October 2006 Archives

i feel almost recovered enough from the weekend's cold/infection/allergy explosion/whatever to go climbing tonight.

but i have instituted a policy of aggressive forced rest since early assumed recovery has been proven to be the instigator of failed recovery.

iow, another couple days of sitting around getting fat before i return to the iron and the fake-granite, lest my recovery recover.

sometimes i just wonder: how did a guy like me end up with a girl like her?

and then i realize: there aren't any girls like her, and there probably aren't any guys like me, either.

and then it all makes sense. for an instant. then it crumbles in my mind and i realize there's no explaining it intellectually.

and i'm happy in my confusion because i've learned to listen to more than just my mind, and my mind in its confusion can listen to my heart, and my imaginary soul, and those guys are smiling and nodding and giving me two thumbs up, each, for a total of like 6 or something. i don't know.

i should tell you, dear reader, about the tootsie-pop theory of personality, some time. then it will all make sense.

i thought today, out on the trail, that even though the time of our separation is now relatively short, i could still make it pass a bit quicker by flipping that switch that i callously (though rightly) flipped back in may. i could make these 50 days (did i say 50? how about 48) fly by in a blink if i stopped being a silly romantic.

and then, and then, and then: I realized: of all the silly ways to get through life, perhaps the most pleasant of all is the romantic. sure, we take the downs a little hard, but we take the ups a little hard too -- throw in a heavy dose of mystical sillyness and you've got a recipe for a happy little life.

and ultimately, it was my own happiness which allowed me to reel in my 203. put that in your pipe and smoke it!

some folks take the grim, humorless sillyness as their path, the warmongers and the religious fanatics and all the boogeymen we love to hate. i see the point, because i have amazing powers of empathy, but i dispute the premise, and so that path is not for me.

which sillyness we choose to make it through this life is up to us. my sillyness is no more silly than anyone else's -- it just happens to work for me, and so i dig it.

where was i now?

oh right: what's the deal with me and that ranger? i'm a nerd, fer chrissakes! i'm sposed to be in love with an asian girl, right?

pssst! what was it that uncle bob said? specialization is for insects.

there's wisdom in there, somewhere, i think. i try to pack a little away in each of my postings in case i need it later.

oh my, it's later, and i need some wisdom!

tough.

i have the most awesome wave ever in my hair
i dont want to shower

but i also have the most awesome stink ever on my skin
as paper beats rock
so does stink beat wave

to the showers!

when i had nothing
a place could mean everything
now that i have everything
a place is just a a venue
a stage
for being with you

alone now feels it.

"I'm scared," I said to Egan.

"Scared? Of what?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said. I held out my arm, and studied it, and watched it turn gray. "Everything's changing," I said.

"That's what everything does," said Egan.

Egan is wise. But wisdom is easy. It's fearlessness that's hard. It's belief that isn't so easy. It's knowing.

"It's gray," I said. We looked around. We stood on an immense rug, a tapestry of grays and whites, blacks and charcoals. The rug surrounded us on all sides, and above us, and before us it tapered into a point, and behind us it spread off into the immeasurable distance. We stood near the point of an infinite cone.

"It isn't gray," said Egan, and he pointed away from the point, off into the looming distance. I turned to see behind me, and he was right: the threads of the rug took on many colors: fiery reds, brilliant yellows, deep greens, serene blues. But as they neared the point, they faded, and became uniform, and dull, and gray.

In the distance I saw patterns. Dancing shapes and pictures, movement in color. Behind me all was alive, and vibrant, and motion. Before me was a point, and it was gray.

"Watch," said Egan. He took a few steps behind me, and toward the open end of the cone, and he became color. Variety shone from him. I gasped in awe. He took a few opposing steps, and rerturned to where he had stood, and became gray.

I looked down at my arm, at its dull grayness, and swung it in a wide arc until it pointed off behind. As it moved toward the open vastness, it gained color, and when it pointed opposite the point, it glared brilliance. I could not look at it and shielded my eyes, or tried to, because my other arm was just as bright. There was nothing to do but about-face.

As I turned, I caught a flash of something. A beam of light, shining into my mind. Egan noticed my notice, and smiled.

"You see it?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, "it's coming from the point. Let me have a look."

Egan shook his head. "No, I don't think that's wise," he said.

"Nonsense," I said, and brushed him aside to reach the point of the infinite cone. I got as close as I could, and squatted down to be eye to eye with the beam of light. I closed one eye, and opened wide the other, and peered through the hole.

...

I stood facing the mirror, and Margie peered back at me.

"You're getting old," she giggled, and pointed at my head. It was true, I was getting old. I'd sprouted some gray in the last two years. Three hairs on the head that I could see, and two in the beard. Keeping track of my gray was my vain pastime. I'd made many promises to myself over the years, and kept few of them. One was that should I gray, I'd shave myself bald rather than suffer the indignity of age at a young age. Like so many of my other promises, this one I did not keep.

And good that I did not. With the gray hairs had come some small feathers of wisdom, enough to understand my gray in better context. When I told myself I'd never grow old, and that I'd hide my shame if I did, I lacked so much of what I have now.

"Mostly," said Margie, "you lacked me."

"That's true," I said, and it was. I didn't fear age back then, not age itself. I feared unaccomplished mortality, a death without impact. The termination of a life, pointless. Gray would bring me one step closer to all that, and I wanted no such inescapable reminders of my failures in life.

But I was young.

"That was two whole years ago!" laughed Margie.

"Yes," I said, smiling back at her. "Quite a long time."

"But you figured it out since then?" she asked.

"Oh yes," I said, "and a lot more besides."

"Really?" said Margie, unconvinced. "Then what's all that?" She pointed behind me. I turned to look and saw that I still stood upon the infinite cone of thread, brightly coloring off into the measureless distance, ever expanding, ever in motion.

I turned back to look into the mirror at Margie, and saw that she had turned to gray, drained of all her colors. "That's easy," I said. "That's life."

"Yours?" she asked.

"Mine," I said. "All of them. Not just my one, but all of them. Infinities upon infinities of lifetimes, lived differently. Different choices made, different steps taken, different paths engaged."

"It sure is bright," she said.

"It sure is," I said. All those opportunities, all those choices, leading so many different ways around the sides, but moving forward, all leading to one place. So much I could see behind me, so many choices, so many ways to be, so much movement and dance, but before me, only one thing.

Only Margie.

"Do you know where you are?" asked Margie.

"Oh yes," I said.

Margie opened her eyes wide.

...

I turned away from hole at the point and looked back at Egan.

"What did you see?" he asked.

"Nothing," I said. "I can't see anything beyond."

"So there's nothing beyond this point?" he asked.

"Oh no," I said, smiling. "There's more beyond this point than there is behind you, more colors and brightness and movement and fire than all the infinite threads that converge here."

"How do you know?" asked Egan. "What of all this gray?"

"The gray," I said, "allows us to look back and see the brightness. Were it not for the gray, we'd miss out on what lay behind."

Egan nodded.

"And were it not for the gray," I said, "we could not imagine what brightness lies beyond the point."

"Ah," said Egan. "So you do not, after all, know what lies beyond? You only imagine?"

I smiled. "My friend," I said, "I have earned all this gray with a realization: there need be no difference between what we imagine and what is real."

Egan laughed and asked, "so you know where you are?"

"50 days," I said.

when he asked to be my disciple, i realized: i didn't want a disciple. that had not been my purpose in telling him that he could not win, but with such an argument, i suppose his decision was a rational choice.

but i did not want a disciple. more than that, i had nothing i could teach a disciple. my advantage was immortality. how could i teach that?

i had known about the giraffes above us, and the elephant, and the man who controlled it all. i was not supposed to know about these yet, but i did, because i'd lived this life before. i was living it again but i had not forgotten the first time. that i knew of these things which i was not supposed to know, i think, is what convinced him -- but brought him to the wrong conclusion!

no, i did not want a disciple. but, whether the request had been sincere or not (and i think it had been, as his first question, once combat had stopped, concerned whether draining a pimple was a good idea), i could no longer inflict damage upon him. so i took the only option that remained: i woke up.

Q: what?
A: i am big and strong.

Q: says who?
A: my wife to be.

Q: well what the hell does she know?
A: enough.

webcomic.

here is why.

and here is also why.

and furthermore.

don't forget to read the mouse-over captions.

just as i was embarking on yesterday's hike, my spiritual vanity bracelet lost a bead. it was one of the wooden beads, it split in half like a three-dimensional intestine in flatland, and the pieces ended up on the blacktop.

since the SVB is living symbolism, there is much to be learned from this.

- the number of wooden beads was six, as of the Remaking. this never sat well with me -- the original had five wooden beads. when the universe is out of harmony, it will restore itself. as above, so below.

- this breakage is not severe enough to warrant another Remaking. as such, the lesson is learned: sometimes, it is more appropriate to Patch than to Remake

- the broken bead was of wood, which symbolized elemental earth, which, in turn, symbolizes experience. experiences -- the memory of them, which is to say, the mind -- can grow brittle and under strain and pressure, crack and be destroyed. something to look forward to as I approach old age.

i must repair the missing bead, its absence has un-naturally joined the DA and the LIFNE. it was a spacer. what now will separate the KNOW from the BEFORE? we shall see.

The first thing I did when I got in was unpack the backpack and hang up all the things that needed to dry. Then I showered and cleaned my blister. Then I made myself a warm sandwich and ate it to music on the couch.

It's approaching the 45 minute mark and I'm still not back to normal. That's not how it usually goes -- I had a rough night.

I backpacked last night, sleeping at Stewart Camp in the Ohlone wilderness. Stewart Camp is about 7 miles from the Del Valle parking lot, with 3000 feet of elevation gain and 1000 feet of elevation loss along those seven miles. As always, I had some new equipment with me to evaluate. But it turned out that the most interesting surprises came from the oldest equipment I own.

The new Keen hikers performed well on the way to the camp. Comfortable, good traction, not too hot. My Osprey backpack was loaded up to 29lbs, which for me, historically, is quite light. It's designed for light hiking and it was pretty much stuffed. When I got to camp, I put up my tent, tossed in my new Thermarest to inflate, decompressed my sleeping bag, and visited the water pump. I was told there'd be well water, and so there was. I filled up my dromedary bag and my nalgene bottle. Back at camp, I deposited Iodine tablets into the water, unpacked my book, and read for a while. Soon, I got hungry. I ate a clif bar. Yum. Soon, I got hungry. I unpacked my stove and my teapot, set up the stove, and went back to the pump with my teapot.

I put 2C of water in the teapot, enough water, I guessed, to have 1.5C remaining after boiling for five minutes. 1.5C was needed for my yummy freeze dried beef stroganoff.

While the water was boiling, I read a bit. It seemed like it had been 30 minutes, which the Iodine tabs needed to do their magic, so I took out the iodine-flavor-removal tablets and put them into the iodine water. Looking into the clear nalgene bottle, I noticed that my water had sea monkeys in it.

That's right, sea monkeys.

There was fucking larva in my water. Ugh.

Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.

Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.
Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.
Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.
Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.
Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.

SEA MONKEYS IN MY WATER.

I let the teapot boil an extra five minutes.

The stroganoff was as delicious as it could be and I saw no trace of sea monkeys in it. Their poor denatured little souls had risen in clouds of steam to attain to sea monkey heaven. More likely, I shatnered them out this morning.

I had another clif bar for dessert and sipped water from my camelback. Water from home. No sea monkeys.

I read some more. I read a little more. And then some more. Then it began to get cold and I retired to my tent, where I read some more.

Soon enough, I finished my book. Damn. It was a heavy book, too, so I'd lugged it all this way for no more than 1.5 hours of reading time. I estimated the time as... not too late. Not late at all. Normally at the end of a backpacking trek, I'm DFT and falling asleep is not difficult. This time, though, I wasn't properly bushed. I tried to sleep anyhow.

That's when the fun started!

Just as I began to doze off, the coyotes came out. They howled and yipped and yipped and howled and I couldn't be mad at them because *i* was in *their* home, after all. Still, one one yipped up within pissing distance of my tent, I shouted at him. I considered shouting, "I'm at the top of the food chain, you will respect my authoritaw!" but I settled for just an animalistic grunt-shout. It worked about as much as I'd guessed it would, which is to say, not at all.

I'm not scared of coyotes, or mountain lions, or sea monkeys, or any animal life you're likely to find in Ohlone. There aren't any bears to worry about. No, I wasn't fearful, I just wanted to get some sleep. I'd snuck in about 20 seconds of shut-eye while my body forgot for a moment that I wasn't tired, and it woulda worked, too, if it weren't for those nosey coyotes!

Now, fully awake thanks to the barking canines, I became irritated. Irritated that I probably wouldn't get much sleep, irritated that I was chilled (I'd changed into thick socks and long underpants before getting into my beanie and my sleeping bag), irritated that I'd finished my book and had nothing to do to make me sleepy, irritated that my allergies were... uh, irritated, and irritated that I was probably going to have explosive diahrrea any moment as the sea monkeys burst out of my guts.

I wondered why I was out there all alone. My frame of mind was such that the answers were less than positive.

I own a one-man tent. People don't buy one-man tents unless they want to be alone, very much alone. When I bought the one-man tent, I wanted to be alone. I was in a relationship that I didn't much like but was too much of a fearful wimp to escape. Some weekends, I'd take my one-man tent and go be away from people rather than spend time with my girlfriend.

Mostly I'd just read. There's not much else to do in the evening in a one-man tent out all alone with the coyotes and sea monkeys. I'd read and be away from life, stress, and the things that made me feel less-than-manly. After all, what could be more manly than spending a night of solitude in the wilderness?

I realized last night, as I lay there on my grumbling tummy that I really don't care much for the night-time part of camping, especially not solo-camping. I like the morning part. That was particularly true of last night. I was out there at all simply because I'd awakened in my own bed sometime last week and said to myself, "self, this weekend I want to wake up in a tent." I guess I didn't really consider carefully the events that would have to transpire before I got to the "waking up" part.

My one-man tent, then, had always been about running away. What was I running away from now, I wondered last night?

The waiting, I supposed. The loneliness. I was out there, as lonely as I could possibly be, perhaps to prove to myself that it was possible to be more miserable than I was when I'm a-home a-lone without my beloved 203. Well, I was in for more proof than I'd bargained for.

In addition to "getting away", I bought my one-man tent to prove to myself that I'm a tough-guy. As I am fond of saying, because I came up with it, and I'm fond of saying things that I come up with, "I'm not a tough guy, I just play one in real life." In real life I also am a scotch-snob, a coffee-snob, a beer-snob, a luxury car driver, and a computer nerd. Doesn't sound so tough, right? But I made it to the campsite and back with most of my skin intact, and I don't know many other people who could manage that.

I do know one person, and she was painfully absent last night.

But there's more to toughness than carrying a heavy pack a goodly distance and digesting denatured sea monkeys. I've lived alone for nearly a decade, the majority of those years so truly alone that I often did not speak at all on weekends. Out there in my one-man tent, I'm forced to relive all that, in extreme. I'm forced to find out whether my mind will come apart without other people and familiar things and running water and a flush toilet to help keep it together.

Last night, after the coyotes shut the hell up, I found out that I was asking the wrong question. The question wasn't whether my mind would fall apart at the worst possible time. The question was: what would I do if it did?

It did. Out there in the tent, with the sea monkeys sloshing about in my tummy, having nothing to do and no-one to do it with, cold, far from the already-closed gates of the park, not-tired, recently finished with a downer of a book, surrounded by uncaring coyotes, I had a good, old-fashioned anxiety attack. That was fun.

Now, I realize that there's a world of difference between an anxiety attack and, say, auditory hallucinations or schizophrenia or even food poisoning, but please believe me when I tell you that having an anxiety attack while all alone, cold, and full-up with sea monkeys out in the bush is really not Fun Times. There's not much that helps resolve an attack other than sleep. The cruel irony, of course, and you could see this coming, couldn't you? is that nothing prevents sleep more effectively than an anxiety attack, where the heartbeat is accelerated (oh no! I'm having a heart attack!), the stomach gurgle-burbles (oh dear! the sea monkeys are mating!), the sinus tissues are engorged and swollen (oh crap! I can't breathe!), and headache sets in (oh my! I'm having a brain hemorrhage!).

Yup, not much fun.

Plus, my tent was pitched on a bit of a slope, so my sleeping bag kept sliding downhill on the smooth surface of the Thermarest.

So, I realized that the trip would not be a test of my physical strength, but my mental toughness. How would I get through this?

"Try to relax," of course, is the solution. Sure is easy to say that, ain't it? I think they tell that to folks that have been shot or explosively decompressed or otherwise mightily wounded. Now, I reckon I wasn't as bad off as someone who'd just lost an arm, but still, "try to relax" wasn't doing much for me.

And yet, that's still the only solution, especially in the absence of drugs. So I tried to relax.

It worked! I could hear the universe breathing, and it was saying: OM. The gentle buzz of creation's word lulled me to sleep.

And then creation's bark brought me back awake, to the familiar symptoms of anxiety. Damnable coyotes!

Over the span of the evening, I hopped out of my tent several times, into the waiting cold. It was stuffy in my one-man tent, and cramped. I'm not particularly claustrophobic, but my tent isn't particularly roomy, either. Can't sit up in it, for example. Finally, I decided I'd just have to not get out any more and bore myself to sleep, coyotes or no.

They shut up again and I couldn't sleep. The bastards! I'd had it, then I lost it. I grabbed my phone and did what I least wanted to do. I dialed 23 on the speed dial. There was no signal, of course, but I didn't really want it to go through anyhow. So strongly did I not want it to go through that I hit "redial" three times before checking the time and turning the useless thing off.

9pm. Crikey, no wonder I couldn't sleep!

But I needed to sleep. I resolved myself to sleeping, and I did. Things would be better in the morning, I promised myself, and they were.

I had weird disturbing dreams all through the night, and, as usual when camping, my arms fell asleep multiple times and woke me up multiple times. Also, the cold woke me up many times, as did the funky dreams. But no more gorram coyotes, they'd set in for the night.

Until morning. They woke me up around 8am. That was just fine by me. I got to wake up in a tent, just as I'd wanted. I didn't have the explosive trots, at least not yet.

I filtered my iodined sea monkey water into my teapot and boiled the sea monkeys for my coffee. I filtered some more sea monkey iodine water into my powdered milk for my bowl of cereal.

Backpacking coffee tastes better than all other coffee. I cannot explain it. This was not fresh ground, and, to my delight, I could tell. Still, though, there was something about it that made it a 9.9/10. The stainless cup? Of course not. The setting.

Car camping coffee doesn't even come close.

Powdered milk, on the other hand, is gross no matter where you're eating it.

I pumped water into my camelback and took down my camp. I fired one off and didn't hit my pants or the plastic seat. It's a skill.

Then I took off. I made 7 miles in 2 hours and ten minutes. The Keens are great uphill but I didn't have them tight enough, I think. I got a nasty blister in an unusual place. I didn't care. My car waited for me. My life waited for me.

I thought while I hiked. Most of my best thinking is done out on the trail, I think. Out there on the trail, away from the worst of my mind, I had another go at why I was out there all by myself. The answer came simply and immediately. I was out there to appreciate. Not nature, because I tend not to notice that when I backpack. No, I was out there to appreciate what I've got.

And to miss dearly the things that I've almost got.

This, I think, will be the last time my one-man tent sees any action. It's funny, I'd say, that I threw in my lot with the only person I know who camps/hikes more than I do, so much that before I ruined her life, she was out to make hiking her profession, and then, having told this (mystery!) person that I love her (oh, not a mystery any longer), I proceeded to stop camping. What?

But now I was back for one last stab at the self-macho-proving thing that I like to do. And it had gone smashingly well, as a matter of fact. I'd conquered the only thing worth conquering: myself.

I appreciated, as I walked down those nasty hills, that I'm still bodily intact enough to do such things. And I appreciated that I had talents to exploit that afforded me such things as my one-man tent and the nice car that awaited me at the bottom of the hill (having recently named my feminine new laptop, and having decided long ago that the G35 is a female, I attempted and failed to name her as well. The best I could come up with was a name that -- coincidentally, I'm sure -- matched exactly 203's real name, which I decided was inappropriate at best).

I appreciated showers, and gatorade, and dishwashers, and agriculture and civilization.

I appreciated that I was starting a new life that doesn't frighten me. I appreciated that the next time I go backpacking, it will be with the only person I know who's better at than I am, and I appreciated that such a person would think me marriage material (meaning I'm not talking about Rictor-Veg (at least, I don't think I am)).

And as I sit here and write this stuff amidst the accouterments of my accumulated wealth, absent what I really want, but knowing that it is only time -- small time -- that separates us now, I realize that I'm feeling quite a lot better than when I came in the door, dripping in butt-sweat and cold.

It was a very good trip. It always is.

It's been a while since I'd gotten around to Chancellor's with Victor. Our absense was not particularly intentional, we just hadn't managed to get around to going. Margie had come back from her training and I hadn't really wanted to part from her. Victor took advantage of this shift in routine to pursue his own decidedly un-romantic conquests. Neither of us had been to Aikido for weeks.

But we went last night, and we dragged our aching, tired carcasses into Chancellors afterwards. Just like the good old days, I guess.

I cuaght myself thinking that phrase, the good old days. Why would the good days have to be "old"? Weren't these the good days? They should have been, but they weren't. Something was different.

I looked around Chancellor's. It was the same. Javi was behind the bar, looking sullen, polishing the glasses. Cheeky Charlie was talking again, and just like in "the good old days," nobody was listening. Luke Skywalker was at his usual table, eating a taco. Someone was in the booth next to Luke, smoking a cigarette. Smoking man had a face I'd never seen before, but not everyone who came to Chancellor's was a regular. There was a common thread, though, that ran through all the personalities of the patrons of Chancellor's -- regular or not. Why hadn't I seen it before?

"Changed," I said.

"What?" said Victor.

"Changed," I said.

"What's changed?"

"I'm not sure," I said.

"That's fascinating," said Victor.

"This place has changed, I think," I said. "No, that's not right. We've changed. I have, at least."

"Yeah," said Victor, "You've changed. You used to be cool."

"Now there's a lie," I said. "I was never cool."

"Guess so," said Victor.

I looked at Victor. Studied him. He caught my stare and struck a pose for me. "Like what you see?" he said. "I'm yours, sailor, just ten dollah! Love you long time!"

I laughed. Only on the outside, though. My god, I thought, I'm having a laughing on the outside but not on the inside moment. How cliched. But it was what it was. I was dissatisfied. Day after day, doing "my thing," looking for happiness in the little triumphs that occur throughout the day, hoping that tomorrow would bring something big and good. Something different.

It's not that I'm a slacker. Actually, I am. At least, I used to be. Okay, I'm a slacker, but not 100%, how about that? I do stuff. Really, I do. But I can only do so much. Those "little triumphs" take a lot of effort to pursue. Sometimes I choose to go for those rather than put in the hard work to aim for the bigger triumphs. You know, I take the easy road to immediate happiness rather than the hard road to the longer term variety. I'm human.

A waitress came by and took our order. She was new. Her nametag read, "Cynthia." Cynthia was one of those servers that doesn't write your order down. The type that always makes me worry that I'll end up with a pile of ghoulash or something equally horrid instead of what I ordered. Cynthia kept looking at me with what she presumably thought were surreptitious glances. When I'd catch her she'd smile sheepishly and blush a little. I don't think I imagined her interest -- she was looking at me even while taking Victor's order. After she left I spoke up.

"People are mirrors," I said.

"Very deep," said Victor.

Maybe I'd heard this idea before, elsewhere. I probably didn't come up with it. But I hadn't thought about it until after I'd met Margie. I hadn't realized it was true, until I'd looked at myself in Margie. When I asked her to marry me, seven years ago, it was because of how I saw myself when I looked in her.

I wondered, back then, what it was that she saw in me. I knew many of the things that I saw -- and loved -- in her, but, as great as I thought I was back then, I didn't think I was particularly unique in my greatness, certainly not in the ways that she was unique. There were a lot of other guys, I thought, just as great as me who'd be happy to have someone like Margie in their life. So why me?

I thought about that a lot back then. I didn't come up with many answers, until I stumbled upon a different approach. Instead of wondering what Margie saw in me, I thought about what Aimee had seen in me. Aimee had been my girlfriend right before Margie, and at the time, she'd also been the other half of my longest-lasting relationship. I thought about what Aimee saw in me, and as those things came to me, easily, I realized that I wasn't thinking of what Aimee saw in me, but rather what I saw of me reflected in Aimee. I had never asked Aimee why she loved me, so I didn't know for sure whether these things I came up with were her reasons. But that didn't matter. I was getting somewhere -- I was learning, about my past, my present, and with a little smarts, my future.

As far as I could tell, what she liked about me was that I wasn't a flaky turd. That's about it. She didn't think I was particularly special in any other way. She didn't seem to notice that I could cook, or that I enjoyed writing, or any of the other things that I thought were cool about myself. If she noticed, she didn't seem to care. Really, the best I could ever figure was that she liked me because I didn't beat her up. It always seemed kind of a waste, really. There were plenty of guys who could merely not-beat-her-up that didn't have any of my talents, real or imagined. Looking into the mirror of Aimee, I saw a very small little boy with little to offer.

"You see how she was looking at you?" said Victor.

"Yeah," I said.

"How come chicks don't look at me like that?" said Victor.

Victor's not a bad looking guy. In fact, I might even say he's more attractive than me, physically. Looks aren't everything, though. That's an old one. I found, over the years, that there's a difference between knowing something, and Knowing something. I knew that looks weren't everything because I'd heard it a million times. Once I lived it, I Knew it. It became part of me, that knowledge. In knowing, I grew stronger (heh). Maybe Victor had heard the one about looks but simply hadn't made it a part of himself yet.

I don't think Cynthia liked what she saw when she looked in Victor's mirror. Maybe she liked what she saw in mine. Maybe she understood what my smile meant.

Or maybe not. My smile's hard to decipher, sometimes.

"Maybe you're just not her type, man," I said.

"What type am I?" said Victor.

"The noisy type," I said.

What I saw when I looked into Aimee, then, was simple. I was just another guy. I was the guy dating her. I was great, she'd say, and I knew it, but I wasn't anything special.

That wasn't what I saw when I looked into Margie. When I looked into Margie, the image that stared back at me was a stranger. Someone better than me. Someone fearless, an andventurer. When I looked at myself in Margie, I saw the grownup that the little-kid-me had hoped to become. I saw a man.

I knew what it was that Margie wanted out of a mate, and I didn't think I had those things in me.

But Margie's no dummy. I do have those things in me. Far beyond just the ability to not beat her up, Margie brings out things in me that were there, but never before seen. She brings the best of me to the surface, where I can see it. Where everyone can see it. When I looked into Margie, I saw a stranger, but I knew that stranger was me. I knew that I was that amazing adventurer that she saw. I just had to live up to him. And because I don't want her to leave, I do live up to him.

And that's why she loves me.

I think.

"Have you looked at these people?" said Victor, nodding his head to indicate the other Chancellor's patrons. "They're a bunch of losers. Why do we even come here?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I was thinking something along those lines, too," I said. "But why does it bother you that these people are losers?"

"They're mirrors," said Victor.

I grinned. Victor's no dummy, either. Sometimes, I don't think I give him enough credit. He makes leaps of intuition and logic that I used to think were only available to me. I've come to realize, over time, that maybe Aimee was right after all: I'm not so special. But of course, Margie makes me feel special, and that's more important, after all is said and done, than actually being special. Who cares what the history books say about me when I'm dead? I'll still be dead.

"I look at these losers, like Luke over there, coming in here alone every night for god knows how long, and I wonder if I'll be stuck in a rut like that for the rest of my own life," said Victor. "I look at Vezinni over there, with his fuckin' cheap-ass house wine and his fuckin' novels, and I wonder..."

Victor's voice trailed off as he wondered.

I looked over at Vezzini. He was, indeed, drinking cheap-ass house wine from a fancy glass -- probably Chancellor's only wine glass -- and poring over a cheap romance novel. His bald head moved from side to side as he scanned the lines of trashy words, hunched over in his booth, all by himself. He never ordered any food. He'd just come in and keep on drinking glass after glass of whatever horror Javi was pouring that night, presumably until the words on the pages of his novels soared above their own nature and into the rarified upper stratospheres of literature. Or until Javi kicked him out at closing time.

"I mean," said Victor, "Just what the hell is it that we've got in common that we all keep ending up in the same place, me and you and these losers? I look over there at Vezzini and see myself staring back and I don't much like that."

I nodded again. "I know exactly what you mean," I said. I gestured to the door. "Shall we?"

"We haven't gotten our food yet," said Victor.

"Nope."

"We haven't paid," said Victor.

"Nope."

"All righty then," said Victor.

summer is over.

i am reading super squats and when january rolls around, i'll be giving it a try.

until then, i must make myself ready. my running will suffer. my sleeptime will increase. my goals? i do not know how they will fare.

so it goes.

i don't know why i even bother with hair gel in the mornings. i drive to work with the windows and sunroof open, on the freeway. by the time that's over, bye bye hair gel spikes.

here's the deal :

i'm a geek.

not to pigeonhole myself, but it's true. i'm a geek and i'm geekier than many who would profess such a thing. i'm an undercover geek: people think i'm more of a banker-looking guy, a coke-snorting frat boy. you can't tell from looking at me that i'm a C badass.

(you can't tell it from reading my code, either. heh.)

so occasionally, i head on over to slashdot. okay, not occasionally, damn near daily. and i stick my finger in the vibe and see which way the metaphor is blowing in the wind. i see what the "geek community" is up to. you know, the loudmouth posers. once in a while, a loudmouth non-poser pokes his head out of his prarie-dog hole and speaks up. it's not difficult to tell the two types of loudmouth apart.

look out, here comes the point: occasionally, the loudmouths suggest things. occasionally i follow those suggestions. nearly always, i end up happy.

i bought, watched, and loved "Akira" on slashdot's recommendation.

i uh... well, i'm sure there are other examples. i don't know what they are. hilariously enough i'm not a big fan of linux, but then, neither are the non-posers (necessarily).

so when i ran out of reading material for the crapper i turned to slashdot for advice, and ended up with the graphic novel "Watchmen". "Graphic novel" means "really long comic book." Now, because I was a geek long before it was cool, this is not my first graphic novel. Nossir, I read "Maus" when I was 12 or so. That was my first graphic novel, and it was top notch, on the level with any other "serious" novel I've ever read.

Watchmen is, of course, also top notch. In fact, I've done it the honor of promoting it from ShitterBook to ShitterAndBeforeBedBook, a rare distinction indeed.

I suspect it will be one of those books (you know, the "good" kind) where I'm sad when it's over.

But by then, my book on weightlifting will be here ;)

i needed to name it, and the first name that popped into my mind was "asherah" but at this point i don't want another woman in my life, much less need one, so i chose the next one that came to mind. its name is VALIS.

i don't have a foot fetish, which is to say, i've never had to change my shorts on account of looking at feet, though lord knows i've tried.

still, evidently, i have a foot obsession. unfortunately, i'm obsessed not with some distant, infrequently encountered pair of shoe-stuffers, but with my very own pair of ass-kickers. or maybe that's fortunate. i don't know, but the point is this: i'm obsessed with 'em.

maybe it's because i run, hike, climb, and can't seem to do any of that at less than 195lbs. that's gotta put the hurt on my poor little footsies. also, i can't find good shoes for any of those activities on account of i've got wide-ass hobbitfeet, and i guess hobbitses are expected to run, hike, climb, and weight 195 barefoot.

i thought the solution was superfeet. my hiking shoes and my running shoes have had superfeet in them for a long-damn-while now. i've only been climbing two weeks and i use rental shoes, and besides, my own feet can barely fit in those things, much less my feet + orthotics.

anyhow, i get soreness on the insides of my shins, mostly on the right one. it's hard to say whether it's muscle, tendon, or bone soreness. standing, walking, or just sitting and touching is tender/sore. it's not maddeningly painful, though it is distracting, especially when paired with my obsession. it's the sort of thing i'd be happy to live without. as it is, i now live with it pretty much all the time, not just when i'm exercising the legs.

so i figured: maybe the problem is that i run and hike with superfeet but everyday-walk without. so last week i bought a pair of superfeet for my everyday-walk shoes. it seems that these made things a little worse, actually.

"aha!" said i, at this point, this point being yesterday afternoon. "perhaps it's the superfeet causing that little pain! what if i remove all superfeet for this weekends pavement and trail pounding?"

so that i did, dear reader, and i do mean "reader", because at this point i'm sure it's just you and me. i ran about 5 miles with no superfeet.

it kind of sucked but that might be general tiredness. i enjoyed the softsquishyness of the shoes without the hard superfeet, but at about 3.5mi i was missing the arch support. still, this was for science, so i pushed on.

right now i've got a heaping helping of the selfsame soreness, but the experiment has just begun. i've got a lot of man-about-town shit to do today, and i reckon i'll do it all sans-superfeet. stay tuned!

the solution to my worsening allergies is simple, cheap, obvious, and exactly what i really don't want.

that's right, double up on the pills.

sigh.

my thumb hurts because i jammed a paperclip under the nail and punctured the skin or whatever it is i've got under the thumbnail. you know, sayeed-style torture.

i jammed a paperclip under my nail because i was fiddling with a paperclip. i fiddle with things in my fingers. it's a lifelong habit. i've done (in this order):

- tin foil
- paper (for a very long time)
- a little bit of chain
- paperclips
- silly putty
- paper clips

i still do the very occasional paper fiddle when i don't catch myself. now, though, that i've injured my climbing thumb, i've sworn off all fiddling, especially the paperclip variety. the universe is now divided into two categories: the things which i am allowed to play with when my hands are otherwise empty, and the things which i am not allowed to play with when my hands are otherwise empty. here are the categories:

am: spiritual vanity bracelet
not: every gorram thing else.

i've already begun a paperclip purge. i kicked the paper, chain, and putty habits. this one is no sweat. also, the cuticles are going to get extra willpower attention. barg.

the other day, 203 said i was strong.

at last, i felt like those 700 clams were 700 clams well-spent.

once upon a time, when i started this whole dingus, i had several goals in mind. over time, the blog evolved new purposes, but still, the original purpose remained: the blog as a motivator. here's how it was supposed to work: i need to post, but my life was (is) so boring that i have nothing to post but my endless, boring thoughts. so, in order not to bore my audience (me) to death, i'd "go out" and "do stuff" and then write about that. thus, the blog, my own little log-on-the-web, by its very paucity, would motivate me to get out more, which is what i really needed at that point much more than being a writer.

well, things have changed a bit since then.

now, i don't want to blog. i don't want to write. i want to go out and jump around. jump up jump up and get down.

but sometimes i don't, sometimes i can't, because at the end of the day (when it really matters) i'm still me and some things haven't changed. but one thing that has changed is that i'm cool with that now.

but the point i originally sat down to enunciate is simply this: the poor blog is getting neglected because i'm so often out, or in, even, sometimes, hosting stuff. in other words, i have what bill the shat always wanted me to get, namely, a life, and now i'm too busy-ish to write.

one of the things i realized along my little journey is that i'm a writer. not a storyteller, a writer. i love the language, the construction of sentences, the choice of just the right word to put in just the right place. that's why i created the "really?" category, because i want to make sentences, not because i want to tell a coherent story. if i'm really lucky, something spiffy will emerge from my beloved sentences, but even if nothing does, it's cool, because i enjoyed the act of creation.

...........................

i finished nick hornby's "high fidelity" and i really liked it. i liked it and i hated it, for a couple reasons. i liked it and hated it because i'm rob. it's neat that nick captured me so well, but it's disturbing that not only can he so clearly paint the inside of my head, but that also, such a painting is relatable to more people than just me. another blow to my sickly, failing sense of uniqueness. if not for a thick skin of irony and happiness i'd be crushed.

the other thing that bugs me is that i started work on a new story, the tenth unfinished one on my plate, but i'm gonna finish this one gorram it, and the problem is that i realized as i approached the end of "high fidelity" that nick has said much of what i wanted to say, only he said it better with a more interesting character. nuts. that's okay, i guess. i'll get over it (which, of course, is a main thrust of both his story and mine). mine's got the sci-fi angle, so there.

i used to not want to read a lot, because i had these stories i wanted to write and i was afraid that if i read too much, i'd eventually encounter someone who had already written my story, and then if i ever actually got around to writing my story, which more often than not never happened anyway, but if it did, then i'd be crushed when i found out that dickinson had done it thousands of years before me, and better, to boot. after a while, i decided that this idea was nonsense and that i liked books so i ought to read. so i read, and found out that i was absolutely correct. those bastards have stolen my best stories!

so it goes.

What matters is the system that eventually emerges, not the fantasies concerning the source of the system.

terrence mckenna on PKD.

the internet is a wonderful place.

like most folks who heard about RAW's predicament, I coughed up some dough to help him out.

like most folks who coughed up some dough to help him out, I read RAW's books in my later HS and early college years. to say that RAW had a profound influence on my life, as so many on the internet have said of their own experience, would be to understate the matter.

to provide only the simplest of examples: around my wrist I wear a five and a twenty three. those two humble numbers symbolize all that is right in my life. RAW gave me the five and RAW gave me the twenty three. For free. RAW opened my mind and my life to receive what was waiting for me (that is, the transmissions from Sirius). I couldn't have done it without him.

and likewise, without the internet -- and especially weblogs -- this amazing wonderful medium which even RAW, in his most grandiose visions, did not forsee, i would never have been provided the opportunity to reach out fnord and help a truly extraordinary human being who -- using centuries-old technology -- reached out and helped me when I was in need.

i told my lunchmate that the only time i had ever acidentally killed a bird with my car, i did it, ironically, in bodega bay.

he chuckled, having gotten what i was getting at.

that's why i dig my lunchmates.

this morning while showering the following came to me, and i wrote it down as part of the intro to Something I've Been Meaning To Write:

In college I read a lot of Leary.  A lot of Leary and a lot of Wilson.  Leary
when I wanted to hear about drugs, Wilson when I wanted to hear about 
drugs and blowjobs.  Mostly, I didn't want to hear about drugs and 
blowjobs, only drugs, because, while I was getting neither at the time, 
it seemed to me that at least the drugs were within the realm of possibility.

The "Wilson" is, of course, Robert Anton Wilson, who introduced me to the very Law of Fives after which this category is named, and based upon which I have structured my life, including the date for the commencement of my eternal bondage. Additionally, RAW introduced me to the idea of "synchronicity": a term coined by Jung to denote a meaningful coincidence that has a low probability of being a random event.

Over the short span of My Life So Far, I've encountered many fives, many twenty threes, and many many synchronicities.

Including this one, dated not much longer after my moment of showery inspiration.

not enough law-of-fives for you? how about this: RAW will be the second (2) person in three (3) days I've helped out monetarily.

this weekend was perhaps the most exciting absent-203 weekend i've had in a long history of absent-203 weekends. rictor/veg was back in town and we went climbing, running, and hiking. so entused were we about the climbing that we bought harnesses and failed to notice that the gym closes early on sundays. no matter, extra rest is good.

and so, as mentioned, i climbed, i ran, i hiked. i drove around enjoyably in my enjoyable car, and i thought many delightful thoughts, and had many strange dreams, and had, in many ways, a fantastic weekend.

still, after all that, the highpoint of the weekend was the four and a half hour talk i enjoyed with 203 sunday night. i am amazed by what we've got, and even more amazed that we've still got it. four and a half hours is a little rare these days while she's busy with study and work, but historically, it is not unusual for us. and it wasn't four and a half hours of silence punctuated by the occasional giggle, as sometimes happens with the mook. no sir, it was four and a half hours of stimulating, enjoyable, thought-provoking, enlightenment-teasing useful bone box rattling.

i think we're used to the long-convo-format, she and i. i think that is our normal mode of conversation, though writing has also stepped in to fill a void. in the past, when our love was forming, our only contact was during our hikes, our long hikes, which lasted usually four to eight hours, and featured only passing moments of silence. our relationship was born from a context of extended talks, and so it's natural that it should continue as such, though mystefying that after so many quarter-of-a-day phone conversations we still have things to talk about. we do. and we don't repeat ourselves too often.

i've put some more hours into hornby's "high fidelity". 203 turned me on to nick because she thought his writing style is similar to mine. i agree, it seems to be. not only do we have similar style/voice, it seems, based on HF, that we also have similar relationship/sex neuroses. isn't it fun to read your own mind in someone else's novel?

trust me, it is.