because everything should taste like bacon

As a fellow seasoned traveler, I always read with interest Jeffy's suggestions on products I could use as I bounce around the globe.


There was the time, after I got leptospiriosis, that he suggested a water filter. It's a filter used by the military and it kills everything. That was a useful suggestion, but, since I already had lepto, I wasn't sure what I might do with it, except shove it up my ass and kill the bacteria post consumption.


Then, he sent me a link to a knife that looked like something OJ Simpson might cherish. Getting it through customs might have been difficult. But, some day in a sand storm, I may regret not having it, as I won't be able to saw open my camel and climb inside.


But my favorite was the recommendation today:


J&D's Bacon Lip Balm
From the makers of Baconnaise and Bacon Salt comes a bacon-flavored product that you don't even have to eat. J&D's Bacon Lip Balm ($13/4-pack) will protect your lips with beeswax, aloe vera oil, Vitamin E acetate, and other ingredients, all while offering a subtle bacon flavor both you and your partner can enjoy.

http://www.uncrate.com/men/body/skin/jds-bacon-lip-balm/

I am really, REALLY hoping this isn't a real product. I'm picturing a guy with this shit smeared all over his lips and it makes me want to vomit.

Which, since we're talking about lip balm, reminds me of one of my pet peeves. Guys with shiny lips are a total turn off. It makes me think of two things: either, he just went down on someone, or he's wearing lip gloss.

The thing is, it's okay for guys to have chapped lips. As long as there isn't skin sticking up all over the place. It's rugged. Like calloused hands. If I ever touch a guy's hand and it's smooth I get the shudders. What kind of guy has hands like a little girl? Go do some yard work or something. Poke around in your car's engine and bloody up your knuckles. If you have hands and lips like a girl, why would I date you? I would date a girl, who hopefully has shoes I like and clothes I can borrow.

But, I wouldn't date a girl, because the bitch would probably take my favorite coach bag and get lipstick all over the inside of it. Or worse, leave a tampon in it, and I would be pulling out my ID at the airport and the tampon would come flying out.

So not cool.

heading east and other exciting news

I finally got the go ahead for my trip to the middle east today. I'm leaving for Abu Dhabi on Sunday. I'm not sure when I'm returning, likely February. But, it may be later than that because...

I also found out today that I was accepted into the Banff mountain writing program, which starts in November. I guess when I get to AD I'll figure out whether or not it's feasible for me to go. I am hoping it is as it will give me an opportunity to get my book finished and, allah willing, published.

I have no idea why I was picked for the program. My list of publications reads more like an engineering snorefest than something "mountain" people might want to read. Maybe they liked my story submissions, or figured anyone stupid enough to do an open water swim without knowing how to swim would be good entertainment, albeit a possible insurance liability.

it's sweet

I hope to spend at least a couple of weekends in Turkey while I'm over in that area of the world. It's possibly my favorite country I've ever visited. I loved the shady characters in Istanbul, the beaches, the mosques, the food (best cherries ever), and the people.

While I was there on a trip in 1999, I decided to travel to a remote area of the country to see some Roman ruins. I had been counseled not to go to that area because there were problems with the Kurds, and it was close to the Iraqi border. But I went anyway.

I hired a taxi driver to take me around for the day. I went to five sites. When I would get back to the taxi after visiting each site I would find my driver progressively more and more drunk. By the time I got to the final site I was worried he wouldn't be able to drive, but it was the site I had most wanted to see, so I told the driver I would be back in 10 minutes or less and headed off to take a picture of this really cool Medusa head.

When I returned to where I had left him, the taxi driver was gone. By then it was evening and the sun was going down. I was in a very remote area with nothing but my guide book. It would have taken hours to walk to the nearest town even if I had known what roads to take.

I walked until I found a house and knocked on the door. The guy who answered, amazingly, spoke English. He told me not to worry, that a bus would come by, and I could take it back to town. I asked where the bus stop was and he pointed to this corner of the street that was overgrown with weeds. No sign, no nothing. I was a little dubious so I asked when the bus would come. "Soon," he said. "Very soon."

Uh huh. So I stood on the corner, in the weeds, feeling like someone was playing a joke on me. As the sun sank lower I saw a car coming down the street. It was a big white sedan, and there were four men in the car. As they drove passed me the car slowed to a crawl, and all the men were staring at me, standing in my sweaty clothes looking like a scrawny and defenseless idiot. Great, I thought, here's the part of the trip where I get kidnapped by terrorists.

The car drove up to a wider part of the street and turned around, coming back towards me. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack, but I didn't move. There was no place to run to. The car stopped on the street, and the four men got out. One walked over to me, reaching into his shirt. I speculated that maybe they were going to shoot me instead kidnapping me.

To my surprise, the guy pulled out this enormous cucumber and handed it to me. We stared at each other. I suddenly wanted to cry, but instead I laughed. The man gestured at the cucumber. I laughed harder and wondered what the fuck was going on.

Finally, he took it away from me, pulled out a knife, and cut off the end of the cucumber. Then he cut a slice and handed it to me. "It's sweet" he said to me in arabic. I realized that these guys had seen me looking like a wretchedly sweaty and lost tourist, and they stopped to give me a refreshing snack to eat while I was waiting for the bus. I felt horrible for assuming the worst about them.

The bus finally came, and I eventually got back to my hotel. I ate the whole cucumber. It was sweet.

health "care"

I've always thought our health care system was stupid. For example, the fact that I had to pay for my chemo out of pocket because it wasn't covered under the plan, while this idiot woman I worked with got $45,000 worth of fertility treatments, and then needed $100,000 of treatment during the birth of her kid because she was obese and that caused complications.

And my experience this past week...I was diagnosed with shingles on Monday, but told there was no treatment for it because I had waited too long to see a doctor (my doctor said the drug treatment is only effective if taken in the first 48 hours of a breakout). Of course, the reason I didn't see a doctor right after the rash started is because I couldn't get an appointment. I told the doctor I was worried that I would have another outbreak while traveling in the middle east, and asked for a prescription that I could fill before I left.

He didn't want to write that prescription, but was more than willing to write me a 30 day prescription for any pain med I wanted. I was like you will give me oxycontin, but not a fucking antibiotic? He finally gave me the prescription, which is a good thing. I found out from another doctor that the 48 hour rule was bullshit. I took the meds and my rash and the pain cleared up within 12 hours. But, now I have to go to ME without drugs because the doctor refused to write me another prescription. Ass pipe.

Then, he gave me a prescription for a quit smoking drug, since I'm going to do that. When I went to pick it up at the pharmacy they said he should have known he would have to call in to get approval for the prescription before he gave it to me. I called the doctor's office to ask them to do that, and faxed them the information they needed. It took 2 days for them to call me back, and that was with the news that my healthcare plan doesn't cover smoking cessation. How fucking stupid is that?

I went back to the pharmacy and they said they could fill my prescription but it was going to cost me about $400. I asked if there was another, cheaper drug, and they said there was but I would have to get a new prescription from my doctor, and when they had suggested that to him he declined to give me a new prescription.

I was so pissed that I told the pharmacist "Fine, I'll just keep smoking". He sighed, and then told me to sit in the waiting area for a few minutes. Then he called my name, and gave me THE SAME prescription that they were originally going to charge me $400 for, and told me that it was now $94.40. I was like HOW is that possible? He told me that he filled it under some plan they have for people without insurance. At first I felt bad taking the meds because I didn't want to cause someone who really didn't have insurance to not be able to get the drug, but he said the system doesn't work that way. And I was really grateful to him for helping me out, so much so that I wrote a letter to the president of his company.

So now I'm wondering why I'm paying $200 a month for health insurance. I've had one doctor's visit this year ($60), and the shingles drug was so cheap I didn't have to use insurance to cover the cost. I can't get timely appointments with the doctors in my network, and the things I really need aren't covered in my plan.

Stupid.

2046

2046 has become one of my favorite movies. And not just because there are the best stilettos ever that light up when the female character walks in them.

There are three women in the movie, and this perfectly horrible guy, who is a writer. He's also a gambler who isn't good at controlling his impulses.

First, he falls in love with this woman who is married. Or he says he loves her. He says in the movie that you can meet the perfect person, but if the timing isn't right, it won't work out. I don't agree with that. I think if you really love someone, even if the timing is wrong, you can eventually find a way to be with that person. Even though I've had a few relationships that didn't work out because of what I thought was bad timing, I eventually realized the real problem was a difference in goals and what we wanted.

Then the guy falls in love with this totally innocent, sweet girl, who helps him do his work and takes care of him while he's sick. The girl doesn't know he's in love with her though, because she's in love with someone else, though she's unable to express her love.

He helps her get together with the guy she's in love with, even though he claims it broke his heart. But the more I see the movie, the more I think he wants her because he can never have her and he never has to deal with the reality of being in a relationship with her. That's one of the weirdest things about relationships. I think women tend to be supportive of the person they're with regardless of what he does (sleep with someone else, act like an abusive asshole). But men aren't that way. One little thing goes wrong and they turn on you. Like every guy I work with that complains his wife is fat. What did you think was going to happen after she had your fucking kids? These are always the same guys who don't help out around the house, so by the time their wives get done taking care of all the shit they have to do, they don't have time to work out.

While he's in love with the innocent girl, he starts a relationship with an escort. The escort really loves him, and he humiliates her for that. He pays her every time they have sex, and refuses to spend the night with her. She puts up with all this bullshit until she can't take it anymore and then she leaves him. He says he regrets the way he treated her, but when he has an opportunity to do the right thing he fucks her over again. Yet he writes about her in his stories.

The movie is a movie within a movie. The guy is writing a screenplay called 2046, about how people in the future can travel back in time to 2046 so they can live in their memories. In the screenplay, his character decides to leave 2046 and go home. While he's traveling home he ends up having a relationship with a robot. He falls in love with the robot. But then the robot's circuits wear out and she is taken out of service. He says of the robot that he never knew if she really loved him or not.

The conclusion I came to after watching this movie (where, actually, the characters are the same people, watch the watch and the way they smoke) is that guys want the robot. She does what ever he wants and is obedient (a theme that recurs throughout the movie). Also, guys are uncomfortable with emotion so they don't want to be with a partner who is emotional, like the escort. They want someone who's available when it's convenient for them, and they don't want to have to deal with other people's needs.

I guess the difference between men and women really boils down to birthing. Guys don't really have to do anything except get their dick in the right place. Women have to be pregnant, have their body ruined, and then take care of the kid. If they weren't emotional they would do a horrible job at parenthood. Women have to accommodate the needs of their kid whether it's convenient or not. Guys never have to do that, and it makes them emotionally stunted.

And it's funny. Most relationship books counsel women to be more robotic (don't get upset, don't ask him where he's going, don't be clingy). And women put up with this shit because, unlike men, they are capable of really loving someone. That's fucked up.

Cage

Last night I had a dream I was walking down this outside stairwell in Georgetown and I recognized a guy walking up the stairs. So I said hi to him and we started talking. The guy was like "I haven't seen you in 10 years!" and he invited me to go to a party with him. So we started walking to the party and I realized I had no idea who the guy was. But he kept saying how much he had missed me and how glad he was that he had run into me so I kept walking with him.

We came to this dorm building that had loud music coming out of it. We walked through a warren of hallways and through a bunch of messy dorm rooms. Sometimes the guy would move a chair or a trunk in the room and we would have to get down on our hands and knees to crawl through a tunnel to get to the next room. Finally we came to this space that looked like a gym but there were women's clothes strewn all over the place and people standing around drinking beer. They were all really young.

We found the bar and the guy got me a drink, put his arm around me, and said "I want to introduce you to my friends". Just then these three college aged girls came running up to him and said "oh my god, Nicholas Cage!" And then I looked at the guy and realized it was Nicholas Cage. The girls tried to pull him over to their friends but he said he had to take me to meet his friends so they glared at me and walked away.

We went in to a dorm room that led to another room. The first room was full of guys that knew Nick even though they were also college age. They looked at me and Nick told them I was his girlfriend. I started thinking it was weird that he would say that since we had just met. Then he took me to the next room, and there was a full sized bed with a green cover on it. There was nothing else in the room. He said I could lay down and take a nap if I wanted to and that he would be back later.

I laid down on the bed but then started thinking that I should find Nick, so I got up and looked into the room where his friends were sitting. His friends had gotten a lot bigger since I had first seen them and they were really drunk. I was afraid to walk into the room because I thought they might beat me up, so I climbed out a window and ended up in a parking lot that looked the like the parking lot of my hotel in Seoul. I was wondering how I had gotten to Korea since I had just been in DC, but then Nick started walking towards me and was like "I have been looking EVERYWHERE for you!" All these girls kept grabbing him as we were walking through the parking lot but he kept saying to them "please be respectful of my girlfriend".

He took me over to this deserted area of the parking lot that had a chain link fence that was broken and part of it was laying on the ground. I realized if we stepped over the chain link fence we would be back in DC. Nick said "Before we go to DC, there's something I have to tell you. I love you and I want to marry you". I said I wasn't sure it would be a good idea to get married since we had just met. And he said "What are you talking about? We've known each other for 10 years!" I said I didn't remember being his friend, or ever hanging out with him. He said "Don't you remember when we met?" and he was really upset.

I said "Did we meet in college?" and right after I said it I realized that if I had said anything but that, everything would have been okay. His face turned angry and he said "maybe you aren't who I thought you were" and walked over the fence, away from me. I wanted to follow but I looked down and saw the chain link fence was wrapped around my legs and I couldn't walk. I was going to call to him to ask for help but he was talking to a group of about 10 college girls and they were laughing. I didn't want them to look over and see me, because they would laugh at me, so I started trying to untangle the fence by myself.

The more untangled I tried to make the fence the worse it became. I started thinking I would be in Korea forever and never get to go home again. The sun was getting hotter and hotter and I felt like I was going to pass out.

Then I woke up.

killer sock puppets

Two nights ago I had a dream that I was in England, in the country, and was staying in a hotel in this little village. It was nighttime, and there was a huge wedding going on, but I wasn't invited. The hotel was deserted.

So I decided to sneak over to the church where the wedding was being held. It was a small stone building. I crept through some bushes and looked in one of the windows. The glass was so old my view was distorted and I couldn't make anything out. So I pushed the window open. I could hear wedding music.

When I looked inside I could see that the bride and groom were saying their vows. But, they were sock puppets with no faces. Then I noticed all the people in the church were just sock puppets without faces. They had these skinny wooden dowels coming out from their bodies where their arms should have been, and at the end of the dowels were these round wooden knobs.

I started to get scared that everyone in the village had turned into a sock puppet and that I might turn into one too. I began backing away from the window, but the sock puppets heard me moving through the bushes.

They flew out of the church door and began beating me with their wooden knob arms. At first I was afraid and then I started laughing and said "you can't hurt me with your arms". But they started flying at my face. One sock puppet wedged himself in my mouth, and another somehow was able to block my nose and eyes by wrapping around my head tightly. I started to suffocate. The other sock puppets were holding my arms so I couldn't move. I began to pass out.

Then I woke up.

who invited the asshole?

Last night Brassy invited one of his friends over for dinner. The friend, here after referred to as X, is a doctor. If his ego were a vehicle, it would surely be a blimp.

X was obviously uncomfortable in my presence, so I asked him about healthcare reform and his thoughts. He proceeded to tell me I'm a horrible patient, and that the reason I get bad care from my doctors is because I don't threaten to sue them. Interesting.

Then X insulted my doctors at Hopkins, and said the cancer treatment I received there was wrong. He said that hospital's reputation is way overblown. When I defended my oncologist, who was brilliant and nice, he wouldn't listen to me. He said my knee doctor was a hack and did a horrible job on my knee scar, and that he would never want to sleep with me because my scar is so hideous. Really. I love the way guys assume every woman wants to sleep with them.

I was getting pissed off, but could see in Brassy's eyes that he really wanted X and I to get along. So I walked outside and had a cigarette, then did the dinner dishes. Brassy and X were talking about the publishing business for a while. I decided to just ignore X the rest of the night because having a conversation with him was impossible.

We ended up on the back porch where I was lectured about smoking, as X took one of my cigarettes without asking and proceeded to light it. Then he did this weird Clint Eastwood impersonation of him doing surgery. I wasn't sure what to make of that. He looked at my shingles and confirmed the diagnosis, and said I must have an unhealthy diet. I mentioned that I eat mostly salads and fruit, as well as edamame, and he said that I am eating all the wrong things. He said "lay off the tea, coffee, chocolate, and milk products". I was like "I don't consume ANY of those things" but he didn't listen.

Then he offered to check out this swollen lymph node I've had for years. It needs to be biopsied (like I have time). He immediately diagnosed it as probably lymphoma, and said I needed to come to his office this week to have it taken care of. I was like, no, not going to do that. This caused him to fly into a rage about how stupid I am to turn down and offer from such a brilliant doctor as himself. He said I was going to die while I was over in the middle east. I was like great, thanks.

Things deteriorated super fast after that. He said smokers have stinky cooches and that guys never tell you. Neither do doctors. He said when he has patients with smelly cooches he puts on two masks with peppermints in them. I was like if that's true why wouldn't you tell them? You're their fucking doctor.

A discussion ensued about how guys would never tell a girl she smelled bad, with me saying that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. They both said they would still go down on a girl even if she smelled. Brassy got the spins and X realized it was 3 in the morning and he had to get up for surgery the next day. I can't say I was sad when he left. And, no offense Brassy, you can keep X as your special friend. Because I'd like to kick him in the balls.

cake stealer payback

The cupcakes remind me of another story...

There was this total tool of a woman that worked in my building. One of her "jobs" (she never really worked, but walked around talking to everyone) was to order food for customer meetings. She would always order way too much food, and then take it home with her. It was really pretty retarded.

So I was having a meeting and she ordered this cake that I really like (well, not the cake, but the frosting, coconut, yum!). But the cake never made it into the meeting. I asked her where it was and she said she needed it for another meeting. I was like you lying bitch, you're going to steal my cake.

So after the meeting was over I found the cake in the refrigerator and tried to take a piece of it. The woman, Carmela, came in and took the cake literally right out of my hands and walked away with it. So I waited a half hour and went looking for it again. I found it in her private refrigerator. So I popped open the lid and stuck my finger in EVERY single piece of cake, and then closed it back up so she couldn't see that it had been tampered with. When I saw her carrying it out to her car that night I cracked up laughing.

The other thing I did to her was even more mean. She used to walk into my meetings and take soft drinks that were for our customers. So before my meeting started I took a can of diet coke, which is what she drank, and shook it up. Then I kicked it around on the floor. I put it in an accessible place. Sure enough, 5 minutes into my meeting she came in and grabbed the coke. I didn't see the explosion but I did hear her scream.

Unbelievably, my manager yelled at me for the explosion. I played dumb. And then I said, well the guys who brought the cokes in dropped a few on the floor. But none of my CUSTOMERS who were drinking the cokes had a problem.

Point heard. That stupid woman never came anywhere near my meetings again. Though, we always had the WORST food, and she would "forget" to order drinks.

muffins

HP2.0 and I went to a charity event for denver youth at risk. He introduced me to some of his friends and then had to go talk to someone else. So I was talking to the guys and they had met HP2.0 in a leadership course, and then some of them did Rainier with him.

They were laughing because one day at the leadership course HP2.0 brought in muffins. He forgot the tin and sent an email to everyone looking for it. HP2.0 is one of the few people that is worse than I am when it comes to A type behavior and I guess he was being a little over-reactive about his muffin tin. Yeah, he could have gone out and bought a new one, but he wanted his own tin back.

The class decided to play a joke on HP2.0. They started taking the muffin tin around and taking pictures of it. They apparently even set up an email address for the muffin tin, and the muffin tin kept emailing HP2.0. One of the guys took the tin to Vegas and had a stripper put it between her tits.

The tin was finally returned to poor HP2.0. He laughed about the joke, but I don't think he really thought it was funny. The moral of the story is, of course, muffins suck. I don't even know why anyone would eat them. They have that weird top part that's like a cookie but not good. Then the bottom part kind of looks like a cupcake but tastes like crap, unlike a cupcake. In fact, why make anything that shape that you can't put frosting on. Which is to say, I don't really like cupcakes either, but I do like frosting as long as it's lemon or vanilla - chocolate frosting is disgusting.

In fact, I once had a work meeting and ordered cupcakes. There were 4 left over after the meeting, so I licked all the frosting off them, and called my then boyfriend and asked if he wanted the cupcakes. He ate one but didn't finish the rest after I told him the reason they weren't frosted is because I had already eaten the frosting. But I was like whatever dude. You stick your tongue in my mouth, why should it matter if I licked the cupcake.

I bet he told everyone that story after we broke up.

rashy and brassy

As if I don't have enough to worry about with my impending departure to the middle east and work, I woke up on Thursday morning with a monster rash on my lower back.

At first I thought it was an allergic reaction to something, so I tried to ignore it. By friday it was so painful that I could barely stand to sit for more than an hour. It literally felt like I had a horrible bruise on my back, like the time I wrecked my mountain bike.

Of course, by the time it occurred to me to call a doctor, I couldn't get an appointment. I thought I would give it the weekend and then maybe it would get better. I put cortizone on it like every hour. Saturday and Sunday the pain in my back was so bad I spent most of the weekend working on white papers instead of getting out and doing something fun. I couldn't even ride my bike because it hurt to have anything like clothes touching my back. And to put this in perspective, I walked around with a broken hand and finger for two weeks without taking any pain meds. I ate a caramel apple two days after I had 4 impacted wisdom teeth taken out. So I'm not a pussy.

Jeffy was surmising that maybe I have an alien growing in my back, or that I've been taken over by a mutant fungus that's going to slowly kill me. Turns out, the truth isn't that exciting.

Finally got in to see a doctor today. I have shingles. Fuck fuck fuck. And because I waited so long to go to the doctor's there's nothing they can do (the rash is starting to heal so they can't treat it). He did give me some drugs in case it comes back again. Bottom line, I'm not looking forward to a 20 hour flight with this shit on my back. I can barely stand to sit on my couch...

But, pain relief is on its way. Joe (aka Brassy) just left for the airport to come here to pick up Jakey. He's going to watch him while I'm gone, along with my cacti, including Tammy Faye Cactus and St. David Thornstein. As soon as we get to my house I'm popping open a bottle of wine. I just know I'll feel better. And so will Joe, who is dealing with a neighbor who's underage kid drove a bronco through Joe's garage on Saturday right as Joe was leaving for work.

To give credit where it's due, Joe came up with the phrase "rashy and brassy".

tug boat

Painting number 10 is for my friend and colleague Lou. I was telling him about how I made a painting for the UK guys and offered to make one for him. He asked what they wanted and I explained the whole "robo-chicken fighting a were pig with light sabers and binary stars in the background" thing they had come up with. He was hm, how about a tug boat? Lou, as you can see, is much more reasonable than the Brits.

But, when I got ready to paint I realized I didn't know what a tug boat looked like. I did a search on the internet and found this picture:

It seemed like it might be easy to paint. But, I over estimate my skills, greatly. After trying to do a picture based on this photo, I also downloaded this to help since I couldn't get the details right. Also, I wanted a worse picture than the one I was painting to look at to make myself feel better. Even if that painting was done by a 5 year old.

Anyway, here's how the painting came out. It's okay I guess. Maybe he'll throw it away. Probably he will keep it if only because I named the tug boat after our software.

As you can see, the proportions are totally wrong, I tried to make things 3-d and that didn't work out at all, the ocean looks like it's about to engulf the tug, and then there's the matter of the rivets. After I got done painting it I was looking at the picture and realized the boat had no rivets. I'm pretty sure every boat has rivets. So I started putting them on and I couldn't stop. Everything ended up with a rivet border.

Oh well. Hopefully he has children and people will think they did it. Or maybe he can say he bought the painting at a charity auction of art made by retards. I think I'll call it tug two.

I should also note here that I was IMing with Jamesy and he said that he would have thrown away the painting I gave him if I wasn't the one who had made it. And that I showed the uranus painting to Eva and Dan and they laughed at it. And that I showed my paintings to my sister this weekend and she laughed so hard she choked on her diet coke.

Maybe I should do a stand up routine of my paintings. I guess I'm happy to bring a smile to everyone's face, even at the expense of my art.

dinosaurs

My sister, her husband, and my niece and nephew came to visit me this weekend. My nephew Michael, 5, is obsessed with dinosaurs, so we thought it would be fun to take him to dinosaur ridge.

At first he was excited about the idea, but as we got ready to leave the house, he suddenly said "I think I'll stay home". I thought that was strange so I said "Don't you want to see some dinosaurs?" He was like "No, I don't want to see them anymore".

After further discussion, which caused him to get VERY upset and almost cry, I realized he thought there were going to be REAL dinosaurs at the park and he was afraid one would eat him. Once we told him that there were no live dinosaurs he got excited about going.

We saw some dinosaur bones in rocks, and some dinosaur tracks. You can touch everything at dinosaur ridge, which is really cool. You can distinguish between a dinosaur bone and rocks because the bones feel waxy when you touch them. Then we went into this museum. There we were accosted by this excitable young lad, age 21, who wanted to give us a tour of the museum (we were the only people there).

He started in on his lecture, which was interesting, but Michael kept farting really loudly. My sister and I had to walk away because we were both laughing so hard. Every time my sister starts laughing it makes me laugh even harder. I used to get in trouble for that all the time when I was a kid because my dad didn't like it when we would start laughing. She also used to do things to make me laugh but she wouldn't laugh.

Anyway, at one point the guy started showing us dinosaur parts and then he would show us these toy dinosaurs the part came from. We saw plates from a stegasaurus and spikes from the tail of a triceratop. The guy mentioned that they've found teeth from a t rex but have never found a whole one in Colorado, though they believe t rex lived here. I suggested that another dinosaur may have eaten the t rex in like Utah or something, and then pooped the teeth out in Colorado. He said "but the t rex was the apex predator" and I was like "maybe they ate it after the t rex died". He made a face as though he had a headache, and then said "um, interesting theory".

He asked if we had any questions so I said "I would like to know how dinosaurs painted their toenails". The guy gave me a look and said "they didn't paint their toenails". Then Michael, who was holding a t rex toy model, held it up and said "yes they did! this t rex has red toenails". The guy took the model away from Michael and hid it behind a display.

"Any other questions?" he asked, glaring at me. I raised my hand, causing my niece and nephew to start giggling. I play a game with them all the time where I raise my hand and when one of them calls on me I ask a ridiculous question. The guy sighed and was like "go ahead, what's your question?".

He had just given my niece the horns of a triceratop to hold, and they were really heavy. So I said "how did dinosaurs used to kiss if they had all these horns and stuff on their heads?" I took a apatosaurus model and pretended it was trying to kiss the triceratops. I made the apatosaurus go "Ow, you poked my eye!" The guy took the models away from me and hid them with the t rex. Then he said "I don't think they used to kiss each other like people".

He suggested that we look at some other display, and excused himself. My niece and nephew said it was their favorite museum visit ever.

a short question about penises

I've wondered, for a long time, when guys' penises stop growing. I find it a bit odd that no guy I've talked to can ever answer this question. Joe suggested I ask the question on my blog.

actually, that wasn't what I was going to say...

I never tell a guy I love him first. I always wait until they say it, and then usually wait a while to say it back to them. I would never tell someone I loved them if I didn't.

But, sometimes I find myself in strange situations. Take, for instance, this guy that I dated a while ago. After I got divorced I didn't go on a date for two years. Then I met this guy at the gym and he bugged me until I went out with him. Our first date was kind of strange. When I met up with him for dinner the first thing he said to me is "I'll give you 20 IQ points for free". I was like what the fuck are you talking about? He assumed I guess, because I'm a woman, that I'm stupid. Even though he hadn't even graduated from high school and had a college "degree" from some unaccredited university in Colorado.

But, I was bored, and he seemed like he was really in to me, so I went on another date with him the next night, which was christmas eve. We went to the gym and then back to his apartment, where he made dinner. We were sitting on the sofa and he started talking about how he had been in love with this girl who died climbing. Then he started sort of crying. I wasn't sure what to do so I said that I was going to leave.

He didn't want me to leave, and, as fate would have it, it had just started snowing really hard. He suggested that we retire to his bedroom (the sofa was tres uncomfortable) to watch the snow from the huge window in there. So I sat down on the side of the bed and watched the snow while he excused himself to go to the bathroom. It was cold in his apartment so I put a blanket from the bed over my legs. He came out of the bathroom but I didn't turn around. Then he slid under the covers and pulled me under with him.

That's when I realized, I seriously am NOT making this up, that he was naked. Totally naked. I was like "Dude! What are you doing????" He thought he had made it obvious what "going to watch snow in the bedroom" meant. Apparently I missed the message.

As if things weren't already strange, he started making out with me. I hadn't made out with anyone for two years so I decided to play along for a while. But things weren't right. In fact, they were, shall we say, flaccid. I am not used to kissing a guy and not having his tackle poking me in the stomach. I wondered what the fuck was going on.

After about an hour of making out, I decided to ask him. Earlier in the evening he had made this dramatic declaration that we were going to be together forever and that I should be able to tell him everything and not keep secrets from him. It seemed like an ideal time to test his sincerity about that.

But, first I decided to go to the bathroom and compose myself. I splashed my face and then drank some water, trying to figure out the best way to phrase my question. I had decided that I kind of liked the guy, and I didn't want to screw up my second date in two years.

So I went back into the bedroom and crawled back into bed. The guy had propped himself up on some pillows while I was gone. I tried to put my head on his chest but he grabbed my shoulders so I couldn't hide my face.

He looked at me and he said "You. Are. A. Coward." I tried to look away but he wouldn't let me. Then he said "Since you won't say it, I'll say it first." Thank god, I thought. Now I don't have to ask what's wrong with his penis.

He said "I love you."

I was so shocked that nothing really came to mind to say. He pulled me into his chest and wrapped his arms around me. He said "You don't have to say it back to me now. Because I know some day you'll say it." He kissed the top of my head and I started giggling uncontrollably. I tried to stop but I couldn't. Finally, realizing I was on the verge of laughing hysterically and not being able to stop, I told him I had to go home.

He said he would walk me to my car, and if there was more than an inch of snow on the pavement that I would have to stay. We got outside to discover that the wind had been blowing so hard no snow had accumulated on the pavement. He raised his hands up to the sky and yelled "Fuck you snow!" For some reason, I found that incredibly charming.

It was 3 in the morning by this point, and he insisted I talk to him on the phone the hour drive back to my apartment because he was worried about me. Then he told me he would come by to see me in the morning. We were having christmas dinner with my friends Eva and Dan, a dinner we called "three jews and you". I got to bed at 430 in the morning, and was awakened by him knocking on my door at 8 in the morning. I was like what are you doing here, and he told me he came as soon as it was morning because he missed me.

I'd never dated anyone who seemed so dedicated and who wanted to spend time with me. I got sucked in, especially because he would say things like "30 years from now we're going to do (whatever)". Every guy I had ever dated was incapable of making plans even a week in advance.

But, later everything went to shit. He dumped me by email and then married someone else 4 months after we broke up. I saw him twice after that. The first time he said to me "I'm pretty sure that when I said I loved you I meant it. But only at the time I said it." The second time I ran into him at a deli near my work, and he offered to buy me a salad, but he did it in an insulting way, as if buying my lunch was going to make up for him breaking my heart.

Guys. Fucking stupid.

the broken vase

Last night I had a dream that I was in a tv show. It was supposed to be a comedy. The first part of the show I had signed up to do a bouldering competition at my ex's gym, but it wasn't really his gym because it was outside and it was on this small jut of land that had cliffs on all three sides. But I couldn't climb because every time I touched the holds on the wall they would fracture into a million pieces. Everyone was yelling at me that I was ruining the competition. My ex told me I should have known I couldn't touch plastic since I had frost bite. So he grabbed me and threw me into this copper metal pipe and I was falling through the pipe not sure where I was going to land.

The pipe finally dropped me into a huge metal tub full of water. Drew Barrymore was there, and she told me she was going to be on the show with me. I told her I didn't know how to act and that I didn't watch TV and she said "look, I can blow bubble bath out of my mouth". She started blowing these weird iridescent bubbles out of her mouth. I was like "can we talk about the show please?" but she kept blowing bubbles and just giggling instead of talking.

Then I looked over and saw my friend Joe riding a unicycle on this metal railroad tie that was a fence to keep people from falling off the cliff. He was in a contest to juggle three green tennis balls while riding the unicycle on the narrow railroad tie. Also, they made him wear these glasses that were a swirl of white and black (like the cover of Vertigo) and every time he pedaled the swirls in the glasses would start turning. There were other people in the contest too but all of them fell off the cliff and died immediately. I could hear them scream when they fell off the tie and down the cliff. Joe was the only one who was able to ride the unicycle and juggle. Everyone was clapping and cheering, but I was yelling at him to take the glasses off and stop riding because he had won the contest. Then Joe fell over the cliff.

I was afraid he might have died so I ran over to my ex, who was reading a clipboard. I asked him to help me find my friend Joe but he ignored me. I got mad and started yelling at him. Then he looked up at me and I realized he was my co-author. He smiled at me and I saw that his teeth had grown together and he couldn't talk. I was scared so I ran away and found a producer for the show, and told him I wouldn't be on the show anymore if he kept changing people on me and killing my friends. So the producer told me to go to another set of the show, which was a house not on the cliff, but somewhere else.

In that house there was a couple from Jamaica. They had a vase made of black glass. The bottom of the vase was a black woman's head, and then there were all these pipes coming out of her head that went almost 6 feet up. Between the pipes were tied these off white china ovals, and each of the ovals had a face painted in water colors. They told me the faces were their relatives and the vase was sacred and had special powers.

There was a laugh track for a while because Drew Barrymore and the Jamaican man were joking back and forth, and then the Jamaican man accidentally bumped the vase and broke one of the pipes off. His wife got really mad and said that Drew Barrymore had to be punished for the vase. I said I thought it was unfair because her husband was the one who broke the vase, but she pulled out a huge knife and told me to shut up.

Then Drew said the woman could cut her hair off with the knife as punishment, and she leaned over and put her forehead on the table where the vase was, and pulled her hair forward so that her neck was completely exposed. The wife pulled back the table cloth on the table, and I saw that the table was actually a grave full of dirt. I realized the woman was going to kill Drew. And then I heard the producer whisper "you see, it isn't a comedy at all".

Then I woke up.

freedom to fall

In August of 2005, I had just moved into my house. I had spent 3 days, at the tail in of my last chemo treatment and defense of my thesis, running around trying to unpack and fix things because my dad was coming to visit me. I had gotten maybe 10 hours of sleep in those three days, and then had a party. I rolled into bed at 4 am, and had to get up at 8 am to pick my dad up at the airport.

I woke up before my alarm, and found a guy sitting on the edge of my bed. I was startled and asked who he was. He asked "you're a climber?" and I said yes. He said "I used to be a climber, but I died." Then, he was gone.

The dream was so vivid that I wrote it down, and that's when I started documenting my dreams. Anyway, 2 years later I had taken over as the president of my HOA and was talking to a woman who lives two doors down from me, Carol Hampson. I had only really known her as a neighbor, sharing only idle chit chat with her. I have a lot of climbing pictures up in my house, and she was asking me about them. She told me she was writing a book about her son, Chris Hampson, who died climbing in Yosemite in 2003. The book is called Freedom to Fall. I am sure that the guy sitting on the edge of my bed that morning was her son, and I was able to describe him to her even though I had never seen a picture of him. It created a sort of bond between us.

Today, we had an HOA meeting, and she brought me a copy of the finished book. We were looking through it and she was showing me some pictures taken by Jonny Copp. Jonny climbed with her son, and when Chris died Jonny and Carol had formed a close relationship. As we waited for the last person to show up at the meeting, she told me Jonny had died in China two weeks ago.

This is how small the climbing community is: a friend of mine, Mike Pennings, was good friends with Jonny. Though I didn't know him personally, I was shocked by his death. I wonder how Mike is doing. There is a fund for Jonny set up at adventurefilms.org.

It seemed appropriate this afternoon to start reading Carol's book, although in a way I was dreading it. It's never easy to talk about loss and death. Carol said to me today "You guys have friends die, and you just keep trucking. But there's a process you need to go through to grieve." I thought about friends I had lost not just climbing, or doing other sports, but also at work and in the war, and how I normally just try to forget about them rather than crying and being sad. The third chapter of Carol's book is about dealing with loss, and it's very raw emotionally, from journal entries and letters about her son's death.

I decided I couldn't read that chapter, so I just started randomly opening the book and reading. The first thing I opened to was a story about the first year after Chris' death, on his birthday. Carol had gone to J tree thinking she would climb because she felt she had to do something for his birthday. In the end she didn't climb, but watched two of Chris' friends climb. The passage moved me to tears:

"One twenty-eight. I am waiting for a sign. I yell up to Greg and Sarah, "In ten minutes Chris was born!" They say, "Oh." It is a tense moment on the wall. Sarah, a newcomer to climbing, is frightened. She can't find a hold. Greg is standing on the ledge above, encouraging her. They can't hear each other because of the overhang. I yell their messages back and forth, thinking Chris will help her up. She will step on the ledge at 1:38-that will be the sign!

The wind and cold are fierce. More yelling as Sarah lifts, descends, pulls, gropes, and hugs the immense, unyielding rock. I am mesmerized, waiting for the next words to shout. I'm part of the team. I glance at my watch. One forty-five. Sarah is not going up, not this time.

I meander a long sandy trail, then go back to the car and weep.

...Chris gave up his attachments for a higher truth. He loved all earthly things and being, and still he let go. That was the greatest achievement of his life."

Carol has self published the book. You can buy it, and read more about Carol, at www.morningsongpress.com. Her purpose for the book is not to make money, but to use it as a way to help people deal with loss. I think the book has a very important message, even for people who aren't climbers. She has been on a road trip, and will continue on her trip, to share Chris' story and to talk to people who are going through the same process she went through when she lost her son. I think what Carol is doing is amazing, and want to support her any way I can. I hope you will tell everyone you know about the book so they can check it out.

a greenland shark in the red sea

Last night I had a dream that I was on a yacht in the red sea, and I wanted to get in the water for a swim but all people on the boat told me not to get into the water because there were 3 huge sharks. Everyone went inside for lunch or something so I jumped in the water and started snorkeling. Then a guy came out to see why I hadn't come in for lunch and he started screaming at me "the shark is coming to bite you!"

So I surfaced and saw a huge object coming towards me. I went back underwater and saw it was a greenland shark. It was huge. There were 2 others as well.

I was puzzled because greenland sharks are only found in frigid waters. In fact, it's one of my goals to some day do an ice dive and maybe see one. They are big sharks but not dangerous.

Anyway, I asked the shark what he was doing in the red sea. He kept answering me but I couldn't understand him because his voice was all messed up, like when you really try to talk underwater. He kept swimming close to me and finally I realized he was saying "pet me". So I started to pet him and then the other sharks came over and wanted me to pet them as well. But then I accidentally cut my hand on one of the shark's skin. I told them I'd have to go back to the boat and they were really sad.

So I swam back to the boat and everyone could see I was bleeding. They told me to get away from their boat. I tried to explain that I had just been petting the sharks and had cut myself but everyone was really afraid and wouldn't let me back on the boat. Then I heard this guy yelling in arabic, and I turned around to see the three greenland sharks swimming towards me in an aggressive manner. Then a guy said "you see, that's just a trick they play, so then they can bite you". I tried to tell them they were wrong when I was suddenly pulled under the water by a huge force.

Then I woke up...Shut up Jeffy. How else am I supposed to end my dream blogs? So spare me the text message after you read this making fun of me.

a robot chicken and were pig fight over uranus

So I finally finished the painting that my friend in the UK requested. He asked for a painting of a robot chicken fighting a were pig with light sabers. I think it may be the worst painting I've ever done. This is the first draft of it.

I started it when I got back from the software conference. But, I ran out of paint. Then I had to stay in DC, then go to Korea, blah blah blah, so I just returned to it this Wednesday.

It was really hard to finish because I had custom made the colors for the sky and grass and then couldn't replicate them. Also, I wanted to put some binary stars and planets in the sky, but it turns out those things are pretty hard to paint.

I was trying to fix the painting and it just kept getting worse and worse. Finally, I added uranus in the corner and said fuck it, it's done.

The good thing is, my friend has kids, so if anyone ever sees the painting he can just say one of them did it.

"look at my penis" - my male behavior postulation

During a brief email exchange with a friend of mine, during which my blog about married guys was discussed, my friend, who is male, told me that I'm probably not as hot as I think I am, and that guys get into this state where they will fuck anything, including, to paraphrase, and elephant or a knot hole. That for some reason triggered a memory of a line from my super ex-girlfriend (but not my favorite line from the movie, which is "why did g girl throw a great white shark at us?") where this asshole guy is telling this bartender that the two happiest days of his life were when he graduated from harvard law school, and when he met her.

And that's when I finally realized something, which was maybe what that book he's just not that into you was about, but I missed the point. Guys talk shit. All the time. Especially about sex. I think it might even be fair to say that 99% of what comes out of a guy's mouth is bullshit. Which explains why guys always say they love you but then fuck someone else or turn out to be married.

And, I would guess, this behavior is caused by guys not being able to process their feelings. If you intimidate a guy, he says he loves you in the hopes of bringing out your softer side. If a guy doesn't like you, he'll say he loves you so he can brag to all of his friends about how much he doesn't like you and how much you like him. If a guy wants to fuck you, he'll say he loves you because he thinks that will get you into bed, or he is not sophisticated enough to realize there is a difference between lust and love. If a guy does something horrible to you, he'll say he loves you because he thinks that will make you feel less hurt.

This goes for everything guys say, not just the I love you bullshit. So, from now on, when a guy says something to me, I'm going to attempt to translate it into what he is actually trying to say. I think that will make things less confusing for everyone. Body language may be a good indicator.

One thing I've noticed is that guys will try to bring your attention to their penis if they are trying to make a connection with you, sexual or otherwise. They do this by sitting with their legs open, resting their hands on their thigh (likely thinking the whole time "watch my hand move over here, and now look! it's resting near my penis! okay, just look over a little more...maybe I should move my fingers...yes! you're looking at my penis!"), putting their hands near their pockets when standing, etc.

But, just because a guy is doing that doesn't mean he is being sincere, so maybe body language won't work. I think I'll start observing facial tics and involuntary eye spasms.

And, on a side note, maybe I should start a new business venture where guys can log on to a web site and show their penis. I'll hire women from China to look at the penises. Maybe I'll give them some phrases that they can send back to the guys about their penises.