Damn you, Conrad. DAMN YOU!

I don't know Lauren Conrad, but I do know this: she's got some nerve.

Traipsing around with that long wavy hair plaited into the epitome of boho chic.

Designing (hmmm...that might be too strong a word) her own line of fab maxi dresses.

Starring in a television show wherein she alternates between staring into the middle distance and saying, "like, you know?"

And now a three-book deal. She's gone too far.

Who does she think she is, ticking off all the things on MY to-do list?

Ok, so I don't actually want to star on the Hills or the O.C. or whatever the hell her show is called. I DO want beachy hair and an ocean view and to go shopping all day--it's pretty much the same thing.

(I know my mother and Women's Studies professors are cringing at that last statement, but at least I'm being honest.)

And I suppose if I were to write a book I'd hope the most favorable reviews were more effusive than, "It's not as bad as I expected."

Golden Retriever Fridays!

I found this photo on the delightful Liberty London Girl's blog. She suggests dogs as an alternative to skinny models in fashion shows. I think it's a fabulous idea--from what I've seen, most dogs are friendlier than models, prefer rawhide to cocaine, and are content with lesser champagnes.

I want one.

Benchmarks

I don’t observe many holidays. Christmas is stressful, the 4th of July is noisy, Easter is fattening, Halloween is fattening and slutty. I love Thanksgiving, though, because its warmth, juxtaposed with what is often the first cold weather of the year, comforts me. It’s also a benchmark holiday, one that encourages reflection and an awareness of the blessings in our lives.

Birthdays and anniversaries, which I also love, are similar: they invite perspective, a step back, an objective look at what we might otherwise ignore.

I have some friends who are almost obsessively focused on goal setting. They talk about their goals as much as I talk about Arnie. It’s exhausting, and I find that I just can’t keep up; I can’t always be moving forward. Sometimes I need to be still.

And when I do set my sights on something, I seldom tell anyone, because my ego won’t let me face people if I fail.

But, ok, everyone fails sometimes, even the toughest people I know. The difference is that they move on; I dwell. They brush themselves off and try again. I avoid eye contact, get combative, give up.

Now, though, a few weeks before my birthday (a benchmark), I’m looking at the year behind me and wondering why I do that. Why am I so ashamed? Everyone makes mistakes.


On the heels of Jonny’s death, I realize this: I get another chance. I’m still here, breathing, thinking. I can try again.

Sometimes I do try again. Sometimes I face mistakes head on and move past them, smarter the second time around.

Last year at this time, I’d just left good job at a great advertising agency to take a sales position better suited for an unpaid intern. I spent my days half-heartedly asking climbing companies for money they didn’t have, to support an endeavor I wasn’t sure I believed in. It was a mistake, but rather than admitting it, I stumbled through the summer, barely able to make eye contact with Brad because I was so ashamed at the strain my actions put on our relationship.

I woke up sad every morning. Ashamed. Guilt-ridden. Depressed.

And then I decided to change it.

I’m not sure what snapped in me, but once I realized that my path wasn’t sustainable, that if I kept going, everything around me would crumble, I immediately quit my job and started looking for a new one.

People were assholes about it; I remember one night, at dinner with friends, I mentioned to someone that I was looking for work.

“AGAIN?” She shouted so loud that everyone in the restaurant turned to see what was going on.

Barely managing not to fall apart, I whispered,” yes,” and changed the subject.

It seemed very easy to be them.

It felt very hard to be me.

The year improved. I took a new job as a writer. I made friends with Brad again. I backed off climbing because it stopped making me happy. I started running again because it makes me feel good. I reconnected with my friends. I committed myself to something—Crossfit—because I just needed to see if I could.

And now, a few weeks before I turn 32, I’ve decided to set some goals and not worry about sharing them with people. In the past, I was afraid to tell people what I wanted to do, because I was afraid that my goals would seem insignificant. It’s been that way for years: my climbing projects are other peoples’ warm-ups, my long runs are other peoples’ rest days.

But I’ve finally figured out that not being a great athlete doesn’t make me a bad person. I don’t have to feel like a hippo in a roomful of china dolls every time I go to the climbing gym. I don’t have to feel bad because I only ran (insert arbitrary number here) miles today.

So hey, maybe I’ll fail. Maybe I’ll lose interest. Maybe my goals will seem small and insignificant to you. That’s how it’ll have to be, though, because the alternative wasn’t getting me anywhere.

And hell, I know there’ll be days when all this talk becomes just that—talk—and I fall apart because I can’t do sports good.

But everyone makes mistakes.

Another post that will make Brad roll his eyes

Like I needed another reason to adore Dave Matthews. Now he keeps me from getting lost.

Off the Bus

I feel a little bit sick this morning, because over the weekend I learned that an old friend of mine was killed in an avalanche in Western China. He was climbing a peak with two others (one dead, one still missing) when he was struck.

Until I heard the official statement that they’d identified Jonny’s body, I was hoping (along with the hundreds, maybe thousands, of people who are also devastated by this news) that he and his partners had sidestepped the snowslide and were holed up in a cave, waiting until it was safe to move again.

I am so sad for his girlfriend, for his parents, for the many, many people he inspired in his 35 years. Yesterday, Brad and I remembered the last time we saw Jonny, at the Med in Boulder. After a big bear hug and a typically exuberant conversation, we’d returned to our table where one of our friends asked whom we’d been talking to. “Jonny Copp,” I replied, and watched our friend crane his neck to get a better look.

“That dirty guy talking with his mouth full?”

“Yeah,” we said, not needing to turn around. That was Jonny. Wild-eyed and unshowered, hanging out at a sleek Boulder hotspot just as he was—no pretention, no show, just unrestrained psyche and love and passion and fire.

Another time, after a long day climbing (and getting off route, and getting scared, and getting back on route, and still being scared) in the Black Canyon, my partner and I topped out to find Jonny and a gallon of water waiting for us at the rim. He’d climbed a much harder, much longer, much more demanding route that day, but just then, all he wanted to talk about was how our day had been—how exciting, how awesome, how cool that we’d topped out just before dark.

You know how a good veterinarian always makes you feel like yours is the most important dog in the world? That’s sort of how Jonny was. When you talked to him, he was wholly focused on what was happening with you, what was important to you. In the nine years I knew him, I never saw him unhappy or angry. He gave such good energy; it was impossible not to feel good in his presence, not to want to try harder at life.

I’m done asking why. Too many of my friends have died too young to keep asking that. The list will only continue to grow. I’m not saying that I accept any of this, though, because I am fully enraged at the universe for taking another good one.

I suppose I could turn to pre-determination and take comfort in the belief that Jonny (and Chris and Zack and Jeff, etc.) was here exactly as long as he was supposed to be here, that his work was done, that it was time for him to go. But I just can’t believe that, not when so many people are mourning, are confused, angry. Not when he was in love, not when he still had so many plans.

No. Rather than pre-determination, it just feels like the world is spiraling out of control. Nothing seems quite right.

RIP my friend.

Uh Oh

Arnie wet the bed last night.

He's five and a half, and has never had an accident in the house (since being potty trained as a puppy). This morning, I woke up to find a huge wet spot at the foot of our bed (he always sleeps with us). Arnie seemed fine--maybe a little more cuddly than usual, but no major change in behavior....

Anyone know why he might have suddenly wet himself? Brad thinks he was caught up in a dream, but the Internet tells me it's a bladder infection or UTI.

I'm taking him to the vet tomorrow (soonest I could get him in, as I'm not sure this qualifies as an emergency...).

My poor boy.

How much can you stand?

I listen to Pandora radio all day. I love it, even though otherwise excellent stations (Dave Matthews radio, for example), still play some duds. You’d think it’d be no problem to just skip the bad songs, but Pandora is tricky, and only lets you skip six songs per day. With each workday lasting eight hours or more, one has to plan her skips accordingly. Say a Coldplay song queues up first thing in the morning. I don’t want to slit my wrists, so it’d be wise to skip The Message or Clocks or anything else by the bloody downers, but what if three John Mayer* songs follow this one? I have to skip John Mayer songs, because his music makes me want to throw things at people, but that’d make four skips in one fell swoop, leaving me with only two for the rest of the day….

Nope. Too risky. I’ll save my skips and listen to Coldplay. I can stand it.

But that conscious weighing—stick with bad or risk worse?—isn’t necessarily beneficial, I’m learning, when it comes to other things. Say I have a long run or an especially hard work out planned. If I know what’s coming, I immediately start calculating (unconsciously, I’m sure, because god knows I’d need to grab a calculator otherwise) how much to give, how hard to work, when to push it, when to coast. Some might say that’s a good thing, that pacing is healthy. But from what I can tell (for me, of course, not for everyone), pacing equals stasis, precludes improvement, keeps me down.

Sure, if I run like hell up the first big hill, I might not be able to make it up the next one, but who knows? Maybe I would. Maybe I’d discover an untapped energy resource.

The thing is, I only get to play (run or crossfit or climb or ski or bike or ride my skateboard or play in the lake with the dogs…) for about an hour or so a day. That’s not a lot of time, so why leave anything in the tank? Why not go for it when I can?

I think we all know what’s inside us, though, and I know that I just can’t. It’s not in my constitution. Not everything I have, not every time, even though when I do take the leap and try without imposing boundaries (I can’t climb that, I can’t lift that, I can’t run that fast…I will fail, so why should I try?), I usually surprise myself.

Moving from that place of known fear to unfamiliar ground is hard, but often, the abstract is far worse than the actual. To that end, I’ve been giving it a little lately, learning that I can stand far more than I give myself credit for.

And while the superstitious part of me is fighting to shout, “But I’m sure I’m setting myself up for a fall by saying something so bold,” the present, confident part of me is stifling her more than usual, responding with a calm, “Well if that happens, I’ll just have to pick myself up.”



*John Mayer has no business being on Dave Matthews radio IMO. It's akin to likening Vanilla Ice (bad) to Eminem (good).

Another important story from my favorite news source

Thank dog for the Onion.


Here''s my current fave:

Mildfires Amble Through California

OJAI, CA—A series of mildfires ambled casually through California this week, lazily threatening nearby homes, warming helpless wildlife, and cozying up to almost everything in its path. "We barely evacuated our home in time," said resident Paul Krempel, whose backyard has been threatened by the loitering fire for days. "First, the boxes we ordered arrived a day late, and then there was a mix-up at the van rental place, which took forever. Plus, Margaret had to go pick up the kids from soccer practice before we could really start packing. It was definitely a close call." Firefighters have rushed to the scene of the mellow inferno and are currently sitting around it in lawn chairs, exchanging old stories and telling jokes.

Consider yourself warned.

I just learned what a polyvore is, and suddenly I feel like an artist.

You'll be seeing lots of pretty soon....

I've Got the Fever

When my mom was in high school, she moved with her family from blue-collar Scranton, Pennsylvania to a sprawling rambler on a quiet, wooded lot in Memphis, Tennessee. Johnny Cash, then a rising star on the country music scene, lived across the street; it was a new world for my mom and her three younger siblings. While my aunt and uncles took to the South, adopting the drawl and traditions like they were born to them, my mom loathed the Southern culture of the 1960s, the prevalent racism and bigotry, the lack of opportunities for women. In search of progress, feminism and open-minds, she followed a well-worn path to freedom and scampered North as soon as she turned 18.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the concept of home and all that it implies, and it’s interesting to me that my mom and my aunt, who are exactly one year to the day apart, who were raised with the same opportunities and experiences, grew up to find their homes in such vastly different places, among such different traditions and beliefs and ideas about right and wrong.

I grew up in the mid-Atlantic, which I love deeply and consider my home. I’m proud to say that I’m from Pittsburgh, with its history of hard work and ability to keep generations of families living in the same neighborhood. It’s the only place I lived as a child, so I have no context for whether it’s better or worse than anywhere else, but I can say this for sure: I had the opportunity to grow up exactly where my parents wanted to raise their family. They chose their home, and there’s something to that for me, something to knowing where you belong, to understanding that you’re at home in one culture and an alien in another.

Still, though, there’s a bit of the South in me, as much as my leftist politics and feminist tendencies make it seem otherwise. But we absorb our parents’ beliefs—what they love as well as all they resist. And though I grew up hearing horror stories about the injustice of Memphis in the 60s, I also saw pictures of oak and chestnut-lined avenues, of flowers so verdant you could almost feel that dripping, sweet humidity right through the Polaroid.

I love that humidity, that lushness, that sweetness, and it’s springtime—when the mid-Atlantic takes on those Southern characteristics—that I think of home the most.

Or else, it could be all that spring recalls for me: State College, Pennsylvania; runoff feeding Spring Creek; muddy trails in Rothrock State Forest; Dave Matthews; West Virginia; the smell of grass; and the first warm evening of the year, when my friends and I flocked to the patio of Café 210 West to drink long island iced teas around small glass tables and watch people walk down College Avenue. Even when graduation was within easy reach—just one paper or exam away—those evenings were sacred enough to render us, usually so focused on the future, fully present.

Indeed, similar languid evenings in my backyard now seem the only antidote to my constant need to be somewhere else.

But it’s all relative, and a few years ago the Café was torn down in favor of, I don’t know, an Abercrombie and Fitch or something. It’s not that big a deal, of course; it’s happening all over the country—soulful, single-owner places being razed in favor of chain stores, diversity yielding to homogeneity.

Still, though, this illustrates how so much—music, home, seasons—is so intimate, so specific to a person, place or time. My association with, say, Crush, is different than anyone else’s; it means something different to me, because while yes, it’s just a song, it’s also the spring of 1999, Ben and Sean and Bethany, long trail runs, long bike rides, drumming sessions with my friend Melissa, handmade patchwork halters, pot-lucks, trampolines, sweat lodges, wonder, possibility, that nervous and sickening feeling you get when everything is about to change.

It’s all those things, you see, so poignant that even now, 10 years later, they are my springtime traditions. I’ve been listening to Dave Matthews in a near continuous stream, all the while enjoying ridiculously strong cocktails and making plans to visit Pennsylvania, trail run with friends, play music, dance, go to concerts, smell grass and flowers and close my eyes and want to be nowhere else.

At no other time of year am I this grounded, this certain about what I want to be doing. I love spring.

While I've been away...

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Truth is, I've been on the plains of Africa, working for a very important cause: Save the Antelopes. Here's a short video of some of the vital work this organization does:

The Love Post

Little Cottonwood Canyon on spring evenings, when the final traces of sun illuminate the granite, the cool air smells like earth and we are all alone.

Arnie asleep in Brad’s arms, sighing and dreaming and stretching his paws.

Wedding anniversaries spent surfing in Mexico.

Summer road trips to California, for surfing and running and swimming and catching up with friends and people watching and thrift store shopping and emigration market eating and teaching the boys to ride big waves.

The recent discovery of an Indian restaurant in my neighborhood.

Board shorts.

An open back door, a green back yard, my dogs snoozing in the grass, daylight till 9:00 pm.

Hardwood Burns Slowly

I love my home, perched between Big and Little Cottonwood, with its shady yard and vegetable garden and birdfeeders and Paolo Soleri bells, which are so sweet and soothing that I always wake up smiling on breezy mornings. Waking up in Boulder this weekend, the first thing I noticed was the absence of their song, though I'm so used to them here at home that I don't even notice them anymore.

Interesting. Even the best things grow routine or boring. We stop paying attention to - or find fault in - what we once found so breathtaking.

And eventually, while we sit still looking out, we become such a part of our surroundings that we become our surroundings, the way temples have become banyan trees, and vice versa, in the jungles of Thailand and Cambodia.

So even though - as I said - I love my home and husband and this community, the stasis and finality of here seems to oppose my nature. I almost always feel like I should be elsewhere, traveling or exploring new places, new people, new opportunities. I'm not good at settling, even when the place and people and opportunities I'm "settling" for are so wonderful, are so sacred.

But some dear friends of mine just went to Vietnam for a few weeks, and before they left, I suggested sites and inns and restaurants and, well, Thailand, because I like it better, and as I talked, I thought about some of the things I've been lucky enough to experience: fabric shops in hard-to-find alleys and stooped old women who run guest houses and tend terraced gardens in the Himalayas and the way the centuries-old pubs in Gammla Stan stay open all night, even for a group of kids nursing Carlsbergs and being way too loud.

For years, I focused on going climbing as frequently as possible. That meant making it happen after work and on weekends, leaving little time for much else. Now that I've backed off a bit, I have more time to think. I feel like I'm finding my direction by remembering where I've been, and while that might seem like I'm navigating by way of the rearview mirror, I just can't fight this nostalgia; it's like I lost my way somewhere back there and am retracing my steps until I figure everything out.

Some friends and I went out for sushi in Boulder on Saturday night, and as we cracked each other up with stories about our lives now - so different than when we all lived in the same small mountain town five years ago - we watched a group of kids at a nearby table celebrate the 21st birthday of one of their own.

To me, they looked no older than 16, and I couldn't believe the waitresses weren't running their ids under black lights. "How can they be of age?" I thought, as we watched them tie on paper Samurai headbands - the Japanese equivalent of lobster bibs, I suppose. Then I realized that my context was off; I was still thinking of myself as 21 - young and rowdy and fighting for the spotlight - when, actually, I'm a decade beyond.

Maybe that's what this is all about. I don't know. Usually I just keep writing until I run across some sort of resolution; I never force it, I just seem to find one. Tonight, though, I'm writing in waves, taking breaks to play with Arnie and read the new issue of Surfer .

This month's "Last Wave" essay deals with the author's uncertainty about traveling to a spot in Baja based on the violence that area has experienced lately. He suggests that these world changes - unimaginable a few years ago - will affect surfing, will change how people can access and experience it. I paid close attention to the article, because Brad and I have spent time in that very place. When I think now about how safe we felt there, about how we - or at least I - felt then like I was in a haven of good energy and possibility, I'm almost embarrassed by my lack of foresight, by my inability to predict the warzone the place would become.

But maybe that's just it. Maybe, as we age and as the world changes in once unimaginable ways, we need to remember what it was like before, what we were like before. Maybe that's what gets us back on track and makes things better.

Good night, all.

They Know Too Much

Those hawk-eyed soothsayers over at Stuff White People Like are really starting to annoy me. I like to think of myself as a little avant-garde, a little outrageous, but the culture vultures have cut me down to average yet again.

Back when I thought I was cool because I still listened to the Roots, I stumbled - dismayed – upon this site, and since then, I haven't been able to tear myself away.

Damn them and their intimate knowledge of my tendencies.

Bangs? Check.

Mad Men? Love it.

Scarves? I'm not exaggerating when I say I wear one every day. Every Day. Today it’s white and orange gingham, yesterday it was white silk with bold chartreuse streaks, tomorrow it’ll be purple Pashmina, Friday something big and wrappy to wear on the plane. Dammit.

Moleskine "legendary notebooks"? Actually, I hate those pretentious little books. Carrying one is like wearing a sign that says, "I'm a sucker who hates my money and fancies my every thought so important that its needs writing down.”

Taking a year off? HA! They're wrong again! I didn't take one year off - I took three!

Coffee? Come on, EVERYBODY likes coffee. Just look at the Turks!

Facebook? Over 600 friends!

Self-aware hiphop references? Ok, this I do not do.

Grammar? Don’t get me started.

Free healthcare? If I had a nickel for every time I’ve proposed socialism, I’d be rich enough to buy non-generic meds.

David Sedaris, Not Having a TV, Arrested Development, Dogs, Juno, Living By The Water (I don’t, but I’d love to)…the list goes on and on.

But really, that's ok, because it's that transparency that enables you (and strangers who run an eerily accurate website) to know me so well, and to know how to help me out of a blue time.

Thank you for your insightful comments, phone calls and emails after my sad post a week or so ago. Such a tremendous outpouring of love—I feel so lucky.

And just like that, everything feels ok again. As soon as I took an honest look at what makes me happy (now - what makes me happy now, not what made me happy 5 years ago or 3 years ago or last year), all the stress—of climbing or not climbing, of skiing or not skiing—melted away. Instead of feeling directionless and overwhelmed, I was able to approach the world with some perspective.

So where do I go from here? I probably won’t revisit the therapist I saw a couple weeks ago, the woman who, after listening to me for a while, asked, “Why don’t you and your husband take up snowshoeing*? That might be a nice way to spend time together in the winter!”

I stared at her, unable to speak, because she just didn’t get it, and with 45 minutes left in my session – a fucking eternity – I suddenly felt exhausted. I missed the therapist I saw in college, Patti, who knew how to say, “try something new” without making me want to scratch my eyeballs out.

The thing is, though, I’ve been trying new things my whole life, preferring the novelty of change to the head-down-dedication of perfecting one sport or hobby. Yes, that spontaneity has allowed me to do myriad wonderful things, but I often wonder where I’d be if I'd ever truly stuck to something.

Oh. Wait ...

There's Arnie, all sprawled out with his paw flung across my foot.

I stuck to him.

When I got him five years ago, my life was at its most frenetic. I was barely hanging on financially and my emotions were completely unmanageable. So, naturally, because I couldn't deal with myself, I decided to throw another living thing into the mix. (WTF?)

But somehow - even with my roommate admonishing me for being so irresponsible - I knew it would work. I could fail myself - continually - without it mattering enough to change my behavior, but after smacking eyes on Arnie for the first time, I knew I could never, ever fail the fuzzy golden baby animal who was depending on me for food and love and shelter and walks and pets and companionship. He deserved all the compassion in the world, and in caring for him, I started to address the matters in my own life.

Hm. I never thought about that before. No wonder I love Arnie so much.

No wonder I didn't meet Brad until after I got Arnie. I wasn't ready to meet him any sooner.

Obviously, I have bad memories of high school. I had a lovely childhood, so it goes without saying that I spent my teen years looking for an enemy to battle, finding no one but myself, and taking it out on my parents.

I grew up with the sense of entitlement that comes from living in a house where the TV is turned off for dinner and my main chores were finishing my homework, writing thank you notes and practicing the piano. Chores finished, I spent most Friday and Saturday nights like the rest of my suburban American generation - at the local mall.

Juggling Aunt Annie’s pretzels and sugar-free lemonades, my friends and I trolled the sale racks at The Gap and pretended to ignore any classmates we saw. It's mostly a blur now, the drama and dialogue that seemed so paramount, the standing around that I used to beg an extra hour of curfew for. But one moment remains clear. My friend Janice and I were looking at purses at Kauffmanns, a regional department store now part of the Macy's family. Rather than fawning over the Liz Clairborne "Triangle Bag," which most of our peers paraded up and down the halls at school, Janice pointed to a locked glass case that held what looked to me like boring but expensive "Mom" purses.

"Someday I'm going to buy myself a Coach bag," she said.

I know, I know. These are the words of spoiled brats and little girls with no ambition. But Janice didn't say, "I want that," or "My dad is buying me that bag," or even, "I'm going to ask my parents for one of those." She said that she was going to buy one for herself, and that's what stuck with me, even after 15 years and numerous fancy bags (though no Coach...still not my style).

Figuring it out for yourself, whatever it is, matters.

Yes, plenty of people told me that I was on a path of destruction, but until I saw for myself how my actions could negatively affect little Arnie, I ignored all the static and ground noise and continued digging my own grave. Just as Janice, whose parents probably would have given her a Coach bag for her birthday or graduation or whatever, realized that earning it on her own would make carrying it feel all the better.

Just like my figuring out, over these past few weeks, what my priorities are right now, validates them - makes them mine.

* Snowshoeing? Just, NO.

It's weird now.

I know I've said this before, but it feels a bit like the wheels are coming off the bus. Today, the Earthquake in Italy. Yesterday a huge avalanche in-bounds at Brighton ski resort. On Saturday, a man in Pittsburgh mowed down three cops because he was afraid Barack Obama was going to take his guns away. On Friday (or what it Thursday?), the shooting spree and hostage situation in Binghamton.

Destruction and despair everywhere, it seems, which makes me think of William Stafford's beautiful Yes:

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out – no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.


And oh, he's so right. A wonderful weekend with Brad and the boys, Arnie warming my feet right now. Food growing outside, the sun still above the mountains even though it's nearly eight o'clock.

There's so much to be thankful for.

This One's for Anonymous

It's nice to know that the dynamic duo of Beeker and Animal have another fan.

I promise a real post next, but for now, one of my favorites:

Don't Be Nervous

They won't all be depressing rants and raves from now on. I promise.

Tonight, for example, a classic Muppet video - reminds me of the old days of TWR, back when it was all furry animals and funny videos.

And now, Master of Muppets.

Because one can only eat so many tomatillos.

I’ve always been inspired by landscape.

Of course, most writers are.

For John Updike it was the industrial mid-Atlantic and, later, the buttoned-up coastal towns of New England. For Gary Snyder it was the Cascades and the High Sierra, for Faulkner the humid, dripping South.

As we all know, WBY had County Sligo, and James Joyce, of course, was inseparable – in prose if not geography – from his beloved Dublin.

Ed Abbey and many like him had the desert of Southern Utah, and for years, I did, too.

In college, in my cold bedroom on Buckhout Street, I stayed up all night reading about red rock country through the words of Abbey and Terry Tempest Williams. At that point, I’d seen the desert only once, on a winter trip to Indian Creek. Back home in the sad Pennsylvania spring, I felt Utah calling me back.

In the years since, I’ve moved west and traveled to the desert dozens of times. Until now, I’ve maintained that the desert is my soul’s home, that its filagree of sage and tamarack inspires and sustains me.

But they don't, and neither do the improbable sandstone towers or stoic buttresses. The place has lost its enigma; it’s come to mean too much – a venue climbing successes and failures, a place to feel clumsy and awkward, a stage for letting Brad down.

And that’s the problem.

Brad loves the desert more than anyone I’ve ever seen. Normally reserved and calculated, he goes a little bit crazy as soon as Moab’s in the rearview and we’re barreling toward the highway 211 turn-off.

As I sit in the passenger seat, growing increasingly intimidated by my surroundings, Brad opens the windows and howls and calls the dogs to the front of the van to do the same. If they spot a rabbit, Brad brakes so hard the vehicle fishtails on the gravel. They clamor outside to where they last saw poor thumper, and I sit there praying for that rabbit’s deliverance from Arnie’s teeth.

You must understand: none of them – Arnie, Brad or Red – would ever purposely inflict pain on another creature (sure, Red gets a little bossy sometimes, but he’s mostly bark). They just get excited when they’re in the middle of nowhere—sans leashes and rules and schedules and pretense.

The desert is Brad’s Grateful Dead tour, his frat party, his drum circle, his dance club. It is the one place I’ve ever seen him drop his guard, throw his head back and relax completely.

So I feel guilty for not feeling the same.

Oh, I’ll still go there, of course. And I’ll have a wonderful time. But when we met, we connected over our shared love of climbing on sandstone. Years later, I’m more interested in rolling waves and rolling hills than I am desert sunsets, so where does that leave us?

I crave change – new sights and people and activities and experiences. Doing the same thing over and over causes me to compare one experience to the previous, causes me to compare myself to who I used to be, and somehow I keep falling short of my own expectations.

What was I saying about letting Brad down in the desert? Yeah, that's probably projection.

I guess I just need to remember that my life really isn't all that hard. I'm so lucky, so blessed - why create drama and stamp my feet and throw fits when, christ, I'm in the desert with the man and dogs I love; who cares how I'm climbing? Why not just have fun?

But that's what I do - I make a big deal out of things that aren't. Part of it, of course, is guilt. My life is so easy, if I were to only worry about huge problems, I'd never worry at all...I'd be just like Arnie. Sure, that'd probably be healthier, and god knows it'd be easier for my family and friends (and blog readers, because oh my god, believe me, even I'm getting tired of this love-hate-but-mostly-hate-lately affair I have with climbing; I can't imagine how you feel when you open up TWR and see yet another climbing post), but I'm not sure it's possible.


I love moving water more than anything else in nature. Its constant state of flux is calming to me because I, too, change moment to moment. I'm soothed by surf reports - even hundreds of miles from the nearest break - because they remind me that nothing is static, everything is a little bit different than it just was, and that's ok - it's natural. Exhausted and empty, I'm often a different person at 5 pm than I was at 5 am, when I hopped out of bed feeling happy. Like rivers and oceans, my moods surge and drain throughout the day.

The desert is different. Steadfast and still, its change is visible - just look at the arches - but slow. It ebbs and flows over decades, not hours, and while not always safe, it at least warns you when a storm is coming, when the calm is about to be rocked. My storms are far more sudden and unpredictable.

My friend, Kate, has recently begun to experiment with raw eating, and it sounds like it's working very well for her. Part of me wonders if a change in diet wouldn't help me regulate my energy and mood levels, but I'm so stubborn that as soon as I establish a rule for myself, I go out of my way to break it, just to prove that I can.

Maybe a better diet would help, but I'm so tired by the time I leave work and drive home that all my healthy, wholesome plans for the evening get trumped by eating chips and salsa for dinner and watching reruns of 30 Rock online. Since when am I so damn lazy?

I need to figure this out, though, because where I once ran 6 miles in the morning and did yoga and hiked with Arnie for two hours after work, I'm lucky now if I get out for a short jog or dog walk. I suppose I'm comparing myself to myself of fitness past again, but the thing is, I don't know where this new slothy version of myself is coming from. I don't like it, though - it's affecting my marriage, my happiness, my dog (I'm not the only one who could use more exercise...)...Where is this coming from? How do I fix it?

What do you expect from a country whose treasury secretary resembles Frodo Baggins?

Don’t you think?

A little unnerving. Me thinks he might blow the whole $350 large buying rounds of mead for his short-statured buddies at the Prancing Pony.

Of course, he also resembles a leprechaun, which might indicate that he’s fiercely guarding our hard won pot of gold.