spider legs

For those of you who don't believe I have abnormally long legs...check out this weird vid of me being lowered off of an ice climb. You can see how short my climbing pants are, which have a 32 inch inseam (I need another two inches on the inseam, but would have to have a pair special made to actually fit me). My legs look really weird, especially compared to the legs of the other person climbing next to me. I hope it's partially video distortion. I look like a spider or something.

BTW, she rights the camera after a few seconds.

Hanging out in Bozeman for the icefest. The ice is fat! And, I'm embarrassed to say, I was the only one at the Ice Goddess clinic (all women) who was there by myself. But, I made some new friends. And if you ever wondered what it's like to go to an icefest this video gives a short but accurate idea of what the day is like.

christmas trees

Last week my mom kept me hopping setting up christmas decorations. I set up not one, not two, but THREE FUCKING christmas trees.

I've never set one up before. My mom was like "this will be a good learning experience". Or, not. Who needs to know how to set up a christmas tree? Like what, I can put that on my resume?

The trees were all artificial, and weighed a fucking ton. I had to carry them down three flights of steps. Then, it turned out, I'm allergic to what ever they're made out of, and by the end of the day I had a rash all over both of my arms. After you get the tree set up you have to fluff up the branches. That was tedious, and made worse because my mom wanted the ends of all of the branches to flare out in a star. I was like dude, tree branches grow straight out. They don't go up and down. But my mom was like shut the fuck up and flare the branches.

Then I had to put the lights on. And she wanted like two million strands on every tree. Thankfully half her light collection broke in the move, so I only had to put 17, yes 17, strands of lights on the trees.

Then I had to haul 4 boxes of ornaments down from the attic. I really think we put way more ornaments on the trees than normal people put up. One tree had so many ornaments it started to fall over and I had to prop it up in a corner. My mom said it's because I decorated the front but not the back of the tree. As if I'm going to decorate part of the tree that no one can see. So she went up the stairs and stood at this weird angle and said "from here I can see there are no ornaments on the back of the tree".

Sigh.

My favorite thing was one of the trees that had spray painted silver glitter on it. The glitter got everywhere. I had it on my face, in my hair, on my clothes, and it was all over the floor. Every time my mom would place an ornament on the tree I would knock the branch above her head so she would get glitter in her hair. She said I was "a little shit". Even though I'm 7 inches taller than her.

I put a star on top of one tree (that will be the jew tree) and an angel on the other. I felt bad about giving her an evergreen enema but it was the only way I could get her to stay on top. Of course, by the time I put the angel on the tree my mom and I had been drinking wine. The next morning I realized how crooked she was, but forgot to fix her before I left. Anyway, her crookedness makes it less obvious that the tree is about to fall over.

I can't believe people do this every year...

my brother identifies why my book is stupid, and Moschops returns

I'm shocked. The climber dude who borrowed my magic writing dinosaur returned him! Moschops arrived today thanks to the Canadian post. I am very happy to have him back!

In other news, I was sitting around last Saturday night drinking with my brother and watching Dirty Harry movies, and we decided to take a smoke break. While we were smoking I was whining about my book "blah blah blah I don't know how to fix it I'm so fucked woe is me". My brother asked to read my first two chapters. He did this while watching Magnum Force and drinking 3 beers. I wasn't expecting much in the way of useful comments.

But on our next smoke break he said "Here's what's wrong with your book. If you talk about being in the middle of the ocean, about to die, that's interesting. If you talk about laying in bed, about to die from a knee surgery, that's just stupid."

I realized he was right. Then he suggested I open my book with the first two pages describing how I got lost in the San Francisco bay. I did the rewrite on Sunday and think it's really getting there. So now if an agent asks to read my first 5 pages, they're good as opposed to the stupid crap I had before. I've had three agents decline my project after reading my first five pages, and hope that maybe the next time I'll be successful with my new rewrite.

So thanks Bob!!!!!!!!!!!! I have some more tweaks to do and then I'll post it.