The old Jeep pulls to a stop at the end of our driveway, lets us out by our own faded Jeep and pulls a youie, Bill’s gnarled hand waving goodbye to us from where the window would be.  At the same time, Jen and I take a deep breath and smile broadly as we exhale.  We don’t say anything to each other, though we both know we’re thinking the same thing:  it’s good to be home; it smells different – better – here.

Jen jumps into the front seat and cranks up the old machine – it seems she can ALWAYS get it started on the first try – as I throw our packs into the back seat.  By the time I get to the driver’s side, Jen is already buckled up and ready to go.  It’s a beautifully sunny afternoon, but not hot enough for the dust from the road to stick to the dust that’s already covering our traveling-clothes.

“You sure you don’t want to drive?” I say.

“Nope.  It’s all you.  But let’s take it easy on the way up, hmm?  I won’t fall asleep on you, but it’d be cool to zone out for a bit.”

“Okie-dokie,” I say, and throw it in gear.  I give it some extra gas, slip the clutch and spray gravel from our driveway onto the highway as I fishtail it around a bit.  I can feel Jen looking at me.

“What?!” I protest, unsuccessfully suppressing a smile.  “There’s no way you had time to zone out already!”

Jen laughs and slugs me in the arm as I roll to a stop and put the Jeep in four wheel drive.  It hurts and I drive (more or less) carefully for the remaining 5.2 miles of dry dirt track leading up to our house.  I’m sorely tempted to play in the mud as we get up the hill and into the forest closer to the house, but Jen anticipates this and is looking right at me when I glance over to see if she’s paying attention.  I feign innocence.  Poorly.  And she laughs again.  God, I love to hear her laugh.

We pull up under the port cochère (which I am NOT allowed to call ‘the car tent’, even though I built it)  just as the front door opens.  Jackson, our eldest, saunters out with a dish rag over his bare shoulder like he owns the place.

“You look like you own the place,” I say with a smile as we trade grips and our daughter Meghan (thirteen this spring and two years younger than Jackson) bursts out the door and into Jen’s arms.

“I do,” he laughs, “Unless you and mom changed the will while you guys were in town?”

“No,” I reply, “you’re still slated to get everything when we go.”  I have no idea where or how this macabre joke got started, but I play along because, well, it’s our joke.  We don’t even have a will.

“Daddy!” Meg squeals, jumping into my arms and almost bowling me over in the process.  (I swear, I think she’s really trying to – and one of these days she’s going to succeed.)  But I saw her coming and was ready by the time she was two steps away.  I have no idea how much longer I have before she’s actually able to take me down, but I pretend she almost does and turn it into one of those twirl-arounds the military guy from the old movies always does when he comes back from the war and sees his girl for the first time.

I let Meg down as Jen walks to my side and encircles my waist with her arms.  I put one of mine over her shoulder and we both heave one of those same happy sighs as we look past the kids at our cabin, which hasn’t burnt down in the five days we’ve been gone.  The kids have grown like weeds out here.  Jackson is a couple of inches taller than me – and he hasn’t even had a real growth spurt yet – and Meg is just about her mother’s height (barefoot maybe three or four inches shorter than me).  I don’t know if it’s the fresh air and exercise or their mother’s midwestern genes.  Jen’s dad and my dad are both 6’4″ – maybe that’s where they get it.

“What’s for dinner Stoney?” I say to Jackson, reaching for the dish rag on his shoulder with my free hand as Jen nuzzles my neck.

Jackson’s been cooking since he was about eight, and after seven years of practice at every opportunity, he’s probably better at it than me or Jen.  And that woman can cook.  ‘Stoney’ is short for ‘Stonewall’ – yes, just like the Confederate General – I forget why we started calling him that; it just seemed natural.  Jen gives me a squeeze and I turn to her and we kiss.

“Trout,” he says, “I caught them a couple of hours ago.  With baby potatoes and garlic and . . . okay, oKAY!  Ten second rule!”

Jen and I both turn our eyes to him and break our kiss; she pulls me closer.

“We really need to change that rule,” I say, “you guys are getting old enough to handle it.”

“Ew, gross!” says Meg.  “I’m going inside!”  And she bounds off into the cabin I built before she was, presumably to get back to commandeering her mother’s reading nook and hogging every last scrap of bandwidth of the mountain’s only internet connection.

“C’mon inside; dinner’s almost ready.  How was your hike?” he says over his shoulder as he steps up onto the porch.

I kiss Jen on the forehead and grab our packs from the Jeep.  “It was pretty nice,” Jen calls to Jackson, who’s already inside.  “We bagged six peaks and your father almost got eaten by a bear.”

“Now wait just a minute,” I say.  “That was just a cub and she only chewed on my boot for a second before I told her to stop!”

“Yeah, but what does a bear cub chewing on your boot mean?” Jen retorts.  “It means she’s probably hungry and you know her momma couldn’t have been too far away.”

“What?!” I say, looking dejected.  “We were playing.  And it was only for a minute and we skedaddled like two seconds later.”

“Maybe.  But that’s not how I remember it.”  Jen gives me a wink.

I give her a look that says that I concede (as always) to her infinite wisdom and she socks me in the arm again – in the exact same place as last time (how does she do that?) – I’m pretty sure there’ll be a mark by the time we go to bed.

“Jesus!”  I exclaim as I carry our packs toward the porch.  “How the hell did you carry this all week?  What’s in here?”  I know full well that Jen packs light and, if anything, my pack is the one that’s usually on the heavy side.  I put the packs down.  She gives me that look that can freeze well water.

“You know perfectly well what’s in there:  that stupid dominatrix outfit you insisted I bring with us.”

“What?!” I say, sidling up to her and putting my arms around her shoulders.  “I just thought it might be particularly sexy to see you in your leather corset, fishnets and stilettos by the firelight.  C’mon, you gotta give me points for originality.”

“Points for originality, sure,” she says, “but you’re in the negative for practicality.”

“Whatever,” I say (again feigning dejection – hey c’mon, sometimes it works), “you’da looked wicked hot.”

“Hey pop!”  Jackson yells from the kitchen window.  I love it and hate it when he calls me that.

“Yo!”  I respond.

“Meg and I are going to go down to the south meadow tonight with the telescope so we can work on her astronomy project, ok?”

“Sure,” I say.  “Are you going to sleep out or are you planning on making a racket after your mom and I have gone to bed?”  Just like when I was younger and still courting Jen, my deja vu tells me I used to ask the same underlying question of her parents:  ‘am I guaranteed some alone time with this girl I’m in love with?’  Now the tables have turned and I’m the adult in the situation, but I’m still asking the same question, in a probably too-strident tone, to cover for my inner butterflies.

“No, we’re going to stay there tonight,” Jackson laughs as he pulls his head in from the window.  With a slight echo from inside, I can hear him say “Why would we hike back with that heavy telescope in the dark?”

I turn to Jen and give her my strongest knowing-slash-seductive look.  She socks me in the arm.  Again.  And smiles.  God, I love to see her smile.  “Maybe,” she says and starts to giggle.  “Maybe.”

That’s a yes.  But still, I wonder if maybe my smile was too wide and the eyebrow-waggling was a bit over the top. 

After all these years, why do I still wonder about that?

____________________________

This one’s for you, Jen.

Totally stolen because people on Digg like it.  No shame.

Infographic byWordStream Internet Marketing

As written by Hakuri Murakami in On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning (and unabashedly scraped from that linq).  This short story appears in Murakami’s The Elephant Vanishes.

Seriously:  this happens to me AT LEAST three times a week.

Haruki Murakami: On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning

One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo’s fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl.

Tell you the truth, she’s not that good-looking. She doesn’t stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn’t young, either – must be near thirty, not even close to a “girl,” properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She’s the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there’s a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.

Maybe you have your own particular favorite type of girl – one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or you’re drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I’ll catch myself staring at the girl at the next table to mine because I like the shape of her nose.

But no one can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived type. Much as I like noses, I can’t recall the shape of hers – or even if she had one. All I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It’s weird.

“Yesterday on the street I passed the 100% girl,” I tell someone.

“Yeah?” he says. “Good-looking?”

“Not really.”

“Your favorite type, then?”

“I don’t know. I can’t seem to remember anything about her – the shape of her eyes or the size of her breasts.”

“Strange.”

“Yeah. Strange.”

“So anyhow,” he says, already bored, “what did you do? Talk to her? Follow her?”

“Nah. Just passed her on the street.”

She’s walking east to west, and I west to east. It’s a really nice April morning.

Wish I could talk to her. Half an hour would be plenty: just ask her about herself, tell her about myself, and – what I’d really like to do – explain to her the complexities of fate that have led to our passing each other on a side street in Harajuku on a beautiful April morning in 1981. This was something sure to be crammed full of warm secrets, like an antique clock build when peace filled the world.

After talking, we’d have lunch somewhere, maybe see a Woody Allen movie, stop by a hotel bar for cocktails. With any kind of luck, we might end up in bed.

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.

Now the distance between us has narrowed to fifteen yards.

How can I approach her? What should I say?

“Good morning, miss. Do you think you could spare half an hour for a little conversation?”

Ridiculous. I’d sound like an insurance salesman.

“Pardon me, but would you happen to know if there is an all-night cleaners in the neighborhood?”

No, this is just as ridiculous. I’m not carrying any laundry, for one thing. Who’s going to buy a line like that?

Maybe the simple truth would do. “Good morning. You are the 100% perfect girl for me.”

No, she wouldn’t believe it. Or even if she did, she might not want to talk to me. Sorry, she could say, I might be the 100% perfect girl for you, but you’re not the 100% boy for me. It could happen. And if I found myself in that situation, I’d probably go to pieces. I’d never recover from the shock. I’m thirty-two, and that’s what growing older is all about.

We pass in front of a flower shop. A small, warm air mass touches my skin. The asphalt is damp, and I catch the scent of roses. I can’t bring myself to speak to her. She wears a white sweater, and in her right hand she holds a crisp white envelope lacking only a stamp. So: She’s written somebody a letter, maybe spent the whole night writing, to judge from the sleepy look in her eyes. The envelope could contain every secret she’s ever had.

I take a few more strides and turn: She’s lost in the crowd.

Now, of course, I know exactly what I should have said to her. It would have been a long speech, though, far too long for me to have delivered it properly. The ideas I come up with are never very practical.

Oh, well. It would have started “Once upon a time” and ended “A sad story, don’t you think?”

Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.

One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.

“This is amazing,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you’re the 100% perfect girl for me.”

“And you,” she said to him, “are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I’d pictured you in every detail. It’s like a dream.”

They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It’s a miracle, a cosmic miracle.

As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one’s dreams to come true so easily?

And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, “Let’s test ourselves – just once. If we really are each other’s 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we’ll marry then and there. What do you think?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is exactly what we should do.”

And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.

The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other’s 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully.

One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season’s terrible inluenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earlier years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence’s piggy bank.

They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love.

Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty.

One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west, but along the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in their chest. And they knew:

She is the 100% perfect girl for me.

He is the 100% perfect boy for me.

But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fouteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.

A sad story, don’t you think?

Yes, that’s it, that is what I should have said to her.

I didn’t wake up until like 9AM today – didn’t get in to work until around 10:30 or so.  Today still being Monday for me, even though I’m technically 26 minutes into Tuesday.  The #2 guy in my department quit today.  Two weeks ago, the #1 guy from the other big department on the floor quit, and last week his #2 guy quit.  It’s kind of weird at work right now and I should probably be catching some Zs so that I can be (relatively) on time for work tomorrow (today):  I don’t know what time, but the owner will be making an appearance to (theoretically) talk to us about what’s going on.  Our department had a non-top-management meeting to discuss things and air our gripes.  I mostly kept my mouth shut (with the exception of a few unavoidable snide comments) and said that I’m really only interested in more money when they asked me what I thought about the situation.  The next few days/weeks should be interesting, to say the least.

It’s still the summer as far as I’m concerned, which means leisurely working on summer research projects and enjoying the fact that work isn’t busy as sh*t right now.  Things will pick back up in September, and I’d much rather get stressed when things get stressful.  A lot of people are pretty stressed out and worried right now, but for whatever reason, I’m not.  I kind of feel lazy – that I should be freaking out and doing something to secure my future, but it’s just not happening.  Oh well, we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

I spent most of my free evenings last week shopping for a seersucker suit (or a linen suit) for Saturday’s wedding, but returned each night empty-handed.  Too bad.  I ended up wearing my light khaki suit to the wedding, which worked out fine.  I looked relatively sharp and was happy with that.  It was a lovely wedding and I had quite a bit of fun.

Sunday morning, Scott made it to my house by 5:45 so that we could be on the road at 6 to meet a group from the forum at 8AM in the Catskills.  This was particularly impressive, as Scott and I had both been up until around 1:30 that morning (separately).  Scott was partying with Brian and a few chicks and I was reading.

We made it to Woodland Valley Campground on time (which was impressive because my car’s GPS wasn’t working), shuttled over to the Slide Mountain Parking Area, and headed up Slide Mountain (the highest in the Catskills) via the Step Trail.  Slide is a pretty popular destination and taking this route up meant we didn’t see anyone else until it intersected with the main trail.  I’ve been up Slide a few times, and this was by far the most beautiful route so far.  We then went over Cornell and Wittenberg mountains and ended back at Woodland Valley (and were shuttled back to my car at Slide PA).  Afterward, several of us went to dinner at a restaurant called Peekamoose on Route 28.  I thoroughly enjoyed my $13 hamburger and $8 brownie.

There were about 8 of us in the group and we moved much slower than Scott and I usually do, but it was an extremely pleasurable hike.  We bagged lots and lots of views and hung out with some really cool and knowledgeable people.  I was pretty psyched to hang out with Heather Rolland and her husband Tom – Heather and I have become buddies via facebook, but haven’t had a chance to hike together yet.  Because the pace was so relaxed and good conversation abounded, I hardly even noticed that we were climbing mountains.  Sure, I was sweating, but I wasn’t breathing particularly hard, nor was I wicked exhausted when we finished.  My legs were a bit tired today, but no big deal – it was a 9 mile hike, after all.

Tack three more mountains onto my grid list and I’m now 81/420 (8 for July).  Holy shiznit – I’ve done 81 climbs of the 35 highest mountains in the Catskills!  And that doesn’t count the 5 or more mountains I’ve climbed twice in the same month (the grid is each of the 35 peaks in each of the 12 months – 35×12=420).

So yeah:  busy weekend.  I’ll talk to you more during the week, dear reader; it’s off to catch those Zs for me now.

Via: Online Nursing Programs

On the ride up to RI at the beginning of my MINIs on Top trip, I popped into my CD player a series of CDs my friend Jason loaned to me two or three years ago:  it was a talk by Eckhart Tolle called The Flowering of Human Consciousness.  It was pretty good – both for the content and because it took my mind away from the traffic of the drive.

For my trip this past weekend, I bought Tolle’s first book The Power of Now on CD to listen to on the longer sections of the drive.  I got through about half of it and am looking forward to another long drive as an opportunity to finish it.

I’m not really one for books-on-tape (I prefer paper), but I don’t think I’d read Tolle’s book even if I bought it – or I’d probably put it down halfway through.  But Tolle has an interesting enough voice (he speaks the Queen’s English with a German accent), and I find this kind of material to be better transmitted through the spoken word than in print.

Tolle’s main thesis isn’t all that different (and, to his credit, he admits as much) from what various spiritual teachers have been saying for pretty much millennia:  that all we have is this moment – there is no past and no future, and thus no point in spending time living in either.  That we must be completely present in the now in order to live a complete and fulfilling life.

He talks about transcendence and enlightenment as well, but these are relatively foreign concepts to me and while they seem nice to think about as ideals, they’re not part of my everyday life.  I dig the fact that he brings an element of everyday life to his spiritual teachings.

I’m not going to go all starry-eyed for the guy, but I can get with many parts of what he says.  I think I most identify when he relates things to zen and yogic teachings.

Anyway, listening to this was an excellent set-up for my vacation:  it reminded me to stay in the moment.  I did so as much as possible and doing so played an integral role in the fulfillment I received while I was in the woods.

I have plenty more to say on this topic, but I think that’s enough for now.

The last five days passed like a dream.  I was really hoping for some kind of spiritual experience or battery recharge or something when I headed off to the woods last Wednesday.  And I got it.  Well, I got something.  Not entirely what I thought it would be, but something nonetheless.

I’ve been looking forward to spending a few days in the woods, hiking and camping, for the last few months (ever since just before the busy season started).  The last couple of weeks have been melancholy and frantic – in that rushing-to-do-everything-and-not-getting-anything-done kind of way.  I was hoping to walk out of the woods with a life-plan for the next few months laid out in my head.  What happened instead was that I waked out of the woods with a calmer and more peaceful mind, which is therefore more able to put together a life-plan for the next few months . . . maybe sometime this week – I’m really not all that worried about it right now.

So here’s a quick run-down before I head off to bed:

I left my house Wednesday morning and met my buddy SoloJoe Whalen at the Sloatsburg rest stop on 87N (about fifteen minutes or so from my house).  We then caravanned up to The Mountaineer in Keene Valley NY, so that Joe could pick up an air mattress and some other supplies.  We stopped briefly at a cabin called Random Scoots in Keene NY to visit with a couple of friends from the ADKHP forum.  Then we boogied back to the Northway, south one exit, and over to the Upper Works parking area.  The sun was just going down as we got there and we had decent light for the first mile or two.  Around 4.5 miles in (it was dark by this time), we bumped into the monument to the man for which the river we were following (Calamity Brook) got its name (his death was a calamity).  The monument was, however, a side trail, so after snapping a few photos, we booked it back onto the trail, happy in the knowledge that we only had to carry our heavy packs another .4 miles before we started passing lean-tos at which we might sleep.

Well, about two miles later, we hit a sign that read “High Water Bridge” – one which we found familiar.  We put our packs down, wiped the sweat off our faces and looked at each other in perplexity.  I pulled out my iPhone (upon which I was tracking our progress via my GPS app) and pronounced us to have backtracked.  We then said the F word a lot.  And then some more.  I laughed quite a bit at our predicament, as it meant we still had at least another three miles to walk that night and we were already exhausted from carrying those heavy packs.

By the way, when I say “it was dark”, I don’t mean the kind of dark you’re probably used to.  I mean the kind of dark wherein there is no visible light ANYWHERE.  If we switched off our headlamps, we could not see each other standing only a few feet away.  Starlight, yes.  Moonlight, not this evening.

Anyway, we finally made it into a lean-to close to 1AM, scaring the couple within it half to death.  Joe’s got great people skills, though, so he smoothed everything over pretty quickly.  I told them that we were bears, but they didn’t believe me.  Probably Joe with the whole talking-thing.  Joe and I decided not to eat, as that would prolong the already lengthy time we’d be keeping the nice couple awake.  Night comes early in the Adirondacks – about 9PM this season – so even if they had plenty of steamy sex in the lean-to before we arrived, they still must have been asleep for a couple of hours.  As we lay our heads down to rest, I could not, however, resist muttering to Joe “don’t make any moves on that guy, ok?  We just met and you hardly know him.”  I’m sure that was good for an extra couple of minutes of awake-time for the dude.

lolz

We woke up around 6AM on Thursday, had breakfast and were on the trail by 8:30AM.  The lean-to we stayed at was the third one we poked our heads into, and the only one not full.  As such, it was also .4 miles farther away from the trail upon which we would start our march.  It was kind of a long day.  Not in a bad way, but in terms of hours.  We hiked for around 10 hours, returning to the lean-to just before 7PM and covering probably between 12 and 15 miles.  We climbed Gray Peak and Mount Redfield (both “bushwhacks”), putting me at 9/46 for the Adirondack High Peaks and Joe at some ridiculous number beyond my meager 9.  I put ‘bushwhacks’ in quotes back there because the trailless peaks of the Adirondacks have very clear trails on them, but they’re just not marked with blazes or signage.  The bushwhacks in the Catskills are much tougher in a navigational sense, though I can’t imagine trying to get through the growth on the sides of the mountains in the Adirondacks – it’s wicked thick.

On the hike, Joe and I discussed literature, relationships, philosophy and other things sublime.  Come to think of it, I don’t think I said ‘boobs’ more than once or twice.

When we got back to the lean-to, we had something to eat while Joe packed his pack and got ready for the five-mile hump out of the woods.  I have no idea how that sonofabitch made it – I was completely exhausted.  But he did.  And then he drove 5.5 hours back to NJ, packed his stuff and was on a plane from Philly to Colorado by 8:30PM on Friday night.  Joe’s out there now, bagging 14,000 foot peaks.

I had the evening and the lean-to to myself, and I made good use of my time.  By which I mean, I walked down to the beach of the Flowed Lands reservoir (or whatever kind of body of water it is) and rinsed myself off in the cold mountain water.  I also rinsed out my shirt and socks and pumped some more drinking water from the spring.  I didn’t have a computer, so I couldn’t blog, but I made some notes in a notebook and read some of Haruki Murakami‘s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (thanks, Sara, for loaning it to me – it only got a little wet on the hump out of the woods and none of the pages are currently sticking together), which I am currently enjoying immensely.

I went to bed early Thursday night – maybe 10:30 or so – both out of pure exhaustion and lack of stuff to do when it’s black as pitch outside of the lean-to door (which is really the whole front of the place).

I woke up early on Friday morning, said “fuck-it” and dozed for a few hours.  I finally got moving around 10 or 10:30AM, just as the first raindrops began to patter on the lean-to roof.  I made and ate breakfast and arranged my gear so as to minimize the possibility of anything getting wet besides my raingear and my pack’s rain cover.  Then I humped the 5 miles back out of the woods to my car.  In the rain.  And when I say “rain”, I’m talking mountain lions and timber wolves.  It was effin pouring.  The trail wasn’t so much a trail as it was a series of rock-tops upon which to step, and small streams in which one might step without fear of the water coming above the tops of one’s boots.

Not that it mattered in any case; my boots were soaked by the time I got to the car.  I had on these goretex waterproof socks, though, which kept my feet and socks dry, despite the fact that my boots were soaked through.  I couldn’t believe how heavy my boots were when I took them off.  Nor could I believe that the next thing on my plate was to get down to the Cats to meet Scott and hump around all night and day in the woods in those heavy wet boots.

By the way, the hump out of the Adirondacks was simply splendid.  Even though it was raining, I had a great time.  The weather was warm enough that it really didn’t matter if I got all wet (not that I did – I was wearing raingear).  I kept a steady pace and it seemed by that point that my backpacking muscles had figured out what they were doing and gotten stretched out – they were not nearly as sore and painful as they were on Wednesday night.  On that hike, I thought about various hiking-related things, but mostly just enjoyed myself and my vacation.

I got to the car and headed down to the Cats to meet Scott.  Well, actually, I headed back north to Keene to get gas (should have done that Wednesday afternoon), and then south to the Catskills.  I toweled out my boots as best I could and put them in the passenger side footwell, under a blast of hot air.  My wet socks and shirt went on the dashboard, to be warmed and dried by the defogger.  Which created some fog, but not too much.

Believe it or not, by the time I got to the Cats, my socks and shirt were dry, and my boots were barely damp.  It took quite a bit of maneuvering on the drive to achieve this, but I’m glad I did.

I met Scott at the Alder Lake parking area at around 9:50PM on Friday night and we humped the 2.25 miles in to the Beaver Meadow Lean-to.  This night hike also involved some backtracking, though probably only about .5 miles-worth.  I wonder if there’s a patch for night-hike backtracking miles.

We hit the lean-to around midnight and ate, then slept in on Saturday morning and hiked a rather lazy six miles or so along Mill Brook Ridge, bagging the high point and the high point of Woodpecker Ridge (a quick bushwhack), while talking of recent events and things sublime.  That puts us at 47/102 for the Catskill Hundred Highest.

We then stopped back at the lean-to, gathered our heavy stuff and humped back out to our cars.

When we got home, I took a nice long hot shower and went to Steve’s Sizzlin’ for a big steak, then swung by Scott’s house to hang out for a bit.

Today was a lazy day, but I got all my errands run.  It was an excellent weekend and I’m currently walking the earth with a deep sense of peace in the background.  I’m pretty ok with going back to work in the morning, which means it was a successful vacation.

=)

Ok, I’m gone until Sunday.  I’m headed up to the Adirondacks Wednesday morning; I should get there early afternoon.  The plan is to park at Upper Works (a smidge to the east of Henderson Lake) and hike the 5-ish miles in to a lean-to at Flowed Lands (between Lake Colden and Livingston Pond.  If I arrive early enough on Wednesday, I’ll run up and down Mount Marshall (4360′ – maybe 4 or so miles round trip).

On Thursday, I hope to wake up early and climb Cliff Mountain (3944′), Mt. Redfield (4606′), Gray Peak (4840′), possibly Mt. Marcy (5344′ and the highest peak in the ‘dacks), and Mt. Skylight (4926′).  I may end up skipping Marcy and saving that for a traverse of the Great Range, similar to SoloJoe’s Mammoth Traverse from back in May.

Allen Mountain (4347′) is in that neighborhood, but it’s a long, long bushwhack away; I may try for that on Friday, or just bag Mount Colden (4715′) and boogie on back to the car.  It’s supposed to rain on Friday anyway.

I hope to be either back to the car or heading out from the lean-to between 4 and 6PM on Friday so that I can make it to the Catskills before dark.  I’ll hike into a lean-to (I’ll figure out which one sometime on Friday) and get my ass to sleep.  Scott will meet me on Saturday morning and we’ll bag a couple of CHH and/or grid peaks during the day on Saturday and head home.

Here’s the general area where I’ll be in the Adirondacks:

View Larger Map

Here’s another one from the infographics people – I suppose I should have seen this coming:

[Source: Online
PhD]

I’m taking a couple of vacation days – Wednesday to Friday.  I’ll be up in the Adirondacks, bagging peaks.  I leave Wednesday morning and will hopefully be able to climb a mountain that afternoon.  I’ll be staying at the lean-tos at Flowed Lands.  Feel free to send me a fax.

Thursday and Friday will be big peakbagging days for me – hopefully I’ll get four or five mountains climbed on Thursday and two or three on Friday.  Then it’s hike back out of the woods (about 5 miles or so) and into my car for a quick drive down to the Catskills, where I’ll crash at a lean-to until Scott wakes me up Saturday morning and we’ll bag a couple of CHH peaks.

More detailed itinerary to follow, once Scott & I figure out where we’re meeting.  I hope.

In case this is my last post until Sunday night (which will inevitably be a LONG one), take care, dear reader.  Enjoy your week and don’t stress too much.

Heather Rolland, if you’re reading this and haven’t already done so, please check out the blogs of my friends Lauren Flax and Jennifer Wesner.  They’re relatively dissimilar and make for wonderful daily (more-or-less) reading for me.

Jen, I still owe you an email; I will provide that tomorrow during the day or in the evening.  Lauren, I think I’ve done a decent enough job of avoiding lascivious and inappropriate comments on your facebook statuses for the last week or so; likewise, I will provide those tomorrow during the day or in the evening.

Please do not be fooled, dear reader:  linqs do not love make (though it sure is fun to shout-out one’s friends via one’s own cozy little corner of the interwebz).

Adieu.  For now.

Scraped from here, but discovered at WinterWarlock‘s facebook page:

The Men Who Don’t Fit In
by Robert W. Service

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
 A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
 And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
 And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
 And they don’t know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
 They are strong and brave and true;
But they’re always tired of the things that are,
 And they want the strange and new.
They say: “Could I find my proper groove,
 What a deep mark I would make!”
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
 Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
 With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones
 Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
 Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that’s dead,
 In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
 He has just done things by half.
Life’s been a jolly good joke on him,
 And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
 He was never meant to win;
He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone;
 He’s a man who won’t fit in.

I think I might just go ahead and memorize this one: it definitely brought a swell to my heart and a tear to my eye.

So I’m still in a funk.  At least, I think I am.  Maybe I’m just exhausted from the weekend and today’s heat.  I got into my car at 17:30 today and the temperature gauge said 109.  The car was, however, sitting in full sun in the parking lot all day, and it quickly cooled to a balmy 104 as I drove home.  What a crappy day to be a smoker.  50-60 degrees in the office, 100-something outside.  Making the trips between the two temperatures was, to say the least, unpleasant.

I much prefer to blog when I’m in a happy mood and have fun things to talk about – how life is a bowl of cherries and all that shiz.  But someone (read:  sister Katie) has been giving me crap on facebook about not posting as often and/or posting infographics, so that’s why I’m writing now.

I can’t really say I don’t like it, but I just don’t have much to talk about.

This was, however, a good weekend:  Scott and I climbed Fir Mountain on Saturday and then Rocky and Lone Mountains on Monday.  Those were Scott’s last three mountains for the Catskill 3500 Club.  Congratulations, brother!

All three mountains were bushwhacks, and the last two were a 10-mile hike.  I’m pretty proud of Scott’s accomplishment.

Sunday was an off-day for hiking, so I just lazed about and got the usual errands done.  I finished Heather Rolland’s first novel Finders, Seekers, Losers, Keepers and started on her second one Honey Melon Fudge.  Book review(s) to follow shortly.  It’s been really cool to be able to correspond (via facebook) with the author of the book I’m currently reading.  =)

That’s it for now.  Work is slow as sh*t and I have pretty much ZERO motivation.  Maybe it’s the heat.  Maybe it’s dehydration.  Tomorrow will be a better day (not that today wasn’t a good day).  See you then.

Via: Medical Coding Certification

This’ll be short, because I have to go to bed in order to wake up early tomorrow morning.  Srsly.

Scott and I hiked Fir Mountain yesterday, and we’ll be hiking Lone and Rocky tomorrow (er, today).  Lone and Rocky are Scott’s last two mountains for the Catskill 3500 Club.  Here’s a link to the EveryTrail map of yesterday’s hike, and another link to the TR I filed in the forum.

I think my melancholia is slowly dissipating – getting some exercise yesterday definitely helped.  After hiking, Scott stopped by his sister’s barbecue and I headed over to my brother’s place to walk Clyde (his dog).  Then Scott and I met back up and had dinner at PF Chang’s.  Scott shared his tofu-and-styrofoam appetizer with me, and I enjoyed my Mongolian Beef People entree.  I spent some time practicing ‘mindful eating’ (you know, where you actually pay attention to what you’re doing, instead of simply inhaling fuel for the love machine).  That was really nice.  Hunger truly is the best sauce.  Though I suppose that truism isn’t all that applicable in this case, because the sauces at PF Chang’s are pretty good by themselves.

After that, we stopped by a barbecue at the home of one of Scott’s friends from high school.  Though I was certainly glad that the words ‘law school’ and ‘mensa’ were not brought up in the conversation, I didn’t feel all that out of place.  I mean, I know how to have conversations with strangers at parties.  Once upon a time, I would have felt like some sort of nerd or outcast when rubbing elbows with the ilk of this particular crowd.  Last night I didn’t, which was a good reminder to me that pretty much anytime I’m uncomfortable in a social situation, that discomfort comes from within me – not from without.

Today I slept in, did my laundry, washed the car and downloaded two Daft Punk albums.  Discovery is ok, but it doesn’t really have what I’m looking for – I think most of the tracks are either ripe for a remix or are begging for a phatty bass line to kick them up.  Alive 2007 is phenomenal.  It will be playing in my car (loudly) for the foreseeable future.

I’ve been feeling pretty melancholy lately.  I’m not really sure why that is – nothing’s really changed; things are still going well.  I suppose it’s related to my general malaise resulting from the end of the busy season at work.  Work is slow now, so I don’t really have a lot to do while I’m there.  I’ve mostly been cleaning up my Outlook and answering a few questions here and there from people.  I’m not complaining – I’m happy with the break from 12-16 hour days.

But I’m feeling directionless.  Rudderless, if you will.  I don’t so much mind drifting, but right now I feel as though I’m adrift without the proper supplies.  Oh, I have things to read and plenty of food and whatnot, but this seems like a time when I should be rowing – there’s no wind blowing.

But I don’t know in what direction to start heading:  there aren’t any islands nearby and I don’t particularly trust any of the mirages on the horizon that promise dry land.  Dryland’s a myth.

Climbing those 29 mountains in the Catskills this winter was a good direction for me to have, but I don’t know that that trick will work twice.  The next move is the Adirondack 46, but right now I’m waiting to hike Scott’s final 3 of the Catskill 35.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to get that done this weekend and then I can continue my ADK list in earnest.

Still, I don’t think that’s a panacea.

I’m still procrastinating putting together a new inventory/priorities list – mostly because I’ve been over these things a million times in my head already.  I know that things will become a bit more lucid once they’re on paper, but I don’t trust that I’ll find an answer there.

It’s a total chicken/egg thing with me right now:  I’d put finding a mate at the top of the list, which means that I need to move.  Sure, seeing Brooklyn/Manhattan as the promised land of dateable chicks is probably fantasy on my part, but that’s the only thread I can grasp at the moment.  It makes no sense, however, for me to simply up-and-move to Brooklyn, though:  while I might technically be able to handle it financially, the commute from NYC to NJ every day for work is stupid and I’d be spread unnecessarily thin moneywise.  I have enough financial insecurity already that I don’t need to add that to the mix.

So dateable chicks = chicken and money = egg.  Or vice-versa:  however you want to look at it, dear reader – you always have options on this website.

So the money thing means looking at my job situation.  Sure I’ve been getting regular bonuses and raises since I’ve been working at my current occupation, but the raises have basically been 3-5% cost-of-living salary increases (which are effectively not an increase at all about halfway through the new year) and the bonuses have been barely enough to cover taxes and some extra loot for xmas shopping at the end of the year.  I need to be making about 50% more than I am right now, and those kind of raises really don’t happen.

So new job?  Yeah, I’m thinking about it.  “…the devil you know…” is, of course, not too far from these thoughts.

Maybe, now that I think about it, the chicken/egg analogy isn’t all that correct:  it only really goes one way, insofar as finding a mate won’t lead to more money.

Crap.  So it all comes down to finances.

F*ckit:  I’m going to bed.  I’ll be hiking this weekend and taking care of my brother’s dog Clyde.

Yeah, that’s the other thing I wanted to talk about:  while I should have more free time as a result of work not being so busy, I don’t.  The weeks fill right up, and when people talk about making plans for a couple of weeks or a month down the road, I balk.  I wonder where/when I’ll find any ‘me’ time.  I’ve been alone for long enough that I enjoy my solitude.  This is not inconsistent with finding a mate, by the way.  I’m not looking for someone to help me fill my free time – I’m looking for a mate in every sense of the word.  A meaningful relationship that’s worth my time.  Because time is my most precious commodity.

My computer is wicked slow.  This, in and of itself is enough to drive me nuts.  However, it’s also beginning to seriously inhibit my pr0n consumption – and that’s a problem.  My home computer, I mean:  the one at work is mens-a-mens speed-wise.

I’ve got about half a dozen different post topics running through my mind, any of which would be good for this evening, but I just can’t seem to pick one.  This is indicative/illustrative of my overall indecisiveness in life right now:  I have many options, but am having trouble choosing an initial direction.  “The longest journey begins with but a single step,” as the poet once said, and I’m shuffling around – not even doing circles or shuffling to a rhythm or beat, just getting my shoes dirty and generally being afraid of stubbing my toes.  And it’s pissing me off because I’m cognizant of it while I’m doing it.  And that’s not like me – the shuffling, not the cognizance (that’s very like me).

Here are some of the things I’d like to tell you about, dear reader:

• People telling me Laila Jo is “my cat”
• Updated inventory/priorities list
• Zen in my life
• Zen and the art of chili (a recipe for Emily)
• Impressions/vibes regarding MOT 2010 and my “friends from the internet”
• On being a night owl
• My overall frustrations with NNJ and the lack of date-able chicks herein
• My sex/relationship ideal
• The current/general state of my spiritual progress
  
• The Eckhart Tolle CDs I listened to on the way to and from RI

Any of these topics should be good for at least 500 words from yours truly, dear reader, but I can’t seem to stop dissembling.

In an attempt to do so this evening, I did my laundry and cleaned my apartment.  Last week I bought a new air conditioner, thinking that my old one wasn’t kicking out any cold air any more.  The new one wasn’t doing a very good job of cooling my apartment, and I realized that it’s producing approximately the same amount of cold air as the old one – which made me reconsider my diagnosis of the old one as broken.  In any case, I now have two air conditioning units going in my windows (right next to one another) and they seem to be getting the job done.  (My windows are small, so the units necessarily are as well.)  Can’t wait to see my effin PSE&G bill next month.

So I swept, vacuumed, did the dishes, re-installed the old AC and did a pretty thorough cleansing of my apartment with some white sage.  Oh, and I did my laundry as well.  I really need to buy some new sheets:  these autumn-leaves flannel ones really don’t give off a particularly summery vibe.

After cleaning and clearing, I did some standing meditation for a few minutes in an attempt to enjoy and further smooth out the feng shui of my living space.  Somewhere in all that, I also recorded the following minute of zen:

It took me several months to hang my wind chime, but tonight I was very glad I (eventually) did.

My desk is still a mess.  It’s totally fucking up the energy of both my apartment and me.  I’ve been meaning to clean it for several months now, but just haven’t.  On the upside, procrastinating cleaning my desk has led to many other projects getting done.

So whatever.  I’ll change when the pain gets great enough.  Let me know if any of the above (bulleted) topics appeal to you, dear reader:  that might help me out with this whole shit-or-get-off-the-pot thing.

Jesus, I need to learn how to upload photos to this damned site.  Not that I have any particularly phenomenal photos.  Other than this one, of course. Here’s the link to the full album from this weekend.  On the docket was MINIs on Top – a MINI Cooper rally up in New Hampshire.  After doing a whole bunch of cool shite, we drove the 8-mile auto road to the summit of Mount Washington, the highest peak in New England.  And maybe more, but I don’t feel like checking right now.

It was a pretty awesome time.  We didn’t see shit from the top of the mountain – the summit was covered in a cloud – but I hardly noticed, the company was that good.

I left work a bit early on Thursday and headed up to meet Brandy, Don and Alora at the Narragansett Cafe in Jamestown RI.  We watched The Shiny Lapel Trio play some kick-ass swing and then headed back to crash at Brandy and Don’s house so that we could leave early to meet up with a bunch of other MINIs in Boston for the drive up to NH.

Friday was a travel day – smurf, every day was a travel day – and I’d love to give you the run-down of every single road we took and place at which we stopped, but I really wasn’t paying much attention to any of that.  Alora was my navigator and Don was Brandy’s.  Don did most of the heavy lifting navigation-wise via Brandy’s iPad and I just detached my brain and followed.  It was awesome.

The roads up in NH were absolutely gorgeous – we were in the White Mountains and there were no cops around at all.  Everywhere we went, there were other MINIs (over 200 were at the rally), so no matter where the road took us, we were almost always in a caravan-of-sorts.  It was so much fun to play on those roads.  Brandy is an excellent driver and at times I almost had trouble keeping up with her.  It was wicked cool to have my A-game in full effect.

Friday night we did the trivia thing with the folks from the rally and our team (“The Candy Van”) came in third place.  In second place was “The Beach-Goers” – the other foursome at our table, with whom we colluded heavily.

Saturday we all converged at some big ski-mountain parking lot and checked out each others’ MINIs.  Then we had a few hours to kill, so we did one of the 80-something mile loops through the mountains.  Afterward, we all met at the base of Mt. Washington for dinner, raffles, prizes and other stuff.  Then we lined up and headed up the mountain.

This year’s weather was the worst it’s been in the 8 (or so) years of MOT.  The auto road closes at 6:30, but it was kept open for our group.  By the time we got to the top of the twisty-windy road, visibility was nil and the wind was blowing hard.  We had hot chocolate in the summit building and headed back down – well after the rest of the group had already left.  Brandy’s car was first, followed by mine, and finally Sam and Kylie’s – a couple from our table the prior night.  One of the park rangers followed us down.  We had to stay in first gear for almost the whole way down and even had to stop a couple of times to cool off our brakes, the road is that steep.  Visibility was about 15 feet and Brandy did a kick-ass job of being lead dog on the way down.

The only p’diddle I got the whole weekend was my own car when I recognized that one of my headlamps was out (which I quickly remedied by slapping it at one of the brake-cooling stops).  Other than that, Alora kicked my ass at that game.  =/

We went straight from the mountain to the cocktail/hors d’oeuvres hour (nothing left but crumbs) and watched a couple of slide shows from prior years.  We were all pretty exhausted (adrenaline was high for a good couple of hours on that drive), and soon headed back to bed.  Sunday was a leisurely drive (the long way, of course) to Boston to drop Don off for his flight to Pensacola, and then Brandy, Alora and I had salads and dessert in Providence RI before we split up to head home.

I met up with Scott at the diner on the way back and flopped into bed with enough time to make it to work good and late on Monday.

And I’m well on my way to being 2/2 this week on the work/late thing, so I’ll stop here.  I have plenty more to say, as I’m sure you can guess, but I’ll save it for future posts.

Thank you, Brandy, Don and Alora for a wonderful weekend.  Brandy especially, for setting the whole thing up and just being fantabulous in general.  =)

One of my two remaining (chemical) addictions:

Via: Homeowners Insurance

Here’s a truly heartwarming story about the bond formed between a little 5-year-old girl and some construction workers that makes you believe that we CAN make a difference when we give a child the gift of our time.

A young family moved into a house next door to a vacant lot. One day a construction crew turned up to start building a house on the empty lot.  The young family’s 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in all the activity going on next door and spent much of each day observing the workers.

Eventually the construction crew, all of them gems-in-the-rough, more or less adopted her as a kind of project mascot. They chatted with her, let her sit with them while they had coffee and lunch breaks, and gave her little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important.   At the end of the first week they even presented her with a pay envelope containing a couple of dollars.

The little girl took this home to her mother who said all the appropriate words of admiration and suggested that they take the two dollar “pay” she had received to the bank the next day to start a savings account.

When they got to the bank, the teller was equally impressed and asked the little girl how she had come by her very own pay check at such a young age. The  little girl proudly replied, “I worked last week with the crew building the house next door to us.

My goodness gracious,” said the teller, “and will you be working on the house again this week, too?”

The little girl replied, “I will if those assholes at Home Depot ever deliver the fucking sheet rock…”

Stories like this just bring a tear to your eye.

This was a helluva weekend, dear reader. 

Friday night I blew everyone off and read 150 pages of a new book.  Saturday morning, Scott and I hiked Doubletop and Graham.  Graham did not, this time, take a chunk out of my eye.  Yay.  Here’s the link to the full trip report on this site (which is, actually, the last post).

After the hike, we got home in time to shower and meet up with Jeanne and Heather and head down to Brighton Bar in Long Branch NJ to see four metal bands.  The headliners were Black Water Rising and Cycle of Pain.  Both played excellent shows, as did the two bands before them (KillCode & Diablo Royale). 

I danced around and headbanged like a maniac for all four bands – I must have sweat through my shirt at least three times.  I can’t believe I’m in good enough shape to do that after Saturday’s hike.  I spent as much time eating and drinking water as I could this weekend, and although I stayed tolerably/well hydrated, I don’t think I consumed anywhere near the number of calories I burned on Saturday.

Sunday was spent on the golf course (Apple Greens near New Paltz NY) with John, Katie and Dad.  Afterward we returned to mom & dad’s house for zuppa di pesce a la mom.  I got home around 8PM and promptly fell asleep.  Woke up around 11PM to turn the lights off, shower off the various chemicals sticking to me from the day, and go back to sleep.  I did not do laundry, bake a cake or clean ANY of my apartment this weekend.

Next weekend I’ll be at Minis On Top with a few friends from the internet (Brandy, Alora and Don the un-google-able), and I’m wicked glad that (fingers crossed) this week will be slow at work so that I can catch up on my prep for that and other general interwebz stuff.

I need to plan a retreat so that I can gather my thoughts (no jokes, please) before the summer is over.  I can’t believe how quickly 2010 is passing.

Ok, it was a busy weekend, but here’s the full trip report from Saturday’s hike:

Doubletop & Graham 6/19/2010

> Subject: Christmas This Year
> Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:25:56 -0400
> From: [Ted's Work Email]
> To: [Mom's Work Email]
>
>
>
> Dear Mom,
>
>
>
> If you’re planning to get me socks for Christmas this year, that will be fine. I love it when you get me socks. If you end up looking for something besides or in addition to socks, please consider a spotted hyena:
>
>
>
> <http://www.pieterhugo.com/selected-work/the-hyena-other-men/3.jpg/>
>
>
>
> They look really sweet and I’m sure would love to be rescued from Africa. (They live in a fucking desert.)
>
>
>
> Love,
>
>
>
> Ted

My blood type is B+ – do you know what yours is?

Source: Phlebotomist

Ok, we’re live at The Red Fish (158 Bleecker St NY NY) – for those of you who speak French, that’s “Le Poisson Rouge”. Greg “Cosmo D” Heffernan of Smoothe Moose Lanoratories & Recordings fame is kicking it on his cello & Mac and a couple of DJs are mixing shit up on their Macs and . . . er, mix machines. The sound is overall pretty mixed.

I wish I had a real keyboard, but this is the price I must pay to be this effin mobile.

Greg’s off now and the DJs are getting more beers; they lef the volume up on a pretty decent beat. Now they’re back and messing around again. Every minute or two I think I can hear Justice or Daft Punk – yeah, that’s definitely DP’s “Human After All” they’re playing around with now. These guys should continue to play other people’s music.

There are four Macs on the table with sundry other equipment. I really gotta think one Mac could get the job done just as well.

Holy shit, did Daft Punk know what the fuck they were doing!

Two turntables and a Macintosh: I think the turnies are just there to support the Mac stand. And I don’t mean emotionally.

Dear reader, below please find the full trip report from Saturday’s night-hike of Eagle & Balsam Mountains.  It was fun.  <3 Ted

Eagle & Balsam 6/12/2010

Before you ask, yes:  I’m blogging from the office.  On a Sunday.  As I’m sure I’ve mentioned several times in the last couple of weeks, work is busy as sh*t and my clients are in Taiwan, which means that their Monday morning starts on my Sunday night.  By stopping by the office for a couple/few hours on Sunday afternoon/evening, I’m able to stay ahead of them and provide good client service.  It’s better than blowing sailors down by the docks or truckers in truck stop toilets. 

This weekend has been pretty fly.  I’ve got this kind of relaxed bubble of serenity all around me and I feel like the yogis say:  that I’m a being of light.  I don’t really go in too much for all the ‘eternal soul’ thing, but I feel right now as though my skin is just a layer of the overall bundle of energy that is me – and it’s currently not the outside layer.

Lots of exercise this weekend.  I left work on Friday around 3:30, got a haircut and stopped by my sister’s office to chill with her for a bit.  Then I went home and ran a couple of miles, in the hopes that it would get rid of some of the knots of stress that were pervading my very being.  I swear, I could hear the stress in my voice even when I wasn’t at work or talking about anything even remotely work-related.  Not stressed like anxiety-stressed, just that kind of wound tight intensity – you know, like in the movies where the guy is all yelling in a normal conversation?  The tone of my voice was off, and everything was black and white:  a decision to be made.  Situation:  you’re sad about something.  Decision:  get over it.  Situation:  you have a bunch of errands to do.  Decision:  why are you telling me about them?  Get moving.

Please note the ‘you’s in those last couple of sentences, dear reader – they indicate that my intensity was spilling out beyond my own head, which I didn’t like very much and which is why I went for a run on Friday afternoon. 

I felt pretty good afterward.  I don’t think the knots in my shoulders will ever go away (matter of fact, I’m kind of afraid my arms will fall off if they do), but at least some of the plaque got cleared out of my capillaries - especially the ones in my brain.

I took care of my regular Friday-evening things and had just about finished eating my dinner around 11:30 when Scott texted me “want to go hiking?”  I thought about my response for a moment, when the next text came through:  “I mean now.”  And I was like “I know what you mean.  I’m thinking.” 

So Scott and I left around midnight to head up to the Catskills and climb the mountains we had on the docket for Saturday morning.  We hit the trail around 2:30, climbed Eagle and Balsam mountains, and were back in the car around 7:30.  The first couple of miles were straight up hill and I gotta tell you, dear reader, I ate that motherfucker up.  I’m not saying I could necessarily have run up the mountain, but damn, was I flying.  We didn’t really get a feel for how long and steep the hill was until the way back down.

Friday night was a new moon, so it was inky-black dark when we turned our headlamps off (which we did a couple of times to enjoy the scenery).  I’m talking like squid ink – it got in our eyes and everything. 

Saturday morning I took a shower and was in bed by 10AM, to wake up around 6 or 7 and swing on by my brother’s place to take his dog for a walk (he was in the Catskills for a soccer tournament).  Then I showered again (yes, I do that a lot in the summer), and headed off to my friend Tara’s birthday party at Mavi Lounge in Fairfield, where I danced the night away with some damn-fine looking women.  Even gave one of them my card (*buffs nails on lapel*) – she was wicked interesting and I hope she calls.  I’d like to have a conversation that doesn’t involve yelling directly into one anothers’ ears.  Huh.  I wonder if I got the apostrophe right on that one.  Seriously, next time I got to a club I’m bringing tin cans and string.

The DJ was meh, but there were beats to be found in most of what he was playing.  I sweat my skinny white ass off dancing and loved every minute of it. 

Today I woke up around 10:30AM – which is pretty shocking and unlike me on a true day off – and rolled on back to John’s apartment to take Clyde’s fat white pit bull ass for a long walk.  And would you look at that?  It’s 5PM and now I have to go to my parents’ house to let their dogs out and feed them.

As much as I’d love to complain about how they’re not my dogs and it’s cutting into my me-time weekend hours, I love the shit out of those fucking animals, and it’s my fault everybody has dogs in the first place.  [Note to self:  blog about why I'm too selfish to have a dog at this point in my life.]  Clyde, Diesel and Radar were all DC rescues by yours truly from back in the day.  Riggs is Katie’s crackhead dog from Jamaica (Queens) – I take no responsibility for that one.

So off I go.  (Theoretical) tutoring appointment at 9:30 this evening, and I would still like to do some apartment cleaning and bake a cake before that.

Peace out, yo.

I’m a fucken MACHINE, dear reader.  Working my ass off like it’s going out of style.  Today was 12 hours and I felt like I was leaving early.  Part of me wants to take a minute and count the number of hours I’ve been at work this week – just for shits & giggles – and part of me doesn’t want to know.

The same part of me that doesn’t want to know is the smart one, I think.  Deja vu:

Back about five years ago I was living in SE DC – Anacostia, to be specific – and working in PG County MD.  I went out to visit my friends in Annapolis – we played golf in the summer heat and I forgot to eat.  But I didn’t forget to drink.  I think I was probably legally drunk by the time I got into the car to drive out to Annapolis in the morning.  Anyway, after not eating and only drinking all day long, I left around 10 or 11PM to make the drunk drive back to DC – one which I’d done many times before.

But getting out of Annapolis at night (ok, to be honest, during the day too) was impossible for me.  I always got lost.  I’d wander around until I finally bumped into 50 West.  Once I was on that road, my body could take me home while my brain worked to keep me from falling asleep.

That night, I didn’t make it out of Annapolis.  I got pulled over at midnight by the cops and was arrested for drunk driving.  It was bad.  Lots of lights and people yelling and there was NO way I was ever going to pass the field sobriety test.

Anyway, they towed my car and gave me a ride to the police station in the front seat of a cruiser with my hands cuffed behind my back.  That’s not particularly comfortable, but they didn’t care.  (Nor should they have.)  When we got to the station, I was chained to the wall while the officer wrote up his report.

At 6AM he asked me if I wanted to take a breathalyzer.  Part of me wanted to do so because I was curious to see how far past the legal limit I STILL was.  I had a pretty high tolerance in those days – my blood was (no joke) thick with Jim Beam on a regular basis.

Thankfully, the part of me that does not now want to know how many hours I’ve worked in the past five days (I started Sunday night) did not then think it was a very smart idea to take the breathalyzer, so I refused.  They let me out an hour or two later.

This puts me in mind of Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Imp of the Perverse.  I read it when I was very young and it made quite an impression upon me.  Or rather, my level of identification with the story was what made the impression on me.

The next post (which is, technically, the previous post) is scraped from the above link.  You’re welcome to read it here or there, if you have the time to do so.

These are not my words, they are Poe’s.  I’ve scraped the below story from this site.

The Imp Of The Perverse
by
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Bibliographic Notes:  First published in the 1845 July issue of Graham’s Lady’s And Gentleman’s Magazine, and republished, in slightly revised form, in various of Poe’s other collections in later years.

In the consideration of the faculties and impulses – of the prima mobilia of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to make room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally overlooked by all the moralists who have preceded them.  In the pure arrogance of the reason, we have all overlooked it.  We have suffered its existence to escape our senses solely through want of belief – of faith; – whether it be faith in Revelation, or faith in the Kabbala.  The idea of it has never occurred to us, simply because of its seeming supererogation.  We saw no need of the impulse – for the propensity.  We could not perceive its necessity.  We could not understand, that is to say, we could not have understood, had the notion of this primum mobile ever obtruded itself; – we could not have understood in what manner it might be made to further the objects of humanity, either temporal or eternal.  It cannot be denied that phrenology, and in great measure, all metaphysicianism, have been concocted à priori.  The intellectual or logical man, rather than the understanding or observant man, set himself to imagine designs – to dictate purposes to God.  Having thus fathomed to his satisfaction, the intentions of Jehovah, out of these intentions he built his innumerable systems of mind.  In the matter of phrenology, for example, we first determined, naturally enough, that it was the design of the Deity that man should eat.  We then assigned to man an organ of alimentiveness, and this organ is the scourge with which the Deity compels man, will-I nill-I, into eating.  Secondly, having settled it to be God’s will that man should continue his species, we discovered an organ of amativeness, forthwith.  And so with combativeness, with ideality, with causality, with constructiveness, – so, in short, with every organ, whether representing a propensity, a moral sentiment, or a faculty of the pure intellect.  And in these arrangements of the principia of human action, the Spurzheimites, whether right or wrong, in part, or upon the whole, have but followed, in principle, the footsteps of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything from the preconceived destiny of man, and upon the ground of the objects of this Creator.

It would have been wiser, it would have been safer to classify, (if classify we must,) upon the basis of what man usually or occasionally did, and was always occasionally doing, rather than upon the basis of what we took it for granted the Deity intended him to do.  If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how then in his inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into being?  If we cannot understand him in his objective creatures, how then in his substantive moods and phases of creation?

Induction, à posteriori, would have brought phrenology to admit, as an innate and primitive principle of human action, a paradoxical something, which we may call perverseness, for want of a more characteristic term.  In the sense I intend, it is, in fact, a mobile without motive, a motive not motivirt.  Through its promptings we act without comprehensible object; or, if this shall be understood as a contradiction in terms, we may so far modify the proposition as to say, that through its promptings we act, for the reason that we should not.  In theory, no reason can be more unreasonable; but, in fact, there is none more strong.  With certain minds, under certain conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible.  I am not more certain that I breathe, than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is often the one unconquerable force which impels us, and alone impels us to its prosecution.  Nor will this overwhelming tendency to do wrong for the wrong’s sake, admit of analysis, or resolution into ulterior elements.  It is a radical, a primitive impulse – elementary.  It will be said, I am aware, that when we persist in acts because we feel we should not persist in them, our conduct is but a modification of that which ordinarily springs from the combativeness of phrenology.  But a glance will show the fallacy of this idea.  The phrenological combativeness has for its essence, the necessity of self-defence.  It is our safeguard against injury.  Its principle regards our well-being; and thus the desire to be well, is excited simultaneously with its development.  It follows, that the desire to be well must be excited simultaneously with any principle which shall be merely a modification of combativeness, but in the case of that something which I term perverseness, the desire to be well is not only not aroused, but a strongly antagonistical sentiment exists.

An appeal to one’s own heart is, after all, the best reply to the sophistry just noticed.  No one who trustingly consults and thoroughly questions his own soul, will be disposed to deny the entire radicalness of the propensity in question.  It is not more incomprehensible than distinctive.  There lives no man who at some period, has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire to tantalize a listener by circumlocution.  The speaker is aware that he displeases; he has every intention to please; he is usually curt, precise, and clear; the most laconic and luminous language is struggling for utterance upon his tongue; it is only with difficulty that he restrains himself from giving it flow; he dreads and deprecates the anger of him whom he addresses; yet, the thought strikes him, that by certain involutions and parentheses, this anger may be engendered.  That single thought is enough.  The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the deep regret and mortification of the speaker, and in defiance of all consequences,) is indulged.

We have a task before us which must be speedily performed.  We know that it will be ruinous to make delay.  The most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action.  We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire.  It must, it shall be undertaken to-day, and yet we put it off until to-morrow; and why?  There is no answer, except that we feel perverse, using the word with no comprehension of the principle.  To-morrow arrives, and with it a more impatient anxiety to do our duty, but with this very increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a positively fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay.  This craving gathers strength as the moments fly.  The last hour for action is at hand.  We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us, – of the definite with the indefinite – of the substance with the shadow.  But, if the contest has proceeded thus far, it is the shadow which prevails, – we struggle in vain.  The clock strikes, and is the knell of our welfare.  At the same time, it is the chanticleer-note to the ghost that has so long over-awed us.  It flies – it disappears – we are free.  The old energy returns.  We will labour now.  Alas, it is too late!

We stand upon the brink of a precipice.  We peer into the abyss – we grow sick and dizzy.  Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger.  Unaccountably we remain.  By slow degrees our sickness, and dizziness, and horror, become merged in a cloud of unnameable feeling.  By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as did the vapor from the bottle out of which arose the genius in the Arabian Nights.  But out of this our cloud upon the precipice’s edge, there grows into palpability, a shape, far more terrible than any genius, or any demon of a tale, and yet it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight of its horror.  It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height.  And this fall – this rushing annihilation – for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imagination – for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it.  And because our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore, do we the more impetuously approach it.  There is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of him, who shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a plunge.  To indulge for a moment, in any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that we cannot.  If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed.

Examine these and similar actions as we will, we shall find them resulting solely from the spirit of the Perverse.  We perpetrate them merely because we feel that we should not.  Beyond or behind this, there is no intelligible principle.  And we might, indeed, deem this perverseness a direct instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it not occasionally known to operate in furtherance of good.

I have said thus much, that in some measure I may answer your question, that I may explain to you why I am here, that I may assign to you something that shall have at least the faint aspect of a cause for my wearing these fetters, and for my tenanting this cell of the condemned.  Had I not been thus prolix, you might either have misunderstood me altogether; or with the rabble, you might have fancied me mad.  As it is, you will easily perceive that I am one of the many uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse.

It is impossible that any deed could have been wrought with a more thorough deliberation.  For weeks, for months, I pondered upon the means of the murder.  I rejected a thousand schemes, because their accomplishment involved a chance of detection.  At length, in reading some French Memoirs, I found an account of a nearly fatal illness that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the agency of a candle accidentally poisoned.  The idea struck my fancy at once.  I knew my victim’s habit of reading in bed.  I knew, too, that his apartment was narrow and ill ventilated.  But I need not vex you with impertinent details.  I need not describe the easy artifices by which I substituted, in his bed-room candlestand, a wax-light of my own making, for the one which I there found.  The next morning he was discovered dead in his bed, and the Coroner’s verdict was, ‘Death by the visitation of God’.

Having inherited his estate, all went well with me for years.  The idea of detection never once entered my brain.  Of the remains of the fatal taper, I had myself carefully disposed.  I had left no shadow of a clue by which it would be possible to convict, or even to suspect me of the crime.  It is inconceivable how rich a sentiment of satisfaction arose in my bosom as I reflected upon my absolute security.  For a very long period of time, I was accustomed to revel in this sentiment.  It afforded me more real delight than all the mere worldly advantages accruing from my sin.  But there arrived at length an epoch, from which the pleasurable feeling grew, by scarcely perceptible gradations, into a haunting and harassing thought.  It harassed because it haunted.  I could scarcely get rid of it for an instant.  It is quite a common thing to be thus annoyed with the ringing in our ears, or rather in our memories, of the burthen of some ordinary song, or some unimpressive snatches from an opera.  Nor will we be the less tormented if the song in itself be good, or the opera air meritorious.  In this manner, at last, I would perpetually catch myself pondering upon my security, and repeating, in a low, undertone, the phrase, “I am safe.”

One day, whilst sauntering along the streets, I arrested myself in the act of murmuring, half aloud, these customary syllables.  In a fit of petulance, I remodelled them thus: – “I am safe – I am safe – yes – if I be not fool enough to make open confession!”

No sooner had I spoken these words, than I felt an icy chill creep to my heart.  I had had some experience in these fits of perversity, whose nature I have been at some trouble to explain, and I remembered well, that in no instance, I had successfully resisted their attacks.  And now my own casual self-suggestion, that I might possibly be fool enough to confess the murder of which I had been guilty, confronted me, as if the very ghost of him whom I had murdered – and beckoned me on to death.

At first, I made an effort to shake off this nightmare of the soul.  I walked vigorously – faster – still faster – at length I ran.  I felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud.  Every succeeding wave of thought overwhelmed me with new terror, for, alas! I well, too well understood that, to think, in my situation, was to be lost.  I still quickened my pace.  I bounded like a madman through the crowded thoroughfares.  At length, the populace took the alarm, and pursued me.  I felt then the consummation of my fate.  Could I have torn out my tongue, I would have done it, but a rough voice resounded in my ears – a rougher grasp seized me by the shoulder.  I turned – I gasped for breath.  For a moment, I experienced all the pangs of suffocation; I became blind, and deaf, and giddy; and then, some invisible fiend, I thought, struck me with his broad palm upon the back.  The longimprisoned secret burst forth from my soul.

They say that I spoke with a distinct enunciation, but with marked emphasis, and passionate hurry, as if in dread of interruption before concluding the brief, but pregnant sentences that consigned me to the hangman, and to hell.

Having related all that was necessary for the fullest judicial conviction, I fell prostrate in a swoon.

But why shall I say more?  To-day I wear these chains, and am here!  To-morrow I shall be fetterless!  –  but where?

Mmmm…drugs.

Source: Online Colleges and Universities

Here’s the email exchange between Brian, Scott and me.  I’m mostly in the background, laughing mfao:

Brian:  Yo Ted – what’s up with the blog dogs?  I feel like I can’t get my morning started without reading some shit.  What’s up?  You been busy?

Scott:  That fool has been living at work get a newspaper read that

Brian:  Dude it’s not the same.  I have to read about how Ted’s love life sucks or how many mountains he climbed this weekend or at least a new infographic to learn about some stupid bullshit.

Scott:  Me and Scott The Fat Vegan hiked Rusk Mtn. this past Saturday it was a straight up bushwhack but we were ready for it.  It was only about 4 miles but seemed much further cause of the bushwhack part.  It was fun to watch Scotts fat ass just push through the thick pines knowing trees down and and almost breaking his neck every five feet he’s good for that.  We reached the summit around noon then headed over to East Rusk just in case it was part of the Catskill Hundred highest which it wasn’t I found out later that it was PUD (pointless up and down).  We got back to the car and headed home. 

On Sunday we took three guys from Union City out on a hike for our fresh air fund project.  We hiked about 4 miles inside palisades state park.  They only feel a couple times and made it out alive and we got back to the car right before it started pouring out.

Other than that I have been swamped at work this being the peak of the proxy season which also means no dating not that I would be on a date cause E Harmony sucks the big dirty dongus.  But if any of you want to get jiggy with it and are under a hundred pounds I’m open to that.  Well I’m off to bed morning comes early these days.

Brian:  Dude that’s hilarious.  Thanks for that.  Did you & Ted rape those Union guys in the woods?  I’m sure that’s part of the program.

Once again, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Via: Online Nursing Programs

My apologies, dear reader, if you’re arriving at this page via the ADK High Peaks Forum:  I was pressed for time this evening and can only write so much; this is the same TR from which you just jumped.  Feel free to peruse the rest of the site – you may find something you like.  At the very least, you’ll leave smarter:  that’s a guarantee.

If you’re a regular here, dear reader, feel free to jump over to this post on the forum – the comments (if any) are generally pretty entertaining and informative.

KHP Sunrise Hike 5/31/2010

Once again, no comment:

Via: Online MBA

The weekend, not the post.  I don’t have all that much in me, and this weekend took a lot out of me.

Friday evening was spent tooling around Brooklyn looking for live music with my friend Jeanne.  After about an hour or so of driving (I thought I knew where I was going), we ended up just hanging out and shooting the shiz in a bar in Park Slope.

Got home around 2:30 or so and woke up around 7 to head off into the Catskills with Scott.  We climbed West Kill mountain – which was pretty easy:  a little under 6 miles in about two hours.  Here’s the trip over on my EveryTrail page.  It was humid and buggy, but we had no complaints.  We spent some time at Campmor and EMS afterwards looking at hiking gear and whatnot.  I picked up a sternum strap for my pack and a new pair of socks for hiking.

Showered and napped for a couple of hours, and then Scott and Van stopped by and we all went to sit outside the Starbucks in Ridgewood and sip hot beverages.  I found out that Van reads this blog just about every day.  It’s pretty cool to know one’s regular readers.  You’re one of the 20, Van.  Yes, I’m talking directly to you from the interwebz via your computer screen.  Take your hand out of your pants – this isn’t that kind of site and anyway I haven’t said anything remotely sexy.  “Kent, this is God:  stop touching yourself.”

We went to the diner afterward and it was good.

I woke up around 10 or 11 on Sunday; Scott and Brian met me at my house and we all headed over to my parents’ house for a barbecue with – you guessed it, my parents – and my brother and sister and Katie’s friend (and mine) Sara.  Sara recommended that I read Haruki Murakami and Katie told me that I don’t have a chance with any of her friends because I’m all kinds of creepy.  In vino veritas.  A good time was had by all.

Sara is also a regular blog reader, and she will mention my blog, my rugged handsomeness and my endearing and irresistible wit to all of her hot friends this week.

(QJ mind trick – it works, it really does.)

I think we left my parents’ place around 8.  I don’t remember what I did after that – probably just effed around on the internet without blogging – but Scott swung by my house at 1AM so that we could head up to the Catskills for a night hike (via the Stateline Diner).

We hit the trail around 3:30AM and summited Kaaterskill High Peak around 6 or so.  The sun was supposed to come up at 5:28, but it was early, so our pics ended up being from most of the way up the mountain.  That hike was pretty easy as well – it was the fourth time I climbed KHP, but I’d never taken that route before.  This was the route that everyone else takes, but which I did not do so previously because it was (a) the route that everyone else takes and (b) longer on the map than I felt the hike needed to be.  Here’s the hike over at my EveryTrail page.

Suffice to say that I’ll probably use that route from now on.

We got home around 9 or so; I took a shower and napped from 9:30 to 11:30, whenupon I had to pick up my friend Mike and drive him to Wendy’s barbecue.  Brian followed in his car and Scott decided to get some sleep.  Wuss.

Wendy’s barbecue was excellent.  Her son Nick was there with his friend Jess (a girl), to whom I was introduced from across the deck (I was way back in the corner behind a table full of people).  A minute or two later, Wendy came around the lawn to my side of the deck and said something along the lines of “you realize that Nick is trying to hook you up with that girl, right?”  To which I confessed my total obliviousity and promised to get right on that.

I later played badminton with Nick, Jess and alternately Wendy and Tara (Nick’s sister; Wendy’s daughter).  Afterward, as we were sitting around, discussing zen and yoga and barefoot running and fitness and general philosophy of life stuff, Nick was holding Jess’s hand and talking about how this particular barbecue was a decent place for him to take her to on their second date.

Luckily, my coyness and general non-aggressive nature in the woman-realm saved my ego’s ass in this case, because although I was trading smiles and lots of nice eye contact with Jess, I wasn’t all kinds of hitting on her.  So everything went smoothly.

Wendy later expressed her surprise, saying something along the lines of “what the fuck was that?” (in regards to the Nick-me-Jess thing).  I lol-ed with her about it for a bit, and I’m sure Nick and I will have a decent laugh the next time we see each other.

Then it was Monday night and I was exhausted.  I didn’t really think about work at all this weekend, and I was/am totally cool with that.  I sent out a handful of “I’ll get back to you tomorrow” emails when I got home and racked out.

Just like I’m going to do now.

No comment.

Via:
Medical Assistant
Schools

I will NOT be one of those bloggers who blogs about why he hasn’t been blogging.  I won’t.

Not much new to report on this end, dear reader.  Work is still busy as sh*t.  I’m struggling a bit with some ego stuff, but not overmuch.  Definitely looking forward to a three-day weekend.  I don’t know how much I’ll have to work (they don’t celebrate Memorial Day in Taiwan), but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to get out into the woods and climb a mountain or two this weekend.

I have a date tonight in Nyack, which I’m looking forward to.

I don’t know:  things are pretty good.  I owe Didi an email and Emily a return phone call.

No dice on the car thing on Monday.  The Mini dealership appraised my car at $5500, and I still owe $11k on it.  I test-drove a 2007 Mini for $18.5k and was pretty much ready to buy it, but the salesman didn’t want to deal.  I’ll spare you the details, but I spent about 2 hours with him going over the same financing (and other) stuff that I explained to him in the first five minutes of our conversation.  While he was working on not getting a sale out of me, he let someone else take care of the person who showed up for an appointment with him.  I saw a wedding band on his finger and wondered how exactly he manages to feed his wife.

When we were pretty much through with the ordeal (I’d been awake for around 24 hours at that point), he asked “is there anything else I can do for you?”  To which I replied, “yes, you can get me a service manager to give me an estimate on fixing my trunk” (the one that fell off).

The kid came out and told me that it would cost about $300 labor and $60 for the hinges to fix it and that he’d be done in a couple of hours.  He came out a couple of hours later and told me I needed to spend another $126 for the locking mechanism, which was broken.  After THAT ordeal was done, he proceeded to tell me he’d “give me a good price” on pulling the dent out of my trunk.  I told him I’d think about it.

That ordeal was about 3 hours long.  Five hours at the Mini dealership; will I ever learn?  I watched ALL of Hitch while I was in the waiting room.  Some of it was pretty funny, and damn, was that chick Allegra hot.

So I have about 11 days left to shop around for a new car – otherwise the multiple checks will show up on my credit.  There’s a nice 2008 Mini at Morristown Mini with 8k miles on it for about the same price as the one I looked at before.  On paper, it looks like I can swing that, even with being a bit upside-down on my current vehicle.  I don’t know if I want to deal with another schmuck salesman who doesn’t want (or maybe know how) to make a sale.

We’ll see.  It’s not in the cards for me in the next couple of days.  Date Thursday night; Friday night is a possibility; Saturday through Monday I hope to be mostly in the woods or at barbeques, and then it’s back to the grind of Taiwan proxy season.  These next couple of weeks are going to be pretty ugly for me.  But that’s all good:  it’s what I get paid for.

So anyway, I hope your week has been going well, dear reader.  I personally can’t believe it’s Thursday already.

Blogging at 5AM is a first for me, so please bear with me, dear reader.

I had a 4AM conference call with Taiwan this morning.  I woke up around 11AM yesterday (Sunday) and took care of my weekend errands.  I’d been stressing all weekend about how I was going to work a 4AM conference call.  My hours are kind of screwy at work right now because the projects I’m working on are for clients in Taiwan – which is 12 hours ahead of us here on the East Coast of North America.  So I’m usually up until around midnight conversing via email with my clients, then getting into work around 10 or 10:30AM and working a full day.  When I get in, I have plenty of emails to answer from the Taiwan-afternoon, as well as regular US-related tasks.  All that aside, I’m asleep at 4AM any day of the week.  And I’m REALLY not any good at waking up early – especially not extra early.

Anyway, with the exception of the stress on Sunday afternoon, this weekend was a good one for me.  It didn’t start out that way.

My plan was to leave work around noon or 1PM on Friday – I only had a couple of hours worth of work to bang out – and head straight up to the Adirondacks to meet my buddy SoloJoe.  We were going to camp Friday night, bag about 4 peaks on Saturday, camp Saturday night, and possibly bag two more on Sunday before coming home.  Well, I didn’t get out of work until 6:30 on Friday, so that plan was shot to sh*t.  It was just as well, because I was answering emails all night on Friday and even a few on Saturday night.

After work on Friday, I had dinner with my friend Emily – we used to do dinner or coffee every Friday, but we’ve both been busy (at the same times and different ones) for the past couple of months, so we haven’t had a chance to get together in a while.  Hanging out with Em was really good for me – we don’t/can’t really bullshit each other, so when we catch up, it’s like a recharge and evaluation session.  Pretty cool.  I went home afterward and read my book for a bit before falling asleep – it was a long, tough week.

Saturday morning, Scott and I drove up to the Catskills and bagged SW Hunter.  Scott now has 9 peaks left for his 3500 Club membership.  The hike was 7 miles long with a decent vertical gain, but I still felt like going for a run when I got home.  I talked a lot about winter hiking while we were on the trail.  Seven miles in the snow is a lot harder than seven miles without it.  I guess I’m in pretty good (hiking) shape.  My eye is ok – whether it was camping in the ‘dacks or hiking in the Cats, I was kind of nervous about re-opening the scratched cornea again.  But I didn’t, which is pretty sweet.

Saturday night was work emails and some time at the Ridgewood Starbucks with Scott and Jeanne – Scott and I ended up back at my place talking hiking gear until pretty late.  I need to get a new sleeping bag – one that doesn’t weigh (literally) 12.5 pounds.

Yesterday – which is really still today for me – I got up around 11, did my regular weekend shite (laundry, clean, car wash, etc.), had lunch with Scott, and went into the office around 5.  I was there until about 10, when I headed home to eat and shower.  I was back in the office around midnight and worked until the call at 4AM.  Hell, I’m STILL in the fucken office.

And this is where the “one hour at a time” thing comes in:  I’ve spent the last 5 hours not thinking about anything but the hour I was in.  I really should be exhausted and about to pass out, but I’m doing ok so far.  I’ve gotten quite a bit of work done and really only need to make it another couple of hours before my co-workers start to show up.  Once they do, I’m going to be like “peace out, I’ve been here all night”.  I might even just send an “OOO” email instead of a “WFH” email.

The only thing keeping me from going home and catching some Zs right now is that I have a bunch of things that have to get done during business hours (because they require other people).  I have a blast email that needs to be sent out, but I need one of the tech guys to post a document on the company website so that I can use the hyperlink in the blast.  I have no idea when those fuckers will get in.  =/

Oh, and I have to go to the Mini dealership this morning because the hatchback fell off my car while I was at the carwash today (Sunday).  About a month back, when I was on my way home from hiking in the ‘dacks with SoloJoe (and had newly re-opened my scratched cornea), some dickhead in a Rav4 backed into me at a rest stop on the Thruway.  I had a dent in my trunk, but didn’t think much more of it.  I got his insurance information and a week or two later bought one of those dent-puller-outer kits (haven’t finished using it, though).  My trunk has been getting harder and harder to close, and today while I was at the car wash, it wouldn’t close at all.  As I was trying to align the little male(ish) part on the hatchback with the female(ish) part on the car (and you know I haven’t gotten any in a while, ’cause that sounds pretty sexy to me), the top left hinge snapped and the hatchback basically fell into my hands.  It was still attached by the top right hinge, but if I let go, that probably would have snapped too. 

And I’m talking metal here.  Snapped.  Not a broken hinge at some stress point, a two-inch wide piece of metal that holds the trunk onto the car snapped.  Metal.  W.  T.  F. 

So, being resourceful, I dug out my Y chromosome and, using my fingers and Leatherman, pulled some pieces off the trunk that were messing with my alignment job (those pneumatic things that hold the trunk open when both the hinges are working properly), and jammed the fucking thing back into place.  Whereupon I alternately cussed at it and pleaded with it to not fall off once I started driving again.  It’s on pretty tight, but I’m still a bit nervous about it.  It’s going to be expensive to fix the hinge, but even more so if the hatchback falls off while I’m driving on the highway (and even more so if there’s a short bus full of special kids behind me when it does).

I’ve been thinking about getting a new Mini for a while lately anyway.  I’m only getting around 26-28 miles per gallon, and my other Mini got 30 just riding around town.  I dig the Liquid Yellow – they don’t make Minis in that color anymore – but I also dig some of the features on the newer Coopers. 

So we’ll see.  I’m going to swing by the dealership this morning and get an estimate on fixing the trunk and see if they have anything on the lot they’re willing to sell me for wicked dirt cheap.  I hate – with a passion – the fuckers at Pr*st*ge Mini in P*r*mus NJ.  Well, maybe just the guys in the service department.  Actually, it’s just this one guy, and I don’t really hate him.  He’s just the object of my disappointment in myself for not being very good at standing up for myself when it comes to auto repair. 

Anyway, my plan is to walk in there, find a salesperson, and tell them that I’d be happy to drive away from their lot with a new Mini if they can keep my monthly payments at, around or below what they are now.  And that’s $400, which means they can screw with the numbers any way they want – $18k over 5 years with a 15% interest rate (yeah, I know that blows, but my credit ain’t all that great), or $20k at 10% over 5 years, or $22k at <gasp> 6%.  I’m not that picky and I don’t mind getting fucked a little, as long as the whole thing is over quickly and I get a stick shift, leather seats and a moon roof (in a Cooper that’s 2008-ish or newer).

So yeah, I’ve got about 3 hours before the dealership opens.  And maybe 2 hours before my boss gets into the office.  Hell, I should probably leave here around 8 anyway, if I want to make it to the dealership by the time they open. 

</babbling>

So it’s half past midnight and I’m still up.  I really should be in bed by now.  This has been a short, hard week.  Not hard like “oh my god, I don’t think I can do this” – there’s just been a lot of work involved.  I haven’t done much outside of waking up and going into the office, coming home and working for a couple of hours, and then going to bed.

The work is getting done, but I have this lingering sense of guilt whenever I’m not working.  For example, I’ve been emailing with clients in Taiwan until around midnight or 1 every night and getting in to the office until around 10:30AM.  I’ve been leaving the office between 6:30 and 10 every night.  My week started with an 8:30PM conference call on Sunday night (Monday morning in Taiwan).  And still when I hit the snooze bar at 8:30AM, a little niggler in the back of my mind says “you’re supposed to be in the office now” (8:30 is my normal start time – not that I get in before 9).

I know there’s no real sense in paying attention to this itchy thought process – that if I scratch it or in any way start to pay attention to it, it will simply become more inflamed and demand more of my attention.  So I’ve mainly been ignoring it.  The other move is to go down the road of rationalization/justification:  “I was in the office until a ridiculous hour last night,” “I need at least a couple of hours to myself every day – there’s no reason I need to be working now,” etc.

That line of thought can be dangerous for me, because it leads to “they’re not paying me enough for the sh*t I put up with,” and eventually “don’t they realize who I AM?!?”  Bad thought, that.

In addition to ignoring the itchy, niggly, guilty thoughts and forging ahead, I’ve also been catching the hours of downtime as best I can.  Tonight I left work at 6:30, planning to get to Campmor and Radio Shack before I met Anthony for sushi at 8:30.  I got home around 7 and realized that if I cut the Campmor trip out, I’d have a whole hour to decompress and read my book before Anthony arrived.  So I did just that.  And it was wonderful.

Scott, Anthony and I left from my house at 8:30 and had sushi – well, Scott the Fat Vegan had edamame and something else (because fish-brothers have faces).  I more or less gorged myself and it was wonderful.  The three of us chilled at my place for a bit afterward and then Anthony bounced and Scott and I talked hiking gear and relationships until just about now.

Tomorrow I’m going to leave work early – hopefully around noon – and meet my buddy SoloJoe up in the ‘dacks for to go on the hiking escapade.  [If you didn't pick up the Hungarian accent there, you probably need to watch some more porn.]  Tentatively, we’ll bag four peaks over nineteen miles on Saturday (or just two in about 2/3 of that) and then bag another two easy ones on Sunday.  I have a conference call at 4AM on Monday, so I need all the head-clearing, sweat-creating, relaxation time I can get between now and then.  Sorry Christine, I won’t be at your party tomorrow night.  =(

I’m certain I’ll either forget or never get around to posting it, so here’s the quote from Wednesday’s zen-a-day calendar:

When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

-Shunryu Suzuki

I’m a big fan of Suzuki’s discussions.  As far as I can tell, he’s really the Eastern dude who made Zen available and graspable (that’s probably an oxymoron) for Western dudes like me.  Alan Watts is the Western dude who’s credited with bringing Zen to this continent.  I think.  Anyway, I dig Suzuki.

This quote put me in mind of a Lauren Flax post from way back – when she was doing the Spark thing.  Her piece is called Burning and you can get to it by clicking the link and scrolling through that post until just after the pictures.  Though why in hell you’d want to skip a word of what Lauren Flax has to say is beyond me.  Sheesh, effin’ disposable society.

THERE IS NOTHING *BUT* INSTANT GRATIFICATION.  THERE IS NOT ANOTHER KIND.*

Suck on some of THAT zen, em-effers.

*Because we only have this instant, silly:  nothing “lasts”.

Via: Online Schools

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[Source: Medical Billing
and Coding

Ok, so work is wicked busy and I’m exhausted.  I need to take my ass to bed.  I’ve been meaning to put together a post about SoloJoe’s traverse of the Great Range in the Adirondacks this past Thursday, but just haven’t done so.  Joe called me before he headed out, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him; we spoke for a while this weekend about this massive hike.  I’m at once jealous and incredibly proud to know him:  this was way more than just a stroll in the woods.  So I’m scraping it from the ADKHighPeaks forum – here’s the link to the original.

[Source: Online PhD
Programs]

Some days I feel like this:

Two waster kids stopped in front of Quinn, who grinned in welcome. “I haven’t had sex for ages,” Quinn said. He looked straight at the one wearing the T-shirt. “So I think I’ll fuck you first tonight.”

The waster kid snarled, and threw a punch with all the strength his inflated muscles could manage. Quinn remained perfectly still. The fist struck his jaw, just to the left of his chin. There was a crunch which could easily be heard above the traffic’s clamour. the waster kid bellowed, first in shock, then in agony. His whole body shook as he slowly pulled his hand back. Every knuckle was broken, as if he had punched solid stone. He cradled it with frightened tenderness, whimpering.

“I’d like to say take me to your leader,” Quinn said, as if he hadn’t even noticed the punch. “But organising yourselves takes brains. So I guess I’m out of luck.”

Hamilton, Peter F. The Naked God (2000, Orbit/Hatchette Book Group), p. 89.

Today is one of those days.

Quinn, by the way, is a skinny white dude in a priest’s get-up.

Too true:

At the risk of totally killing my chances with Sally Wilhite, I have to say that the new Godsmack album The Oracle is pretty effin ausim.  My friend Jeanne burned it for me a week or so ago and I’ve been rocking out to it in my car ever since.

This weekend has been excellent.  I started it by leaving early from work on Friday and getting my head straight by spending a couple of hours reading in the sun at the Glen Rock Starbucks and then heading over to Garden State Plaza to have dinner with my family at Grand Lux Cafe.  After that, Katie, John, Mom and I went to see a Queen tribute band play at the Bergen PAC in Englewood.  Check back a little later and I’ll post a couple of the videos I took whilst I was there.  Definitely a good time.

I slept in on Saturday and spent the day procrastinating cleaning my desk.  And I’m happy to report that it’s STILL not clean.  Luckily, Saturday’s procrastination was relatively productive:  I cleaned my house and even put two coats of polish on the kitchen floor (after removing everything in my kitchen to the driveway and scrubbing the floor thoroughly); I also did my laundry, picked up the mail, forgot to pick up my dry cleaning and even found time to read some more in the sun and hit up Campmor and EMS with Scott.

Saturday night I went to Dingbatz with Jeanne to see a couple of 80s hair metal cover bands.  One was, I believe, entirely a Def Leppard tribute band.  I don’t know DL all that well and have never been to a show, so I can’t really comment on how well they did.  The drummer used both arms, which kind of pissed me off.  They played “Pour Some Sugar on Me”, though, so it wasn’t a total loss.  Jeanne and I had a good time in any case.

One word:  tinitus.

Sunday I woke up a few minutes before Brian picked me up to go hit golf balls.  We went to a driving range in Edgewater and tried to hit the Hudson.  We weren’t allowed to hit our woods from the top level, though, so there wasn’t much chance of actually hitting a boat, so we made do with the picker.  As we were getting ready to leave, a little Asian lady with her daughter walked up to me and said “I have two balls left; will you show me how far a 7 iron is supposed to go?” and handed her balls to me.  The goddess must have been smiling on me, because I hit both balls straight and around 150-175 yards (which is exactly how far I told her they should go).  She was duly impressed and I was duly humbled.

Afterward, Brian and I went into the Asian food court-cum-grocery store and ate big bowls of ramen and some other unidentifiable things (one of which were DEFINITELY hard boiled eggs) and shopped in the grocery store.  Brian bought a bunch of candy and I picked up some loose green tea.

Brian dropped me back off at home and I swung back to the Glen Rock Starbucks to read some more in the sun and then went home and changed into my running gear (board shorts, mp3 player and running shoes) and proceeded to run longer and farther than I’ve yet done before.  Which really wasn’t all that long or far, but I was impressed with myself.  And I hate running.

But I needed SOME sort of exercise this weekend – I haven’t been hiking in a couple of weeks now and my moods were starting to swing a bit toward the end of this past week.

After that, I showered, stopped at the grocery store to pick up the mix for tomorrow’s bundt cake and headed in to the office.  I spent a couple of hours preparing and rocked my 8:30PM conference call with five chicks in Taiwan.

Then I headed home and hit the diner with Scott for dinner, responded to a couple of emails from Taiwanese clients and baked my bundt cake.

And now it’s time for bed because one of my Taiwanese clients thinks I’m going to be in the office at 9AM tomorrow.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I never get to work on time.

I think you can order horse tranquilizers via the interwebz too.

Via: Medical Assistant Schools

Well, I’d hoped to be able to regale you with a sonnet or two tonight, dear reader, but the usual technical difficulties have prevented me from doing so.  Namely, not enough hours in the day.

Today was a good day.  I went to bed last night just before midnight and really enjoyed the quality time I spent with my pillows, comforter, heated mattress and open window.  All night long and a little too far into the morning.

Instead of starting my day with WBGO (it’s membership and $$ drive time again, and I hate hearing people beg for money), I started with a little J.S. Bach.  Mad props to Betsy Wallace for getting me that Bach compilation a couple of xmases ago.  This morning it was some violin before the shower (Brandenburg Concerto, I think) and Well-Tempered Clavier afterward.  I know which songs I dig, but I really should learn their names (and BVW#s as well) so that I can actually sound educated.

I rolled into work a bit later than I’d like, but then again, I usually leave a little later on Tuesdays anyway.  I was relatively highly productive at work all day and met Scott at the diner for dinner.  After that, my evening got away from me a little bit – I spent more time socializing at the Midland Park Starbucks and less time working than I would have liked.  It’s my own fault, I’ve been taking too long getting started.

What I’d like to do is spend a little bit of time cleaning up my desk at home and writing out another list of priorities.  I don’t know how good an idea that would be, given that I’m about to get wicked swamped at work.  If I have a set of priorities outside of work, I may end up pushing myself too hard and getting burned.  Not burned out, necessarily, but just burned.

I’ve been taking it pretty easy in the evenings during the week (though they’re booking out relatively fast this week) and trying to do the same on the weekends.  Not book them out, but take it easy.

This past weekend I hit a couple of snags where I really didn’t have my usual list of things to do, so I just ended up hanging out and shooting the shit with Katie and my barber (not at the same time).  Again:  not a bad thing.  I think that for me, it’s good (if not important) to have no place to go and all day to get there every once in a while.

But right now I have a place to go (bed) and not much time to get there.  Tomorrow I’m at the driving range after work with my buddy Arthur from the Ridgewood Starbucks and Thursday evening I have a date in Nyack.  Friday will find me at the Queen tribute concert with Mom, Katie and John for Mother’s Day, and I have no idea what I’m doing on Saturday.  Hopefully a whole lot of nothing*.  And reading in the sun while drinking coffee and possibly ignoring phone calls.

Anyway, peace out, dear reader.  I hope to have some sonnets and/or haikus for you soon.

*Of course, wild passionate monkey sex (with a girl) all day and all night would be preferable.

Seriously folks, this is important:

[Source: Medical Billing and
Coding]

I don’t really know that I have all that much to say.  I mean, I have plenty to say, but not anything in particular that I’d like to talk about right now.  All weekend long I’ve had threads run through my head that would make nice blog posts:  interesting things I could tease out into 500 or so words (who am I kidding – probably more like 1000).

So here’s (maybe) the reader’s digest version (in no particular order).

This morning I dreamed a little bit of fear.  Overall, the dream was an interesting one:  it came in several parts; I think they were connected, but it’s hard to tell.  At the end of the dream, I had to run up this flight of square-spiral stairs to get to this ledge on a balcony that overlooked a courtyard or something (like the open inside of an Embassy Suites hotel – if, of course, they’re all like that – there’s a word for this, a European one, I think).  I had been studying something like lock-picking or lock-building (this wasn’t exactly it, so don’t shrink my head about locks and/or secrets or something); suffice to say I was watching this old man do his work and mostly keeping quiet (hey, at least I’m progressing in my dreams).  Anyway, we had to be at the top of this balcony thing in a couple of minutes and I took the stairs because it would be faster – the old man couldn’t run that fast, so he had to take the lift, which was slower.

Anyway, as I got to the last flight of five or so steps (in the squared-spiral), I noticed that the steps themselves got narrower and that they opened onto a very narrow catwalk-type thing – it had metal edges and carpet down the center; it was maybe 9 inches wide.  I realized that I’d be way exposed at a great height and my fear of heights kicked in.  Call it vertigo or whatever, but the feeling is like one wrong move (and there are no right moves) and I’m going to catapault off the side.  The only real solution for this – which is no real solution at all – is to hug the ground (or whatever’s horizontal) as closely as possible and move very slowly, heart-in-mouth the whole time.

This is a real thing for me, by the way.  I’ve had a pretty severe fear of heights in the past and have frozen just like this, scared shitless.

Anyway, in the second it took me to pause, the staircase started closing in on me.

While I’ve had this fear of heights in the past, I’m pretty much over it at this point.  I’ve had my ass hanging out over nothing on the side of a mountain – with a long way down – many a time.  Oh, it’s still pretty freaky, but I try to get the job done and not think about it.  I don’ t know that I can say I’ve conquered this fear, but I certainly know how to deal with it.

This feeling of fear in my dream was very real – exactly like it used to be when I was a kid.  Anyway, I only paused for a second in the dream, because I knew how to get past the fear.  But that second was long enough for my surroundings to start inhibiting me (whyever inanimate objects would want to inhibit me, I have no idea – let’s not get into any persecution complex thingies here, dear reader, hmmm?).  So by the time I got to the last step or two, I was squeezing my legs out of the teeny staircase opening.  And the old man had beat me to the top.  I woke up a little bit later in the dream sequence.

When I woke up, I knew that (that part of) the dream was about fear and possibly conquering it.  I have no real idea how to interpret the dream, because other than the momentary heart-pounding from the vertigo-anticipation, it didn’t really affect me.  I didn’t get scared enough to wake up, and I moved past my fear in my dream.

Maybe it was just a reminder that I need to move past my fears in real life.  I need to figure out what those are – that’s something that’s been on my mind a bit lately.

******   ******   ******

So that’s a decent segue into something else that I’ve been thinking about this weekend:  writing poetry.

I haven’t written any poetry since I was in college.  I used to write all kinds of crap – if you’ve been reading long enough, you may even have read some, dear reader.  I’d say my poetry writing career was between 16 and 22.  I hit puberty somewhere in that range.  Obviously – my poetry was all kinds of angsty.  It was all about emotions and really wallowing in them – good or bad.

So thinking about that shite got me to realizing that my emotions are nowhere near as extreme as they once were.  If I were to be all melodramatic, I’d say something like “I don’t have emotions anymore – I can’t feel anything”.  But that’s not true.  I still feel stuff.  I get crushes and I get hurt; I get pissed and I’m generally pretty happy, sometimes even ecstatic.  I still get embarrassed, though being naked isn’t one of the things to cause it anymore (hell, at this point I know it’s not going to get any bigger, but it gets that old-woman-blush-young-girl-squeal job done pretty well), sometimes I’m lonely, and sometimes that’s mixed with sadness and self-pity (though not to that teenager extreme).

Oh, and by the way, to any emos who might be reading this:  I was once like you.  AND I GOT OVER IT.  One day, you’ll work in an office too, and you’ll probably like it.  So stop dressing like a retard and whining all the time.  Hang out with the punk rockers and maybe try some drugs that involve having fun and not crying – they’re much better than the ones you’re doing now.  Emo = you’re doing it wrong (re: drugs).  Get a real style.  If you were that hardcore, you’d have offed yourself by now.

In any case, there are a any number of different things I could say about my relationship with my emotions, but I think I’ll leave that for a different post when it’s not almost 1AM and I have to be at work in the morning.  Suffice to say that I believe that emotions are meant to be felt deeply – that in order to truly feel love, one has to risk getting hurt – and I’m slightly concerned that I’m too afraid of getting hurt to put myself out there and fall in love again.  Not that there are a shit-ton of prospects knocking down my door at the moment.

The point of the last handful of paragraphs is that I think I’d like to start writing poetry again, and that I think I’ll need a crutch or two in order to do so.  Those crutches shall be named ‘haiku’ and ‘sonnet’.  I need a structure to fill in order to get back in that saddle.  So hopefully you’ll be reading some niceguyted poetry in the near future.  Sans teenage angst.

******   ******   ******

And the last bit for tonight regards today’s reading from the calendar of zen:

If you really want to get to the truth of Zen, get it while walking, while standing, while sleeping or sitting. . . while working. (Pen-Hsien)

That’s what I was talking about in my post the other day:  for me, zen is an every-moment thing – it’s not simply an adjective for spartan artwork.  The object of zazen (in my opinion) is merely to take some time to practice meditation.  Meditation should be an every-moment thing as well, but it takes practice to be able to do it while simultaneously doing something else.

If one can’t walk and chew gum, one needs to spend some time sitting and chewing gum, until the action of gum-chewing becomes subconscious – a habit, if you will – then one can practice (a little at a time) doing both together.  One may stumble here and there, or find oneself not actually chewing while walking, but that’s ok – it’s just a matter of realization at that point and getting back to walking and chewing gum.

So much of what I’ve read about meditation is that it’s object (or one of them, at least) is to be able to walk through life in a state of constant meditation.  ‘Mindfulness’ is a word often used.

That’s where I’m at:  I’m trying to walk through life in a state of mindfulness.  Which also means I need to get back to my zazen practice.  Because, as Shunryu Suzuki once said,

Life without zazen is like winding your clock without setting it.  It runs perfectly well, but doesn’t tell time.