even know them!"

"So what?" asked Bucky, "That's what makes it so fucking funny, man!"

"Dude!" I said, "these girls are way too young. They'll be scarred for life! Also, didn't you see the --"

At that moment it became painfully clear that the police car was indeed approaching our position, and, rather than be found out by the cops hiding behind a bush spying on a half dozen underage girls, we beat it on back to the Caddy.

I guess maybe Victor was right. It's that sort of clear moral vision that's really been lacking in my life of late.

i picked up the ingredients for my next beer.

this will be my fifth beer, and also my third beer that was not a "kit" beer, and my second beer for which i created the recipe myself. i already thought up a name, namely EPA, erisian pale ale, on account of the following five facts:

1 - it's the first beer that i've brewed since admitting i'm a discordian
2 - it's my fifth beer
3 - it's the third non-kit beer and the second self-made-recipe beer, which also makes 5
4 - i'm using white labs yeast #23
5 - it's intended to be a pale ale

i expect to learn a lot from this experiement, on account of the following five facts:

1 - it's been fargen hot here lately
2 - yeast doesn't like fargen hot
3 - it's been fargen hot here lately
4 - yeast doesn't like fargen hot
5 - things may go wrong or it may not come out as intended

all my other beers have tended toward dark and fruity, intentionally. this one i wanted to be light and crispish, with lots of toasty malt and no fruit. sadly, it seems, the effects of heat on yeast is to bring out banana-y flavors. now, that's precisely what i was aiming for in the last two brews, but for this one, i wanted none of that.

so, we'll see how it comes out, and more importantly, whether it comes out all over my floor. and as always, we'll learn from my mistakes and make a better beer next time.

i thunk to myself as i drove away from the homebrew store that i tend to prefer to play rather than obsess about the beer, meaning i don't know much about gravities and attenuation and flocculation and all the other ations associated with brewing, yet the beers i make come out pretty good, and the first time i went out on my own to craft a recipe, it came out not only pretty good, but pretty darn close to exactly how i had expected it to taste. in other words, i seem to kinda know what i'm doing, intuitively. i likes that.

also on the way to work today, i was listening to... wait for it... infected mushroom! you weren't going to guess that, admit it. okay, fine, it was your first guess. i'm predictable.

however, i noticed the lyrics for a change, which they had in their song, for a change. and though i've been listening to this song for ages, like, a whole year, man, finally the lyrics, like most techno/trance lyrics, are directly relevant to my life:

This is the time of the revolution.
Cooking the next step.
Converting vegetarians.

This is the time of the revolution.
Cooking the next step.
Converting vegetarians.
Minding the gap since 1996.

This is the time of the revolution.
Keeping it in the right track.
Feeling it in my mind back.
Seeing it every day every day.

This is the time of the revolution.
Keeping it in the right track.
Feeling it in my mind back.
Seeing it every day, aaah.

I wake up! And my mind's out,
Never again will I sell out.
Converting vegetarians.
Into the midnight giving it to you.
I don't know, it just feels right.

I wake up! And my mind's out,
Never again will I sell out.
Converting vegetarians.
Into the midnight giving it to you.
I don't know, it just feels right.

This is the time of the revolution.
Cooking the next step.
Converting vegetarians.

This is the time of the revolution.
Cooking the next step.
Converting vegetarians.
Minding the gap since 1996.

19..19..1996..

This is the time of the revolution.
Keeping it in the right track.
Feeling it in my mind back.
Seeing it every day every day.

This is the time of the revolution.
Keeping it in the right track.
Feeling it in my mind back.
Seeing it every day, aaah.

I wake up! And my mind's out,
Never again will I sell out.
Converting vegetarians.
Into the midnight giving it to you.
I don't know, it just feels right.

I wake up! And my mind's out,
Never again will I sell out.
Converting vegetarians.
Into the midnight giving it to you.
I don't know, it just feels right.

followed, of course, by elation station, one of the best songs ever.

on the way to work today i saw a billboard for budweiser or miller or some other such domestic mass produced shite. they've got some special new can that supposedly "locks in more great beer flavor", supposedly by keeping the "beer" colder.

now, once i got past the ridiculousness of this claim -- wait, I didn't. allow me to share with you, dear reader, fellow beer drinkers, the plethora of reasons why this idea is silly :

1 - all the beers that i drink, much less make, have so goddamn much beer flavor that they can afford to lose a little bit of it and still be mighty tasty fuckin beers. my belgian stout is in no need of special canning devices to "lock in the precious beer flavor". you could remove 50% of the "beer flavor" from any of my batches (well, excepting batch #2) and still be left with a totally beerilicous brew. evidently budweiser or coors or whoever is afraid that the loss of trace amounts of their "beer flavor" will leave you holding a glass of vaguely yellowed water. rightly so, from what i understand.

2 - okay, let's assume for the moment that a given beer is in danger of losing it's precious "beer flavor" to evaporation or radioactive decay or poor investment planning or whatever it is that miller is trying to protect against. they way to fix it is certainly not to make the "beer" colder, because as everybody knows, the colder the beer, the more deadened to flavor the tongue becomes, and thus the less likely one is to taste the minute amounts of "beer flavor" left over after the majority has been siphoned off by alcoholic space aliens or whatever.

3 - finally, why is it that sierra nevada (not that i particularly like them), or gordon bee-ersh (them neither) or any of the other smallish american brews, or any of the germans, belgians, english, scottish, and other types who know their shit when it comes to malty beverages are not clamoring to provide us with innovative new ways to "protect" and "preserve" "beer flavors"? eh? the germans are perhaps the most meticulous people ever when it comes to beer making, yet they bottle their beers in glass the same as everyone else. so how come it's only budweiser that's so concerned with protecting the "beer flavor" by inventing new spiffy cans and sixpack cardboard? in short: have they so run out of good things to say about the beer that they must advertise the containment methods instead to move their product? clearly, the answer is "bleah, this shit isn't beer!"

I woke up alone, this morning, for the first time in three and a half weeks. I can't say that I mind. In fact, to be honest, I'd begun to miss the old Bachelor Morning Adventure. I don't so much get out of bed as flail myself to my feet. Were there no bed, my method would look like one of those flying-spinning wushu moves where the artist is parallel to the floor but several feet above it. One moment I'm dozing away in bed and in the next I'm on my feet several meters from the edge of the bed. It is awesome to behold, I've no doubt. Then, of course, it's off to the john for the morning contribution to the local waste reprocessing effort, and eventually, breakfast and the other two S-es. Nothing special there, of course, but what I'd been missing, what I'd forgotten that I'd been missing (apart from the sunrise pleasure of tossing my arms about the bed like an epileptic) was the simple sensation of being awakened by the warmth of sunlight on my eyelids. Sure, I know, it's possible to awake that way even when I'm not sleeping alone, but for reasons unknown (all right, not really unknown: it's because my strange bedfellow snores me awake in the morning before the sun can do the job) it never seems to happen. There's nothing like a sunlight alarm clock to put my mood straight in the morning. What a wonderful feeling.

I'll be going to the cabin this weekend, also by myself. Doug's cabin. He and his dad were going up there for the weekend, but this morning I had an email from Doug offering to let me have it instead. His mother's in Delaware and she had a heart attack last night around 3AM and he's catching the fisrt plane out. So I get the cabin for the weekend.

I couldn't rustle up any company for myself on short notice, and truly, I don't mind. Maybe I'll just have a solitary weekend for a change. Like the good old days. Victor was nowhere to be found, which isn't very unusual, and Elton already had plans. His bowling league has a tourney in Toluca Lake. They roll at 7am for some godawful reason, on Sunday, no less, so the team rented a dozen rooms at some ratty Econolodge and they're driving out Saturday and staying the night. I guess it pays to be well rested before entering a bowling tournament. I wouldn't know. I tried bowling when I was in college. That was a hoot. Can you believe I actually got credits for that? I did, sure enough, couldn't have graduated without them. Well, I could have, but I would have had to fill that requirement with something equally challenging, like badminton or checkers. It wasn't exactly a "teaching" class, or a "learning" class for that matter, and the records show that my skills actually un-improved over the course of the quarter. I think I went in bowling a 180 and left bowling a 120. Or maybe not. Who the hell can remember how to score bowling? Not me, that's who.

I couldn't locate Victor but I'll bet I know what he's up to. We were at Chomsky's last night, for a poetry reading, and when it was (thankfully) over, or more precisely, before it even started, Victor decided to pick up the poet. Victor isn't interested in staying single for very long. She was cute, I suppose, in a nerdy librarian kind of way. You know, the big glasses, long dress, mousey hair kind of look. The sort of girl you'd see in the beginning of a Def Leppard or ZZ Top video, who'd be swinging around a stripper pole in a bikini by the end of the video. No matter how cute she was, though, I wouldn't have bothered with her. I'm not into English major types, and I can't stand poetry. But Victor's less discriminating than me. I don't think he's looking for anything long term at this point. In fact I'd say he was looking for something rather short term. Very short.

After the reading Victor approached the poet. Bethany was her name, if I recall correctly, which I do, since I have the program right here in front of me, and programs never lie. I stayed within earshot. I wanted no part of Victor's romancings, but he was my ride for the evening, so I wasn't going anywhere without him. Victor layed on the moves.

"I really enjoyed your poem," said Victor.

"Yeah?" said Bethany, "which part?"

"Well, the sweep of the poem evoked a sharp image of the decay of modern society. It's difficult for me to pick out a favorite part because the whole thing was brilliant." Bethany began to blush. So did I. Jesus Christ. Victor continued. "If I had to pick, I'd say the part where you compared the environmental policies of the Bush administration to the formation of the Luftwaffe in '36."

"You didn't find that to be too much of a stretch?" asked Bethany.

"Oh, no. No, not at all. In fact, I was thinking about just such a thing earlier this week. I can't understand why more people haven't picked up on it. We're heading down familiar territory now, aren't we? Dark territory." Victor laid it on. False earnestness beamed from his face. He sure looked as though he believed what he was saying. Bethany bought it, of course. Victor has some kind of strange magic.

Victor spends at least a quarter of all his spare time reading up on WWII. If I was ever hit by a bus and subjected to the sort of brain-scrambling that would induce me to care what the Luftwaffe was up to in 1936, Victor is the first person I'd consult. If, that is, my brain was still intact enough to recognize and recall Victor's expertise, which, presumably it would not be, were it scrambled enough for me to have such an interest in 1936 Nazi aviation.

But I digress.

Victor and Bethany considered the finer points of modern Christiandom's effects on secular society and how these effects echoed those of the Druidic expansions of the early 1200s (huh?), and how if only more people would care about each other we'd all live in a happier place, and how a little bit of education goes a long way, and the effects of the fast-food economy on third world nations. In the span of just ten minutes they'd solved all of society's problems, or at least the pressing societal problem of whom they'd each be sleeping with that night, and all the while Victor kept a perfectly straight face, which is what one must do if one is to solve the problem that he was aiming to solve.

Bethany, of course, lovely, self-consistent girl, had no car. She supports public transit. So she rode with us to my apartment, where Victor dropped me off to a solitary night and a sunrise sunkiss. I wished them both a good evening, curled up in bed with a massive tome of Nazi history that I happened upon on my way from my study to my bedroom, and read myself to sleep.

Normally, I'd wait a while longer before writing, but what can I say? I just got off the phone with Fran and I've cranked up the Hendrix and I'm pumped.

Fran's moving to Atlanta next month. She got a promotion at her accounting firm and they're transferring her to the Georgia office to head up a new division. The relocation comes with a big raise, as if she needed it, with the rents being what they are in Atlanta. Sure, they're more expensive than, say, Oklahoma, but they're certainly not Los Angeles rents.

So Fran's off to Atlanta, which is great for her, but I'm not altruistic enough for that news to explain my most excellent mood. No, in my great selfishness, what excited me most in our conversation is that Fran's decided to leave her car here in LA when she leaves, and not only that, she's offered to sell it to me for a quarter of blue book. That's quite a deal. Fran's Caravan has seen quite a lot of action. Debbie and Fran and Elton and I all rode down to Coachella last year in the Caravan to see Madonna and the Red Elvises. Before that, when Fran was living next door to me, she'd let me borrow the Dodge to make 2am runs down to In-N-Out, usually picking up Elton along the way, for a pair of Flying Dutchmen. Elton had a habit of smearing ketchup all over his window at the slightest provocation -- a mere pebble to the windshield could cause him such a start that ketchup-laden fries would become airborne -- so what ought to have been a 45 minute late-night grub-grab would often turn into a 90 minute grub-grab and cleanup. Had Fran ever found out about the ketchup I've no doubt that would have been the end of our starry burger voyages.

Fran used to take her dog down to the Scrub-A-Pup, once a month, regular as clockwork, for a tick bath and a haircut. That was one shaggy mutt. Actually, it wasn't a mutt, it was a purebred sheepdog, but it was definitely shaggy, even after a haircut. Scrub-A-Pup is two blocks from Majorca's, so Fran, thoughtful as she is, would always pick up one of those alaskan smoked salmon beers for Victor as she drove back with her oddly smelling shaggy dog. The dog -- Aslan (har har) -- never smelled any better after the bath than he did before the bath. We always wondered exactly what it was that they dipped the poor mutt in there at the Scrub-A-Pup; was it some sort of tanning goo? He smelled like chewed leather afterwards, which, oddly enough, was quite similar to the odor he attended the Scrub-A-Pup to eliminate. You'd think they could spritz him with some Febreze or something, maybe hose him down with some Slurpee syrup or slather him with Old Spice. Anything but that chewed leather stuff.

I'm getting the Caravan, ketchup smudges, spilled smoke beer, chewed-leather dog stench and all. Fantastic!

Oh, and also, Fran's moving to a great new job in Atlanta.

that rocked.

maybe not on your end, but it definitely rocked over here. i'm tempted to drop what i'm up to and engage in more, but what i'm up to also rocks, so what am i sposed to do? keep on rocking, that's what.

hail yes.

On the way back from the dojo, Victor and I stopped by Chancellor's for tacos and a couple of beers. At 10:30PM on a Wednesday night, Chancellor's isn't exactly crowded, and, in fact, the only people at the bar were the regulars. Victor and I took our usual booth (being regulars ourselves) and nodded to Celia, our usual signal for our usual Wednesday dinner.

At the bar, Cheeky Charlie was again talking about his ex-wife. Cheekie Charlie didn't talk about much else, in fact, and by now, Victor, I, and the rest of the regulars know more about Cheekie Charlie's ex than the ex knows about herself, if we are to believe any of the stories. She left him for a Hungarian football star, the story goes, after meeting him at the Post Office while the Hungarian football team was in town for a vacation visit to Sea World. He was in the Post Office to mail a postcard to his mother in law and, being somewhat mystified by the varied assortment of postages available, not to mention his bewilderment at the operation of a stamp-dispensing vending machine, he enlisted the aid of Cheeky Charlie's wife. Something about the way the footballer pronounced his consonants, said Cheeky Charlie, again, caught the ex-wife's attention, and, before the month was out, Cheeky Charlie found himself divorced.

There wasn't much else to know about Cheeky Charlie, or at least, Cheeky Charlie didn't seem to think so, since he never spoke of anything else.

Celia came back to the table to tell us that the kitchen was out of sour cream. So much for our tacos. We had to ask for a menu, in that case, since, though we'd been coming to Chancellor's every Wednesday night for two years, we'd never ordered anything other than the tacos. Celia brought us menus.

"Hey," said Victor. "This isn't a Mexican restaurant after all."

"No kidding," I said, "Evidently it's a Korean restaurant. Named Chancellor's. With tacos and beer."

"Huh," agreed Victor.

So we changed our order to BBQ pork and rice, which we correctly assumed would not put a strain on Chancellor's kitchen's supply of sour cream. I could tell from the look on Victor's face that he was dying to tell me something. With Victor it's best just to wait. Prodding will only cause him to change the subject.

"I broke up with Tiffany," said Victor.

"Finally?" I asked. Tiffany had been plagueing Victor for the better part of a decade, and though I generally refrain from giving any kind of advice, much less relationship advice, I had on many occasions opined that it was time for Victor to move on. He'd always had some excuse for keeping her around, though. She was a good cook, for one, which was certainly true. I'd been to their home twice before, for dinner, and both times I was impressed with Tiffany's skills in the kitchen. Her father had been a baker before they'd come to the States, and she'd spent hours in her youth rolling dough and frosting pastries. Where she picked up such a flair for sauces nobody was ever quite able to explain, least of all Tiffany, but as exquisite as her rolls and the key-lime pie were, it was the raspberry truffle sauce that carried both evenings. If I could afford to buy truffles, I'd ask for the recipe, though the sort of justice I'd be able to do the recipe would be less akin to what the fungi deserved and more akin to the sort of justice one would expect to find afforded to Eichmann in an Israeli court.

But I digress.

Victor always had some reason he hadn't dumped the perpetually unemployed Tiffany, and while occasionally he'd come up with a reason that satisfied, mostly his reasons were simply shit. Naturally, cooling myself in the shadow of the decade high mountain of Victor's justifications, I was eager to find out his reasons for finally cutting himself free.

"She smelled," he said.

"She what?"

"She smelled." Victor gazed at me, calmly, and his expression made it quite clear that this was as far as he would explain in the absence of further encouragement. In Victor's mind I understood all the ramifications and meanings of his statement and could not possibly need further clarification. That was Victor, all right. He expected everyone to know mounds upon mounds of backstory whenever he let fly with one of his simplistic summations.

I had never noticed any particular smell about Tiffany, and I told him so.

"You never noticed?" he asked me.

"No, I never noticed." Then I realized where this might be heading. "Wait," I said, "do I want to know about this smell?"

Celia returned to the table. She wasn't carrying anything but a nervous frown. Bad news.

"We're out of pork," said Celia.

"You've got to be fucking joking," said Victor. Victor really has no sense of proportion. The slightest things will set him off into a rage, and yet the most egregious outrages will slide by him, coolly, like a slug on iceskates. While it's no secret that Victor and I lead the sort of lives that tend not to organically encounter many true outrages, we try to make do with what we've got. Victor told me sometime last month about the culmination of his previous half-year's work. He'd spent long nights and multiple weekends preparing a demo for the CEO of his company. He had explained to me the topic of the presentation, in his usual terse, context-free style, and I had realized right away that even were he to explain the context, I wouldn't have had much chance of understanding the subject, and even had I some chance of understanding the subject, I certainly wouldn't have been interested by it. So I didn't press. In any case, Victor had worked hard on his demo only to have the presentation usurped by his boss 15 minutes before the meeting with the CEO. Victor's boss had passed the demo off as his own and taken all the accolades.

This hadn't bothered Victor much more than a stubbed toe would bother me: immediate irritation that will fade as soon as a new interest comes by. The outrage of the situation had been lost on Victor. But right there, at Chancellor's, a (who knew?) Korean restaurant that happened, at 10:45 on a Wednesday night, to be out of not only sour cream but also pork, Victor was about to lose it. Victor is only midly tolerable at the best of times, but after having lost it, well... he's less tolerable.

Someone who didn't know Victor very well but who had heard that he'd recently dumped his girlfriend of a decade might expect that the impending explosion was directly related to recent events in his lovelife. That would be someone who didn't know Victor very well. The two events were absolutely separated from each other. I was fairly certain, as I observed Victor's face reddening at the prospect of having to alter his order for a second time, that Tiffany was, in fact, nowhere at all in his thoughts at the moment. As with asking Victor about his thoughts, so with attempting to prevent an outburst: it was best to stay well enough away and let the essential Victor unfold at its own pace. There was no way to prevent what was to come.

Except that in this case, there was.

Chancellor's front door opened and in stepped, I shit you not, Tiffany. Victor and I had been coming to Chancellor's every Wednesday night for two years, but Tiffany certainly didn't know that. Of this I was certain, since Victor had told me so, and Victor rarely lies, at least not to me. I don't know why he never told her about it but I've got a good guess. Victor kept secrets from Tiffany. Never big ones. Victor's favorite beer, for example, was some weird smokey brew from Alaska or some such place, and everyone at his office knew it, and I knew it, and the clerks at Majorca's certainly all know it, but Tiffany doesn't. Victor likes to wear hats. Any hat. He'll wear them whenever he's out with friends, but never if Tiffany's around. She has no idea he likes hats. Just weird, random secrets, he'd keep from her for no apparent reason. She knew he went to Aikido every Wednesday and Friday night, and she knows me well enough, but Victor won't tell her where we go afterwards. I think it's some kind of weird power thing with him. He doesn't want people to know too much about him. He likes to be mysterious, I guess. God knows what he's keeping from me.

So there was Tiffany, the door closing behind her, light from the street casting a weird greenish glow on her blonde hair. She looked around the restaurant but didn't see us, even though, as would be expected at this hour, Chancellor's was not particularly crowded. Her eyes settled on Cheeky Charlie and she walked over to the bar and took the seat next to him.

Cheeky Charlie hadn't noticed Tiffany come in. He had been too busy relating another story about his ex-wife to anybody who'd listen, which, as usual, was nobody. His beer rarely protested that it had heard enough about his ex, and since nobody else paid him any attention at all, other than to bring him more beer, Cheeky Charlie never got the notion that everybody was entirely disinterested in his story. Victor's attention was now fixed on the backside of his former girlfriend, and the excess blood drained from his face returning his skin tone to its usual shade of pallid. Even Celia was distracted, as she turned her attention toward Cheeky Charlie, who had never been seen to attract any companionship at all to his side at the bar, much less female companionship. The other regulars directed their gazes toward the bar, for the same reasons as Celia. Not much ever happened in Chancellor's, and it seemed that something interesting -- though only Victor and I could have guessed how interesting -- was about to happen.

Cheeky Charlie finally noticed that Tiffany was beside him. He turned to her and spoke. He only said two words, one of which might be unfamiliar to the average man-on-the-street but which was eminently familiar to everyone in the bar.

Said Cheeky Charlie, plainly, "Where's Gergely?"

Victor's jaw dropped. My jaw dropped. I could see the anger returning to Victor's briefly placid visage, and was forced to consider the possiblity that for a change, Victor might end up getting angry about something worth getting angry about. But. In the long run, especially considering what was undoubtedly about to be revealed, it was best -- in the strongest possible sense of the word "best" -- that Tiffany was out of Victor's life, and I felt personally responsible at that moment for keeping her and her revelations as far from him as possible. It dawned on me then that as we had not actually received any food, much less successfully placed an order, we were in no way yet beholden to the restaurant. Celia was still entranced by the scene, pregnant with implications, which was preparing to unfold. I slid myself against Victor, indicating wordlessly that we should evacuate the booth. Victor, also wordlessly, indicated with quite the frown that he didn't plan to.

Victor and I don't need to talk. That's how it is when you've known someone as long as I've known Victor. There's a fair amount of communication that can be achieved nonverbally even between people who haven't known each other long, but that is quite dwarfed by the range of silent conversation that is available to people with decades of friendship under their belts. Employing all my skills as a nonverbalist, I made it quite clear to Victor that we were leaving immediately, or else. And furthermore, the "or else" part would be so unimaginably horrific that, well, it couldn't be imagined, much less nonverbally communicated. And finally, and most importantly, I told my good friend Victor without moving my lips, we weren't just leaving, we were sneaking out, not because we were risking the ire of an unpaid restauranteur, but because we wanted to avoid the attention of both Cheeky Charlie and Tiffany. Victor got me, especially the "or else" part, and complied with my nudge. We slid out of the booth, out of Chancellor's, and, if we're lucky, forevermore out of Tiffany's evidently quite voluminous sphere of influence.

And so it was, another boring evening with Victor.

i am linda hamilton, carving into the wood in "the terminator": NO FATE. i don't believe in predestination. not exactly.

i do believe in the necessity of the placement of events in my past to produce the current configuration of my life. now, were i to believe in some guiding force placing those events in my life, i'd be saying i believed in fate. i can (and in my mind, often do) draw a very simple line from Where I Am Now to A Big Major Turning Point that happened not so long ago.

(In thinking a bit before writing this I realize that I could trace the chain of events back further to my choice of employment after graduation, however, i think no matter which job i accepted (and only one of my offers was for the bay area) i would have required the sort of Big Major Turning Point that I experienced not so long ago to divert my path from where it was heading post-college. depending on whether i believe in fate at the time of my analysis, i could go either way on whether i'd have met 203 had i taken the job in boulder or san diego, but i can say without a shred of doubt that had it not been for the BMTP i would not have met 203 at all in the bay area, and, had i miraculously somehow met her, it nonetheless would not have mattered, on account of it was the BMTP that allowed me to progress to the stage where she'd be interested in me.

unless, of course, i were to believe in fate and soul mates -- in which case i'd have to say that not only would we have met no matter what path i'd taken out of college, we'd also have managed somehow to have the connection we've got now, even without the transformation in me that came about as a result of the BMTP. or, if i were to believe in reincarnation and follow a line of thought that i heard once on a hike, we'd have met and known something was up, but i would have had to wait until another life to have her.

so what do i believe? depends.)

It goes a little something like this:

1 - got really sick
2 - happened upon someone in the office (no less fatedly than the happening upon 203, it seems fair to say) who was a sympathetic talker upon subjects of great interest
3 - said someone introduced me to the evil smith machine and instructed me in the performance of the squat (that's the big one there, the heart of the BMTP)
4 - i got myself in shape
5 - my self esteem burgeoned
6 - i started dating
7 - i started hiking
8 - on account of my squatting i could hike well right outta the box
9 - also nearly right outta the box, i met 203

the rest (and the aforementioned, for that matter) is history, but the point is that in the absence of any of the preceding 8 events, and the implied but not explicitly stated event 6.5, event 9 would not have happened. it's weird to think of my life in that way, and i marvel at it all still, because other events in my life are not so dependent on such a precise set of discrete events. the college i went to, the job i took, where i decided to live -- all these things, though very important and influential in my life -- cannot be traced across a path so brightly lit, and certainly do not depend on such a long chain.

so once upon a time i learned how to squat, and now with hindsight i can see that it was a Big Major Turning Point. so what? asks the inattentive or new reader. let me show you with 2000 words:

before

after

which of those guys do you think was more popular with the ladies?

nevermind looks. which do you think had a more interesting mind? which has the more genuine smile? which one believes in himself?

i am genetically, constitutionally, and culturally predisposed to being a lot more like the first guy than the second. i'm never willingly going back, now, but i'm still predisposed. it's a battle for me, but fortunately i enjoy the battle. being in the sort of shape where i could hike convincingly changed my life. that's all there is to it. and to get to that point, i had to learn how to squat.

now, i have an artifact in my possession, hanging on my wall, to be precise. i was looking at it this morning and realized something: if i were in the sort of mood where i'd speculate about which items in my home are "magical" or "enchanted", this would be first on my list. no matter what you want to call it -- mojo, the force, vibes, spirit -- this thing's infused with it. and the reason that it's so full of strange, mysterious power in a way that probably nothing else in my house is, is that it's not a symbol, it's not a representation, it's not a reminder of an important thing or event in my life. it's not a pointer (heh) to a turning point (turningp_t *, heh), it is a turning point. it's number 10 in the list above.

i've got other such things in my posession, i suppose. we could speak of my tent, my backpack, my hiking shoes, all of which have been with me during excellent times as well as bad times. we could mention my booth and bar, which have accumulated the sweat and witnessed the effort that took me from number 4 above all the way to the as-yet-undefined number 10. we could speak of certain books, certain computer programs, certain words, certain phrases, certain people. certainly, all of these have had influence -- some great -- on my life. but none were turning points.

the map up on my wall, with the handwritten suggestion that i, in a burst of un-me-ness, dared to follow, is an actual object around which my life pivoted. there is nothing else that i possess of which i can say the same.

now, my forebears imparted to me a strong aversion to idol worship (though i have very little objection to goddess worship, luckily for 203 ;) so despite my insane rantings about "the force" and "mojo" dwelling in this map, i don't intend to make sacrafices to it or give it a name or dance naked in a circle around it (well, that last bit, actually, i do that). nonetheless, when i set my eyes upon it, it usually gives me a shiver.

spookly.

whatever happened to this guy?

and whither this guy?

look how young and innocent they looked. how little they knew what they were getting into. how little they guessed what wonders lay ahead. how far away these two seem.

they're less than two years old.

ancient history.

i just remembered something.

back in the old days when i'd go rollerblading/cycling along the fester city stink path every weekend, every monday i'd suffer horrible allergies. kinda like i'm having right now. oh what a relief to remember that my ick is actually fester city stink induced and (probably) not another sinus infection!

i realize its only been a few short years gone by
but still i think, how far away i am
and tears will fill my eyes

i hope it wont be too long now before i lose my mind
a time for us, soon will come
and then you will, then you will be mine

rescue me
from the life that
keeps me from you

rescue me
so i can be
closer to you

i knew when i saw you
that we would fall in love
and now, now that i have you
we'll live together as one
and i promise you, my baby
that i won't leave you, no never
i will stay in your arms
holding each other tight
as long as you can, you can
rescue me
from the life that
keeps me from you

rescue me
so i can be
closer to you

the weekend left me with a headache, fatigue, and a scratchy throat.

if i get sick again, there's gonna be trouble.

looks like either (or both) my running tank top or my skating tank top has a deltoid window which i forgot to sunscreen. ouch.

greenpeace has an ad.

surprisingly, it's very similar to a HUMMER ad which i saw in slc when i had TV for a weekend.

the ad went like so:

a dude is in the checkout line at the grocery store. he's buying several pounds of vegetables and tofu. the tofu isn't scanning properly. sheepishly, he looks at the customer behind him. another dude. the second dude is buying several tons of uncooked red meat. then a slogan flashes across the screen, something like "RECAPTURE YOUR MANHOOD" and we see the "wimpy vegetarian" driving around in his humongous h1/2/3.

the message of the ad was so subversively clear i could not believe it was not a joke. it was, of course, what everyone's been saying about for-show monster-truck drivers for... ever, and about h2 drivers since the h2 arrived.

"GOT A TINY PENIS? BUY A BIG TRUCK!!"

i could not believe GM thought such an ad would do aught but cause potential buyers to hang their heads in shame, perhaps, if they were lucky, catching a glimpse of their penises and deciding that perhaps they aren't shriveled enough to warrant an 8mpg vehicle.

but i still keep on seeing new h2/h3s on the road so i guess the "quest for manhood" continues. good luck to you. wankers.

aha!

i figured out something that's been bugging me. i saw the word "patient" in an IM session and was enlightened.

as soon as i mastered the art of impatience, i was forced to become a student of patience.

and hence, my conflict.

sux2bme!

too hot to think. maybe that's for the best.

but not too hot to not be lonely.

i am alone, but i'm not lonely, says deniro.

he was lying. he tried to prove to himself that he wasn't, but pacino still held his hand.

cruel fate, cruel weather, cruel couch, cruel vegemite, to have set me up like this. so it goes. someday the heat and the separation and the worry thoughts of "but i don't know her well enough!" and the musty smell will all be a silly memory.

because i do. i'm just a little lonely and hot.

yesterday, while getting my haircut, the barber and i chatted up a storm, which is, in large part, why i returned to this particular barber. somewhere along the way she said something to the effect of "a busy mind is a happy mind."

i debated internally whether i really wanted to "go there". imho, the opposite is true. it's the beer-swilling std-swinging brainless party guys that are happiest, and i would never accuse those guys of having busy minds. you know the type i'm talking about.

no, us thinkly types, the ones with busy minds, are rarely happy -- unless we get our shit sorted out and figure out the happy-knack.

then it's the best of both worlds. i know how to be as happy as the happiest coke-fiend, for free, and i can code up a mean bit of C++, too. in fact, if i put my mind to it, i can do both at once.

anyhow, to the barber, i half-heartedly offered that perhaps the folks with the least going on upstairs are actually the happiest, to which she offered a counter that, to my mind, seemed more to bolster my argument than hers, having something to do with how she didn't mean happy, tv-consuming couch-potatoes, but instead, people who keep their mind busy by keeping themselves busy. i wimped out and conceded the point rather than point out that, at least in my case, i rarely find my mind so "busy" with whatever activity is occupying me that i haven't got time to think about 2 or 3 other things in the "back of my mind", at least one of which, quite often, is more a cause of worry than happiness.

but that's just me. and maybe that's my point.

ah.

i re-read before posting, for a change, and now i see that i am wrong and she was right. or, we were both right.

not "busyness" in my case. focus, concentration, singlemindedness, happiness, and someday, samadhi. but i think my point was (and is) that them's what already have very little going on can more easily than me achieve the singlemindedness that puts a grin on my face.

there. thesis, antithesis, and.. uh. that other thing.

just got back from some inline skating. it's been nearly two years since my last skating incident, after which, within two days, i found myself both pre-emptively dumped and once again on the advil 4x4x4 plan. both quite fond memories.

this time i've little fear of knee injury and even less fear of being dumped.

i took the old FC bike path route that i'd taken so many times in the past. it's changed a little, but not much. someone has ground down a lot of the root-induced blacktop-buckles and re-paved some of the rough spots, but other spots are as rough as ever.

i'd forgotten about the adorable squirrel lookouts. they waved to me as usual.

on the way "there" i saw some jackasses waterskiing in the fester city stink lagoon. on my way "back", they were getting a chatting-to by the "harbor patrol". i didn't know the stink lagoon had a "harbor patrol", and the very idea cracks me up. doubtless some fearless fester city resident frantically dialed 911 to report stink lagoon traffic exceeding 2 knots and the "harbor patrol" was scrambled to write the jackasses a ticket and explain to them that "fun" was outlawed in fester city back in 1972.

i can't believe someone would spend the $$$ on a motorboat and then use it in the stink lagoon. color me boggled.

also on the way "back" i heard, over the sounds of full-blast infected mushroom a nasty screech and bang sound. right within visual range was the 101, though the area of origin of the screech-bang was obscured by a bridge. sure enough, traffic began to slow. guess i was an auditory witness to an accident.

and now, the answers to the burning question that everyone is dying to know. was it fun?

answer: sorta.

the downsides :
- the inline skates hurts my footsies something fierce. i wasn't wearing my superfeet, but i don't think even they would help. after a while, as usual, my foot went numb. has to do with pressure points in the boot, i can reverse the effect if i stop and wiggle. still, not exactly "comfortable".
- it's slightly terrifying. the path is uneven and i'm still not too confident on the skates. i've never had a major acute skating disaster, but i'm always on the verge of one. there are cracks and roots and all sorts of nasty obstructions all over. i really don't want to spill. that'd be bad for my primary sports (running, hiking, lifting), all of which are already oh-so-gentle on the joints.
- it's not very cardiorific. it used to be, i used to be bushed after an hour of it. but after a 6 mile run yesterday, 9 miles on the skates was cake today. but if i'm exercising it'd at least be nice to feel like i deserve an ice cream afterwards. no ice cream today. if it wasn't so sunny i might not even have been sweaty.

the upsides :
- it's not very cardiorific. relaxing (if not for the terror).
- i get to wear a tank top
- it's fun to not be on a bike but still move faster than running (i averaged 9 minutes/mile for 9 miles. never mind the pace; i haven't (yet) managed to run more than 6(.12) miles at any pace.)

in sum, it's a major pita for some decent semi-relaxing fun-in-the-sun. i'll take a run or a good hike over skating any day, unless it's the day right after a run or a good hike, in which case i might have to think about it. i've been known to ignore my don't-do-the-same-exercise-activity-two-days-in-a-row rule.

it's Frobuary 1, YOMHC 0x12. went back to the chatty lady and got a decent cut. letting it grow out a little on top although maybe i shouldnta considering the freggin heat around here. arrgghh.

it's been almost two years since my last post to wotsam. i've abandoned the old wotsam and learned me a new programming language which i love, whereas c++ i merely tolerated. having been a C badass and a C++ "i get it"ski, i'm in a position to really appreciate and not horribly misuse something like python, my new lang-de-jure.

so i find myself rewriting my old college "senior project" in this trendy new language, and i am delighted to see not only how gracefully the language handles the task, but also how gracefully my experience changes the embarassing crap of my senior year into the Much Nicer Code of my pre-retirement years.

i stayed up coding last night and jumped right back into it in the morning. it's been a long time since i had a hobby project at home. the irony is that it's keeping me outta the sun.

in fact, it's a huge irony is that i'm staying inside so much this summer, now that i'm at last an outdoorsy person. what the dillyo?

set a PR in the weightroom yesterday, and then went on to set a PR on the road today. 6.12 miles in a nothing-to-boast-about 59 or so minutes. i've run 6 miles once before in my life, but it was all flat then (sure wasn't this time), it wasn't 85 degrees out then (sure was this time), and i'm pretty sure that when i did the sixer a year or so ago, i stopped a couple times along the way. no stopping this time. i mighta been able to do more if i'd brought some water.

my knee was bothering me last night, not entirely sure why, except i've got a guess by way of something i observed long ago. i'm not squatting or deadlifting at all this summer, in fact, probably not until january. it's an experiment in contrarian behavior and also it's designed to help my running (which, judging by this PR, it has). still, once upon a time i noticed that squatting/deadlifting made my knees feel nice, and stopping made them feel bad. that might be it, or it might be that i torqued it a little during yesterday's rows.

when i got back i chugged a liter of gatorade which i had forgotten to put in the fridge. i had to take ice from my ice bag and smash it against my all clad saucepan to break it into pieces small enough to fit in a glass. let that be a lesson.

then i couldn't get my clothes off they were so freakin sweaty. neat. my latest attempt at nipple protection is an all-clad sleeveless (for the shoulder tan) compression shirt and i'll be damned -- it seems to be working. 6 miles in semi-sweltering heat and no nipple problems. of course, in that shirt, everyone and their little doggie too can see pretty much everything that's on me from the waist up, so i'm highly motivated to lose some of the jiggly.

speaking of which i certainly didn't lose any of the jiggly on my SLC trip/lung infection and i hit the pavement at a whopping 197lbs. i sure as shit didn't feel like i was flying today, i was slogging, as shown by my time.

i don't nutriate like a runner. i eat like a weightlifter trying to lose weight. oh well.

part of the reason i chose to run instead of hike today is that the run is more of a challenge, it's over sooner yet more effective as exercise, it doesn't remind me painfully (yet) of who's missing, and i desperately need the endorphins to make it through the next 25 days and 10 hours.

could be worse. i could not need the the endorphins to make it through the next 25 days and 10 hours.

got to use my power drill this morning to fix my busted dishwasher. it felt manly. hooray for power drills, hooray for busted dishwashers, and hooray for incompetent maintenance people who can't be arsed to properly install dishwashers.

last night, digging through some old backups, i found a "zip.zip" which appeared, based on content, to date back to my college years, and contained several other zip files and something tantalizingly named "harangue.txt". all the files were encrypted and i could not unzip them, even using all my "standard" passwords. so i searched the web for a .zip file password cracker, since i know .zip is easily decrypted. found just what i needed and it quickly found the password. sadly, the cracker, being unregistered shareware, would not tell me the password, it just told me it had found it and unzipped the first file in the .zip. even more sadly, that first file was totally uninteresting, being a couple of ML test programs from my latter college years. ick.

so i did some more searching and found a crack for the cracker (heh), gave it another go, and before i knew it, i'd unzipped the whole thing. reproduced below is the text of "harangue.txt", which, evidently, was intended for publication in the school rag, and, also evidently, was never quite finished. i don't think i ever sent it in, the writing of the thing having relieved the stress which prompted its creation. what a pompous ass i was back then, but do note, dear reader, that my views on the matter have changed little since then, as evidenced by my behavior.

in addition to the harangue, i came across a forgotten gem which blew my mind and cracked me up. if you've the courage to run on your PC an .exe created in my freshman year of college, dear reader, then knock yourself out. guaranteed laughs.

and now, as promised...

(note: the "gulf war" referred to below is the first one. you know, bush senior. the one that wasn't a total mess. the one that didn't prompt me to go against philosophy and actually vote, for all the good that ended up doing. right. now, as promised...)

"Rock the Vote!" screams a cheesy sign, its message falling upon deaf ears. "Choose or Lose!" shouts another, bringing a smile to the lips of one who has chosen to lose. Catchy MTV style slogans they are -- terse and to the point, while managing with ease to remain completely devoid of any meaning or logical reasoning. Slogans such as these are amusing, not just beacuse of their lack of substance, but because of their very real convincing power -- a power that relies on a populace's unwillingness to think.

Why should I vote? Allow me to enumerate a short list of reasons that may be familiar to the reader.

1. Countless brave Americans boldy sacraficed themselves in numerous wars to provide me with my right to vote. (Guilt = People Died for You.)

Oh yeah? I was under the impression that countless brave Americans sacraficed themselves in numerous wars to satisfy the territorial cravings of bunch of aging elitists. Does "aging elitist" offend you? How about "Congressperson." In all seriousness, I know of only three wars that could be construed as motivated by a concern for the freedom of American Citizens -- the American Revolution, the American Civil War (in which both sides were convinced that they fought for the freedom of all America), and most recently, the Gulf War, in which American oil "rights" were most forecefully promoted and protected. I would be quite skeptical of anyone who attempted to convince me that any other American wars were fought for the benefit of the freedom of the average American. I would strongly question the notion that "humanitarian missions" are executed (planned, funded) for the reasons implied by the name.

2. Voting is a necessary task that members of a democratic society are obligated to perform. By not voting, I am destroying the very fabric of our great nation. (Guilt = You're ruining everything!)

How can I be bound by the obligations and rituals of a society that is involuntary? I did not choose to be an American -- my being so is nothing but a function of my own geography. My beleiving that America is the greatest nation on earth is also a function of my geography. Citizens of Ethiopia doubltess consider Ethiopia to be the greatest nation on earth, though Americans would beg to differ. To argue that I am bound by the customs and rites of American society -- even though I have never formally accepted those customes and rites -- is similar to arguing that I should pay tuition to UC San Diego even though I rejected my admission there. What I am saying is simply this: why should I follow the rules of a game that I did not choose to play? No one asked me to be an American, the obligations were simply forced upon me because of where I was born. (As a point of interest, I agree completely with statement number 2 -- but only when it applies to a voluntary democracy. A free state where the citizens are not free to quit the game is no free state.)

3. There are freedom fighters in ( insert third world nation ) dying to obtain for their children the same right to vote that I was handed on a silver platter. (Guilt = There are starving children in China.)

Anyone who has taken the GE required logic courses at [name of my college] should be able to spot a bad argument here, unless they were asleep on Fallacy Day. The fact that there are people less fortunate than me does not require me to run out and vote. Certainly, I applaud their brave efforts, their noble causes, and their martyred heroes -- but it doesn't follow that I should vote. If I bought a crumb doughnut that you couldn't afford, it does not follow that I would be better off than you if I ate it.

4. By voting, I make my voice heard. By voting, I let the politicians know what I really want.

I can think of much more efficient and effective ways of making my voice heard and letting politicians know what I want. Right now, I am making my voice heard far more effectively than I ever could in some cramped voting booth. If I wanted a politician to know what I thought, I could write a letter, stage a protest, or have a political rally outside his office. (If I wanted a politician to CARE what I thought, I could make a contribution to his campaign fund.) Don't be fooled. By voting, you are not making your voice heard.

added an addendum to this.

need to (re)create the schlock index page. it's on my todo list. stay tuned.

as a poet, as an artist, as a web designer, as a romantic, and as a total dork, i have outdone myself.

exhibit a.

i make a point of talking to people now. i'm conversant. sometimes they have to start a conversation with me (like the guy who sat next to me from DEN to SFO), but sometimes I'll provoke a conversation, like with the cabbie who brought me home from SFO.

this afternoon i picked up some green beans from the mailroom and got to talking with the mailroom guy about home roasting. Just as i was about to open the box to show him the greens, he said he grew up on a coffee plantation. "then i guess you already know what green coffee looks like," i said. he then went on to describe the dry processing method which apparently was used on his plantation (perhaps confusing that with roasting, though perhaps not, and perhaps just assuming (incorrectly) that my beans are unprocessed and not de-pupled).

'twas a great conversation and i left him with the name of my bean supplier (sweet maria's, in case you've forgotten), after explaining to him that it isn't particularly cheaper than store roasted coffee, although it is fresher, tastier, and of wider variety.

he may end up roasting. how cool is that?

looking heavenward to her picture while driving home yesterday
i remembered when she was right there with me, when i took that picture
that day, that week, when she sat so often next to me, in my car
and it occurred to me then, last night
that she inhabits my spaces
my passenger seat, my driver seat, my home, my bed, my beach
as if they were made for her
and she for them

she fits in my spaces
my places
my life
as if she'd always been there

perhaps, like david in the block of marble, waiting to be revealed
she always was

today's fortune cookie:

love can make a summer fly,
or a night seem like a lifetime.

holy
fargen
shite.

question: how many dayhikes have i been on?
answer: on the order of 100, all within the last 1.5 years.
followup question: how many times have i been on a dayhike that spanned more than 12 miles?
followup answer: on the order of 10 times.
pointed question: on how many of those hikes was 203-to-be not present?
pointed answer: exactly 0.
conclusion: should be obvious.

hello crappy stock market.

a year from december two weeks will seem like a joke of a separation. we'll have done that and more, many times.
doing it again should, by then, be theoretically easy.
but in a year from this december, i hope that you will feel as i know that i will feel
having finally ended our apart
two weeks will be too much to ask

i'd have to honestly say that i slept better last night alone
but the difference between this morning and yesterday morn
is that today
waking up had so little to offer

visitation countdown : -4 days 22 hours 20 minutes

i guess that's what happens when my counter goes negative: it goes negative. whoda thunkit?

i deleted an entry from the blog because it fucked up my layout.

don't tell anybody!

something that was said in post 1 down here got me thinking last night and this morning.

"I think it would be infinitely more productive for you to not indulge this self-indulgent personal narrative any further by yearning after "the other", whatever that means."

the key words were "personal narrative". i tend to live my life like a personal narrative, and view it in terms of a story, with meanings and symbolism and all sorts of clever literary references and tricks.

you can hear it in the way that i tell and retell important stories from my life, infusing them each time with more meaning, more significance, more symbolic portent. you can hear it in the way i tell stories about me in the third person, the way i assign "roles" to figures (people!) in my life.

like jurgen prochnow in that silly john carpenter movie, i'm writing my universe as i go along. that became most markedly apparent, i think, when i started blogging and began doing things specifically so i could photograph them and write about them for the blog.

pretty soon, the urge to "do stuff" began coming naturally with no consideration of the blog.

but still, sometimes the best way to make choices is to think of how they'll look in the writeup.

i like a good challenge.

no, really, i do. and one of the things that makes a challenge so challenging is the challenge of keeping a positive attitude whilst in the midst of the challenge.

so, dear reader, challenge yourself to stretch your imagination for a bit to see if you can appreciate the challenge which faces me.

imagine, for a moment, a dude. an ordinary dude. some might call him a "guy", if they weren't from socal, and some might call him a "man", if they didn't know him well. he calls himself a "dude", though certainly he is not "The Dude", for the dude in question likes to shave rather than smoke ganja.

now, this dude, this guy, this man, if you will, fell in love. no challenge there, that was easy. but oh my, he had to overcome an internal challenge or two to have that love requited. and oh my, again, not so challenging. he had been on a roll with such things for a while.

(by the way, the dude is me. what? you knew that? oh, well, sorry to break up the flow of the writing, then.)

no, the big challenge was that his love, who would not-so-later be revealed as the love of his life, i.e. his future wife, which so charmingly rhymes with life, a fact which could dangerously lead to some devastatingly horrid couplets, such as the preceding, was leaving. and although it was not on a jet-plane, and the dude and his love did in fact know when she'd be back again, the dude was faced with the challenging challenge of being in a long term, long distance relationship, his very first, knowing that such things rarely worked.

(okay, i have to go soon so i'll skip to the point).

since then this dude has faced many challenging challenges, such as getting over his severe distaste for flying. funny i should mention flying, yes? since today i'll be doing just that, yes?

oh, and with a fargen lung infection. aha! there's the part that makes it challenging. last flight was challenging just by virtue of it being a flight. this time around a flight would have been old hat, so fate, in a bitchy, having-a-laugh-at-me mood decided to grace my lungs with another bacterial infection just in time to fly to SLC and probably not hike with the love of my life.

or maybe i will.

i have this incessant urge to show her that i'm a tough guy. now, i am, actually a tough guy. it's just that my gorram immune system isn't.

sigh. i wanted to post something this morn but now i've run plain outta time. so here's the gism of my post: why can't i have a nice visit with my long-distance fiancee without being ill one way or another? answer: because that wouldn't be any sort of a challenge, and challenges reveal character. my character is that of cheesily indomitable spirit. you can take my dislike of flying, but you'll never take my (sucks in air (coughs)) freeeeeeeeeeedoooooooooommmmmmmm!!!

(goes to take a crap, which william wallace was no longer free to do after that point in the movie)

once i got my head screwed on, or rather, once i came undone, i wielded that power. i used it and destroyed it, but in its destruction i got what i wanted. we both got what we wanted.

i am no tyrant. i misunderstood the nature of my power. the essesnce of power is knowing when to wield it, and when, instead, to simply talk like an overstuffed ass.

that spiff-o-rific day in may, as now, was the time for the latter. the lion had not yet found his roar, and when, having found it, it turned out to be a mouse's squeak, the lion found it to be sufficient.

you say i'm a lion? i do have a mighty roar!

"printable" blog entries.

MT's documentation is not fantastic, but i makes up for it in google-fu and mad skillz.

and the "printable" entry didn't break anything ;)

heh, i bet this breaks things.

it's spelled with a "k" because it's not facke.

SEE YOU TOMORROW

the new layout is taking shape. it's snazzy, it's jazzy, it's totally boring.

but it's easy to read. and it loads fast.

fewer cutesy layout thingies and more cutesy posting, that's what i'm aiming for.

let me know if something doesn't work. still some work to be done getting the "theme" consistent across all pages.

the new (temporary, i assure you) color scheme looks like total crap in opera.

in the meantime, let's get this back up on the main page:

and also, let's get some counters back up there, even if they look crappish, i need them.

updated the blogging software.

now i gotta redo everything including the layout. stay tuned.

here is a test pic:

hope this one works out as planned ;)

it seems like it was just yesterday that i was saying how much sony sucks and how unlike my sony electronics, my panasonic dvd player has lasted from the first generation of players back in 98/99 until the present day.

well, that was yesterday.

now it says "NO DISC" when i put in any disc, and when i tried to use my ps2 to play the discs, it skipped and blipped and sucked to high heaven. so i guess i'm in the market for a new player.

now, back in the old days i'd research for days on end and get the bad-assest most awesome expensive player i could. but i got the a110 back in 98/99 for around $400, so that's about $50 yearly, which ain't bad. nowadays i (expect) i can pay $50 and get a player that has 20x the features, or pay $200 for one that's got 20x the features and a little bit of quality, too.

plus, nowadays $200 isn't my entire paycheck. huzzah! bleah.

i've always wanted to be quotidian, i'd just never found the right woman.

the sort of woman with whom life may be quotidian, but never boring.

stupid new stainless razor irritates the hell outta my skin.

so it goes.

but it looks cool and is ever-so-practical, on account of it won't rust!

but if it hurts, then it's back to the drawer for yous, mister stainless. sigh.

and threatens to "take advantage of me" or "photograph me in compromising positions"?

party people, you've seen me sober. isn't that compromising enough?

when the student is ready the master will appear

probably the only older, more widely known "occult truism" than the above is, "as above, so below." and indeed, in this blog post, as above so below. let's get on with what's below.

i'd known about the phrase for ages. i intended to practice occultism/magick of some sort or another for equally long ages. like everthing else i "intended" to do since graduating high school, i Never Really Quite Got Around To It. i tried to set up a daily meditation routine in college, but i had an asswipe of a roommate who made fun of me and my skin, at that time, was too thin to take it. then when i moved in by myself, i got hooked on the internet and had noisy neighbors or something and still never managed to get into meditation. truth be told, i still don't do it.

now i lift and run, instead, which serve the same purpose for me, at times, though perhaps not as fruitfully.

life moved on after college and i got me a job and put the nose to the grindstone. my magickal aspirations fell by the wayside though i still "dabbled" (indeed, i was (am?) one of the hated dabblers) in the intellectual side of things, reading and learning and forgetting and understanding and all that. when i bothered to think about where my erstwhile aspirations had gone and where my life was leading, i lazily excused myself with, "when the sudent is ready, the master will appear."

and then one did. i met someone and we became fast friends. throughout our conversations (lectures, more like), i quickly convinced myself that i had met the master that i needed at the time. (apparently i was "ready".) every minute that we spent together, i learned something new and fascinating, even if -- as was often the case -- it had nothing whatsoever to do with the topic under discussion. my supposed master turned me on to several new physical-mystical practices which remain with me today.

and then, one day, he, to my surprise, asked me if i'd heard the phrase, "when the student is ready, the master will appear." he asked me what i thought it meant, and corrected me. when the student is ready, he explained, the student becomes the master.

initiation from within. the external stuff is just hand-waving and fancy costumes.

that was a bigtime smack upside the head. and yet, it was not enough to smack me out of my complacence. as much as i thought i was, i, the student, was not ready.

much later, long after my shaman had moved on, as shamans do, i realized that the master had appeared, though i hadn't been consciously working toward initiation. (references to this abound on my cruddy little site, too many to link.) of course, i am no all-around master, but i am master of some domains (har!) and have mastered parts of my life which were sorely underdeveloped, and which, having been mastered, have yielded great fruits.

a great profundity struck me shortly after i began my overt romance with 203. i revealed to her some documentary evidence, dated long before i ever met her, that i had "always" been looking for "someone like her." way back when, when i started to really get my shit together, i decided that i wanted a woman who would inspire me, and get me out to do stuff, help guide me toward bigger and better things, and drag me along on adventures. in other words, i wanted a mate who would do all my work for me.

now, that is a good (incomplete, naturally) description of 203. but there was no chance in heaven or hell that our friendship would have lasted beyond the first hike -- much less developed into what we have now -- if i had been the spineless, needy, weenie that i was when i wrote about how i wanted a mate to run my life for me. it was only when i no longer needed her to change my life that she could commence doing so.

"the lord helps them that help themselves." you've heard that one before, right? can't say it's much different from what i italicized way up top in this post.

like a good, humble, bodhisattva, once i had attained this enlightenment (even before), i attempted to subtly guide those around me down a similar path, through word and deed. it may be working, it may not. perhaps i should do more.

the thing about most occult literature is that it's total gibberish until it's not really needed any longer. reading crowley's "book of lies" in my college days, i "ha-ha"d along with the author thinking the joke was on everyone else. now, of course, that i can grasp bits of his meaning, i realize the joke was on me, the me of back-then. but now that i can understand the great one's meaning, i no longer so much need his advice.

which brings me to my thoughts recently on the field of the occult/magick, namely, whether i wish to pursue the practices which i began shortly after i flipped my life inside out last may. on the one hand, these are pursuits which i have intended to pursue since late adolescense -- and lately i've been Getting Around To It with all the shit i've been putting off for the last decade. so there's that, but there's also the sneaking suspicion that i've had, most strongly this morning, that i might just obtain very little benefit.

i have my own spiritual system and now that i am comfortable in my place, i am reaping the benefits of my life's work. i am working poweful magick in the crowleyan sense, the very system which i had always intended to practice. true, i never did manage knowledge and conversation of my holy guardian angel, but we all know what that means anyhow, and there's a good chance i've achieved the equivalent in my own system.

and so it is that i'm coming to believe in a general trend in (at least "my") life: by the time one finds what one needs, one no longer needs it, or at least, no longer for the initially understood purpose.

for example, while searching for tattoo advice, i came upon this site, which now, in my boredom, i am exploring, and this morning, i found these two posts (text preserved below Just In Case):

post 1
post 2

Boring, solipsistic, self-indulgent and--here's the kicker--not even having a good time.

that's it right there.

where was that when i needed it, 10 years ago? oh yes, i would not have understood it then.

i saw this nice little bit on the internet last night someplace:
good choices come from experience. experience comes from bad choices.

seems i've got some experience now. maybe that's why i've been making so many good choices lately. maybe that's why i've been lately feelin "at one with the universe" and all that shit. maybe that's an invitation to fate's hammer. hope not.

a lot of the time i have proto-thoughts swirling around in my brain fog. partially formed ideas just waiting for combination with their counterparts and expression into words. occasionally, if they get lucky, they'll get written down and explored. sometimes these things bounce around in there for ages before i notice them. i grasped at one last night, and now i'm going to give a shot at expounding on it because i find it interesting. YMMV.

executive summary and topic set: i admire and adore 203. i find these two impulses to be delightfully conflicting.

i admire 203. i talked a little about that here. she's an amazing person with skills, drive, attitude, outlook, intelligence, and humor: all of which i find not only advanced, but properly aligned. in other words, i personally aspire to be like her in many ways. she's a role model for me. she shows me the way. how about that?

but i'm no bumbling baby, myself. if i were, there'd be no relationship here. i've got skills, drive, attitude, outlook, intelligence, and humor as well, and they've mostly got good vectors. i've got room to grow, but so does she, and so does everyone. but here's the thing: from early on (and i mean early) in our relationship, i admired her as i have admired very few people before. in fact, when i look upon the set of people for whom i felt a similar sense of awe, the short list really only has one member, and because of this, i think i can pinpoint what it is about her that has me in awe: she no only has but -- for me -- embodies the courage to tackle life that i always felt i lacked. until shortly before i met her, i stumbled through life, going through the motions, doing what i thought others wanted of me. quoth early metallica:

you only live once
you take all of the chances
don't end up like others
same song and dance

i knew, deep down somewhere, that this was how i wanted to live, but somehow i never got around to it. i'm getting around to it. again, if i weren't, there'd be no relationship. if she didn't know, deep down somewhere, that this trend in me is increasing, again, there'd be no relationship. she doesn't want a potato. i don't want to be a potato. she won't let me be a potato, but she won't have to not let me be a potato, because i ain't gonna be a potato.

now, while i was thinking about this "adventurous spirit" kinda dealy-o that i so admire and so desire, in myself, and in my mate, it occured to me that i know a-plenty of people with "adventurous spirit" but do not admire them in the same way that i admire 203 (and, if we wish to isolate this admiration, we can zip back to june 25 of last year when my admiration of her was yet unclouded by love for her, though, to be honest, the admiration at that time was clouded by many other emotions, foremost among them the exitement of making a new friend, especially one that i so... uhm... admired).

when we met, we immediately recognized that we understood one another in ways that our other friends did not understand us. some of those ways were insignificant. over time, we found ways which were not insignificant.

but back to what i was blabbing about a moment ago: that she captures my admiration in ways which my other adventurous acquaintences do not. the crux of it is this: between she and steak-and-mayonnaise, i know only two people that i would classify as true adventurers, real explorers of life, who have no fear of throwing it all away and starting over -- who actually understand what "it" is that they're throwing away, and yet do it anyway.

living with eyes open.

it has always been my aspiration but i never found the courage to separate myself from the easy life and become a bold adventurer. i do so in little ways around the edges and corners of my life. perhaps i'll unhinge myself and go all the way. maybe, perhaps, perchance -- who cares? this post isn't about my future, it's about my feelings.

it's about the conflict between the admiration, which i have now explored as fully as i intend to this morning, and the adoration, which i will presently commence to investigate.

i adore her. that word comes to mind (chiefly because she re-introduced it into my consciousness by using it at me) but i'm not positive it's the right word. webster says it means:

1 : to worship or honor as a deity or as divine
2 : to regard with loving admiration and devotion
3 : to be very fond of

if you slogged through the above, you'll perhaps realize that my words were words of adoration in the sense of #2 for sure, and possibly, dangerously, in the sense of #1. #1 is my personal problem, i tend to dulcinaeize (to coin a phrase) my love interest. being the self-analytical OC type that I am, however, i long ago decided that this was safe in this instance, on account of there's so much else there in our relationship that when my quixotic illusions fade, i won't be left stranded. i'll still be smiling, perhaps even more than before.

:)

here is the central nougat of the interesting (in my mind) part of the thought that i'm nearly about to put into words: the worshipful admiration, the idolization of the qualities in her to which i aspire, the elevation of her to role-model status are totally at odds with my adoration -- my loving fondness -- of her. the former absolutely tend to put her on an unreachable pedestal. after all, who can compete with or even touch their role model? very few. how many aspiring golfers will meet tiger woods? how many bodybuilders will lift with arnold? how many trust fund babies will ever get to snort coke with GWB?

and yet my adoration is most powerfully expressed in close proximity to her. touching, physically loving, helping, pointing things out, admiring. there is nothing at all remote about the way in which i lovingly adore my beautiful 203, even when we're separated by 1400 cruel miles.

and so i find myself in the somewhat bizarre position of being loved by my role model. of being, even, in some ways, admirable to my role model. and i find myself, also, realizing: this is how it must be. there is no other way i can survive in a relationship. i need to be loved by someone that i find incredible, even awesome, in the pre-80s sense of the word. and this brings me to a final point: there is nothing better in the world than to be loved my one that i find to be more amazing than me. hubritic (to coin a term!) as that may sound, there it is. to whatever extent i consider myself amazing, i consider her moreso, and the notion that nonetheless she loves lil' ol' me is mind-blowing.

(it's also, unfortunately, largely responsible for the large (but likely necessary) delay in our getting-together.)

so that's it. i dunno if this is any more clear than the brain-fog version, but to sum it up in two sentences (i tried one but failed):

i am in love with someone i find to be more perfect than myself, and the notion that she loves me and finds things in me to admire is so mind-blowingly amazing that the sky looks bluer and the grass looks greener, even when she's not around. to simultaneously worship as pedestalized and adore as lovable (with joyous imperfections and laughter moments) the same person (even the same personal qualities!) is disconcerting to rationality, but ultimately necessary in any lasting relationship that i wish to have.

this is the one i wish to have. i sure lucked out.

ran another 5mi today, it seems that my minimum distance has jumped, in the space of a week, from 2.5mi to 5mi. i credit the superfeet and the fact that now that i've done it once (twice, actually), i can't puss out and say "oooh, i'm too tired", especially since the first time i did 5mi (this year) was the day right after a semi-tough hike.

tragically, this time around, even my magic sunglasses could not save me from... you guessed it... irritation. crap! i had no troubles on sunday's fiver, wtf?

so now i'm down to two last chance options. i have one more shirt to buy and try out, and then i may have to resort to (shudder) vaseline. ick.

found some sweet music on my hard drive, a dude named S.E. Rogie, whom google describes as a native of sierra leone, which makes the following lyric from his melodious "african gospel" a bit more poignant and a little less "easy for you to say" than if he was (as i initially thought) jamaican:

when you wake up in the morning
until evening and
and you're still alive
count your blessings
and be thankful
sisters and brothers

pair that with what sounds an awful lot like a hawaiian steel guitar, and you've got one excellent album.

i ran up a nicely sized hill, while suffering from altitude adjustment.

i think i'm hyper-sensitive to altitude. this is something (else, among many things, sigh) that i must work on.

then, later, the next day, i ran up another nicely sized hill.

while carrying and off duty park ranger. that fuckin rocked.

really, i can't overemphasize how much i enjoy running around like a dufus while carrying her. i dunno what the deal is, it just makes me very happy. i'd do it now but i chose to sweep her off her feet after she'd decided to put those feet into ranger boots, and those ranger boots find her too far away for further footsweeps.

soon, though, yuletide soon, her toes need never touch ground again.

sorry, babe, you'll have to break me in. i'll go with you eventually. that's what you can expect from me, always an "i'll try."

but you knew that, absolutely.

6 days :)

nepalese himalayan coffee? i didn't know they grew coffee there. at 10.50/lb green, i dont think i'll be trying any just now. bummer.

slc is going to be 88, 94, and 97 while we're there.

good thing we both like it sweaty.

[20:09] me : man
[20:09] me : i was gonna print out some more 203 pics for my Shrine Of Loneliness
[20:09] me : but i'm outta magenta ink!
[20:09] me : and i can't go get any more, because i'm waiting in said shrine for her call!
[20:09] me : d'oh!
[20:09] me : cruel fate!
[20:10] some other guy : shrine of loneliness??
[20:10] me : heh
[20:10] me : more like a wall with pictures of her on it ;)
[20:10] some other guy : ok that be kinda sad man
[20:10] some other guy : heh heh
[20:10] me : heh
[20:10] me : that's the first time i have named the wall ;)
[20:11] some other guy : you know shrines are usually associated with unhealthy obsessions and/or stalkers
[20:11] me : yes
[20:11] me : if the shoe fits...
[20:13] some other guy : :p

if i say too much here.

we're all friends, right? i can speak from way down deep, can't i?

maybe i shouldn't. okay, enough thinking, time to go to work!

everyone who shaves consciously knows it: the most important thing when shaving is blade angle. sharpness is a distant second. doesn't matter how many blades your shaver has, or even if it's electric.

a couple days ago i stumbled across what i think might just be the optimal blade angle for my TI. it was most definitely not the angle i'd been using before, the one that yielded a shave that while close on the cheeks, was often irritating, and rarely close under the chin.

now i've lifted the blade away from the face a bit, and (with some difficulty) forced myself to maintain that angle on the undersides, and i've got less irritation and less stubble. combine that with a good skin-pull technique and i think i'm on to something.

granted, today's good shave may be a result of yesterday's abstinence. we'll know for sure tomorrow.

and most likely, the day after that, once i've finally begun to master my TI, my 2 new blades will arrive.

it's like rain, on your wedding day.

i had nothing lined up for the 4th this year, so i hiked. drove myself down to henry w coe state park, which took a bit over an hour to reach and locate. i didn't bring extra pack weight because i was Celebrating Freedom (from extra pack weight). I did bring lots of water and gatorade.

when i got there, around 11am, the "maps" bin was empty but the "parking fee self-pay envelope" bin was surprisingly full. being a good citizen, i paid. i had brought my own partial map of the park that i found on the internet, drawn by enthusiasts and not paid for with tax dollars.

hence "partial" map.

there was a posted map at the pay-for-parking area and i correllated that with my printed map and chose a tentative route, about 15 miles. i set out.

the first two miles were fucking steep. that is the best way to describe it. 1000 feet elev gain for the first mile. another 800 or so for the next mile. lots of overgrown grass everywhere including the "trail". the weather was nice, sunnyish but coolish also. things were going well. after two miles, due to the elevation-related-slowed-pace, it was about lunchtime. i lunched on my usual 2 pb+j sandwiches, supplemented with gatorade and some dried vegetables. i resumed my hike.

ups and downs, lefts and rights. many fascinating thoughts with nobody to share them at. only one thing worrying me (namely: BC in SLC), and that's not so bad, considering. along my merry way i went.

then it got a little windy. and a little overcast. that sucks because i wanted a nice warm, sweaty hike. those are the ones i like. the ones where i don't realize i'm dft and sunburned until it's all over. not the ones where the wind dries all the sweat and i'm chilled. ick. so it was clammy. fine.

around the 5.5mi mark, i took off my shades because it was no longer so sunny. the trail had begun, about a mile back, a mild descent. about .5 miles prior i had seen a sign which indicated that the trail i was on -- which was not fully mapped on my printed map -- led to parking in 3 miles. parking was "hunters hollow". now i was looking at a trail sign which said that in 2.5 miles i'd be at "upper hunters hollow". what the hell was that?

i didn't want an 8 mile hike; shiat, i'd driven an hour and a half to get here, i needed 15 miles at least.

then i took off my shades.

then i felt lightheaded. my allergies were baddened by the grass and the wind, my airways seemed a little restricted. i got slammed with the dizzies and suddenly got the feeling of "i want to be home now". sadly, i was at least 5.5mi from "home".

it was then that i realized i don't think i like solo hikes very much anymore. here i was, facing the decision of 3 miles forward (maybe! who knew what "upper" hunting hollow would be?), 5 miles back, alone, feeling cruddy, cold, and not enjoying the hike. i used to hike alone to escape, now hiking alone only reminds me of what i'm missing. the joy is still there, usually, but when something crappy like what happened yesterday goes down, it brings into sharp focus precisely who is absent from my side.

still, i am a tough guy, and before the dizzies+worries could give way to a real life case of lorazapam-hungry anxiety, i diagnosed myself as suffering from mild exhaustion, hypoglycemia (brought on by the huge G spike introduced by my sugar-rich lunch) and mild dehydration (never do drink enough water). i decided that if the trail ahead didn't look promising after another 2 minutes downhill, i'd head back. better to hike 6 certain miles than 3 uncertain miles followed by another 8 to get back to the car.

after two minutes, i turned back, hiked up hill a bit, and sat down, dizzies and all, to enjoy a bunch of gatorade. no urge to piss, so i was almost certainly dehydrated. back up i went.

later on, i found a marker for a trail that was on the map, a trail that looked to be a shorter route to the car. tragically, there appeared to be no trail. perhaps there was a trail somewhere but it was buried under fields of tall grass. after i'd filled my socks with grass burrs i decided to forget it and got back on the "there" trail to go "back". later.

the gatorade kicked in and i had some more. i was feeling a bit better.

i found another shortcut trail that actually did exist on the physical plane. i took it, because i didn't relish the idea of going downhill on the fucking steep trail i'd taken on the "there" portion of what was now, clearly, a "there and back". unhappily for me, while the shortcut trail was not fucking steep, it was, instead, incredibly fucking steep. i slipped harmlessly a couple times. i couldn't just ski down because the trail was demarcated by poison oak. that's right: tall grass in the middle of the trail, PO on both sides. it's a wonder i didn't get a tick.

eventually, after about 4.5 miles from my turnabout point, i made it to a sign that indicated .8 miles to the parking lot and 3.6 miles to "upper hunting hollow", which indicates that had i gone ahead instead of turning back, i'd have hiked nearly 7 miles instead of 4.5 to reach this point. and they'd probably all have been downhill, which, actually, would have been more miserable for me than uphill.

by this point the wind had died down and the sun was out and i had had lots of sugary gatorade and watery water. i was feeling pretty groovy, which just goes to show how much of mood is controlled by sugar and sun.

got back to my car and took the (quite fun) road back to the fwy at ludicrous speed. almost ate it once or twice. if i'da got the sport suspension i probably wouldn't have slipped as many times as i did, but then, slipping's kinda fun, as long as the traction control is turned on.

when i got home i was indeed dft, and this morning, though i put my lifting shirt on, i decided to rest and lift tomorrow. i haven't had a rest day since last thursday, and though i was supposed to have a new attitude on pussy stuff like "rest" and cop-outs like "overtraining" i'm letting irrationality have a little break for a day and allowing stuart McR. to guide my wednesday. then tomorrow it's back to the iron, with gusto.

...

one of the things i pondered while on the trail is the notion of "need" that comingles with "love". i considered, in my hypoglycemic stupor, that in my current (and to-be-permanent) relationship, neither of us seems to "need" the other. we got along more-or-less fine without and have what it takes to do so again. (i've always considered these two facts as major contributors to what makes our relationship work, i.e. neither one of us is a needy weakling, and we can respect that in one another and be drawn together by it.)

then i had a cruddy moment -- out of which i brought myself with no help other than my own -- where, though evidently i did not "need" her as such (evidenced by my survival), i nonetheless wanted strongly for 203 to be with me, to reassure my baby-self and administer fluids. when i got home i finished up a letter to her and composed a poem (inspired by thoughts on the trail) for her. and then, when she couldn't call last night (the life of a park ranger is always intense!) my mood declined, to the point where i'm in a bit of the crumbs this morning.

but i know that if i but lift my eyes heavenward to see her smiling down upon me, my mood itself will follow my gaze into heaven, and a smile will alight upon my lips, and my testicles will be fortified.

my happiness, my peace of mind, by choice, by fate, by will, by happenstance, are now in her hands. experience shows daily that i don't need her to survive, to feed myself, to dress myself (okay, i need help there), to caffeinate myself; but mere survival isn't much to boast about.

i saw it! there i was, taking a leak, and, bored, with very little to do for the upcoming 30 seconds, i glanced over into the mirror.

and that's when i saw it. right there in the mirror! staring back at me!

i am a handsome guy!

then i looked back down to finish what i was doing, finished what i was doing, and looked back in the mirror. shit! just regular-old-me again. what happened to the handsome guy? maybe i'll hit the right angle again next time.

i promise you i will never wake
if to me the same vow you'll make
if you'll ignore my neurosis-fu
i'll try hard to ignore it too
and so together endless dreaming
with open eyes, smiles beaming
if i'm under, wake me never
let me dream, with you, forever
and should Fate find She's a tender heart
let forever be just the start

i must be on vacation.

while searching the googleweb for refinements to my design for a potential tattoo, i came across this bit of prophecy (reproduced here in case the link dies, italics added so you won't miss the punch line):

As a bit of a Discordian myself, I'm gonna have to advise against the
tattoo, at least until you're on much better terms with Eris. She can
have a slightly twisted sense of humor/justice (but then again, isn't
that why we love her in the first place?). I'm not going to tell you
not to get the ink, just recommending you be absolutely sure first.
You wouldn't get married after only a couple of dates, would you?

All right then, sounds like i'm getting inked.

i guess this was all spoken too soon. out on the trail today i thought of ways to reduce this last phone bill.

the problem is that i dont like having it stuck to me. i will happily overpay for sushi or a nice concert or something, but the telcos play contract games to fuck me over. i realized out there today that i fell victim to a contract trap (i.e. i changed my contract mid-term and was therefore afforded a reduced number of minutes "pro-rated", even though i had unused minutes on the old plan that just vanished) and that although i "signed" it, i could probably call up custserv or maybe go into a store and get the bill reduced.

i am not sure of the way to proceed.

on the one hand, i can be taught the lessons of "letting go", "reading shit before signing it", "being more careful before switching cell plans", and "showing myself that i am not slave to mammon".

on the other hand, i can be taught the lessons of "dealing with corporate bullshit instead of bending over for it," "weaseling my way out of bills, whether i think they're fair or not," and "not giving my money, hard-earned or otherwise, to assholes".

i haven't actually gotten the dead-tree bill yet so i guess i have time to think it over. not really. i'm busy with other stuff. argh!

it's just that i really am that good.

i cracks me up.

i still have found no limits. lord knows i'm looking.

at this point, the only way that i can believe i've made an error is to believe that she's plain lying to me. that when she says things that stem from what she says she's learned from her past, she's just making shit up. that when she talks about how she feels about me, she's just making shit up. that when she says she can't believe she's going to marry me what she means is that she can't believe i was so easy.

i have a very vivid and active imagination. y'all know that.

i've found the limits of my imagination. my imagination stops just short of believing she's just making shit up. and so, dear reader, if you were wondering about my behavior for the last two months, here is a key: if she's not just making shit up, then i have nothing left to consider, nothing left to find out, nothing left to worry about, nothing left to analyze.

everything fits, and that is that.

"so, maybe i'm not worth it all, huh?" she asked, or something to that effect, in reference to the second in two months outrageous phone bill.

she was joking, i hope, i know, but i liked the question.

once upon a time, i said the following brilliant crap:

a purpose of life: to answer the question "what kind of person am i?"


one may think that one knows the answer, but if one is honest, one
will find that one does not know the answer until one is forced to
make a choice.

the 203 related costs are piling up. in addition to the phone bill there's the airline costs, rental cars, hotels, restaurants, postage (heh), and a huge cost in my time.

i'm finding out something important in the only way i could: am i the type of guy that will put 203 before my financials?

can i really let go as i've always hoped i could?

can i say, in all honesty, "think nothing of it?" am i generous?

a dent is being put in my finances. it's not big compared to the finances themselves. it's big compared to any previous dents. it's noticeable. it doesn't help that my stock portfolio is simultaneously taking a crap. it's on my mind.

and it doesn't matter. no, really. it doesn't. i think nothing of it.

and i have proof. it's not like i'm tipping at my favorite restaurant. it's not like i'm putting money into the hands of people i like. i'm enriching those that i find most odious: cingular, united, the usps. okay, actually, i've always liked the usps. but i despise the telcos and the airlines. i don't like paying $150 for a hotel room when i could sleep with the (hypothetical) roaches for $50.

but i think nothing of it. a grand in airfare, restaurants, and hotels to spend a weekend with 203 instead of waiting an extra month to see her? well, i've got a grand sitting right there in my savings account, what better use for it than to turn it into a visit with the one i love?

at some point, i may "wake up," as 203 fears, but it will be a re-awakening into fiscal responsibility (which i have not entirely neglected), not the awakening she means.

what's the point?

i've always wanted to be free from the concerns of money, or at least know if i could be free, or if it's just my personality to worry (rightfully so (but maybe that's just my personality)) about providing for the future above all else. i'm experiencing that freedom, not only by spending, but by forking over wads of dough to organizations that i hates. it's good to know i can do that.

'cuz as i keep threatening, someday we may have to live on little or no income.

yeah, 203, you're worth it, for any value of "it" that you or i could think up.

that's part of what makes me so cute.

also, the parts of me that are spoiled by cynicism make me cute.

i'm sooooo cute, someone give me a hug!

hey, not you! keep your filthy paws off me, you damned dirty ape!

[09:48] Andy: I've been focusing on long, slow runs this year. I have achieved 50% of my target goals!
[09:49] maury: i was talking to **** about long, slow runs yesterday.. what was the context?
[09:49] maury: oh yeah
[09:49] maury: my homemade yogurt + his lactose intolerance

fuck it babe, let's go hiking.

someone at work joked about whether i needed a passport to go to WY.

har de har.

but when i see this:

i begin to suspect that i really do need a passport to visit utah.

Utah offers a world class wine selection at three specialty wine stores located at: 255 South 300 East and 1863 East 7000 South in Salt Lake City; and 1901 Sidewinder Drive in Park City. Several other state stores also offer expanded wine selections.

Three wine stores in the whole gorram state??!!?!?

I've got three specialty wine stores WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE and one of them is my goddamn living room!

okay, not really my living room. that's a specialty whisk(e)y store.

i'm going to utah soon and i was curious about the liquor laws. i found this:

Packaged liquor, wine, and heavy beer (over 3.2%) are available in State Liquor Stores and Package Agencies..

I figured it would be something like this. I seem to recall hearing that you have to buy your wine and Real Beer from state stores in UT. that's goofy.

but what's even more goofy is calling 3.3% a "heavy beer". jebus. i don't think i've ever made a beer that was less than 5%, and i don't think i've ever enjoyed one that was less than 4%.

a nice scaldis noel at 12-15% is a heavy beer. a pint of gulden draak at 12% is a heavy beer, and you'd better have a pillow in the flight path of your head by the end of that pint. i've flushed piss that had more alcohol in it than a utah "heavy beer".

okay, no i haven't, but you know what i mean.

on the seventh day, g-d did not rest, he hiked. and the day after that, he ran, and only then did he see that it was very good.

whether it was my newly-repaired magic running shades or the superfeet that i slipped into my running shoes, i managed an extra 1.5mi for a grand total of 5 miles in a little under 50 minutes. i haven't done five miles in a long time, and i haven't ever done five miles so easily.

that rocked.

Q: What's a good way to cure boredom, allergy-clogged sinuses, and a slight hangover from excellent though unidentified homebrew?
A : Hell if I know. Back later, I'm gonna go run.

adding large amounts of pectin (2 Tbsp now, maybe more next time) before refrigeration combined with a long (2+ day) refrigeration yields a yogurt that is textured much like a commercial brand. need to acquire more of my benchmark, brown cow, for a side-by-side comparison.

now, the flavoring... that's a problem still. i tried adding some vanilla flavoring (not extract -- extract is suspended in alcohol and i fear that will kill the live cultures. this flavoring stuff is still made from real vanilla but it's got no alcohol) but i had to add quite a lot to get any flavor which has two negative effects:

1) it's expensive
2) it diluted the texture of the yogurt

also, it still doesn't taste like vanilla yogurt.

but i've still got some tricks (and hopefully, no yogurt) up my sleeve.

i thought to myself, today on the couch, i thought: self, i thought, if 203 doesn't laugh at this, then she's not the gal for us.

and then later when i wondered whether i should post this, or whether i should ask first and forget about posting it if she said she didn't laugh, i harkened back to something i'd said earlier this evening:

SHE : what would you have done if i'd said "no"?
ME : i knew before you answered what you were going to say.  if i
 thought i'd get a "no" i wouldn't have asked.

i don't need to ask if she laughed.

(but if you didn't, you picked the wrong guy.)

(but i know you did.)

(laugh, that is.)

(like you're doing right now.)

(i love you.)

(now stop laughing.)

in the past, when it was hot in the bay area, say, 85-95F, i'd bitch and moan about how hot i was, and drive around with my a/c on looking for affordable home a/c units, or at least a mall or supermarket where i could temporarily borrow some a/c.

now, though, when it's 85F in my lovely town, I just splitz on over to sunol and hike in 95F, such that when i come back, panting and sunburned, to 85F, it feels like 70F.

that's the way we do it!

did you know that?

i think you did.

how i got this way, i do not know.

okay, i do know. it's a secret, but i'm not breaking any vows by telling you: i made it happen. you can, too.

sure, luck played some parts. but i put myself in the position for luck to do the rest. we both played a part. without lady luck, i wouldn't have gotten far, but without me, lady luck would have been wasting her time.

i hiked sunol, and for the first time ever, i stayed on trail the whole time. i didn't hike up the big rock, on account of i plan to not hike it until i can with hike it with 203, and also it was being guarded by a mob of angry looking cows.

i didn't see a snake, but that's because i see a snake in sunol only every other trip, and this trip was number 4, so next time i'll see one.

the whole time, when i wasn't cursing the idea of bringing a 36lb pack at noontime, i daydreamed about the last time i'd been there, and what i ought to have done, and what i'm glad that anyway i hadn't done on account of i did it the next evening anyhow so what's the big hurry?

while i was hiking i came up with some pithy things. usually when i hike with 203 i ramble and if we're lucky i come up with something with some concision and a nice little ring to it, and then i forget it. when i hike alone i can come up with something good and often remember it. so ready yourselves, because it's coming right atcha, with <pre> tags for emphasis:

i'm a late bloomer.  but when i bloom, i bloomin' bloom.

see? wasn't that nice?

i also came up with another one but i forgot it just now in the shower.

oh! i just remembered! it's your lucky gorram day! here come the <pre> tags!

in SD, 203 looked at me thoughtfully, and said, "i can't believe i'm 
going to marry you."  fortunately, she said it in a good way, like 
fabio saying, "i can't believe it's not butter," or dr. lecter 
saying, "i can't believe this liver is so tender!"

i can't believe it either.  i can't believe i managed to get so lucky.

we banter, fer chrissakes.  who does that, anymore?

okay, i made up the part about lecter just now because the piece needed a second example. it's not as good as the fabio quote, which i made up yesterday, but it's still a swell bit.

okay, i'm off to go do some crap. first, i have to think up some crap to go off and do, but that's my problem, not yours.

but first, more crap. i got my stupidity tax in the mail today and it's not bringing me down.

i remember the first (or second?) time i hiked sunol. i was in the same mood that i was in a year and 7 days ago. on both occasions i had said a little prayer to fate, in my own special way, to show me the way out of my troubles.

in both cases, fate sent me exactly what i asked for. in the second case i chickened out and didn't talk to the very attractive girl running up the hill. i could have. it was a bitch of a hill and she stopped running. i could have caught up and struck up a conversation.

i didn't. that was good; fate may have punished me for the arrogance i showed in rejecting her first gift. i came around (bloomed, even) eventually. every once in a while, though, i get the feeling someone with a capital S is out there, listening, and laughing with me.

so it was that today, though i was alone, i did not feel lonely, but not because i was happy in my solitude. rather, i was happy because i made no prayers to fate at all the night before. i'm as happy as i've ever been, and i don't need anything changed.

...

when i got back to my car, the thermometer read ninety seven degrees F.

yup. felt about right. i only hoke 9.5 miles, and my ave speed was (i think) 2.8mph, but dammit, i had 36lbs on my back in 95F weather! i don't think i'll beat 203 in UT, but at least she won't have to carry me out. if you're lucky, i'll post the hike profile from the gps so you can see that it was steepish. unless, of course, i fix to do that and realize that it's embarassingly non-steepish, then i'll have to suppress the evidence.

after arriving in lovely, metropolitan spearfish, SD, my love and i cruised around looking for a hotel for the night, the better to escape her govt. provided asbestos, lead, and radon infested housing (with bubonicly inclined prarie dogs nearby). sadly, we found that all the hotels in town were booked TO THE MAXXXX!!!!111 because there was a rodeo in town or an xtian rock band or some western shit like that. lots of cig smoking teenagers hanging around looking "cool". no rooms.

so we headed around out toward the boonies, i.e. spearfish canyon, which is the other thing we had planned to visit during our visit to spearfish. on the edge of the park, we saw a quaint little hotel that didn't have a big, neon NO in front of its VACANCY sign. we pulled in and entered what was probably the entrance, following a dude i presumed was the owner but who turned out to be only a customer.

"got any rooms?" i asked the guy behind the counter.

"yep," he said.

"how much?" i axed.

"60 bucks, cash only," he said.

i checked my wallet, which housed the cash for both of us, and contained a whopping 70 dollars. just enough. the restaurant we planned to visit that evening was ritzy and should take credit. and if not, 203 could pull her badge and pretend to be a health inspector, scoring us a free meal.

"where you from?" asked the PBTC while I was shuffling through my massive wad of cash.

(this was before trip story #1 so 203 had not yet been properly educated as to when admitting one's san francisco heritage is appropriate.) i think she said "wyoming, az, and sf" and i said "ca". this guy didn't flash any guns at us or anything. i forked over the cash, which he pocketed while opening the register, and he handed over a key. no discussion of checkout times or even names. that was a first for me.

the room was small and quaint. no tv. no queen sized bed (though it was thankfully bigger than the tiny little git that 203's got in her apt). no fridge and no shampoo. crikey. we dropped off some stuff, spoiled the air, and then went out for a hike in the canyon.

turned out that the canyon wasn't all that impressive, and didn't have many trails. we found one that was short but steep as it could possibly be. a real calf-burner, it was fantastic. at the top we found a little stone altar (identified as such by 203) with burned candles on it. the solstice or something had just passed, remarked 203, based upon which i theorized that some marilyn manson fans had come up and done some straight-outta-a-sandra-bullock-movie pagan rituals. there weren't any traces of beer bottles, pot, or spooge. musta been a boring ritual.

that was pretty much the end of the trail. less than a mile but probably 600+ft elevation gain. fun stuff. we slid on down and went further up the road in the jeep looking for some more action. none to be found. on the way back out of the park, we found a little walkabout, in which we walkedabout, and i found a day old strawberry, using same to illustrate my superior tracking skills (all of which i owe to LOST. have i mentioned i'm a fan of LOST?).

okay. now all the boring prelude is out of the way. time for some fun.

we got back to the puny hotel room and [ graphic sexual content deleted ]. just as i was [ graphic sexual content deleted ] in [ graphic sexual content deleted ], some lady brought her whiny little brat up the stairs, distracting me almost to the point of [ graphic sexual content deleted ]. but, i managed to [ graphic sexual content deleted ], and finally the lady and her screamer went inside (in the room right next door!) and the kid shut up, and soon enough, [ graphic sexual content deleted ]. once we had [ graphic sexual content deleted ] (and, i should point out, since we were finally in a hotel, we no longer had to [ graphic sexual content deleted ], but could instead, more naturally, [ graphic sexual content deleted ]), we discussed our plans for the evening.

we were going to a shmancy eatin' place called ROMA's, which i had visually located on the way outta town. afterwards, we'd find our way back to our hotel and [ graphic sexual content deleted ], and, if there was still time, [ graphic sexual content deleted ], neither of which i'd really done before.

at the restaurant we had a very nice meal, with enough wine that i told 203 i'd drive back, but not enough wine that she'd let me. we listened to her pal frank play excellently on the piano, and ranger jan showed up to share some banter with us and frank. at one point, i said, in reference to 203, though i cannot remember the context, "then she'd have to cuff me," to which ranger jan replied, "ooh, i think he's a little kinky," at which point, 203 and i shared a barely-containing-our-laughter moment of "if only she knew what we'd talked about immediately before coming here."

presently, dinnertime came to an end, after some huckleberry ice cream, which tasted a lot to me like blueberry ice cream. bottoms up on the wine, couple more glasses of water, and we were off to safeway, because in our haste, not only had we forgotten to bring our coffee and associated parapharnelia, we'd also forgotten to bring any [ graphic sexual content deleted ]. at safeway, we picked up some [ graphic sexual content deleted ] and some gentleman jack and coke and cups. back at the hotel room we began to imbibe.

heh. imbibe.

my memory fails me now, and i cannot remember if we [ graphic sexual content deleted ] or just talked. in any case, we were on the bed, and most definitely did talk. i laid out in precise detail what we ought to do next, on account of once we began, there might not be a lot of talking. i'd previously mentioned interests and so forth, but on the topic of our discussion, this was the first time i'd discussed the ins and outs (ho ho ho!) and where the ins should go out, and more importantly, where the outs should go in. once the ins and outs were settled, we proceeded to the [ graphic sexual content deleted ] to [ graphic sexual content deleted ].

it was my first time ever [ graphic sexual content deleted ], and i was pretty damn sure it was 203's first time, too. (later, i would ask if she'd ever done anything remotely like that, and when she said she had not, i was elated that i could experience something with her that was a first for us both. huzzah!)

after she had [ graphic sexual content deleted ], we tried a couple variations, and at last, when things were clearly coming to a head, we [ graphic sexual content deleted ] and she [ graphic sexual content deleted ] until [ graphic sexual content deleted ].

it was fantastic, and, to my delight, she wasn't off-put by it. there's been a-plenty talk of repetition (i.e. putting the [ graphic sexual content deleted ] in [ graphic sexual content deleted ], utah).

(later the next morning she [ graphic sexual content deleted ] on my [ graphic sexual content deleted ], which we would repeat several times in several different locations over the rest of the trip. quick, easy, fun.)

by this time, though, we were tired, and there were complications, and we decided we'd just have to put the [ graphic sexual content deleted ] off until the next morning, at the earliest. so we nappy napped, and the next morning, we [ graphic sexual content deleted ], though i didn't manage to [ graphic sexual content deleted ] in [ graphic sexual content deleted ]. still, i got the gist of things. afterwards, for the next several days, she complained of [ graphic sexual content deleted ] and this (plus the other many restrictions) kinda puts me off [ graphic sexual content deleted ] for the future. though our activities of the previous night required as much setup and cleanup as our morning adventure, i think the [ graphic sexual content deleted ] had a bigger payoff than the [ graphic sexual content deleted ], and i'll probably only be asking for [ graphic sexual content deleted ] in slc, though both are surely illegal in most states.

all in all, i got to check two new things off my checklist, one of which i never expected to be able to mention was on my list, much less check it off, much less get multiple checks. sixty bucks well spent >:)

in the past, say, oh, this last january, i found myself going on solo weekend hikes, and after about two of them, i found myself wondering why i was bothering.

i could run for 30 minutes and get a decent workout without freezing my tootsies off for 4-7 hours in the woods and risking poison oak and lyme disease and west nile virus and (as i now know) bubonic plague.

but that wasn't the most important reason for my growing ennui of january past. hiking by myself brought painfully to my attention just who it was that wasn't hiking with me.

i had fun when i got out there, sure, just like i always end up enjoying myself when i hike with a cold or lift with a headache. it's tough for me to stay unhappy when i'm on the trail (and properly equipped) or under the bar.

but something was plainly missing from my hikes back then, and i did, indeed, to my personal shame, draw upon my reserves of weekday hikes (thus keeping my hike-a-weekend-chain virtually unbroken) to justify a quick run on saturdays rather than a long, solo hike.

(of course, that couldn't last too long, once i found what all that spare saturday would be used for.)

eventually i got back into the swing of things, i don't remember exactly how or when, though i do know that somewhere along the way i got a fresh infusion of motivation (something, it turns out, that even i need once in a while).

but today i find myself, once again, facing a solo hike. not only a solo hike, but a hike on a trail that has now (in my fanciful mind) been sanctified, perhaps even more so than my beloved black mountain trail. this trail has seen me with my hetero life partner, and that was satisfying, but many months later, though not many months ago, it saw me with someone even mo' better, and when i stepped off the hiking trail, i stepped onto a different path than the one which had brought me to that hike.

that particular hike set me down the path to where i am now.

where am i now?

happy, that's where. but also a little apprehensive. it was hard enough hiking black mountain (BM! hah hah har har de har) without her. this will be tough.

i could just go run instead.

but i have something i didn't have back in january. i have faith (here's the part where I push the present discussion on to my stack and diverge into a discussion of how Locke from LOST inspired me to have faith, ho ho ho) that not long from now we'll be hiking that trail again together.

but that's not what drives me to hike instead of to run. i've got something else. i've got a better motivator than faith. i've got fear that she'll show me up in utah and on the desert death hike, and that just won't do. she hikes 7 days a week, usually with an extra 25lbs of 9mm death strapped to her waist, plus an anti-venitilation device just so things won't be too easy. she's got the drop on me big time for hiking fitness maintenance, so, party people, i'm going out there today with lots of water and a minimum of 15 extra lbs to train so my snotty girlfriend won't lord it over me when i'm panting and whining up the hill in 100F weather two weeks from now.

ain't love grand?