Action is more interesting than inaction.

( On the fire road. Home. )

Time for a change in life.

Last year, he took this really nice picture of me bouldering, and just put it up on facebook.

V-4. Brawny route, all deadpoints, across a roof and up over the edge. It took about five tries but I did it. And I can do it again. Also a V-3 (one-move balance problem) and a bunch of other fun things.

Here's the thing about dynos. If you jump, letting go of the wall knowing you either make the move or fall, you are not just hoping you will beat gravity; you are spitting in gravity's eye. It is more than trusting that your strength, power and heart will take you to the next hold. It is also an act of hubris, and of denial.

When you dyno, you're a housecat hissing at a black bear. Also, when you live.

Stone Gardens after work today -- hot enough that I slipped off holds, even with chalk on my sweaty hands. ( Cut for your patience. )

Drove out Friday to Spokane for SpoCon, a new SF convention. Lovely weather.

Nothing much was happening Friday afternoon, so I went to the local climbing gym, Wild Walls, which has two staggeringly tall and beautiful pinnacles constructed inside a turn-of-the-century armory, which by the size of it was designed for storing steampunk ICBMs. The routes were set quite differently from Stone Gardens's -- longer moves, bigger footholds, and a lot of liebacks. If I knew more about Spokane climbing I could maybe draw some conclusions about gyms designing their routes to reflect the local crags; but I'm not sure that's justified.

The con itself was great -- the attendees were an entirely new crew to me, after so many years of attending cons out here on the coast. Inland really is a different world in a lot of ways. I fell in with tobybishop/louisemarley and we had dinner and talked a bunch; also spent a little time with the eternally charming super-smart Mark Ferrari.

Today I had a reading at three, so I went climbing before. (A week ago, avt_tor answered my plea online for someone in Spokane to climb with by hooking me up with felicitoussk8er (aka Sharon) and her husband Steve, both experienced and amiable climbers.) They were incredibly nice -- Steve took me to Minnehaha Park, crags to close to Spokane that you can see downtown from there. I climbed three routes and loved them all -- the rock very similar to Cascades granite.

Steve and I both got sunburnt, but he got me back with twenty minutes to spare before my reading. I washed off in the bathroom, pulled on fresh jeans and a white blouse (the antithesis of the ripped cutoffs and filthy cross-back I wore all day), and read to a surprisingly large audience. John Dalmas came! And told me he loved the story (I read "26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss"). Then dinner with Steve and Sharon and C.J. Cherryh and Jane Fancher, and then four and a half hours home.

I loved Spokane, loved Steve and Sharon, loved everything about it. Now I want to go back!

( The routes, just for reference later. )

Now I'm home and listening to my cat eat.

I really haven't posted that much lately. Status quo in my life is overwhelmingly positive, which I don't always think to tell people.

I climbed for two hours at Stone Gardens: significant work (but probably ultimately futile work eta 080810: did it!) on a brand-new V-4, a couple of pretty other routes, and (nonclimbers, feel free to skip ahead to the next paragraph) finished a V-0 on the 45-degree overhang wall, in the arete: The last hold I felt really comfortable on was a huge flake two and a half feet below the finish. There were two sketchy intermediate holds, but instead of trying to suspend a lot of my weight from one or both of them, I just stayed mostly on the flake, and bumped my other hand twice, to the finish. I was stretched out a lot at this point, and it didn't feel great, but I did it, and on that wall, that's good enough.

Off to read The Persian Boy and drink water. Tomorrow -- and Thursday; well every day until next week sometime -- is busy.

I have eaten almost everything in the house of organic origin. The cat's been too fast for me thus far.

***

I went to the gym earlyish this morning and climbed up a storm. I want to improve my footwork so that I am not making my shoulders do quite so much of the work, so I have been climbing verticals instead of overhangs, and staying away from deadpoints and dynos. (Though I pegged a dyno Tuesday night and felt as if I'd discovered radium.) There aren't enough vertical walls set up at the gym for bouldering, so I top-roped on autobelay, long series of easy routes, one after the other. I also did two 5.10s, sending the 5.10+ on the first try.

The other was much more satisfying. I worked on it for half an hour -- I would try, then fall again and again at about fifteen feet up. An autobelay device stops a fall and lowers the climber safely to the ground, so if you fall on an autobelay, you have to start over. Each time I got up there, I got a little closer to understanding how to solve the route, but of course the only way to find out if I had actually done so was to climb those fifteen feet back up, past the first crux -- which I spent half an hour of Friday solving and still found difficult. So ten tries meant ten times through those fifteen feet before I finally got worked out the move.

When I did so, I was delighted but not at all surprised; I understood exactly what I had done and why it worked. I was surprised that I still had ten feet more to climb, ten feet I hadn't really thought much about, being so absorbed in solving the second crux. I gutted through the last ten feet of the route on nothing but swear words because there was no way I was going to let myself fall and then have to climb up the entire route from the bottom. Again.

He took some pictures of Rock City, where he, mckitterick and I went climbing. I love the ones of me, including these:





I love that I'm only, what, two feet off the deck. So cute!

Here are more, too. Eric takes really good pictures -- I really like his pics of BMX/trials riding.

1. I've been having off-and-on problems with my left shoulder for years, with occasional night-long blasts of blinding pain that I forget as soon as it's gone. The latest blast has not faded, so I saw a doctor today, and I was diagnosed with rotator-cuff tendonitis. I'm on the maximum allowable dosage of ibuprofen for the next two weeks: after that, PT and cortisone shots are a fall-back position. I can't take anything stronger without throwing up, so I'll be pretty achy for a while. He said, "Don't climb any more than you must," proving to me that he was as smart as he was gorgeous. He also opened the door for me and gave a charming little bow as I left. arian1 suggested that I should have tripped and fallen into his arms, but this did not occur to me; perhaps I will have to go back for a follow-up.
   
   
2. I am nearly caught up on my sleep, but I am stymied about where to begin writing things up. I was tired and exhilarated for most of it -- definitely the most fatiguing workshop I've ever given or attended. I managed not to gain weight, incredibly enough.
   
   
3. Tatsuko threw up three times in the last day, probably due to the megaesophagus. I am now out of clean coverlets and couch covers.
   
   
4. In spite of the tendonitis, I was at the gym yesterday (in fact, it didn't hurt yesterday, didn't hurt until I'd been asleep for a couple of hours). I had a great time: finished a tricky V-2 along a drum that Peter couldn't do, flailed ineptly through an overhangy V-1, pulled off a couple of other pleasing things. It was sweat-bath hot in the unairconditioned warehouse that is the gym, so I stayed pretty lowkey -- just as well, as it happened.
   
   
5. I am lingering over The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, a book so good I don't want it to end.

I know I'm not writing much here. I haven't had much to say, just that (despite annoyances at my job and apartment), I am content and busy.

I have 25 chigger bites so far, though more are still appearing. Timing is such that I got the bites Saturday, and the terrain at Rock City is exactly the right stuff for that. I did spray with insect stuff then, but it seems to have only enraged the chiggers.

Chiggers raise welts that are half an inch across and take (for me) weeks to get better. They crawl under tight spots, so everywhere you can feel your clothes touch your body? That's where they bite, though I also have random bites on my ankles, behind my knees, etc., etc. I also have them in places I hesitate to mention in a family venue.

Anyone who has had even one chigger bite can imagine my state of mind. This is what the word excruciating was designed for. It's like the entire surface of my skin is on the brink of an earth-shattering orgasm, only not in a good way.

(Rock City was pretty cool, though.)

In comments to my last post, desperance mentioned that he'd seen me write about the pea gravel, and about life after the fall, but not about the fall itself. I did write about it as part of my final grad-school packet, but I didn't post it here. It's very much first draft, and the last few paragraphs are more placeholders for actual content, since I plan on working more on it. If anyone's interested, ( this is what I wrote. )

I went to the gym this evening, and did some good climbing, including an elegant and ridiculously easy V-2 that was brand new, a slab route with no hand holds, literally; a reachy overhang V-1; some comfy confidence-building climbs up the 15-degree overhang I've been trying to get used to.

And then there were the good parts.

There was a V-2 that spends most of its time upside down, on a roof. The real challenge on it was the first move, a four-foot jump straight up -- a dyno -- off the starting hold and onto a big flake-hold overhead. Yes, exactly.

( Lovingly rendered details. )

It did get me thinking. Before -- and after -- I fell in November, I would hear people talking about sprains: "You never get it all back," they'd say and shake their heads. And this would strike fear into my heart, actual cold fear. Here's what I learned. My ankle didn't come all the way back. It does hurt in bad weather, and when I fall, and I can't run more than a dozen or two steps. But so what? It's not the same ankle it was, but it's still a good ankle, a damn good ankle. And it's still getting better.

Did I get it back? No. You're never the same person twice. The weak ankle is just part of the new environment, which includes the newfound power that finishes 5.11s and sticks four-foot dynos -- and everything else, too: the words I can write and the dreams I have, my irritating day job and strange personal life, the blueberries in the fridge and the fresh sheets on the bed.

I had no finesse at all, but by God I was strong tonight. I can't believe I did one, let alone two.

Off to drink V-8, and then ice-cold beer in the shower.

There are no words for how strong I felt tonight. Even warming up I knew it was going to be a good day -- the traverse that I usually warm up on seemed less of a haul and more of a glide. On Tuesdays, I often climb with Peter, so since I'd been doing a lot of bouldering lately, we top-roped. Sent a couple of easier routes beautifully, and then on-sighted a 5.10+, an interesting technical climb. Got two very difficult moves into a 5.11+ before I hit the stopper for me. Another 5.10, all sloping holds on a steep incline: again very technical. I love technical routes, the fiddly sequences and careful thought that goes into solving the problems. They're my strong suit as a climber.

( Cut for the crunchy bits, but this part was also the best part of it. )

Yes, yes I could be. Still, I am tired enough to be waiting not-very-patiently until it's late enough to sleep wothout popping awake at 3am.

So I did climb yesterday as Ryan suggested: taped the three last fingers on my right hand together, and then clicked into the autobelay and hammered on easy routes for 45 minutes. Taping my hand like that seemed to short-circuit my skills. I lost not just the use of my hand and fingers independently to adjust my balance or my position on the wall, but also my ability to think through a route, either on the ground looking up, or as I moved. I was really there for endurance, so I climbed a route (or faked one), dropped to the ground, waited fifteen seconds, and then did it again.

But after ten or fifteen minutes of this, I found the two routes I was climbing started to engrain themselves into my body. I think a lot about setting and resetting physical and other engrams: I could feel the changes in my muscle memory, and somewhere inside my brain, as these long, complex engrams established themselves. It will interesting to see if I can identify that feeling again, and maybe work out a way to access it on demand.

I was dripping with sweat when I left. Not much pain yesterday and a little aching today, but I think I won't go to the gym again until Thursday.

I haven't been able to climb for a couple of weeks now -- since I wrote about everything clicking. I strained the joints of three fingers on my right hand that night and I decided to take a week off, no hardship since I was going to the Nebulas anyway. But a week later they weren't better, and now, two weeks later, they're barely better, so no climbing for at least a few more days, and possibly a week or two more. I have all this excess energy because of not climbing, and I have been channeling some of it into crunches.

The thing about the physical life is that I at least can be insatiable, as insatiable as any overeater. I climb and I walk and I run up stairs, lots of stairs. I do crunches on the floor of my office. And I could do more, would do more, though I'm not kayaking yet because I don't have a neoprene suit. I can see how people become addicted, not just to the endorphins or to the person who looks back at me in the mirror, but to movement itself, my atoms hopping around like drops of water on a hot griddle.

I can't wait to go climbing.

In other news, here, have a bullet list.

• I forgot to buy catfood for Tatsuko! She's moaning softly to herself from misery or perhaps asthma.
  
  
• I thought I was done with all the medical bills from November but, look! $500 more, all at once.
  
  
• I want to submit a climbing essay somewhere, but I'm having trouble identifying a market. Most sports or climbing mags aren't interested in anything as cerebral as what I'm doing. I could go for Atlantic, what the hell, but that's certainly a waste of time. Creative Nonfiction seems to be the best place for me, but it doesn't pay especially well. Any ideas, O Hive Mind? I already prowled through Writer's Market.
  
  
• They're fixing up my apartment building, and at the moment that means they're scraping the woodwork outside my apartment windows, and then putting primer on it all. The wood is fiddley, board and batten. It's been taking forever, and forever seems to start at 7am most days.
  
  
• I have a cupcake on my kitchen counter. eta: Not any more.

( And there's a bit of it. )

There is not a day I have climbed yet that I was not afraid, a little or a lot. The bad days are the ones when the fear makes me back down, not because it's the right thing to do (because sometimes it is) but because it's the easy thing. On the good days, there's fear and there's courage and a lot of hard, satisfying work as I negotiate between them.

The great days, the days to mark with a white stone -- and yesterday was one of those -- are the ones when the fear and doubt transmute directly into courage, like lead into gold.

( Leavenworth last weekend; but be warned that this part is full of jargon. For my reference mostly, and as a cautionary tale for other climbers. )

Then I had two good days at the gym last week-- and oh yeah, I top-roped a 5.11! Where the hell did that come from? Harder than hell and I fell a goodly amount, but I did it, no beta.

My hands have been understandably feeling a little overworked so I didn't expect to go in at all this weekend. Best intentions forgotten: this evening I got a call from Dave K, who was at the gym if I wanted to work on stuff. I scrambled into my clothes and pelted over.

And, oh, it was great. He's an amazing climber and, I think, an excellent teacher. He asked about projects, so I showed him two routes I've been pushing at, both V-4s. I haven't been able to get past the crux of one of them, an upward slide against the wall with a single handhold -- all about balance and strong knees. I have the balance but I don't have the nerve to trust my knees, or quite enough strength. And I just couldn't get it, even after working on it, even with him. But he gave me some good advice. I really do climb like a boy, all forearms and shoulders; working from straighter arms will be more energy efficient.

And then I worked on this long traverse-y V-4 that I love and know I will never finish (not before they take it down, which I think is next week). It's been a project for me for a couple of weeks now. I've been able to do the first half of it, but never gotten past a specific move. And I worked on it with him, and he helped me see what I was doing.

And I got the move! I got it so well that I could repeat it a number of times, and every time it got solider and made more sense. I was even able to make two moves farther along the route. And when I did the part I had already finished, that felt smooth and elegant, too.

That's why I do this: for the moments I get it right and I get it, I get it, my body understands what it needs to do, it's not faking it or guessing or hoping, it just knows. That move that I figured out tonight: Dave showed me how he did it twice, and after that it was all me.

I haven't thought much about the wall/muscle/gravity problem lately. Maybe it's time to go back to that. wpadmirer, sending you that essay has gotten me thinking again. Thank you.