CHELSEA LATELY AMY SEDARIS INTERVIEW

This is amazing. I love Amy Sedaris and David Sedaris. Funny!

Mr. Green Genes!

The Science Blogs weekly recap is always fodder for my blog.  You should check it out.  Anyway, here is a transgenic kitty.  His name is Mr. Green Genes.  Those silly scientists!  I mean, they spend a lot of money of fruit flies in France!  FRUIT FLIES! I kid you not!

This comes after I introduced a speaker for the Animal Science seminar yesterday (I was volunteered for this committee...). His talk was entitled: "Cloned livestock for food: hazards and benefits"  Kind of interesting.  Did you know that Mad Cow disease is not really a disease? It's more of an interaction between cow genes and human genes (prion).  You have to have a particular amino acid at a particular site in a particular protein to be susceptible to it.  In fact, the way that it works is sort of a domino effect...reminds me of Ice 9 from Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle.  Crazy.

What are you pretending not to know?

I copied this from an article in the Huffington Post about the body language between Cindy and John McCain.  The context is: How could John McCain not have known that his wife had a drug addiction?

The article strikes me because I think I (and others I've observed) have a tendency to ignore the obvious.  How many of us have dated someone, only to break up and think later "how could I have been so blind/stupid/idiotic/such a sucker?"  And the mechanics of the mind that make habituation and oblivion (compartmentalizing?) possible for coping are not restricted to relationships.  I remember thinking that when I couldn't walk, my whole body was tingling and I couldn't use my right hand...that I'd just climbed too much, even though I'd had an MRI and the doctor ordered another one because he was concerned.  In hindsight sometimes I say "I always knew something was wrong."  Or, a part of me did.

Super-cliche, but put well below:

"There's a deeper answer, though, to the question of how partners gradually become oblivious to the painfully obvious. It speaks to something every conscious couple needs to know. A few years ago a car passed us with a bumper sticker that had an intriguing question written on it, "What are you pretending not to know?" It's a question that all of us should ask of ourselves on a regular basis. It takes a heroic act of unconsciousness not to notice so profound a thing as drug addiction in one's partner. In our work with couples in devitalized marriages, however, we've found that we humans are highly skilled at sealing out awareness of deep unhappiness from within ourselves. Because we get so skilled at blocking the flow of awareness inside ourselves, we also get good at averting our eyes from the obvious signs of distress in our partners. Eventually, if we continue to look away from our own inner distress and the outer signs of distress in our partners, we gradually dam the flow of intimate contact with our partners as well as ourselves. Without the lifeblood hum of genuine intimacy, the relationship becomes a devitalized shell characterized by perfunctory hugs and chilly smiles in public, and much worse behind closed doors. Any experienced relationship therapist is familiar with the devitalized marriage; we've probably worked with more than 500 such relationships over the past 30 years. In order to be successful in re-vitalizing these relationships, it's essential to help them straighten out a terrible misunderstanding about what love is.

The misunderstanding is caused by a false belief about love. It's the twisted notion that loving someone means that you'll lie for him or her. "

Not in Yosemite.

I'm not in Yosemite anymore, and keep in mind that it is Saturday.  I feel that this is a testament to how freakin' restless I am.  Why couldn't I hang out for another day and wait 'til the crowd from the Bay came in?  The thought "wasting" another day drove me back to Davis.  Yeah, I could have hiked, done some studying, bouldered by myself, whatever.  I mean, Christ, I was in Yosemite during the prime season, surrounded by beautiful fall colors.  

But I left.  So now I am home doing laundry.  I am a loser.

Part of the reason is that partner after partner bailed on the weekend.  Drew bailed, Rob Miller bailed, Dan has partners.  Even people like me, who have backup plan after backup plan get hosed with partners.  Maybe I'll start bouldering more.  

Who out there is always psyched?  Who is always motivated?  Who has no other priorities except for rock climbing with me?  I wish I could clone myself so that I would always have a partner.  On the other hand, I'm quite sure I would hate myself after one day of climbing with myself, so I guess I should be grateful for the partners that I have.  Plus, who would lead the hard pitches?

I can make list after list of things I should/could get done, but I always end up with my ass parked in front of my computer trying to connect with people via gchat, FB, or whatever.  Loneliness and ennui suck.  Add a healthy dose of restlessness to that and you have...me.

David Sedaris on undecided voters

“I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention? To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it? To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked."

Still in Yosemite

This week has been a little weird.  My parents decided to cancel the credit card (that they pay for) to which I charge my medical expenses, which as you can imagine are significant.  So I've been getting phone calls from the hospital and doctor's offices saying "you're card was declined."  Lame.

That isn't the lamest part.  The lamest part is that they didn't tell me that they were canceling the card.  Doesn't that seem like the sort of thing that I deserve to be told?

In other news, my thyroid biopsy indicated no malignancy, so I can move on from that stressor, and on to the stress of studying for my qualifying exam on December 8.  Yay?  In some twisted way I was hoping I would have to have surgery so I could put off the exam a little bit longer, but this is good. It will be good to get it over with.

I'm still in Yosemite.  I rested Monday and Tuesday (for lack of partners) and did Astroman with Dan yesterday.  He led everything and hauled, because he is a rock star and I am not.  I fell getting into the slot, but had learned from a previous attempt to tell the leader to put gear in the back so that I wouldn't be dangling in space.  I was able to get into the slot and just got worked.  Other than that, I thought I was going to send everything 'til I fucked up on the last pitch and fell.  Lame.  On the whole I felt better though, probably because I'm a better climber now and also because we had plenty of water (but still not enough).  There was a party of Swedes behind us the whole way.  They had just sent Golden Gate and were pretty fun to hang out with at the belays.  One of the guys had gotten worked in the Monster Offwidth, causing lots of bloodshed.  Doing the Harding Slot 2x (he lowered to redpoint) tore off all his scabs and he was bleeding profusely.  Savage.  Also they had just spent 2 days on Quantum Mechanics and had little water and no chalk.  Supremely savage.

I'm not sure what is going on this weekend, but I'd like to go cragging.  Unfortunately, most of what I'd like to do gets lots of sun exposure and the temps have increased by quite a bit.  

In other news, I've been fortunate enough that Justin is a nice person and has let me stay at his house.  But I have been unfortunate in that Turtle, his dog, has eaten quite a lot of my food by jumping up on the countertops (I should put the food crate up higher, I know, I know).  

Here is a list of the things of mine that Turtle has eaten:

1 Odwalla bar (Super Protein flavor)

1 package of rice cakes

half a package of Newman O's

1 block baked Tofu

1 container of Parmesan Cheese

The Newman O's were the most tragic because I had been thinking about them all through the last half of Astroman.  I was bummed.

Sorry Justin.

atheist bus: all aboard!!

check this out.

Yosemite trip report: still in Yosemite

If you aren't in Yosemite right now I hope you have a really good reason.  The weather is amazing, conditions are perfect and the crowds are thinning.

On Saturday Drew and I did the Rostrum, despite the fact that the weather looked a little bit suspect.  Fortunately by the time we got down it was perfect and we started up the climb around 10:30, the first party on the route.  I'd done the Rostrum a few years ago with Dr. Freesolo and had done fairly well. I've been trad climbing a lot more lately, so I was hoping to do better than last time.

I had a feeling that I'd need more water than one liter, clipped to my harness clanging around, but I decided to try to climb the route sans pack.  It worked ok, but on the whole I think it was a mistake.  I'm sorry, but carrying a tag line and hauling a pack so you can be more comfortable is the way to go for me these days.  When I can do the Rostrum in 4 hours, I'll consider carrying my own water while leading and following again.  

It took about 6 hours, I led pitches 1, 3 and 5, whipped on 5, and then got a little worked on the offwidth.  I actually climbed up half of it, which I was pretty psyched about since before I had only aided the thing.  Right knee stuffed in the crack and some hand stacking worked pretty well.  I was also psyched to follow the second to last pitch clean, since I had remembered it being really hard for me.

I'm still sore today (Monday) even though I only did a little bouldering yesterday.  I think it's because I got so freakin' dehydrated.  It seems like I feel a lot better the net day when I've had plenty of food and water during a long climb.  I wish I were tougher, but I am not.  It's time to accept it.

So Sunday was really fun!  All kinds of people came into the valley.  Shannon and John, Alan and his lady-friend Amna, Becky, Patti, Lyn, Paul and Cameron, Courtney, and a bunch of people I'd never met before, but were friends of friends.  It was cool to hang out in the caf with the Berkeley crew.  Most of the people I hang with (John, Shannon, Justin) are NOT morning people, but Lyn and Patti were pretty darned perky.  It was rad.

I ended up bouldering at the Lost World boulders.  Well, mostly I sat around and watched people boulder, ate half a bag of the Trader Joe's version of Cheetos (I think the technical name is "Baked Cheese Crunchies") and did 2 boulder problems.  Not sure what the first one was, but it was a pretty cool V2 thingie.  I did another boulder problem called "Once Upon a Time" which was a highball (ok it was pretty tall, but is it considered a highball in Yosemite?) V3 stem corner.  SICK!  I did some boulder problems!  It's cool because aside from the time I bouldered with Justin a week or two ago, I hadn't bouldered at all in a couple of years.  The last time I bouldered in Yosemite there wasn't nearly as much development.  I'm psyched.

I also got to watch Shannon, Justin, Beth and John get worked over by a steep boulder problem that was essentially a steep offwidth crack.  There weren't any sends, but the effort was proud and the psyche was high.  I'd forgotten how much fun bouldering is with big groups of people.  It's cool.

Alright, I'm still here, sitting in the Ahwahnee recovering from the past two days.  I should just hang out and drink a bunch of water today, maybe hike up to the base of the Rostrum to collect the jacket and hat that Drew and I decided we wouldn't need, read, maybe do some work?  It would be pretty cool if I could hang here and study for my qualifying exam which is coming up in December.  

John should have some good photos from the weekend, so I'll link over to his blog when those show up.

M.I.A.'s Best Story Ever

she's so cute!

Yosemite trip report

Whew!  So I haven't been blogging about my own climbing lately, mostly because I've been spending more time musing about climbers and climbing in general.  My climbing hardly seems that important.  But rest assured I have been climbing a ton and enjoying the fall season.

This past weekend I started by climbing at Jailhouse on Friday with Dr. Rob.  I hiked the warm-up (always a good sign), got on Whipping Boy, which I hadn't been on since it was trundled and drilled, went up Soap and then Common Thug.  It was fun to get on a bunch of different routes.  I think I'm more psyched on doing actual rock climbing and laps than I am on projecting stuff right now.  The thought of long-term projecting makes me want to curl up in a ball and die.  

After I left Jailhouse I drove up to Yosemite and was shocked by how cold it was.  Not only that, but as I was driving through the valley, it started snowing!  I looked up through my windshield in astonishment and felt a huge grin spread across my face as the swirling flakes engulfed all of the classic valley landmarks.  I can't even remember the last time I saw snow...it's been a while.

I hung out in the Caf and visited with a friend and sipped some hot chocolate...it was nice.  The I headed over the the Pines to meet up with Drew and Alice to talk about the next day.  Which was going to be cold.  The original plan was to do the Rostrum, but the forecast was for arctic temps and possible snow, so we decided on the Cookie.  

On Saturday we headed to the Cookie and warmed up on Outer Limits, then I belayed Drew on Crack a Go Go, which I'd toproped before and remembered as being hard.  Drew got pretty worked on it, but made it to the top so I could toprope it (what a gentleman).  I was psyched to TR it clean!  I ended up just using the right crack and making moves between finger locks.  It was snowing again by the time I was near the top, so we went back down to the car to make sure Alice was still alive after a hypothermia scare, and then decided to do Catchy and Catchy Corner.  Again, I took the easier lead (Catchy) and made Drew lead Catchy Corner.  I'd tried to lead Catchy Corner before, but ran out of gear and ended up lowering down to get more.  I was curious to toprope it to see how it felt now.  It felt hard.  It made me not feel so bad about getting gripped on it before.  Again, I was psyched Drew put a rope on it so I could TR it clean.  HA!

Sunday I met up with Dan and we had Plan A and Plan B.  As we were 3rd (me) and 4th (Dan) day on, we decided to do Astroman but potentially just do the boy.  We woke up early and it was COLD.  My car thermometer read 29 degrees in the Caf parking lot around 7:15.  But we figured that it would be nice on A-man in the sun, so headed up to the base.  Sure enough, it was gorgeous over there, with no wind and crispy temps in the sun.  We linked 1 and 2, 3 and 4 (the easier boulder problem allowed this with minimal drag), and 5 and 6.  By the time we got to the top of 6, the temps were arctic and the shade had hit the wall, so we decided to bail.  This went fine until Dan rapped the Enduro Corner and forgot to hang on to the other line because he was so excited about single-line rapping.  I looked up at him and said "DAN!  WE NEED THE PURPLE LINE!"  To which he responded "OH SHIT".  I always rap with a gri gri so I always single-line rap, but Dan had a reverso,  so I just assumed that he would double line rap and hang on to the purple (tag) line.  

So Dan is halfway up the Enduro Corner, and the tagline is fairly far left, a bit tangled and over the edge of the corner.  Crap.  By this time it's shady, I'm stuck on the ledge below the boulder problem sitting next to someone's dried-up shit, and I'm FREEZING.  Dan says, "I might have to climb it again..." and I said "yeah but we have no lead line!"  

Dan goes in direct so that I can give him some cams to make it back up to the anchor, which is probably about 35 meters away by that point.  So Dan starts futzing around with the reverso and I yell up "why don't I give you my gri gri?"  So I send up the gri gri.  Fortunately however, after about 20 minutes of struggling, the capricious Gods smile on us and blow the purple rope right enough so that Dan can grab it.  Then Dan starts futzing around a bit more and I yell up "dude! what are you doing?"  He says "I'm going back on the reverso cause I'm afraid of losing the tagline"  I respond "DUDE!  WHY?  Stay on the gri gri, drop the rest of the tagline and I'll fix it to the anchor.  I WANT TO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"  He listens and pretty soon Dan and I are at the anchor, and then on the ground.  Yay!

To the caf, where I eat a burger and fries, and then home to Davis.  So that is the Yosemite trip report for this weekend.

Ode to the tapeworm

My friend Vicken just G-chatted me;  he was super excited about his butt.  You see, Vicken has a tapeworm.  Actually, now he has half of a tapeworm, which may or may not be more exciting than having a whole tapeworm.

So I did a little bit of internet research on tapeworms and found The Tapeworm Page.  It has some pretty exciting animations and cartoons of tapeworms, guts and dog anuses.  Check it out.

Vicken thinks that he may have gotten the tapeworm over the summer eating an Armenian dish that is "basically raw meat", but he also grew up in the middle east and has visited African countries such as Egypt.  So who knows.  He doesn't know how long he's had it, and never knew until a violent bout of diarrhea caused the worm to emerge from his...ahem.  So naturally he freaked out, then he pulled about 2-3 feet out ("if that's only half of it, it's taller than me!!" he says) and put it in a container to take to Cowell Student Health.  Hopefully the rest of it comes out soon Vicken.  My thoughts are with you buddy.

Sam Harris on Sarah Palin

Check out this article that Sam Harris wrote for Newsweek.  It's called: When atheists attack: A noted Provocateur rips Sarah Palin - and defends elitism.

Pruning the tree

Someone mentioned to me that they had "pruned a dead branch off of their tree" and was referring to a person that they didn't want to see or talk to anymore.  I thought this was an amazing analogy.  

So I have decided to prune a few branches off of my tree.  I think it has finally occurred to me after this year that I have spent a lot of time climbing with people who suck, just because I want to go rock climbing.  On the flip side, I have climbed with a lot of awesome people.  So I want to put it out there that I love most of the people I climb with.  There have simply been a few notable exceptions.

I think that I am still willing to climb with people who aren't my best friends, but I'm trimming out the folks who are disrespectful to women, are flakes, and people who are unmotivated or negative.  Life is way too short.

Speaking of being disrespectful to women, I've noticed recently that some career climbers climb and relate to women with the same paradigm.  Women are like routes, you should attempt to do as many as possible.  "It would be proud to hook up with so-and-so".  Proud like doing a hard route.  It's kind of fucked, and I'm going to be more aware of it in the future.  

Alright, that's my rant for now.  

Fall is here!

I am so happy that the Fall season is here.  Hanging out in Yosemite on Monday, the air and the sun felt so good on my skin.  It made me catch my breath.  Plus the sound of the breeze drifting through the dying leaves on the trees brings me back to growing up on the East coast.  Not to mention the fact that mushroom season is coming up!  I feel the blood crackling in my veins.  I'm excited to take advantage of the shorter days, the friction and the physical relief of the crispy temperatures.

I hope to hang out in Yosemite until it gets too wet or too cold to climb.  The tough part is finding partners.  I'm taking advantage of the flexibility of my grad school schedule, and it is hard to find people whose schedule matches up with mine.  I don't mind hanging out by myself and scrambling for partners every weekend (I feel so lucky to be climbing at all!), but I do miss having a solid partner with similar goals.  

By the way, check out John's photos on Alpinist.  Here and here.  They are beautiful!  Plus, the second photo captures Justin in a rare moment clipping bolts.  Very uncharacteristic!