on a boat in the bermuda triangle

the sun seeps through my skull
charbroiling my brain

I stop putting sliced pineapple in my drinks

the sea is a mass of black otters
wearing sails on their feet
stiff white slippers
reggae dancing

in the belly of the boat
I watch through the glass
as the anchor trips
along the ocean floor
cartwheeling in the leafy algae
spinning its chain
through the thin shafts of light

in the end it turned out
I was an antenna to the world
I stood on the bow and held the rod
but with each shift the screen snowed
the static buzz
cracked my ear drums

I am on a boat in the bermuda triangle
my grey matter a feast fit for vultures

I smell pineapple salted by the sea

(1991)

avalon wish

to be the beach and the slow rush of sea
meeting the lazy roll of low tide

the horizon where the sky falls
through the ocean and gives back light

bathed in the salty stars
our feet in the warm sand

(1995)

somewhere in manhattan

blankets warm on your back
close over your shoulders
the central air shudders

through black walls of whiteness
the moon is no star
to see you
asleep beneath the sky lights

(1995)

pictures of me

no matter how expensive the dress
I always feel the cheapness
as the photographer leers
"spread your legs wider"
and the flash of lights
that stark my eyes like razors
and burns me not me
into flimsy negative strips
until "no more"
and I rest even as he snaps me
holding a glass of water
suggestively
I drink and it burns my throat

(1989)

lupus

I stare into your red rimmed eyes
as the night slides off your fingertips
into my palm
dark and dry
like a snake's shed skin

black pools watch
looking out from the whorls
your body turns inward
and inward into itself
until it is no longer you
not even the eyes

in the final days we will sit
looking at anything
a dusty scrabble board
with dead plant leaves on the top
the smoothness of the walls
so unlike the texture of your skin

even now your body feeds on itself
devours the tissues
like a structural fire
your skin smells sour
I do not want to love you like this

so we sit
your body turned inward
and your eyes trying to turn outward
the skin around them chapped and flaky
the night slides out of your eyes
into my palm
cold and riddled

(1992)

the big fluffy beaver (it's a family song, everyone sing along)

Here's the vid Jeffy shot of Jonny Mogambo singing the big fluffy beaver song. You'll laugh. Every time Jonny looks over at me (I'm sitting behind the camera) he almost starts laughing because I'm laughing so hard.

For more information check out http://www.jonnymogambo.com/. You can even order your own shot ski from his web site.

sometimes you don't get to decide

I met a guy named X in 1994. He was this (at the time) geeky captain in the air force. I was working at the time for a general and he brought X over to my office to help me install Oracle database software, which, at that time, was a major undertaking.


I was kind of rude to X because I had a million other things going on. I didn't realize that the general had invited X over not only to help me install software but because he thought we should start dating. At that point I hadn't dated anyone in over two years and was spending most of my time in the office or the gym.


X called me a day later and when I answered the phone I was like "who the hell are you again?". He was taken aback by my rudeness but decided to persist. X invited me to a happy hour. We started becoming good friends. I even started to like him as more than just a friend but couldn't bring myself to date a military guy.


Then I met my boyfriend and even though I hung out with X a lot, and he kept trying to hook up with me, I was more interested in my boyfriend. But when I had an emergency appendectomy X came to see me every day, where as my boyfriend, who worked on wall street, didn't have time for me. When I was getting ready to leave for Central America I spent my last night CONUS in a bar with X. When he dropped me off at my house that night he cried and begged me not to go. I told him I would write to him.


I never wrote to him. When I got back from CA I was pretty fucked up. My employer put me on a project at the JFK library in Boston. One night I was sitting in my hotel room and decided to call X. The number I had for him had been disconnected.


Then X called me a month later because he had heard I was back. His dad had just died and he was calling me driving home from the funeral. We made plans to meet up the next day.


X and I started dating, and the relationship was good but he was dealing with a lot of shit because of his dad, and I was dealing with an ex-boyfriend. Also, I had left my government job and was transitioning to working in the real world, which was confusing. X left for three weeks to go to Israel. I didn't think I should see him again. While he was gone I decided to take a job back with my old employer in Athens, Greece. I was supposed to be gone for three years.


When X got home I told him that I was leaving. He was really upset and said he thought I should stay in the US so we could be together. But I left. His parting words to me were "you'll be back in two months".


A few weeks after I arrived in Greece X sent me an email saying his best friend wanted to visit Greece and that X had told him that he could stay with me. I was furious. But, I ended up marrying X's best friend, that being a long story of its own.


I got a horrible email from X calling me a cunt and a whore, and saying I should have just found a discreet piece of ass over there instead of getting into a relationship and that he loved me and thought we were going to get back together when I got home. I was confused because I hadn't left on great terms with him, and he had been sending me emails about dating other people. I thought he didn't care about me any more and had decided to move on with my life.

X tried to stay involved on the periphery. When my husband and I were planning a trip to Israel for our honeymoon, X invited himself along. We didn't end up making the trip. When we relocated to California my husband went to work for a company that X and I had started before I left for Greece at X's insistence.

X was dating a girl he dated on and off. Their relationship became more serious as mine was falling apart. X and I emailed each other occasionally but it was awkward since I was married and we mostly talked about the company. And then X got engaged to his girlfriend.

Around that time my husband and I decided to divorce, but we weren't telling anyone. When X finally found out I got an email from him. We started emailing each other frequently though the situation was obviously complicated. But one thing I realized is that I really wanted to be with him. We started talking on the phone too.

X decided to come out to California to see me. We were going to spend a day together and then see what happened. I think both of us were confused about our feelings and whether or not the situation was anything more than just remembering the past.

The day before X flew out, a Sunday, he called me to make arrangements for the day. I said to him "I don't believe you will really come". He said "There is nothing in this world that would keep me from coming".

The day he was supposed to come, Monday, I was driving into work with my soon to be ex husband. It was 530 in the morning. Planes crashed into the world trade center towers, the pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. X's flight got grounded in Chicago. I couldn't call him because work was crazy, and it was hard to get through to anyone that day.

After that I decided the universe had made a decision for me. I never contacted X again. He got married and has kids. I don't know where he is or what he is doing now. My life ended up going in a completely different direction than if I had stayed with X. And although it took years to get past that, I'm happy now that things worked out the way they did.

The most important thing I learned from this is that you don't always get to decide what's going to happen. Any relationship involves two people and you can't control what the other person does. You just have to keep living your life, doing what you want to do, and not put everything on hold in the hopes that something will work out. I don't believe that things are "meant to be" between two people. I think that situations occur, and if the timing is right they work. If the timing is wrong, even if every thing else is perfect, the relationship will never work. There isn't some over arching "grand plan". People are fallible and fuck things up. And that's the way it should be.

chronic

Last night I had a very disturbing dream.

In the dream I was walking down a city street, like New York but it wasn't there, and then I noticed I was carrying a one year old kid. It was a boy with curly light brown hair and blue eyes. I was suddenly filled with a sense of dread because I realized the little boy was my kid. I was walking down the street wondering why I had this kid.

Then I was in a shopping mall but it was totally empty, except for me and this kid. I knew that I had to do something with the kid, but couldn't remember what it was. I was trying to remember if I had fed the kid lately.

I was thinking how people always say that when you have a kid of your own that you will love it and how wrong they were. I didn't care about the kid at all. I wanted to leave it in the mall and walk away, but I was afraid to because there was no one there but me and I didn't want the kid to die.

I'm pretty sure this dream was about my knee. I've been stressing out about it lately, to the point where Jeffy thinks I should go see a doctor to see if there's anything further they can do for it. I'm annoyed that I can't do a bunch of things I want to do (jump out of a plane, run a marathon, not ski like shit) and lately it's been hurting a lot no matter what I do (exercise, ice, heat). At the same time, I'm worried another surgery could make the problem worse.

Of course, I'm not in a refugee camp in Darfur, so I really shouldn't worry too much about minor things...

my ski lesson

I had a ski lesson on Thursday with a guy named Joe at Copper.

It was a good investment. Joe was pretty laid back, but that got annoying some times. He asked me what my goal was for the lesson. I explained to him that I needed to learn to ski better. But then he kept asking me what I wanted to learn. Finally I said "Look, I want to learn to suck less when I ski". That answer seemed to satisfy him.

We did a number of drills which were pretty hard for me. One involved getting up on my edges and then flattening my skis and sliding down hill. I could do that okay when my left foot was uphill but had a hard time doing it with my right foot uphill. Because I don't have much feeling at all in my right foot after my knee surgery I can't always tell when I'm on my ski edge.

Then he watched me ski down a hill and said that I'm turning with my shoulders instead of my feet. So I did a lot of work on trying to transition on my edges and turn with my feet. Joe would usually ski behind me and yell at me when I did something wrong.

Then I practiced J turns. I can do a J turn to the left but not the right. I need to learn how to sense that my edge is down even if I can't feel it. After I did my turns Joe would mark up my turn line to show me where I did something wrong, like shifting my weight back instead of staying forward (Jeffy calls that the "Franki taking a dump" position). I started getting obsessed with my lines. Joe finally told me to quit "geeking out" about my lines. He also said most instructors use the big toe to little toe method for teaching people how to shift from one edge to the other, but since I can't feel my little toe that doesn't work for me.

Joe gave me an exercise to do at home, which I tried to do when I was staying with Jeffy except that he kept laughing at me. The exercise involves turning the feet to the left and right, so that the heel and toe make an "x". You're supposed to do it on wood floors and do it on carpet once you're really good. I couldn't make an x at all with my right foot at first because my heel was lifting out of the snow. Hopefully doing the x exercise will help with my right leg issues.

We ended the lesson doing some jumps and bumps.

After the lesson I decided to blow off the guy I was supposed to go have a drink with to keep skiing. Since I had a much better idea of how to control my skis I decided to do some more bumps and jumps. It was kind of weird, like having this magical super skiing power. That was probably the best afternoon of skiing I've had, though I think I over did it because Friday my knee really really hurt.

One weird thing that happened...I was at the american flyer lift and this kid who had been scanning my pass all day (I doubt he was out of college) jumped over the little fence that separates the ski line from the lift. I was standing on the purple line waiting for the chair to come around. I was one of only 5 people still skiing on that lift. The kid hit this button that shut the lift off. I turned around to look at him and he said "I have to ask you a question. How come you always smile at me but you never say anything?" I was like "Um, I smile at everyone dude." Then his friends started laughing. I'm not sure what exactly they were up to, but the kid running the lift started yelling at the pass scanning guy because once you stop the lift you have to wait a certain period of time before you can turn it back on. So we all sat there in awkward silence waiting until the lift could be turned back on. Then I decided to stay on super bee for the rest of the day.

And, this couple that swings propositioned me on super bee (I rode on the lift with them a number of times that afternoon and I chatted with the wife as the lift was going up - the husband propositioned me the last lift trip before super bee closed). I never know how to respond to stuff like that except by saying something stupid like "Um, no thanks".

irish car bombs

Yesterday after skiing at BC Jeffy and I went back to Finnegan's Wake to see Jonny Mogambo again. We got our same table, ordered some drinks, and settled in to watch the show.


The night got out of hand rather quickly. Jonny opened with a couple of songs and then started making fun of Jeffy, who can't sit for 5 minutes without playing with his iPhone. Jonny called it something funny, a mix between the words iPhone and masturbation but I can't remember what he said exactly.


Then there was this local delinquent guy named G man who was drunk because he was leaving Avon the next day for a four month trip. Jonny, who was also drinking, invited G man on stage to sing the song I am a man of constant sorrow. G man was so drunk he kept dropping his microphone and bumping into Jonny's guitar. But he was a very good singer, so that was kind of cool.


Then these old dudes who were having a fraternity reunion started getting noisy and yelling stuff at Jonny, who told them to shut up or put money in his tip jar. They requested some kind of stupid songs and were trying to sing along with them. Jonny finally got them to do a shot ski and one of the guys was so short he had to stand up on the stage to be the same height as his frat brothers. Jonny kept making fun of him but the guy was so drunk he didn't notice.


Then the frat guys started dancing near the stage, even though there wasn't much room (Jonny was playing "Brown Eyed Girl" - the guys could not dance AT ALL). G man had mean while sat down at our table because Jeffy and I bought him shots of whiskey to celebrate his impending trip (Jeffy had the waitress give him shots of "the best whiskey you have, and not that derelict shit"). I think Jeffy bought a shot for Jonny too, but it's hard to remember some details of the night. G man started hitting on me so I told him I was a lesbian. We had a long discussion about pussy and how women are all a bunch of scheming lying bitches. Then Jeffy joined in talking about strippers and showed G man pictures on his iPhone of his stripper friends rolling around and making out at one of his parties. Jeffy has a lot of stripper friends.


Some woman brought her two kids into the bar, I'm guessing age 7 and 9. The 7 year old was a little girl who put a dollar in Jonny's tip jar. Then Jonny made a joke about the 9 year old, who was a boy, so the 9 year old went over to the tip jar and took his sister's dollar out. Everybody in the bar was laughing. The mom made the kid put the money back in the tip jar and then they left.


Meanwhile, at some point, Jeffy started doing irish car bomb shots. I don't know what's in them but I'm pretty sure they had a lot of alcohol because Jeffy started folding up $20 bills into paper airplanes, each with a different design, and trying to throw them into Jonny's tip jar. None of them made it in. I think he threw $100 worth of little planes. It was good that Jeffy tipped him because he filmed Jonny singing the big fluffy beaver song without asking permission (which I thought was wrong to do). Jonny took it in stride and said "You're sending that out to the internet right now, aren't you man? I'll be HUGE in Japan in 5 minutes!" He asked if Jeffy was with a record company and I said "No, he works for the CIA", making Jonny laugh but really pissing off Jeffy who kept saying "that was NOT fucking funny! that was NOT fucking cool!".


Then Jonny decided I should come up on stage and sing a song. I can't sing AT ALL so I was like no FUCKING way. G man and Jeffy kept trying to drag me up to the stage while Jonny heckled me. Finally some woman got up there, asian looking, and really east coast ish, and she sang "I will survive". She had a great voice actually. Then G man got back on stage and sang "take it easy" except he kept singing the wrong words or the right words in the wrong order which was making Jonny laugh.


After a while it seemed like everyone in the bar was completely trashed and singing along with Jonny. That part was pretty cool. What was NOT cool was when G man broke my wine glass, which had just been refilled, spilling red wine all over my left leg. I looked like I had been shot mid-thigh (luckily the wine did not spill in my lap). That stain better come out. On a side note, I have gotten wine spilled on me at least once a month since June. Weird.

And, speaking of weird, one of the women with the drunk frat guys came over to our table and said "Hey, did you used to date (my ex boyfriend who owns some gyms in MD)." I was kind of surprised, and she said she recognized me because she used to climb the at the same time my ex and I did. Then she went on to say what an obnoxious, arrogant asshole he is and how she quit going to his gym. She went on a little tirade and I was like you don't have to tell me sister. Jeffy can verify that I am NOT making this up.

Jonny took a bathroom break and then Jeffy offered $200 for Jonny to keep playing because everyone was having so much fun. I would say at that point I was the drunkest I have been for a very long time. I normally don't get drunk in public places, but my buzz was pretty mellow and everyone thought I was sober and kept trying to buy me drinks.


I had also been going out for smoke breaks, mostly to get away from G man who was being annoying, and fucking with all the young snow boarder dudes that were also going outside to smoke. One of them tried to kiss me so I pushed him in the snow and his friends made fun of him so he left. The snow boarders kept sending me shots of whiskey and whistling at me. I gave the shots to G man. Luckily I was leaving with Jeffy, otherwise I might have had a problem on my hands because one guy (not the snow guy) was starting to get a little aggressive. Note to guys: just because you buy me a shot doesn't mean I'm going to fuck you. Seriously.


After the show Jonny came over to talk to us but he was getting mobbed by these drunk women who were the wives of the frat guys so Jeffy and I left. I think he talked to Jeffy for a few minutes but I was so buzzed at that point that I really had no idea what was going on. I vaguely remember getting the hiccups and babbling something about my toothbrush before I finally crashed out on the sofa.


This morning I woke up with a painful hangover and a hugely swollen knee. I decided to do more physical therapy for my knee and to never drink on an empty stomach ever again.


But, it was a lot of fun. I wonder if G man made his 9 am flight this morning...

beaver...creek

Last night Jeffy and I went to see an artist named Jonny Mogambo. He's a really amazing performer. He has this song called big fluffy beaver that was written by a woman in Texas. The song is hilarious. And the words are so offensive a big group of Texans left the bar. We listened to it this morning before we went skiing and I would start laughing as I was skiing because I was thinking about the song.

Jeffy chills out after skiing


Also, Jeffy decided to pretend he had turret's syndrome today. We would be sitting on the lift or skiing and Jeffy would start yelling bad words. It was pretty funny. BC was not crowded today and the snow wasn't horrible. I did a few bumps, did some jumps in the terrain park, and even went in the half pipe. It was fun.

Tonight we are going to see Jonny again. Last night when I got home I sent him an email with a Marty Robbins song that I love. Hopefully he will play it tonight. Last night Jonny said he wasn't sure who MR was, but I think that's because he was drunk. After he finished playing he sat down at our table and we talked for a while. He's supposed to let me know if he's ever playing in Denver.

One kind of crap thing about the bar we went to was the shot ski. It's a ski with four shot glasses on it. People line up and do the shots from the ski. Since our table was right next to the stage we had to accommodate the shot ski. They would put the ski down in front of us and then everyone would face us while doing the shot. I was like "Jeffy, if someone projectile vomits on me I'm going to break their ass." But no one puked on me.

Woke up this morning around 7 with a hangover from having two glasses of wine and two beers after skiing all day. And last night after we got home from the bar I had some dessert wine. We listened to kid rock and Jeffy smoked cigarettes even though he quit.

I had so much fun last night that I decided to stay here one more night. But then I really am going home. And I'm not allowed to ski tomorrow. Today my knee looks like a hot air balloon. Every time I show it to Jeffy I can tell he wants to poke it because it looks so gross.

just call me Cinderella

If you are eating, and you are "sensitive", I would wait until you finish to read this.

Another great day of skiing with some work thrown in this morning and evening...it was in the 40s on the mountain today, and hardly anyone was there, which was nice.

The morning started out kind of rough since I had left my boots in my car overnight. I had an epic struggle getting them on my feet. In fact, I almost gave up on getting the right boot situated. Since the plastic was stiff and my foot was swollen from skiing yesterday I was having major problems.

I skied for about 4 hours and the pain in my feet kept getting worse and worse. I finally stopped and went into the lodge to take my boots off because the shooting pain in the front of my left foot was so bad I could barely tolerate it. Something was oozing out of my left big toe and my sock was all wet. I pulled the sock off quickly to see what was leaking from my foot and inadvertently ripped half my toe nail off. It had broken in my boot and was bleeding and leaking some kind of yellow substance. Gross. Trin, what the fuck is wrong with my toe (email me the answer when you get a chance - I noticed after skiing yesterday that the broken half of my toe nail was purple and green - do you want me to send you a picture)? I also saw that my right big toe nail is split down the middle too, I think from pressing against my boot for so long. I hope it doesn't fall off in the hot tub.

So I wedged my feet back into my boots and went to the surefoot store. As I was walking in I saw their little banner "the most comfortable ski boots made" and thought about how Jeffy said his boots feel like bedroom slippers. I was like WHATEVER.

It turns out my boot was sized wrong, so I had to get a bigger size and then had to get my bindings redone again (they did it at surefoot this time instead of me having to traipse around to find someone to do it). I felt kind of bad that those guys were stuck with my old boot shells that they won't be able to resell (I had decorated them with little hardcandy skulls). But my feet felt so much better, I guess I really don't care. I skied three days in those stupid boots and kept taking them back saying they were too small. A size too small it turns out.

A weird side note: the guy who did my boots this time told me that my feet are too small for my height and that might be why I'm so uncoordinated (this said after the loose end of velcro on my left pant leg got stuck to the front of my right ski pant leg, causing me to trip and knock over a cardboard replica of some ski guy that was in the middle of the store). For my height my feet should be at least one size larger. He claims. Hm.

Tomorrow I’m taking a private ski lesson. That should be good for a few laughs. And I’m supposed to go for a drink with the guy who signed me up for the ski lesson afterwards. He invited me because he said he thought I was funny. I wonder if he will still think I’m funny when I show up tomorrow, as promised, without washing my hair and wearing the same clothes I’ve been wearing the past 3 days (at day 4 sweaty ski clothes start to smell really nice).

I haven’t washed my hair for over a week. When the ski lesson guy asked if I was going to wash my hair (he also suggested combing it) for my lesson tomorrow I told him "There's a time for washing and combing one's hair. Winter is not that time." So if you hear any ski guides from Copper say that, they stole the line from me.

the shark ha ha show

Last night I had a dream that I had my own TV show. The TV show set was in the ocean and I did the show underwater, but not with oxygen because I could somehow breathe underwater. In fact, it wasn't like being underwater, but more like being in front of the water, which was this amazing blue color, like turquoise but brighter and really unnatural.

I introduced myself at the start of the show. Then, behind me, this HUGE great white shark appeared. He was my co host for the show. Except for his gums being really bright red he looked like a real shark. His job in the show was to tell jokes to try to make me laugh. If I laughed at one of his jokes he would laugh too, and his extensible jaw would bounce up and down, and that would make me laugh more. I think he was purposely doing that.

I don't remember any of the jokes. But I do remember him saying, at one point, "Nice socks!" I looked down and realized I was wearing my under ski clothes (long underwear, ski socks, and a long sleeve waffle shirt). I was kind of embarrassed that I had forgotten to change from my ski clothes before the show started so I said "Oh, I went skiing today." And the shark said "Whatever. Jew." And then the audience started to laugh, so I said "Whatever. Shark." People laughed harder, so I started going "Oh look at me, I'm a great white" and then biting at the air and flapping my arms around like they were fins, and so he said "Oh look, I'm a Jew" and suddenly he had a pair of skis and ski poles and was acting like he was trying to put the skis on but he kept falling over into the snow, which had appeared with the skis. That part of the dream was kind of strange.

Then the show was over and the set started to go dark, and the shark said "I think this will do a lot for humanity". I was going to ask him how but then I woke up.

thanks for the sun

I got up at 5 this morning and worked like mad to get everything done I needed to get done for work so that I could ski today.

Got up to Copper at one-ish. I skied until the lifts closed at 4. Slid into the chute right as they were closing American Flyer and they let me go up. It was another blue bird day, temps high enough that I didn't even use hand warmers. It was great and I felt the happiest that I've felt in a long time. Have another two days to myself and then will be joining Jeffy for what promises to be an epic two days.

I like to go on ski trips by myself because I get to do whatever I want on the lift and not get yelled at. I take my gloves off. I don't hold on to my ski poles. I don't put that bar thing down and I knock my skis together. I did kind of miss my ex-boyfriend's happy dinosaur noises that he used to make when we were riding the lift. I also missed having Jeffy smashing his hand down on top of my helmet when I said something funny (I think Jeffy's hand is bigger than my entire head).

There were a lot of ginger kids skiing today. I got on a lift with this super ginger kid. His hair was a sickeningly red shade of red. The whole time he was talking to me I kept imagining his pubic hair being that same color of red. Yuck. I don't know how people can fuck really red red heads. I bet that kid never gets laid. Who wants to see some flaccid white blob of flesh like a fucking dumpling sitting in a pile of scary hair.

I practiced the exercises that Jeffy told me to do. I've spent the past few weeks, when I'm at home, working on my bosu ball to get better at shifting my weight to my right leg (I do that while I'm watching a movie, which can get tricky if I also have to read subtitles). After a half hour I was doing a lot better about not picking up my ski. I may take a lesson on Thursday to make sure I can ski well with Jeffy on Friday. Otherwise, I might not ever see him again. He made fun of me for almost stabbing him with my pole last time we skied together, when he snuck up behind me as I was playing 20 dollar in my head (even though I said I was going to stop thinking MIA music in my head all the time as a new year's resolution - "I put people on the map that have never seen a map" - okay, make that song stop).

The other thing I figured out is what I was doing wrong with my upper body. I noticed Jeffy was doing something with his shoulders but I couldn't figure out how to do it myself. Today I did better at trying to keep my upper hill shoulder turned in with my knee. I credit the tango music I was listening to, because I noticed when I was listening to the who I was not doing as good of a shoulder job.

I can't figure out how to turn my boot heaters on, but I brought the manual so I guess I can look it up. The manual is...somewhere. I'll probably just call Jeffy tomorrow, and that will be one more thing I will get shit about for the rest of my life. Yes, I have a master's in engineering. No, I can't figure out how the on switch works. And the fucking things keep blinking their little red lights at me like hahahahayoucan'tfigureitoutpushthebuttonagainmaybesomethingwillhappen.

I wonder if the other thing that's helping is climbing. Yesterday I was feeling pretty solid even though I hadn't climbed in over 10 days (LA engagement, no close gym, as if I had time anyway). Climbing is probably the best therapy for knee injuries. I'll do some of that when I get home this weekend. My knee kind of looks like a hot air balloon right now and I forgot my ice packs.

murder in the snow

I just watched a documentary that house pest 2.0 gave me.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/7715109.stm

It's about how he witnessed, along with 100 other mountaineers attempting to summit Cho Oyu, the murder of Tibetan children attempting to escape to Nepal. On film, one of house pest 2.0's clients captured the murder of a 17 year old nun; seven other refugees were shot and their bodies kicked into a crevasse. After HP2.0 reported the murders, anonymously (because no one else did), he was harassed by his employer, who also apparently ratted him out to the Chinese government, causing him to almost not make it out of the country. His life has completely changed and he no longer guides in China because he spoke out about the murders. When a woman leading up the human rights watch in Asia attempted to contact climbers who had witnessed the murders, few did the same, even though all were witnesses. Disgusting cowards.

I'll never understand how a male species so bent on fucking and procreating as much as possible could stand idly by and watch children get gunned down, especially when they likely had kids the same age as those that were shot. Men are I guess by nature more worried about the amount of money they have invested in something (a house, a fucking summit bid) than they are innocent children being fucking shot.

I guess the documentary really hit a raw nerve tonight because today I was helping Trina write a story about the Virginia Tech shootings. We were talking about how, back in the day, I would practically get mauled by students for riding my mountain bike across the drill field ("illegal" by the campus rules). The idea that some fucking asshole could walk across campus with multiple guns and ammo two hours after shooting two innocent people, and then proceed to lock the doors of Norris hall with bike locks, so no one could get out, before he started shooting the place up...I just can't imagine that ever happening on the campus where I went to school. How could no one see his guns? How could no one see him locking the doors?

The problem with people is they don't give a shit. Even in the documentary, one guy was talking about how these Chinese soldiers had automatic weapons and the mountaineers didn't. How about dropping an ice ax into someone's head? How about 100 people not being hostage to a few fucks with a gun? Nazi Germans hauling off the Jews? Might as well be.

In conclusion to my tirade, which I should stop before my head explodes, since I know it's impossible to ban guns, here's an idea - you're so worried about me smoking, and yet it costs more money for me to smoke a pack of cigarettes and potentially expose you to second hand smoke, which will cause you to sue me if you get cancer, than it does for me to take a 9 mm to a shooting range and have fun with a target, even if the next time I load my gun the target is you. Bullets should cost a lot more fucking money, and I mean that world wide - think of them, tax wise, as a bottle of Jim Beam and a pack of Marlboro Reds rolled into one. Throw the gun in for free with the ammo, I don't give a fuck. And how about making them with the same care that most crap is made with these days, i.e. the fucking thing will break after the warranty runs out (30 days, tick tock tick tock, better go shoot someone quick like).

Cops, and military guys who need to shoot, I'm not talking about you...the gov can provide a subsidy. Government can't afford it? Whatever, steal the ammo from Black Water. You know they charged four times what it was worth when they billed that stupid fuck Bush.

Okay, I'm going to have a drink and do some yoga breathing. Maybe pray for humanity. And ask anyone who reads this to do something. Not like donate money. Just try to be nicer to your fellow man. Work on your compassion. Do what ever is in your power for people in need (BTW, praying, yeah, that doesn't really help - but if it makes you feel better like you did something, tear it up).

I don't know, it's probably hopeless.

"Madness, insanity, live in profanity
then some punk claimin they understandin me
give me a break, what world do you live in
death is my sect, guess my religion"

Ice-T

what does it mean to not be missing a piece?

http://osorhan.com/bigo/index.php

What does it mean to not be missing a piece?

It means to be a person who doesn't want or need anything from anyone. Fulfilled would be a good word for that.

But if a person is fulfilled, and they don't need or want anything from anyone, then what interaction could you possibly have with that person?

None, unless they know how to do taxes. Then you could ask them to do your taxes for you.

But then wouldn't that mean that you aren't fulfilled, because you need someone to do your taxes, so that other fulfilled person won't help you because they don't want to interact with someone who isn't fulfilled except to tell them that they need to work on themselves?

Yes it does, and that's why we have accountants. It's okay to be with someone if you aren't completely fulfilled, as long as you are paying that person for their services.

But isn't part of being a fulfilled person having relationships with people, and by virtue of that, don't relationships revolve around wanting things from people, like their friendship?

No, because being fulfilled can be achieved just by having orgasms. Everything else in life is really just superfluous, even taxes. And you should have orgasms before you want or need them, otherwise, you will be unfulfilled. Orgasms are something you can pay someone for, if you don't know how to do it yourself, as long as you don't rely on that person you are paying, because then you become unfulfilled by wanting or needing something from that person, and you'll only be fulfilled for like the 30 seconds you have an orgasm. Maybe get a book on masturbation if you don't know what you are doing.

So what happens if you are a completely fulfilled person who meets another completely fulfilled person?

Nothing. Because you are both so fulfilled, there's no need to interact with anyone else. You might share the sidewalk as you stroll along the block. Maybe you think to yourself "hey, there's a completely fulfilled person!" and they will think the same thing about you. And you will both sigh and say "I'm glad to avoid having to want or need anything from anyone. Life is so much better this way." And then you'll go into a coffee shop and order some coffee. Oh, wait, scratch that, you won't even need coffee, because you're too fulfilled to need anything.

Life will be so good.

with apologies to the droon - how can I not make fun of you every day of my life?

blood in the wire

I guess it's not a great idea to watch blood in the wire before bed when I'm really tired and a little drunk.

I had a dream last night that I was an investigator called in to a crime scene because a little boy had been murdered. I got to the crime scene, which was the little boy's house, at night, and everything was really dark. I was carrying a flashlight.

I walked up to the front door and it was opened. I decided I should go inside thinking that maybe everyone else who was at the crime scene would be in the house. It was a white two story house, built in the 1950's.

I started to walk into the door and shone my flashlight behind the door because when I pushed on the door it didn't move. On the other side of the door, at the height of the door knob, was the blond hair of a little boy. I realized he was, I thought, standing with his back to the door. Then I shone the flashlight on his face. His eyes were gone, and where they were supposed to be were two wet maroon holes. They looked like the inside of a nectarine after you pull the pit out. His entire face was criss crossed with black electrical tape in a diamond pattern, like he had his face against a black chain link fence. Then I realized that the little boy was my brother Bob, and that he was taped to the door with the electrical tape.

I stepped back against the door frame in shock, which is when I noticed a key sticking out of the dead bolt on the inside of the door right next to Bob's face. I reached for the key, and right as I pulled it out a man wearing this huge black cape, who had been standing next to Bob but that I hadn't seen in the dark, grabbed both my wrists. He was huge, maybe twice my size. He didn't have a real face, just a flat sheet of skin that had eyes and a mouth crookedly painted on it. He grabbed his cape and wrapped it around me and then I was falling into a hole that was inside his cape. When I put out my hands to grab the sides I realized the hole was my brother's eye socket.

Then I woke up. And decided to not go back to sleep even though it was only 530 in the morning.

the penis eating fish and other egyptian oddities

Yesterday in my TV, at the same place where the underground egyptian show used to be, was a new show but still about egyptians. This show was about the crazy things of ancient egypt.

The first story was about how this fish (they said the name but I can't find the spelling on the internet) ate the penis of the god Osiris, so it was taboo to serve for dinner. No one ever said how or why that fish ate his penis, or if he got the penis back. Osiris was the god of the underworld, and got to decide who became alive again and who got killed again.

You could get killed again after you died because you had to go to this place called the hall of 2 truths. In there you were grilled by a bunch of gods about your life. That is what the book of the dead is used for. Apparently the book of the dead was buried with Pharaohs and it was the right answers to all the questions that the gods would ask you, and the historian who was talking about the book said the papyrus the book was printed on would literally have little notes "fill in name here" for the dead person to fill in their own name. Like one of those climbing forms you have to sign at the gym. Inside the book was the proper answer to questions such as "I did not eat feces. I did not have sex with an animal." Etc.

After you got grilled your heart was weighed. If it was light as a feather you got to go be alive again because light hearts were considered free of sin. If your heart tipped the scale, meaning it was heavy with sin, a god got to eat it and you couldn't go be alive again. They didn't say on the show where you went after which ever god finished eating your heart. Some place bad. Cairo maybe.

The egyptians were very litigious and used to sue each other all the time. Justice was represented by a feather, known as the feather of truth. Egyptians were allowed to not only sue live people, but they could sue dead people too.

Egyptian men were afraid of being bald. They wore wigs all the time. They ate lettuce because they thought it was like viagra.

Egyptians loved their pets, especially their pet cats. When their cats would die they would mummify them and the owners would shave their eyebrows off in some weird mourning ritual. As romans and greeks started traveling to Egypt the egyptians started to raise cats and mummify them for the purpose of selling them as souvenirs. Mummy cats were, back then, all the rage and it was big business. Other egyptians thought this was the wrong thing to do. They probably sued.

Monkeys were another popular pet, of the pharaoh at least. Monkeys were often trained to serve dinner and to act as bathroom attendants. Yes, bathrooms. They were invented by the egyptians. If you were middle class you had a wooden toilet. Generals and people like that got stone toilets. Most tombs even had toilets in them, I guess in case the pharaoh had to poop after he or she died.

Dwarfs were worshipped because, since they were tiny, they were thought to be closer to god (something about how close you are to the earth). Also, because they were small people thought of them as being like children. Youthfulness was very important in egypt. If you were a dwarf back then you had it made.

Of course, all this stuff is known because of people reading hieroglyphics. But, to be honest, if I were working there in Egypt, I would probably just make a bunch of shit up. "Um, yeah, this hieroglyphic means they shaved their eyebrows off when their pet cat died. And this one means, uh, that some guy got his penis eaten by a fish."

from dealer to crusader

Today I got up at 5 am to catch an 8 am flight to Denver. The plane fuel cap something or other was leaking fuel, so we left and returned to the gate three fucking times. We ended up sitting on the runway for a total of 3 1/2 hours. A guy went nuts the second time we returned to the gate and wanted off the plane. Since I was in the exit row right next to the door, where he was standing yelling at the stewardesses and then the captain, I was really hoping they would let him off. The stewardess told him to "man up". It was so gay.

They let him, and 7 other people off the plane finally.

When I got to DIA I had a screaming headache from not being able to sleep on the plane and not smoking for a long fucking time. I was rushing out the door when I was stopped by a guy named Charley who asked me for a donation for Environment Colorado. I told him I was already a member. He said he needed only $45 more dollars to make his quota for the day. I gave it to him, and then he followed me out to smoke, and I gave him two cigarettes too.

Charley used to be a marijuana dealer. He was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. Coincidentally, I did statistics work on his prison while he was there (summer internship with Department of Justice). Charley learned to speak fluent spanish there and taught the other inmates.

He said "I used to drive a porsche but now I ride a bike". We talked about EC's initiatives. I related to him a story about how I sent a letter to the president of EC 2 years ago suggesting a green program for Colorado hotels. You could sign up for the program and when you checked in your room would only have one towel, your linens wouldn't get changed during your stay, and there would be a recycle bin. Charley said he is going to get the new president of EC to email me about my idea. I had some ideas on how to fund the initiative too, so maybe they'll do it.

It was nice to finally get home after my travel adventures. The house was spotless, there were groceries, all the snow had been shoveled, and my mail was arranged by envelope size in a little wooden basket. All the junk mail had been tossed. The guest room is still clean. I think house pest 2.0 is going to work out just fine.

ghost cake

Last night I had the weirdest dream about my ex boyfriend Jonas.

In the dream I was in his dad's house in Philly because Jonas had invited me to his wedding (he has been married for a long time in real life). I met his wife and remember thinking "I wonder why they are getting married again?" but no one else seemed to know that they were already married.

Then somehow we were in another house and Jonas was talking to me and I was like "where is your wife?" and he said "you are my wife" and I said "no, you married someone else" and then he said "if that's true why are you living with me?"

I was really confused, and then his real wife came in, and she was still wearing the wedding dress, and they started talking as if I weren't there. After she left I said "see, that's who you married" and he kept saying "I'm not talking about facts! I'm not talking about facts!" Then he left the room.

After he left the room I realized I was tied to a chair and couldn't move. I was worried that his wife would come in and see me. Then he came back into the room and had a huge wedding cake. He said "See, we are married, and here's the cake to prove it. All you have to do is eat a piece of the cake and there won't be two of everything anymore". I looked around the room and noticed there was two of everything except Jonas and the cake.

He came towards me with a piece of cake, which was really more of a cloud than a cake, and he whispered "please just eat it". I realized it was a cake that, if I ate it, would turn me into a ghost. I started crying because I didn't want to be a ghost. So I said "why can't you just shoot me like everyone else?" All this heavy fabric started peeling off the chair and smothering me because I wouldn't eat the cake.

Then I woke up.

animals ARE jerks

Someone sent me an article entitled "Are Animals Bigger Jerks Than We Are?" http://www.esquire.com/style/answer-fella/animal-behavior-0209

My first clue that the article was likely going to be stupid is that it was published in Esquire magazine. But, I read it anyway. The conclusion is that people are bigger jerks than animals.

In the article so called "animal experts" say, among other things, that:

• animals are "too busy" to be jerks
• animals are always in packs and can't afford to be jerks because they rely on their fellow beasts
• that you can "enrich" an animal that wants to be left alone and "rehabilitate" it

I don't know where these people got their information or degrees from, maybe Clueless U. Perhaps they should watch some animal shows, or read articles about animals. I'm hardly an animal expert but am able to realize when one great white shark goes up and bites another great white for no reason, she's being a jerk.

And what about squirrels? Are they not considered "jerks" for stealing each other's babies (and sometimes killing the babies), stealing bird eggs, and ripping up people's attics? Monkeys can be notoriously mean to each other. Weaker males are often abused by stronger males until they are forced to go find some other group to live with.

And anyway, aren't people jerks to each other because they are un-evolved? Don't people behave stupidly because they have issues that they haven't addressed? And if they are "not evolved", doesn't that make them like an animal? An animal will kill another animal because it wants food. All you have to do is spend a day in downtown LA to see that same scenario played out on the streets.

I know you think your dog loves you. But if you die, and he's locked in the house, he's going to eat you. At least a human friend wouldn't do that. Normally.

raising a daughter (for WG)

Allah knows the last thing I would do is have a kid, but if I did, and it was a girl, this is what I would tell her to get her bitch ass ready for the real world:


1. Math and Education - At the end of the day, no one can argue with math. Having mad math skills is the single most important thing you can do as a girl to prepare for the real world. Getting an engineering degree is the second most important. Fuck those liberal art degrees. That will only subject you to being in classes with people who smoke a lot of pot and are annoying. An engineering degree is hard, horrible, will expose you to the chauvinistic attitude you will have to deal with for the rest of your life, and will make you scary to most weak minded men who are looking for a woman that they can push around and breed with. You want to avoid those men at all costs. Never watch TV. Read as much as you can. Do science experiments and spend as much time outside as you can building forts and beating up the neighborhood kids.

2. Sports - Sports teach you how to compete, win gracefully, and lose gracefully, something most women I run across seem to not understand. An interest in sports will also keep you in good shape hopefully for the rest of your life. The average guy finds women with athletic talent scary, and so will weed them out of your life, which is a good thing.

3. Broken bones - Experimenting with activities that will cause you to break bones is a good thing, up to a certain age. After you get out of your teens, it's not advisable to break bones. But a memorable injury or two is a great learning experience and will teach you to deal with pain in your adult life and will help you understand your body's limits. Surviving pain builds character. That being said, I have a few injuries from my youth that are a problem now because rather than letting myself get better I decided to train through them. When you hurt yourself stop doing what ever it is your doing and let your body heal. I really wish someone had told me that when I was in high school and college.

4. Fashion - Having some fashion sense is a bonus, especially if you decide to become a consultant. Understand how to shop, but don't waste time shopping. I wish I had a better understanding of how to buy clothes, instead of having to rely on my gay male friends to help me pick outfits.

5. Eating - Eat only what you want to eat. If you're a picky eater, embrace that as a positive thing, rather than a negative thing. If you're skinny people will always accuse you of having an eating disorder. If you're fat people will always comment on your weight. Be happy with yourself and ignore everyone else.

6. Guys/Boys - There are two categories of males in the world: guys and boys. Guys are good. They are emotionally mature and supportive of you. Hang out with them. Boys are bad. They are emotionally stunted. You can tell someone is a boy because they are unreliable, say mean things, are easily hurt, cheat on you with someone else and then try to claim it was somehow your fault, etc. A boy might eventually become a guy, but don't waste your time waiting for that to happen.

7. Relationships - And along the topic of guys, don't pay attention to them or date them until you graduate from college. Early romance is a waste of time that you need to be spending preparing for the real world. And because you are going through this whole development thing from the age of 10 until 20 or 21, where physical changes to your body can result in weird emotional swings, you might think that you are, for example, sad because a boy you like doesn't like you, when really all that's happening is your brain is jacked up by hormones. Be friends with guys. Get them to take you mountain biking and climbing. But don't get involved with them. This has the added advantage of giving you control over them. When a guy can't have something he wants it more and will do what ever you ask him to in the hopes he might eventually get laid.

8. Sex - Don't have sex until you are at least 21. Have sex with an older guy who knows what he is doing. Never have sex with a guy who doesn't know how to kiss properly. Never have sex with a guy that has a small penis. Never have sex with a guy who won't first take a blood test to prove he doesn't have any kind of ick diseases and an IQ test to prove he isn't stupid. And not an internet IQ test, a real one. These requirements will weed out 99% of the idiots you shouldn't ever fuck.

9. Money - Make your own, figure out how to manage it, and use it to help yourself out. Never give money to a boyfriend to help him out. Never buy anything with a boyfriend. Own your own car and your own house. Never be financially dependent on anyone else.

10. Marriage and kids - If you really, really think it's a good idea, get married. Just realize that you, as a wife, will lose your position in the real world. People no longer see you as your own person, you're now just someone's wife. Being married can also hurt your career because your boss automatically assumes that you have to check everything with your husband (staying late, traveling). As for kids, you don't have to have them. You shouldn't have them until you are completely independent. Don't have them if you can't take care of them by yourself. I know you think your spouse will help out. Think again, he won't. Men like the idea of kids but are normally not that interested in the day to day responsibilities so that falls on you. It fucks with your sex life. It fucks with your body. If you are planning on having kids do it with a guy who has a well behaved dog so you have some kind of track record to go on.

hell, by way of the gym

If the christians are right, and let's face it, what are the chances, I'm likely going to hell. Not through any fault of my own, but because of the idiots working out in hotel gyms.

Yesterday I was on the elliptical, thinking how much I hate the elliptical, and trying to remember back to the days when I wasn't allowed to use it because of my knee, and how jealous I used to be of people who were on it. Next to me was a treadmill, with some idiot guy on it who kept speeding up the belt even though he couldn't run without holding on to the hand rail in front (first sign that you have set the treadmill to go too fast). I kept looking over at him because he looked so retarded, and that was causing him to speed the treadmill up to go even faster.

He was one of those guys who always gets a towel when entering the gym. My thing is, it's a gym. It's SUPPOSED to be dirty. You are SUPPOSED to get sweat on a machine. If the person using it afterwards is so disposed THEY can wipe it off. Towels in the gym are so gay.

Anyway, the guy's arm, at some point, flew off the front hand rail and hit the towel draped over the side rail. The towel fell onto the belt. For god knows what reason the guy tried to jump over the towel. This caused him to let go of the front hand rail with his other hand. He went flying back off the treadmill, and then landed on his ass right behind the treadmill. I was unfortunately taking a drink of water at the time, and sprayed the front of my elliptical. Then, trying not to laugh, I started laughing. Trying even more not to laugh caused me to laugh hysterically, so much so that I had to stop on the elliptical. I almost threw up I laughed so hard.

I knew I should try to help the guy, or at least make sure he was okay, but I couldn't stop laughing. He got up and walked out of the gym. I had the place to myself for about 15 minutes until this other guy came in and started trying to do these weird floor exercises. One involved him laying flat on his back, and then going "huff huff huff", and then projecting his top body up while simultaneously raising his knees, in some kind of weird sit up motion. Some times when he would do this he would fart. Really, how could I not once again laugh?

I got through half my weights and then decided it would be best for everyone in the gym, at that point 5 of us, if I left because I couldn't stop laughing. Tonight after work I went back to the gym, attempting to do another workout. This time the idiot on the treadmill kept jumping off the belt and standing on the sides, and then jumping back on the treadmill. I made it 10 minutes and then couldn't stop laughing once I started.

If I were going to make a tv show, it would be a tv show where a hidden camera is placed in a hotel gym. I'm sure someone could think up a catchy title.

death built egypt

I just watched a show in my tv. I'm not sure what it was called, or what channel it was on, but it was about this guy who went down under Cairo buildings and pyramids to see what was there. I had been to almost all of the buildings in the show. The funniest part was when he wiped out walking down some steps to an ancient well. If you don't have to be coordinated I should get my own show too. But not a show with snakes in it.

I learned some pretty cool things. First of all, Egypt became pretty poor because of the romans invading and stuff, so instead of building elaborate tombs like the great pyramid, that contained treasures to help a pharaoh in the next life, they started building tombs with writing that would help the emperor whose tomb it was figure out how to get to this dead people place that you have to go to before you can be re-incarnated. The writings in these tombs became known as the book of the dead. It's the oldest known religious writing.

As I writer, I find it somewhat heartening that a society, when it loses everything material, will turn to writing as a treasure, which is as the world should be. It's nice to think of a society that finds words a better bribe than gold, though, Egypt isn't really that way any more, at least not the parts I went to.

I also found out that the reason mummies have masks is so when the soul returns they can recognize their body, and, presumably, climb back into it and come back to life. I guess that's why the Egyptians felt preserving the body was so important, though I'm not sure, as part of getting to be a new person, if you would also get your organs because the Egyptians took those out. I guess then the dead Egyptian would show up with their bag of liver, heart, brain and stuff, and then find their body, somehow pop back in there, and go do whatever. Kind of like those butterball turkeys at thanksgiving.

I wonder if your body got totally jacked (e.g. your arm was cut off) if you could get a better body or if they could some how fix your existing body (e.g. so it had an arm). I also wonder what would happen if like you were this girl and you were in love with this guy, but he married someone else, and then you all died, if you could just pretend to be that other person so that when he got back to life you would get to be the person fucking him. Guys aren't that smart, he probably wouldn't even notice he was fucking someone else.

If I were in Egypt back in the day, I would go into a tomb and re-arrange the death masks so some guy would think he was going back to his body, but he was really going back to a woman's body. Then his wife or what ever, when she came back, could be like "Now who's got the curse, bitch? And who's got the dick? Go make me dinner and clean up after the goats!"

This egyptologist who works with dead bodies said the curse of the pharaoh has to do with the ammonium given off by the dead bodies. It can apparently cause "bleeding of the lungs". Sounds like smoking, I know. Also he said when ever he has to go into a tomb he never shaves because if he cuts himself and has an open wound microbes from thousands of years ago can get into the cut and fuck him up. One would surmise you can't be a crack climber AND an egyptologist.

The best line from the show was when an egyptologist said "death built Egypt" because they never would have built all the temples if it weren't for preparing pharaohs for the afterlife, and those temples then attracting people like the romans who were after the wealth of the country, etc.

housepest 2.0

Anyone who knows me realizes asking the question "don't you ever learn?" is a waste of time. I cite, as an example, the time I broke my right wrist in a mountain biking accident, and then broke my left wrist a month later...in a mountain biking accident.

So this weekend is the official start of housepest 2.0. This version will be better than the previous version because he won't be spilling coffee on my new carpet, making messes, parking my car on the street so he can park in the garage, resulting in me getting a ticket, etc. This housepest is much more responsive and mature. I hope.

Housepest 2.0 is my friend Luis. I met him at the same climbing gym where I met housepest 1.0. Housepest 2.0 is going through a transition and will be hanging out here for a while. I believe I will be able to talk him into taking me climbing, which will be fun since I've been working like a little bitch in the gym and would like to take a lead outside. Housepest 2.0 should come with some advanced features, such as free climbing gear, and, please Allah, let him have a patagucci discount I can use.

Housepest 2.0 is bi-lingual, which will help in this neighborhood. And he'll be keeping my buddha statue entertained while I'm off working. But hopefully not burning the house down or performing illicit acts...well, he's a climber so you never know.

Alex, the Spiderman Mango

Tonight I had a great climbing session with Dr. S and his climbing partner Alex. I was kind of tired when I got to the gym (too many pushups yesterday) and was thinking to just have an easy night but then I ended up, at Dr. S's insistence, leading a few things, including a 5.9, which is my hardest lead of the new year.

Alex says the most hilarious stuff. My favorite was when Dr. S was saying to him, regarding better foot work, "it's kind of like fruits and vegetables", meaning to make an analogy that you don't want to eat them but they're good for you. Alex mis-heard and thought Dr. S said "You're kind of like fruits and vegetables". He then pondered what he would be if he were that. He finally decided he would be a cabbage. Then he said "I would be a cabbage, but I would pretend I was a beautiful mango, hanging on a tree in Spain. When the other cabbages would talk to me I would only answer them in Spanish."

And I thought I was the only one who said things like that.

I also taught Alex how to tie a bowline (told him my snake story) and how to master the figure 8 (I explained how it's the strangle and punch knot). While Dr. S was climbing I earnestly tried to explain to Alex strategies for improving his foot work, as he has a lot of the same habits I had before Gadg coached me. He said "Currently, my strategy for becoming a better climber is to get bitten by a radio active spider. But, that hasn't happened yet." He also said he wouldn't wear the spiderman costume while climbing because he thought it looked girly, prompting Dr. S to make fun of Alex's shoes, which he called "foppy european", because he knows Alex is sensitive about those things.

We also talked about Wallace and Gromit since Alex is a London transplant with two kids. He said one day at his daughter's preschool there was a fire drill. When the alarm went off the teacher asked if anyone knew what the alarm meant. Alex's daughter responded "someone stole a diamond!" You have to see Wallace and Gromit's 3 great adventures to understand why that's really funny.

Hanging out with a englishman is great because they say the damndest things. Dr. S was lowering me off a climb and I almost ended up on top of some guy's head because of where the anchor was on the climb. I apologized to the guy as he stood below me, saying to him "Sorry I'm almost landing on your head", to which he responded "No worries. There's a great view from down here." When I got on the floor Alex looked at me and said "Cheeky bastard". I found that amusing.

Alex's wife is living in Boston, but he's going to get her to move here. I was giving him some tips on how to pursuade her to move. He also, when I asked what he did, said he was hired as a drinking partner. It turns out he's really a doctor. He explained to me how snake muscles work, which might come in handy next time one tries to bite me.

cute fish?

Some times I think animal rights activists do really stupid things. Other times, I know what they are doing is stupid.

So, PETA has started this new program to make fish more appealing to people by inventing something called a "sea kitten". Seriously, I am NOT making this up: http://www.peta.org/sea_kittens/about.asp

The description for the program says "People don't seem to like fish. They're slithery and slimy, and they have eyes on either side of their pointy little heads—which is weird, to say the least. Plus, the small ones nibble at your feet when you're swimming, and the big ones—well, the big ones will bite your face off if Jaws is anything to go by. "

I think people don't not like fish. I think people just don't give a shit about fish. And if PETA wants to do an image make over for fish, why not invest in programs designed to have kids interact with them. They could arrange "Breakfast with Salmon" at local aquariums, for example, where kids could eat lox on bagels while watching a bunch of salmon swimming and shitting in a tank. Or, for tuna, why not pay me to eat a bunch of sushi while expounding on how it's not good to put a hook through some poor fish's head.

But no, they decided the best course of action was to create a stupid web site where you can decorate a fish with a bunch of ridiculous things such as lipstick, a tiara, or a mohawk. And that is supposed to do...what? I decorated this salmon on the web site, giving him an elephant trunk, a "punk rock jacket", sunglasses, and a mohawk. The end result is I am now craving sushi. You can email your sea kitten to all your friends. I would suggest doing this if you have annoying friends who just send you junk mail instead of composing a real email. Maybe make a really ugly sea kitten and name it after them.

Although I don't feel too inclined to do anything to help fish, other than sharks, it is nice to have something new to do while on long, boring conference calls.

first lead of 2009

Tonight at BRC I did my first lead. It was my last climb of the night too. Left some skin on the floor of the gym, but I'm sure they'll have it vacuumed up by morning.

I forgot how much I enjoy climbing. Tonight made me remember how much fun Gadget, Liz, and I had climbing together. We met 3 days a week and would climb for 3 hours. Gadg was the best coach ever. I had picked up some bad habits yarding my way up climbs more due to strength than actual ability. He tortured me for weeks, lowering me off any climb the second I did something wrong (my two favorite bad habits: mantling up something when I didn't need to and jumping for a hold so I wouldn't have to push up on my right foot). I was missing him tonight as I chicken winged some stupid hold instead of just moving my arm up. Then I was on another climb with a crimpy left hold and my ex broken finger was throbbing so I just jumped for the next hold rather than moving on the crimp.

I don't know if Gadg was there in spirit, but I could hear him yelling in my head "Awwww, Franki! Franki! What are you DOING? That's it! You're lowered!"

Dr. S tried to get me to climb this crimpy little shit show of a route, but I refused to as the start for feet was a starfish. And I am inclined to beware of starfish. The first three hands were all slopey things you have to crimp. Uh huh. He kept saying "but the holds get good up there" and I was like but I have to get UP THERE first. I held my arms up to his face and said "Oh look, my forearms are giving you the finger".

My favorite moment of the night was when I was climbing an overhang with a russian guy climbing next to me. I was about to pull through the overhang on this hold that looked liked Dolly Parton's breasts when suddenly the rusky peeled off. I had a vision of his ass connecting with my face and made Dr. S lower me until the Russian was done.

There's suffering in climbing, and then there's suffering.

The evening ended well with pancakes, but I think bio freeze is also in order.

hot pants

I have to admit, it's been a long time since someone was able to trump my stories with the best story ever. This courtesy of Jeffy while we were at the counter discussing the worst thing a partner could do. I know it won't be as funny me telling it here.

A guy who worked for Jeffy has a wife that, I assume due to the story, has a problem with yeast infections. So the wife sees some show on TV one morning that recommended that women who are prone to yeast infections put their underwear in the microwave for a few minutes before putting them on (this apparently is true: www.ehow.com/how_7838_cure-vaginal-infections.html ).

So the wife put her underwear in the microwave and then went to take a shower. I guess she didn't realize that you can't put underwear with little metal studs on it in the microwave. I can't remember the exact details of what happened next because I was laughing, but I believe the microwave either blew up or caused a short, which then caused the house to catch fire. The fucking thing burned to the ground. The guy was at work and his wife is lucky she made it out of the house alive.

It took a while for the guy to sheepishly admit to Jeffy what caused the fire. We both agreed that was the worst thing we could think of that a partner could do.

nixon & honey arm

I went to see frost-nixon with Jeffy yesterday. I was bribed into going with the promise that we would be seated in the VIP section of the theater. We had reclining seats and a waitress to bring us drinks. One of the advantages of hanging out with Jeffy is he knows how to roll.

I got to the theater a little late due to traffic. Jeffy was standing in the lobby and started waving something on a lanyard at me when I walked in. I was like "Dude, you found my ski pass!!!" He looked at me for a moment and then was like "You're an idiot," after which he clonked me on the head and then gave me my movie pass. Which, in my defense, looked like a ski pass.

During the movie there is a scene of Nixon jogging in place in his house in California. Since Jeffy's treadmill recently went tits up, a situation he is super sensitive about since he loves to run, I thought it best to lean over and whisper to him "Hey! You don't need a treadmill. Just run in place like that!"

Which is why, at dinner later that night, upon discovering that an apricot sauce that came with some fried pickles we ordered had honey in it, he was tempted to write "help me!" on my arm with the aforementioned sauce, as I was looking at the menu trying to decide if I really wanted onion rings or not. He might have gotten away with his little scheme if he hadn't asked me, so innocently, "So, um, if you get honey on your skin, what happens? Do you, uh, look like that little girl from the exorcist?"

He was bitter about not only the Nixon comment, but also about the fact that we took my car to dinner and I almost ran out of gas. We were sitting at a red light, with a gas station in sight, and he said "if you fucking run out of gas now I am going to go back to the theater, get my car, and run you over". He has an FJ. Ouch.

The restaurant we ate at is called the counter. It was quite good. I had a hamburger (was going to order the veggie burger but Jeffy kept going "pussy, pussy, pussy, order the beef you fucking pussy") with cranberries, cheddar cheese, some green stuff, and an onion marmalade. Then I drove Jeffy back to his car, almost accidentally driving down the wrong side of the street because I was distracted by Jeffy's iPhone, prompting him to almost have a coronary. But, all made it home safe.

And it was fun.

rejected

Well, my first "rejected" email of the year. On to the next publisher.

the most embarrassing dad

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0106091vail1.html

And that's one more reason why I probably won't ski Vail during the weekends...

Anterooms

Out of the snowdrift
Which covered it, this pillared
Sundial starts to lift,

Able now at last
To let its frozen hours
Melt into the past

In bright, ticking drops.
Time so often hastens by,
Time so often stops-

Still, it strains belief
How an instant can dilate,
Or long years be brief.

Dreams, which interweave
All our times and tenses, are
What we can believe:

Dark as they are, yet plain,
Coming to us now as if
Through a cobwebbed pane

Where, before our eyes,
All the living and the dead
Meet without surprise.

-Richard Wilbur

check

I just sent off my book proposal to my publisher.

Stressed with the potential response, especially since my last communique with aforementioned publisher involved me threatening (from what I remember) to kick him in the balls.

But fuck, I had to do it, it was on my list.

Fingers crossed.

copper day with Jeffy

After a stressful day on Saturday, when my flight from Cincy to Denver was cancelled, and then rescheduled, and cancelled again, so I ended up on a Delta instead of United flight, having also lost my first class seat and having to sit between two fat people with a shit head of a kid behind me who cried the entire 3 hour flight, I got up at 4 am to meet Jeffy for my first day of skiing.

The day started out not so auspiciously as I couldn't get onto I-70, the intersection near my house having been closed for police activity. Then we got to copper and it was fucking cold. But, the day got better almost immediately.

Jeffy took me to the surefoot store to get custom made ski boots. Given the amount of problems I have with my knee I figured it was a good investment. While we waited for the lifts to open I got measured for orthotics. You have to stand on this metal thing and then these black worm looking stalks come out of the metal thing and measure your foot. They had to measure my right foot 3 times to get an accurate reading for some reason. Then we went to the ticket counter where I procured a $40 discount on Jeffy's lift ticket. I said "and that's why you keep the jew around" to make him laugh.

Then we headed up mountain. Jeffy tried to give me some coaching on skiing. First he noticed that I pick up my right ski all the time. He would carve a turn down the mountain, with his two perfect lines from his edges, and then I would try to follow. But I was making ghost lines with my right ski because I kept picking it up. I think I do that because I don't have much feeling in my right foot and I'm afraid I'm going to catch an edge and wrench my knee, causing all the titanium screws holding my leg together to come shooting out, then all the tendons to pop out like octopus tentacles. They'd never find my knee cap in the snow.

After a few runs, and also determining my foot wasn't sitting properly in my boot, Jeffy suggested we go back to surefoot to finish getting my boots made. I asked if he thought I would suck less with new boots and he said "I hope so". He also said he wished he had brought his camera so he could take pictures of me that he could look at when he needed a laugh.

So when we returned to surefoot Nick, my boot maker, made me sit in a chair while he put these little toe hats on my feet. Then he put my legs in these plastic baggie things and crammed the whole mess inside my new ski boot, which had a bunch of tubes sticking out of it. I was like "Hmm. This reminds me of chemo." Nick said "There's nothing that's going to poke or cut you," and then moments later gouged a huge chunk of skin out of his hand on one of my boot bindings.

After I was packed into the boots I had to stand on this metal platform while Nick fed foam into the various tubes coming out of my boots. It was kind of like having my foot stepped on by a giant who then decided to pee on it for good measure. I had to endure this process for 30 minutes, while Jeffy stood at the front of the shop trying to do things to make me laugh while simultaneously laughing at my discomfort. Towards the end the pain was so bad in my right foot from the compression I seriously thought I was going to pass out. I kept apologizing to Jeffy for taking so long since I was cutting into ski time and he kept saying "well, that's why we keep the jew around".

Then Nick tried to mount my new boots onto my skis but they were so much smaller than my old ones (explains the heel lift problem I was having) I had to get the bindings remounted. That ended up being another little adventure involving me getting yelled at for running through the snow in my socks, prompting more "and that's why we keep the jew around" comments.

Finally, after getting my skis fixed up, and having a beer, we returned to the mountain for some more runs. Unfortunately my new boots were so tight in the toe they were almost unbearable to wear, kind of like skiing in a climbing shoe, but I did my best to ski in them for the rest of the afternoon. Jeffy kept saying we should take them in again, but I was having enough fun to block the pain and didn't want to spend anymore time in a shop.

We kept talking about how the economy is not going to get better for a while, a big concern of Jeffy's since he's thinking to retire soon. He just sold a nail polish company that he owned, so he kept saying "well, at least I have 8,000 bottles of nail polish" after telling me stories like how he lost $2 million dollars this year.

We also discussed his book. He paid a guy in Vegas $20 k to ghost write it and the guy hasn't done shit. So I lobbied to be his new ghost writer and I think he's going to take me on, especially when I pointed out to him that everything we do when we hang out together can be written off on taxes. So he's working up an outline this week and we'll see what happens. I've put together two proposals for other books I'm working on, so I may be writing a lot this year.

Jeffy is a great friend in that he has a lot of patience. Even when I lost my ski pass he didn't complain (it fell off my lanyard somehow). He also was a helpful ski coach and only once yelled at me, saying "If you pick that right ski up one more time I'm going to break your fucking foot off". He also pointed out to me that my shoulders and my hips are normally going in two opposite directions when I ski, prompting him to wonder "how could you have so many black friends and not have any rhythm?" He also tried to get me into the rail park, but then changed his mind when he remembered that I (re)broke my hand last year skiing.

His best comment, while discussing our friend J who recently became not a lesbian anymore, was "If you're going to date a girl, you should date one that's bisexual. That way you know she's with her girlfriend when she's not with you, instead of being off fucking some other guy".

As we were driving home I tentatively mentioned to Jeffy that I might be considering dating people again. Jeffy, whom I've known for 3 years now, looked over at me long enough to almost rear end the car in front of us. Then he said "Are you out of your goddamn mind? The LAST person on this planet that should be going on dates IS YOU!" He also pointed out I could benefit from adult supervision in most of my personal affairs. Point taken.

We are going to get together again some time this week to check out a new wine bar/movie theater, where he will be bringing a wine from his cellar called The Dead Arm shiraz. Any alcohol with the word "dead" in the title promises to be entertaining.