Creating Your Own Reality

And so it began.
Or ended, rather. Not important; unless you count the way it happened. I'm not of course, but to light upon the tips of this rigor mortis-inducing tale could be another type of harrowing adventure. It's simply too much to ask of someone to paint themselves into a corner; but the corner could actually be a meadow, or a sea, or a desert, or the deep dark whole of space stretching out endlessly, cat-like. I dare say it happened rather fast. Or slow, as time can be re-counted in a myriad of ways over a stretch of imagination that is never-ending in the realms of our minds-eye. And in that sense there is no beginning, nor an end. There just is. And so it came to be. Convulsing, twirling, slowly dripping, yawning, jibbering, tumbling; flushed with vibrations of pulsating color exploding throughout the channels of the body. The difference between existence and existing. A framework with no frame. No way of 'knowing'; and to that it became no less evil or good for the sake of just being.

"Please remove muddy footwear"

While seeing my sister in Dorset, I visited a pub with a sign that said "Please remove muddy footwear." I can't remember seeing one of those signs in a pub before. It makes sense with a lot of people coming in from country walks. I imagine the stone floor would have been a little uncomfortable to walk on in socks, but I suppose regulars would know to bring a change of footwear if their shoes were going to get muddy.

My Sister's New Carpet

My sister and her partner have a new carpet. It's quite lovely; off-white and made of natural wool. Obviously, they want to look after it and so they are pretty keen to keep their house shoe-free.

Suchers Be Gone!

Above is a picture of the heinous incision that was made to restore my misbehaving tendon. A major milestone in the healing process comes in two days when I get the suchers out. I'm so stoked. Even though my leg won't be recognizable as a 'leg' for a few weeks it will be nice to have these buttons taken off of my skin shirt. So far everything is going well. I've been pretty mobile, getting out on a two mile walk, going dancing, etc. etc. I've tried working out a few times, nothing major yet, just trying to take it easy and promote healing as much as possible. I definitely have days where I feell like this: But, don't let that scare you away. All I need is a little encouragement and a lot more time. The weather has turned amazing lately (amazing for me means it's warmer, not necessarily drier), and when the sun comes out it's like Spring/Summer. The air is different, it's not as bitter anymore, opting instead for a more fragrant garb. The kind newly budding plants wear. March comes to a close and I have a long month ahead of me, with (hopefully) some light at the end of the tunnel. By the end of April, if everything goes according to plan, I should be free of my boot and walking in normal shoes again (hell, maybe even a little light jogging?). In the meantime I have been bombarding myself with the cancerous rays of the television, LOTS of internet climbing porn, and bill juggling. The return to work last week was nothing less than unorgasmic and I have been really focused on what it is I want to pursue after my contract expires. Its hard to focus on those things whilst pining away for normalcy. Anyway, hope all is good with everyone. See you around.

Movie Time Part 2! Double Hooray!!

YES: this is the greatest climbing movie you will EVER see.
NO: this is not a professionally made anything...
PLEASE: crack a beer (or Kombucha), sit back and hopefully you won't fall asleep a few minutes into this (fingers crossed).

Movie Time! Hooray!

Okay, okay, OKAY!

I know I'm like 4 months late for this one but hey, I've got a lot of extra time on my hands (or should I say feet? Or foot?).

The above video is a gathering of clips I shot from the last trip to Bishop (Thanksgiving 2010). I was experimenting with the use of my new tri-pod, so somethings came out okay, others not so much. You get the idea. It was a wicked trip, filled with amazing sends every day, and even more good times with friends.

Jordan now has a shoes-off policy!

The Sun: Exclusive look at Jordan’s mansion

Katie Price did not appear to have had a no-shoes rule at the time she did that awful television series, judging by what I saw of it.

No, you don't

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I sometimes read blogs where the writer says 'I have a shoes-off policy in my home.' Then in the next paragraph, she states 'I would never ask visitors to remove their shoes.'

I am sorry, but if you normally let visitors come in your home with their shoes on you do not have a shoes-off policy. You have a shoes-on policy. You permit shoes to be worn in your home that have been on public toilet floors, which have walked on weed-killer saturated drives and which have walked on lead paint and all manner of other objectionable things.

It is not reasonable to assume that your guests have cleaner shoes than your children or your husband.

Wish You Were Here

A couple of weeks ago a whole herd of Olympians got out to celebrate life like a bunch of ether-sniffing monks worshipping some invisible cosmic mandala. The rituals took place at Goldmyer hotsprings, a short drive from North bend. The road, while treacherous and covered in asteroid-esque pot holes and impassably slick snow, proved to be more than an insurmountable task leaving many of us stranded 10 miles from the trail head. Luckily we have friends with high clearance and chains and the will to shuttle chunks of our group from where we stopped to where the trail began. 4.5 miles of post holing later and we were greeted by a caretaker who gave us a white bucket and pointed towards the last leg of our journey as if she was Death herself directing us to where we could set up shop for eternity. One last hill stomp and we were there. A plush triple pool populated by abesent minded absinth sippers in nothing more than slippers and the skin they rode in on.
We bathed for hours. We bathed like it was 1999. We bathed until our noses had been saturated by molecules of sulphur, leaving only standing room in our hairy caverns, and slouching room in our moist lungs. Muscles limp, asses smacked at random. Naked snow angels, stars winking in the distance as if to say "Hey there, how about that full moon?". We were nothing more than a display in a Christmas window. Foggy glass, fake snow littering the ground, and naked cherubs worshipping at the altar. Nymphs in Pan's lair. Suckling from the wine bladder, mouths agape, minds warped.

I slept well that night. Only awakened by the screech and gong of a pair of mating owl crys. They had gotten a whiff of what was in the air and decided to descend upon one another like club-drunk snow monkeys embracing the inferno that burned from within pulsating like the beat of a disco.

The following day was slightly torturous. Suffering from the severe pain in my leg, dehydration, and exhaustion I lost more than a few calories on the way back to the car and decided that Chai-spice tea is not better the second time around (nor is bacon, eggs, salsa, and un-cooked hashbrowns posing as mozzarella).

We did make it to the Harmon brewery in Tacoma in time to eat a couple of baskets of bottomless fish and chips before they decided to re-attach the bottom.

All in all, an amazing time.





A couple of days ago I recieved some long-awaited information regarding my Achilles tendon. The doctor, after reviewing my MRI, came into the examination room and sat down next to me. I guess he thought I wasn't expecting to hear him say "It's a complete tear". Boy was he wrong. Luckily they scheduled me for surgery the very next day and voila! I am now comfortably sporting a large incision on the inside of my right leg and a newly repaired Achilles tendon. I am SO psyched that I am finally healing in a positively influenced direction. After the nerve block wore off I was reduced to a quivering pile of goo. Writhing in pain like a snake in the garden of Eden. Thank Science for tiny white pills that make you feel as if your 5 years old again licking the frosting from your grandmothers mixing bowl while a warm breeze blows up your Umbro's giving you feelings you can't quite attach to memory yet.
I'm on day 3, and the good news is that I have been able to shed my crutches and bear weight on my injured foot. I'll be wearing this cumbersome boot for a total of 6 weeks, but after that, it's back to tennis shoes and hopefully some light bike riding. Another 2-4 weeks and I'll be able to jog. Hopefully by the start of June I'll be climbing again!!
So, just make sure you strectch before playing basketball. Or better yet, just don't playt basketball. Stick to the mountains, the rocks, the water and the wild flower covered meadows where you can twirl in a bleach white apron singing about the musically opressed cities of Austria.
For now, I will be here. I wish you all could join me.
Oh yeah, I'm going to be religiously participating in rain dances for the next 8 weeks so I don't miss out on any NW climbing. Sorry.

The relationship between host and guest

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Some people seem to see the shoes-off rule as an unfair restriction on the freedom of guests. I think that is a very sad attitude.

I rather see the removing of shoes as a beautiful and peaceful exchange between host and guest.

The guest removes her shoes when she enters the home. She shows respect to the house she is entering. She does not treat it like a restaurant where her custom is king. Nor does she treat it as her own home, where she may do as she pleases. She has entered the home of another family and she must respect the fact that their lives are lived here.

The hostess is in turn delighted by the respect that the guest shows her. In removing her shoes, the guest has entered into the environment of her family. The hostess will treat her guest with all the courtesy and kindness that she would show to her own family members. She will take care to look after her to the utmost while she remains under her roof. She will serve her the best food, give her the best seat. If necessary she will drive her home in her car or let her stay the night.

In removing her shoes, the guest becomes like the hostess, who is already shoeless. She identifies with the hostess who has welcomed her into her home. In their both becoming shoeless, the host and guest enter a fellowship and unity. They are both without shoes; they are equals. This is true friendship.

Assignments #3

He strode into the room with confidence. His shirt un-tucked, smelling of sweat, sex, and stale alcohol. He could feel the crust in the corners of his mouth but refused to drag the backside of his hand across the desert of his face. In a tangential sort of way, he dug in his nose inspecting his jaque custeau’esque treasure smiling at him on the end of a dirty slender finger nail like a worm in a rotten apple at his last right. He flicked the rotten invertebrate into oblivion and proceeded to slowly walk towards the mauve colored roofless prison. His shoebox was comfortable. He sank into his chair; folding the white paper tissue around his shoulders and head. Unlacing, curling into a ball. His swivel chair turned slightly to face the entrance of his voluntary cage. His slow revolution was like 15 inches of wax, caught on a steel plate, awaiting the sting of a needle and the deep base of an amp. Music gurgling forth like vomit making its way up a one way street.
Softly tickling the esophageal cells; tip toeing down the stairs in watery one-sy dotted with pictures of carrots and peas. Exploding at the site of the Virgin Mary condemned to spend her holidays atop this glitter glam horror show paying homage to her passion-less life. Electricity pulsating through her shell of a body. She wanted to fall 6 feet and smash into a thousand pieces exposing wires and a chaotic glimpse of spending the night on a cot with your mother’s arm slowly rubbing your back while whispers creep over your shoulder and bang against the stubborn waxy build up that refuses to let reality in.
His evaluation was today.
He couldn’t think straight and began to tap his toes against the shiny plastic incasing his cubicle desk. He was perched on his ass and heels looking like a disgruntled vulture ready to swoop down and make everyone sorry for making him feel like a necrophiliac. He looked crumpled, but in a fastidious sort of way; as if he had been attacked by a drive-by professional Hollywood make-up crew. He picked at a scabbed over pimple on his chin; striking ooze he celebrated by shooting a perfect rainbow 3 pointer with the hardened crust.
The cows in the barn started to stir. They had detected a disturbance in sector 9 and were ready to gear up for an all out assault on the invader. The Commander was all up in arms about a difficult episode she had suffered over the weekend with her children. Now full grown, the Commander needn’t beg for attention. Instead she shoved her bovine hips into an unsuspecting conversation, the gaze of which fell on a different section of the star spectrum but nonetheless found itself being shifted to the quadrant the commander felt deserved attention. She was a gluttonous pile of excrement. A walking receptacle of toxins and poisonous mental treats left for the neighbor’s cat. She baited the innocent with her weight and used gamey elbows that dug into your side like a cowboy riding his steed hard in order to get back to that one prostitute that made him feel as if the world was worth going insane for from the gonorrhea. Her large nostrils flared and a combination of snot and hot pursuit dripped from her cavernous orifices. She became elated at the fact that the fox had finally made his way into the galactic barnyard.
The game they played was like watching a herd of wildebeests. Frantic and impatient, skittish yet firm. Dust drifting into the African atmosphere from bristle thick hair, on edge as the peak of their blunt noses dipped into the placid luke-warm waters of the wicked watering hole. The snap of the alligators snout crushing veins, bones, ligaments, tendons, and puncturing flesh and skin was like the sound of a bullwhip. In the second that it took to realize what had happened the immense fear was rippling through the herd like signals traveling at light speed down the mylenated sheath of axons and nerves. The afternoon sun pushed through the curtain of disturbed earth blown into the lazy motionless safari scene. A grey muscled leg kicks for a foothold as warm blood soaks the ground.
The restless hot herd re-settled yards from the crime-scene, literally keeping one eye on the attack zone while turning from side to side.

Assignments #2

Come on now little guy, let that instinct kick in! He nearly stopped the car. You know, that instinct NOT to get run over by a large moving object? Instead he opted to stay laying in the cold and damp gutter. Shallow as it was, coated in asphalt and the stench of broken dreams-which strangely resembled the aroma of several county fairs he had been to- he pawed uselessly at the curb before realizing he would have to get up sooner or later. Or, someone would have to come GET him up. He contemplated the fact that whatever city, town, or hamlet he happened to find himself in, operated very much like that of the human cell. A living organism, programmed to remove useless build up-waste-and was filled with macromolecules that had jobs; would never tire of their jobs, and really were working in order to disintegrate and become the removable waste some of them worked so hard to rid the cell of.

A little girl on her way to school stopped on the sidewalk yards away from where his crumpled body lay, and began to move slowly up the path, continuing on her original course, but at a slower more astonished pace. She stared wide eyed at the dark figure; limbs askew, head to one side, draped in remorse and a vulgar looking overcoat spotted with mud and grease. She finally passed the car crash of a man and sped up as soon as the seemingly un-safe part of her passage was no more of a threat. He did not notice. He was growing increasingly aware of the cold, discomfort, and reverberating pain in his side. Oh enough!
This exclamation triggered him to rise like some image of a vagabond living dead, destined to roam the streets in search of living flesh, or spare change. He bent a crooked leg underneath himself and straightened it, propelling him upwards towards the morning sky. The pale light left a shrinking darkness from the night before and exploded into existence behind trees and fences. He pulled his overcoat around his neck and head and wished he could return to the squeaky bar stool from the night before. The look on his face-pallid, somber, still; left something to be desired in the story it wished to tell. Images of the night before came like flash backs, each one in small doses of which he could only bare for increasingly smaller amounts of time before the probing paranoia smashed them into bits and pieces. Unrecognizable, colliding, he recollected the increasingly vague interactions he had with the floating heads at the bar.
For some reason he remembered shaking a lot of people’s hands, but that didn’t seem quite right to him, since he hadn’t shook someone’s hand since he was 16 and was forced into the niceties of receiving condolences at his father’s funeral. But, there it was, glaring at him, the memory of the night before, surrounded by witches and gargoyles and him, sticking out his hand at everyone with a stupid grin on his face waiting for the exuberant gesture to shake him back to reality. However, the only thing he stuck his hand out for was a drink. And now, he did not desire to shake anyone’s hand, especially the bar tenders. Just thinking of the sweet acidic dark bubbly brown liquid made his temples throb with swollen expectations and he was not aware of the fact that he began to massage his forehead and place his cold extremities on the back of his neck. Temporary relief. More visions of dancing and acting like a fool. At first cool, calm, collected, and then silly, ridiculous, and childish. His words sprang from his mouth like children at the lunch time bell. Limbs flailing, chaotic, rambunctious. He wondered why people like drinking so much. He figured it was because the majority of people-at least the majority of people he encountered in his life-were very good at projecting what they thought people wanted to see, and spoke almost exclusively without letting their guards down.
In the presence of a few empty pint glasses people were less reluctant to placate one another and instead let emotions pour out of them like beer from a tap. Or, became so self-involved that they began to say things they didn’t mean and wondered why no one got their jokes. This was usually a symptom of feeling as if you were being attacked and, for him, ended in a lot of yelling and terrible looks from across the fire. Uhh. He had to stop and shake off that Monday morning feeling. His brain felt two times too big for his own skull. A pulsating throbbing feeling that crept out of the darkness of one of the corners of his mind and attached itself to the front of his face. It humped the back of his throat until hunger shook itself awake and began to gnaw at his good intentions as well. Nausea and hunger were locked in a lethal battle. Both hands frantically clutched head and stomach like nurse maids they hovered about each appendage hopping from extremity to extremity.

Assignments

His gaze was unwavering, focused yet untoward. He could smash the things in his life to pieces. The same things that brought him so much pleasure; maybe even the things that provided him with a reason to become so destructive in the first place. But the feeling of sleep rushed over him like a warm breeze. It was a strong drug. Nearly impossible to fight off, yet it was a feeling that was welcome and fitting. The wrong atmosphere no doubt but still a good feeling. He felt it fill his veins, his muscles became slouched and lazy. Effort was drained from him like the blood in a skinned game kill, slowly, dripping in the end but finalized by the creepy persistence of gravity influencing the tiny red molecules to aggregate and descend.

It sustained him. It goaded him to think and force action and thought in to his life. It did not come easily; kicking and screaming. It would not go easily; pleading and begging.
The rows of trees in his mind’s eye stretched out beyond his imagination into some dark abyss before disappearing altogether. Rays of sunlight enlivened the dull and grey scenery set out before him like some guest arriving late to a funeral. The soft earth sat in a mound upon the freshly broken and filled plot of land. His face was wrenched into an uncomfortable pose of questioning contortions and wrinkling concentration. His overcoat slumped over one arm, dangling helplessly like a lifeless corpse. He ran slim fingers through dark thinning hair and tucked a stringy length of lock behind one ear. He was still damp, but it had stopped raining some time ago. The glints of sunlight bedazzled the landscape that lay covered in the rainstorms moist gift, each bead of fallen rain now a droplet of jeweled refracting light. Bending upon entrance, flashing spectral colors, providing bright faces that appeared in a flash and wilted away as the sun dipped behind clouds cloaking itself in the garments of the atmosphere. He could not bear to stand and gaze upon her earthen demeanor any longer.
His eyes fluttered from her grave to the rolling hills in the distance and a grin crept over his empty room like a sun beam, as if to blind him to the gut wrenching agony of knowing he could never have her again. She belonged to him no more than he belonged to the world, but in a sense of physical longing the emotion swept over him and he fought it off with clear discomfort. There was nothing in front of him to grab, to tear, or punch and kick. He could not reason with this swirling blackness; this invisible scourge that robbed him. His time and effort were of no consequence to the amount of meaningless dribble that wooed her spirit and warmed her soul. She was so much a part of him and instantaneously ripped away, like separating a limb from the friendly clockwork of the body. He felt naked and inadequate and was not entirely sure of the motives behind why he chose to suddenly materialize on this cloudy day at this celebration of life and condemnation of death. He did not understand. Why was she suddenly gone?
A black bird cawed in the distance. He saw it land on the branch of a nearby Maple, naked, shaking flecks of dew from its oily wings. The bird cocked its head to one side and in a twitching fashion darted a beady black eye in his direction. The small silky black shadow perched delicately and heavily on the sinewy branch of the slowly dying tree, cawed again. He itched his beak with a shoulder of a wing and dug deep into his armpit for a warm mite, nestled amongst the grease and stink, away from the damp outer world. Content to burrow deeper into the blackness.

Comparison With Smoking

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I think a valid comparison can be made between asking guests to remove their shoes and asking them not to smoke for three reasons.

1. In asking guests not to smoke or to remove their shoes, you are asking them to observe a boundary.

One is asking the guest to behave differently than they might in their own home.

2. While there are health issues involved in both, the overriding issue is the inconvenience caused by either guests smoking or wearing shoes in the host's home.

If a guest lights a cigarette at a dinner party, nobody is going to die of lung cancer as a result. Likewise, if a guest walks a bit of weed-killer into the carpet, it is unlikely that somebody is going to die (not that one should not be concerned about the health implications of weed-killing being walked into the carpet).

The real issue is the inconvenience caused. Smoking will bring into the house smells that are not appreciated by the host and may result in cigarette ash getting into the carpet or furniture. A non-smoking host will not appreciate this. Likewise, the host will be inconvenienced by guests keeping their shoes on. Carpets and floors may be soiled or damaged.

3. There is a possibility that the guest's comfort may be impinged by either being asked not to smoke or to remove her shoes.

If guests cannot smoke indoors, they will either have to suffer the craving or go outside in the cold to smoke.

Removing shoes is rather less likely to cause discomfort, but some guests might still be embarrassed at being asked to remove their shoes or may be unused to being shoeless in another home. This can of course, be minimized if they are informed of the policy in advance.

Guests might also be embarrassed at being asked to follow a 'house rule.' They might feel like they are being treated like children.

However, it is most likely that guests will not be at all bothered and will respect that the host behaves a certain way, whether in not smoking or not wearing shoes in the house.


If it is reasonable to ask guests not to smoke, it is perfectly reasonable to ask guests to take off their shoes.

Off the Post: Please remove your shoes before entering Diniyar Bilyaletdinov’s home, but feel free to park in his space

Off the Post: Please remove your shoes before entering Diniyar Bilyaletdinov’s home, but feel free to park in his space

'The attempts of Russian footballers in the Premier League to communicate with their fans back in the Motherland is frequently hilarious. Imagine our delight then when we discovered that Everton star Diniyar Bilyaletdinov intermittently writes a blog for Russian website sports.ru.

The midfielder’s observations on settling in to life in Liverpool are very enjoyable – there’s no traffic and the air is clean, apparently. But there’s one British ‘tradition’ that really gets on his nerves.

He writes: “And one more feature – I did not accept. They always come in the house with their shoes on. Whether it is a visitor to your teammate or the plumber who comes to remove the data from the water meter. I always ask: remove shoes, and they wonder – why?”'

How to silently remind guests to remove their shoes

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1. Cast your eyes downwards at the guest's feet for a few seconds.

2. Make a faint smile with gritted teeth.

3. Look down at the guest's feet again.

4. When the guest looks down, nod.

This may not work on first-time guests. This is best for reminding people who already know you don't want shoes in your house.