not as exciting

this week isn't nearly as exciting as last week. climbing at the gym last night was not nearly as much fun as climbing on granite. body tension was no longer an issue. it was all about how manky the holds were. 90+ degrees during the day equals manky holds at the gym, for those who weren't sure.

[definition. manky: moist conditions that impair one's ability to hold onto rocks or plastic that you would ordinarily be able to hold were the conditions drier, warmer, colder, prettier, sharper, softer, more sandstone-like, sexier, smarter, etc.]

so in the interest of keeping you posted on what's going on around here, here's a tutorial on how to fix a big hole in the wall, because that's what i did yesterday.

step 1: using drywall hole saw, cut big hole in wall. yes, i know that if i didn't make the hole, i wouldn't have to fix it. stay with me--i'm bored.

step 2: using drill, put one screw in wood backing to use as a handle. this is to prevent an "oops moment" when you drop the piece of wood through the hole and have to steal another scrap from a dumpster. carefully slide wood into wall, positioning it to block as much of your hole as possible. screw it in place through the wall on top and bottom, or right and left depending on your hole.

step 3: cut drywall too big for the hole. curse. realize you wanted to do this. but why? carefully cut the back of the too-big drywall and peel the board away from the front paper so that what's left will fit in the hole. huh? look carefully at that picture. yes, i know what i'm doing.

step 4: measure once, cut twice. yes, that's backwards. with drywall, be ready to curse some more. it never fits the first time, unless it's a full sheet and it's the first sheet on the wall. even then...oh yeah, so make it fit in your hole in the wall. the paper will overlap the crack, negating the need for fiberglass tape to seal the cracks. huh? trust me, i'm a pro. screw the board into the wood you put behind the wall.

step 5: gob some joint compound under that overlapping paper. i used pink play-doh for visual clarity. add joint compound to fill the screw holes and try to feather out the transition between the patch and the existing wall. when you fail, sandpaper is your friend. watch it dry, sand it down, try again. just don't sand through the paper. that'll mess up your paint job. you want this to look good, right?

crack open a beer, and admire your handiwork. keep drinking until you feel proud of your work.

exposures

exposure in climbing is the distance from where a climber might fall to where the climber might stop if there were an unprotected fall. big wall climbers typically get the most exposure (several thousand feet); boulderers the least (several feet). i like to stay towards the lower end of the spectrum. a long fall, while it would give me a long while to contemplate my life and enjoy the ride, would be certainly unpleasant when suddenly stopped. why am i defining this? on tuesday, cp exposed me to the most exposure i've had thus far in my (brief) climbing career. we were in boulder canyon, trying to find our way to a cluster of sport climbs. we wandered up and down canyon road, unsuccessful in finding where we thought we wanted to go. so, we did a tyrolean traverse (ropes strung across river, attach to harness with carabiner, and pull self above river hand over hand) across the creek and scrambled our way up to some climbs that he'd done with kai and allyson. i say scrambled because it wasn't really a hike; 'twas far more vertical than that! before i knew it, we were easily 200 vertical feet above the road we parked on with well over 200 feet of granite above us yet to climb.
see the bolts on the picture? that's so that the belayer won't take out two people if he falls, stumbles, or the climber on the sharp end takes a whipper and yanks him off the ground. additional protection. to the right was the warm-up. the overall route goes at 5.8. i'd venture to guess that there were two, maybe three moves that went at 5.8. the rest of it could've been easily done with sneakers on. to the left was the other route. cp thinks the total route goes at 5.10b; my opinion of the first pitch, probably accurate, though half of it was pretty easy, though technical. laybacks and handjams on cracks. easy clips, breeze on my back, tourists watching the red-shirt climb up the sheer face in awe.

the climbing of the day being done, we down scrambled to the falls and cooled off in the creek. all in all, a helluva good day, minimal amount of climbing though it was.

a land of extremes

this place called colorado is magical. thursday and friday, i was hiking through patches of feet-thick snow to get to the boulders that were shrouded in cold, white beauty only weeks before. when i say patches, i don't mean a couple square feet; i mean upon finding soft spots, i quickly sunk to my hip. the temps were great, the breezes were cooling, and around sunset, i needed a fleece when i wasn't cranking on granite.

today, i hit the other extreme. i'm sure that i was still reasonably high above sea level; my guess is that most of the land near boulder is above a mile. today's climbing was more desert-like on sandstone and conglomerate. the bright red rocks scattered across the arid landscape were a lot cooler than i expected, and had far better friction than any other sandstone bouldering i've done in the southeast. it was easily in the 90s in the shade, and when we left, the thermometer in bryan's pathfinder said 102. not as unpleasant as vegas 110, but that same kind of dry heat. tolerable, though standing around in climbing shoes or on black crash pads quickly had us dancing as though standing on a skillet. the climbing was awesome. i can't wait to share the pictures from the epic battles with the climbs.

odd conversations

life has a funny way of teaching you things. first and foremost, lessons learned present themselves in seemingly unexpected ways. last night, we walked back to c.p.'s from dinner. palmer and i got into a random conversation about relationships and the like. not the person that i'd normally have such conversations with, but a few revelations came up about my life of the last year.

random times in gainesville, a lot of which with palmer, shaped where i am today. how so? well, were it not for the holding on to my past and trying to relive the college times that i didn't really have, i might not be where i am today. all of my missteps in relationships over the last two years brought me to the point i am today. happy beyond words.

people often ask me, "why d.c.? why not colorado or chattanooga or some other seemingly awesome climbing destination?" the short answer i usually give has something to do with chance, throwing a dart at a map. the long answer, well, you know why i'm not in korea. i'm considering more and more that was a blessing in disguise. sure, my life may have been open to the possibility of true happiness regardless of where i landed in my leap of faith, but i'd also like to think that fate intervened in putting me in d.c., pretty much alone on my 28th birthday. it was such a random lineup of occurrences that i can't help but think that a higher power had a hand in it. i chose to be happy. in doing so, i think i forgot all the pain of my past, the wariness of relationships, and the terror at winding up alone.

rocky mountain high

quick update from the rockies. my god, it's amazing out here. i just got back from two days climbing in rocky mountain national park. still snow on the ground. the parking lot's elevation was 9,475 feet. the crag was over 10,000. i climbed well on the first day, on granite no less. warmups were fun. first problem of the day was called autobot. apparently, it's a little less heady when you have snow below you filling up what is a tiger pit in the melted season. looks pretty sketch from pictures, but the long climb had a stunningly beautiful reward after the top out. it's now the wallpaper on my cellphone. we got rained on and hightailed it out of the park before i got any more good sends.

i'm feeling confident that if we return again next week before i leave, i'll knock off a pretty stout problem or two. yesterday's highlight was watching climbing. insanely strong climbers abound in this part of the country. i witnessed a climber fall one move short of a V14. what does that mean? world-class talent, folks. earlier in the day, another resident strong guy put down a V12. insane. i'm not quite there yet, but the attitude out here isn't one of grade chasing, more one of aesthetically pleasing, fun climbing. i'm all about that. catch you again when i get a chance. check for the pictures when i get back.

peace.

dr. hell yeah!

the backdrop, the national mall. [no, lee, there's no national food court or national gap or national fish emporium. that wasn't an original thought, nor was it funny.] behind me, the sunset skies backlighting the washington monument. to my right, the rising moon. in front of me, the lights illuminating the capitol dome. above me, crystal clear night skies. around me, thousands of movie lovers waiting patiently for this year's screen on the green opening night.

the opening music for hbo, who sponsors this yearly summer cinematic spectacle, compels the regulars to dance wildly. by dance, i mean jump maniacally and swing your arms skyward, like those demented ten foot tall inflatable people more often seen at car dealerships that take after edvard munsch's the scream more than actual people. the cheers fade, and tweety and sylvester battle in a quick merrie melodies short. i think this is regular, for last year when i saw casablanca at the end of the summer, that putty tat and tweety were featured also. we'll see as the season progresses. then finally, our feature presentation.

bond, james bond in the first of the series, dr. no.

"hi, my name is ben, and i am (mostly) a james bond virgin." that's right, ladies and gents, bond week on tnt was always during finals week, so i never got to enjoy the flicks in their entirety. this time around, i now know where the spy movie franchise started. i finally saw all the inspiration for the austin powers jokes. sure, i knew that was the origin intuitively, but it's different to see the scenes firsthand, finally! loved the movie. the rest of the bond franchise (at least the connery years) are going on the netflix queue as soon as i post this.

a late night dash to catch the last orange line train out of the city, and a good nights' sleep later, i'm off to plot my next screen on the green outing. will it be arsenic and old lace on july 28th, the apartment on august 4th, or superman on august 11th? one thing's certain: i sure hope i get to see all three!

escalumps

"welcome to metro. if this is your first time riding metro, you may notice some things. most people stand to the right on the escalators..."

or so goes the occasional announcement at metro stations. not often enough for most weary commuters who have to get along with the tourists in this town. they've got to get to work! it's a big issue in the summer, when the flood of tourists makes some stations impossible to navigate.

escalumps slow everyone down. i know which stations have displays of the next train, and when i see one or two minutes, i'm damn sure running down those escalators so i don't have to wait 10-15 minutes for the next one. for lack of escalumps last weekend, i was able to trim my trip back here from columbia heights by a half hour or more because i just barely caught two transfers, running down the escalators and weaving through the crowds. and i'm just a tourist in my own town now!

a whirlwind tour of the district

yesterday, i partook in a scavenger hunt race under the guise of meeting some new people, doing something active, and seeing the city. the story line was that a spy was loose in the city; thankfully, the story line was limited to the task sheets we picked up at each checkpoint. it could've gotten quickly cheesy had we been chasing an actual spy. each checkpoint was a double dare kind of fun; there were mental challenges and physical challenges.

first, the team. just by careers, i think we had a broad cross section of d.c. let's see, we had the air force, army and marines represented. we had the defense and state departments represented. we had a government contracts employee for a big aerospace firm. we had three education representatives in varying degrees: summer camp counselor, teacher's assistant, and a teacher. hey, that's me! to add a bit of intrigue, one of our members was a tourist visiting her daughter from austria, who just happened to be one of the organizers. we ranged in age from 21 to 44, and were about evenly split by the sexes. so gung ho about the competition were we that we all ran up the down escalator at one metro station to beat another team to the street. what?! there were strollers and "escalumps" in the way on the right way!

second, the challenges. first hour consisted of mostly icebreaker activities. we had to talk to each other about our life stories, jobs and whatnot. we ran too far in one direction on the metro, only to show up late for checkpoint one at the supreme court. we did pretty well on the challenges there, easily remembering the specific facts about our teammates. we did a little better in the next hour, showing up on canadian soil third for some points with that. some trivia, sing the canadian national anthem, take a breather. this was clutch. we were all getting pretty tired at this point, especially the non-sneaker-wearing members. third hour, we took over. we completed almost all of the challenges and questions, beating the organizers to the next checkpoint at the white house. the final two hours were compressed into 90 minutes or so. that had us crisscrossing downtown and dashing up connecticut avenue, cutting hair and getting hassled by homeless people. we showed up at the endpoint well ahead of the other teams, completed nearly all of both lists, and were on our second round at the bar before they started trickling in.

at that point, we were likely in sixth place or so. our fearless leader for team boss was thrown into the irish jig competition...and summarily destroyed the competitors. who knew that ballet dancers could channel michael flatley and mary katherine gallagher at the same time? final tally had us in second place. six measly points out of winning. no matter, we still shared the same prizes that the winners got. too bad she and i can attend neither of them. i'm sure you'll hear about our consolation prize someday soon.

happy 7eleven day

being deprived of them for ten years, the novelty of a slurpee has now returned. [for those uninformed readers, gainesville florida, for reasons beyond my comprehension, has neither a 7eleven or a jiffy store with a passable substitute for a slurpee.] lucky me, there's a 7eleven between my apartment and the pool, er...her new townhouse. a buck thirty-two and some sweet summer refreshment. hey, it's hard work coming up with things to do all summer long!

today is july eleventh. 7-11, if you will. to slurpee lovers everywhere, free slurpee day. i stopped for mine on my way back from the pool this afternoon. not only were they out of freebies, they were out of my second favorite flavor--coke. traditionalist that i am, i pretty much refuse to try these new incarnations of flavors made out of crappy energy drinks. i remember when they rolled out the coke flavor. i was skeptical, but at least coke tastes good on its own. actually, there is one other flavor that i liked. waaaaaay back in the day--well, before my 7eleven exile known as gainesville, there was a 7eleven in deerfield beach at A1A and hillsboro that had tangerine slurpees. my girlfriend at the time really enjoyed that tasty flavor, so by sheer high school goggled logic, i did too. i distinctly remember getting at least one tangerine orange stain out of my shirts from their leaky cups or my sloppy pouring. anyhow, we'd get slurpees and walk along the beach...until the cops came and yelled at us for loitering or trespassing or some other nonsense.

out of sheer desperation after being in the pool for three hours, i tried the mountain dew flavor today. in a word, awful. the coke flavor wasn't frozen at the time, and the other three flavors were monster energy drink urea. that 7eleven needs to get their act together and bring back the original cherry fanta.

i got a new haircut...

and all the strange looks that accompany it. it will last until the end of the month.

treachery

arlington county cops are full of themselves. they have this puffed-out sense of importance that supersedes all other considerations and laws. in the past few months, i've seen them turn on their lights and sirens just to run a red light, close intersections rather than direct traffic when the power goes out, and generally ignore those they are sworn to "protect and serve." in the last week, i've been unlucky enough to deal with their self importance at my own detriment. it's treacherous not being in a car!

monday or so, i was walking back from the metro, on the sidewalk for once. i must've been two blocks from home. ms. self-important county cop decides that pedestrians don't have the right of way and ran a stop sign, almost hitting me. she even had her window down, and mouthed "i'm sorry". what was so important? she had to drive one block, presumably to give backup, but really just to sit in her unmarked crown vic while the other uniformed cop took care of the moving violation. grr!

today, riding my bike to the metro station, coming up to an intersection. on the defensive because i don't yet know what to expect as a bicycling road resident, a minivan makes a left in front of me as the light turns yellow. behind minivan, lo and behold, mr. county cop guns his cruiser and just as quickly slams on his brakes. i swerve to avoid him. he was so far in my way, i wound up passing him on his passenger side. again, i had the right-of-way; though this time, i could've wound up on the windshield of a police cruiser. grrr squared!

9 days...

nine days until i disappear in colorado. well, for a few days anyhow. endurance isn't quite where i want it to be, but this riding a bike thing is helping out. for some odd reason, i decided not to take the metro back from my physical therapy appointment this morning. a treacherous six and a half miles through downtown and georgetown on the bike. yesterday, i rode probably the same distance. it's getting easier, so that's good news.

last night, plastic pulling at sport rock. another breakthrough. picked a V7 to work on. i was a beta sponge, and sent it in one night. fun line. hopefully that'll translate to some good work on the stone out west.

time for a swim. the sunshine is calling me.

happiness

...happiness is a difficult thing--it is, as Aristotle posited in The Nicomachean Ethics, an activity, it is about good social behavior, about being a solid citizen. Happiness is about community, intimacy, relationships, rootedness, closeness, family, stability, a sense of place, a feeling of love...--in this America, happiness is hard.

i just finished reading Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel. if you've not heard of it, it's a memoir of one young woman's battle with depression. throughout the book, i felt my self vacillating between empathy and annoyance at her state of being. she struggled with knowing she needed help and running at the first signs of it. i identified with her, recognizing the same self-destructive behaviors that plague(d) some of my friends in my early 20s. the relationship woes. the substance abuse. the listlessness. clearly, she made it through the trial by fire; otherwise, her book would've never been written. it wasn't until her eventual release by pharmacy that i got something out of this book. we are a nation of drug addicts. remember from your health classes in middle and high school that a drug is anything that changes the way your body operates. caffeine is a drug. food is a drug. heroin is a drug. alcohol is a drug. medications, prescribed or otherwise, are drugs.

her clarity of mind after making it through her "black wave" belittled the drug culture that infects our health care today. her line of thinking is much like mine, in that i often refuse to go to the doctor with minor ailments, knowing that they'll often prescribe something to make the symptoms go away when my immune system will often take care of it in about the same time frame. i don't take aspirin unless i can't see straight; i'll only take ibuprofen to reduce swelling from injuries. prozac is so readily prescribed by doctors these days that it has become a bad joke, one that wounds people with true problems.

happiness is a choice. someone very dear to me says that often. you can choose to be happy, you can choose to be sad. when you make sadness your choice too often, depression is the result, and your brain won't let you make choices anymore. i had all of the components of aristotle's definition living in gainesville.

at times.

i chose happiness, and in spite of leaving all of those behind, i am managing to reconstruct them in my new environment. i'm delighted to be a part of such a new, vibrant experience that i can't help but smile more often than not.

independence day

as it creeps closer to a year out of florida, i'm continually bombarded with memories of where i was a year ago and the long path that has brought me here. a path that i never imagined.

last year, i spent the fourth in alachua, watching the fireworks at their community gathering. local country cover bands. funnel cakes. former students running about. my confusing and complex summer running through my mind and coursing through my veins. the what-ifs of my impending departure, with nothing definite for my upcoming year. one month later, i'd be couch surfing and still jobless.

one year later, on the fourth, i consider myself incredibly more blessed. less stress vexes me. new love elates me. a new city amazes me. watching the fireworks in the presence of so much history and so much beauty left me speechless yet again.

metro people watching

i've taken to reading more often while waiting around at metro stations and other public-type places. lots of locals do it; when in rome...

anyhow, that brought me to my people watching today. as the blue line pulled up at rosslyn today, i shut my book. (i'm rarely blessed with the ability to read in moving vehicles. if i get a seat, sometimes. reading a book is easier than reading the paper.) as the horde stirred with the trains arrival, i caught a young 20-something sneaking a glance at my book choice. she quickly averted her eyes and resumed reading her book, which happened to be one i read in the fall, ecology of a cracker childhood. i wonder what went through her head. i wonder what goes through everyone's head, especially the readers, as they take stock of what their fellow riders are reading at the station or on the train. "hey, i read that." "hmm, she's really into that book." "she clearly bought that at the checkout line." "he's cute and smart. how should i get his attention?"

i discovered this week on the train that there are several types of people during rush hour. presuming there are very few tourists at this time of day, i'll say that they all work in the city. first are the readers. magazines, books, newspapers, work papers. there's the sleepers. these folks just plain pass out as soon as they're on the train. they wake up at the terminus of the line, look around confused, and stumble out of the station. folks like these are pretty common early in the morning too; those are a different breed though. they worked the night shift and ride the train because it's air conditioned and no one bothers them. somehow, they manage to get off at the right stop too. there's the texters, who don't let their thumbs rest at all. this is the common species of the breed. the more ubiquitous (at least in this city) are the blackberry addicts. their eyes forever scanning their inbox, their smartphone never makes it to the hip holster for the hour commute. the zoned-out ipod junkies tune out the rest of the world, bobbing their heads and staring at the screen. those are the most obvious.

all others seem to nervously watch each station and each person as if they're on a train with degenerates and miscreants. very rarely do i see people interacting with one another. eastbound trains tend to have more of this. of all the random strangers that i've talked to on the train, they've all been super nice and very few of them have been anything like me.

it's been a while. damn, i love this city!

water, water, everywhere

i just finished reading life of pi. it was a long overdue read, considering everyone i know raved about it when they read it. i thought it was going to give me a different perspective on religion. teach me respect for other religions. not so different from my own outlook, "they're all different passports to the same afterlife." or something like that.

for those of you who haven't read it, go get it. it's a great story. slow going at first, i polished off the second half of the book yesterday after taking about a week to read the first half. oddly, pi's struggles to stay hydrated got me thinking about water.

water. we all need it. as kids, we didn't like it, but we drank it. a glass of water was unheard of. other sources, however, bring me back to those hot summer days playing outside. what triggered this? yesterday, i had a nice cool drink from a water fountain. in elementary school, water fountains were the best consistent source of water. i remember comparing notes with classmates on which ones worked best, which ones were the coldest, and which ones tasted good. yesterday, that water fountain was a blessed elixir to soothe my parched throat. exceptions to this rule are water fountains in churches and those that are outdoors. they just don't taste right. kids these days probably don't compare these notes, as their parents are more likely to send them to school with water bottles. i even had one boy who claims his mother told him never to drink from the water fountain.

coming in a close second is hose water. i thought clowe was getting a drink from the hose on saturday when we returned to his house. that earthy, metallic taste. i used to drink more than my belly could hold. it was just cool enough, never the first stream though. that was the water that got heated up and had the strongest hose flavor. just a hint of rubber or vinyl and the metal pipes. delicious!

incidentally, water has been in the news a lot lately. cities such as atlanta banning bottled water in light of environmental concerns. i thought i'd heard it all. then i saw this. ridiculous, no?

didja get your scene card?

today i picked up my newly-acquired steel frame road bike from the repair shop. not much, just a tune-up and some new tires, since no one can figure out how long my old school fuji was dry rotting in granny's garage. i took it for a spin today. i tried my best to look the part. non-khaki shorts that could've been dickies. graphic t-shirt. messenger bag. the only thing missing was a funny cycling hat and skinny jeans with sneakers. i noticed one scene kid in a passenger seat give me a thumbs-up as i pedaled up a hill on wilson blvd, something i'd never gotten before on my mountain bike.

two observations. one, it takes just as long in regular traffic times to bike somewhere as it would to drive. rush hour bumper-to-bumper, i presume that would give the bike an advantage; though i also presume it'd be more treacherous among the hulking combustion beasts. two, there aren't nearly enough places to hitch a bike at the metro stations. i finally found a hoop that i can only presume was for bicycle attachment and lockdown. when i returned to the metro station after my doctor's appointment (i took the train there because i thought it'd be a bit too much to huff 5 miles and show up stinking), i discovered the bike racks that were located in the station. you learn something new every day.

i could get used to this lazing about all day. provided the weather stays 79 and breezy. an aspiring scene kid can dream, can't he?