unbelievable psyche

I've had a ton of energy the last few days...I'm staying up late, waking up early...biking, climbing, staying at the lab more than usual, being social.  I don't know what it is, but I feel really good!  I'm super excited about everything.  

I think part of it is that I've worked some stuff out lately in my head.  Stuff about work, friends, climbing, life, etc.  Maybe I have some sort of clarity of vision for the moment.  

I've been toying with the idea of doing a double century ride.  There's one in May that goes from Davis to Clear Lake and back, but I think that doing another century ride would probably be wiser.  Honestly I can't imagine biking 200 miles in howling winds, rain, etc.  I guess at least the SAG vehicles could always deliver you to the finishing dinner and keg if you couldn't make it.  I think I would probably destroy myself before I'd give up though, which might not be the best decision given my lack of bicycle experience.  

So: anyone want to do a century ride near Davis in the next few months?  Yes?  RAD!

In addition, I've become psyched on training in the gym again...ok, well bouldering more and doing more post-climbing exercise to keep everything balanced.  After doing the bouldering comp, I remembered how much fun it is to work problems with people.  I definitely need to boulder with other people, because otherwise I'd get on a problem and try it once or twice, either do it or decide that I couldn't, get bored and move on.  When I'm with people though, it's a collective effort.  I try much harder, try harder grades, climb for much longer, and have a much better time.  It's cool.

Tomorrow I'm going to Gold Wall with the Rodden-ator and Drew.  Maybe Stanley will show up, but that's always a crap shoot.  I haven't seen Drew in a while, so that should be good.  It will also be cool to show Beth the crag, and help her to further appreciate the spectacular rock quality of El Cap.  Gold Wall, like Jailhouse, is fun climbing once you pull off all the loose blocks and glue them all back together.  It takes a special kind of place for the belayer to wear the helmet more often than the leader.  

I haven't climbed outdoors in 2 weeks, and somewhat embarrassingly, I'm excited to see if there are any new mushrooms on the approach to the wall.  Fun from start to finish!  I guess I'm easily amused.

From Gold Wall I'm going to either Berkeley or Redwood City to spend the night; I'm giving a talk at the Bay Area Conservation Symposium on Saturday.  I submitted my abstract spontaneously, partly because the conference is cheap and close, and partly because I'm giving the talk that I gave for my qualifying exam (tui chubs).  I like having been in grad school long enough that I have a few Powerpoints on hand to give on short notice.  Maybe I'm gaining some Grad School Skillz despite my best efforts...

Then back to Davis for the night, and then back to GW Sunday.  I think Shannon should be there, maybe Drew?!  Holy shit that would be something.  Maybe Townsend?  Probably Rachel and Matt too.  

So yeah, life is really good right now.  Hope I can ride this one out for a while...

By the way, make sure to check out the raging debate on hand jammies.  Choose a side, and post a comment that either destroys or boosts Alan's ego.

I have too much energy

Which would explain the recent flurry of climbing/biking/blogging, etc.

I was going to bike with Sandrine this afternoon, but 20mph gusts deterred us.  So I'll wait 'til tomorrow to do a bouldering/training session with Shags, Nunsquatch, Jake etc.  Should be good!  I think I'll also go to a potluck thingie that some folks have in Sac the last Tues of every month.  I've been wanting to go, but sometimes driving to Sac seems like such a long way.  But, my resolution is to be more social, so here I go.

This excess energy has prompted me to walk aimlessly around my neighborhood in Davis.  I live on the greenbelt, so the walking is good.  To my surprise, I found some edible mushrooms: blewits (Clitocybe nuda) on the overpass on the way to the Nugget, inky caps (Coprinopsus atramentaria) growing in the sod next to Covell, and a common volvariella (Volvariella speciosa) growing in someone's yard.  It seems that most of the shrooms to be found in Davis are easily found in yard compost: mulch, oak leaves, pine straw, whatever.  I have to wonder if people think I'm strange, walking slowly through the trees, while they run, bike or walk by.  When I'm old, it's going to be embarrassing.  I'll probably still be single, except with maybe a few cats that I'll dress up like dolls and walk on a leash while wandering around the suburbs looking for mushrooms in peoples' compost piles.  Awesome.

Check out this video.

this is INSANE! checking out the structure of an ant city by filling it with concrete and then excavating. seriously. social insects are rad.

Irreverent new (for me) climbing blog

I love this guy.  Check out this post on quitting 8a.

And this post on how rock climbing can be silly.

from the blog: bluegrassbouldering.wordpress.com

smiley rocks, Tuolumne River, rock climbing... you know.

This has nothing to do with rivers, but these rocks are cool.

Ok back to the tuolumne river:

This is the subject of a book that I am co-authoring (along with about 10 other people).  My topic falls in the Aquatic Ecology and Fishes section.  I am fishes.

I'm not exactly sure how I became the fishes person.  Plenty of people in the class know a lot more about fishes than I do, particularly CA fish assemblages.  Maybe default, since I know even less about the other topics (geological history, human impact, terrestrial ecosystems of the Tuolumne River).  At any rate, it's kind of a cool thing to be a part of.  I'm developing an interest in Central Valley aquatic ecosystems, partially because they are unique (it's been isolated from other aquatic ecosystems for some time, CA is a young landscape), and partly because of the challenges stemming from human demand for water in a water-poor environment.  In fact, I just heard on the news that Sacramento is in a Stage 1 drought.  In JANUARY!!  Wow.  Apparently a lot of the forecasting for human water needs was based on a period that had higher than normal rainfall and snowmelt.  So "they" developed land thinking that there would be more water than there actually is.

Anyway, I guess my point is that water and aquatic ecosystems in CA are pretty interesting.  When you think of writing about a river, there are a lot of things that you end up writing about that you may not have originally thought of.  For example, did you know that the San Joaquin and all of its tributaries (the Tuolumne River, Stanislaus River and the Merced (I think). all used to have millions of spring-run chinook and fall-run chinook salmon?  The spring-run fish come up in the spring, spend the summer in cold deep pools at high elevation while they mature, and then spawn in the fall so that the fry can go downstream with the winter pulses:

  

The fall-run fish stay in the lower elevations (mainstem Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers), spawn an die.  The fall-run chinook are doing okay, but mostly because of subsidies from hatcheries.

The San Joaquin spring-run chinook effectively went extinct when Friant Dam was built in the 1940s.  Water diversion downstream in the 1948 (for potatoes and other crops) prevented the fish from going upstream, so they were trucked to below Friant dam where they managed to survive the summer and spawn in the Fall.  The water coming from dams is usually cold, so they were able to hang out at a lower elevation.  Unfortunately, the young that emerged were stranded in a dry stretch of the river on their way to the ocean.  San Joaquin spring-run chinook were extinct by 1950.  Millions of fish.  An entire life history.  A HUGE fishery.  Gone.

Historically, the spring-run chinook were far more abundant in the San Joaquin watershed than the Sacramento watershed, because there is a lot more snowpack in the mid and southern Sierra Nevada than the northern Sierra Nevada.  This was crucial to allow the fish to reach elevations high enough where they could survive for the summer - locations with cold temps and permanent pools in clean, fast-flowing water.  Currently there are still some spring-run chinook in the Sacramento watershed.  I think that these fish will be used as stock for restoring the San Joaquin spring-run chinook.

On the brighter side (depending on what side you are on), there are attempts to restore spring-run chinook in the San Joaquin river.  What's cool is that our lab got the contract to do the genetics work for the restoration.  It would be awesome to be a part of this project.  Post-doc maybe?  Who knows.

Lots of other things are going on in the Tuolumne River.  Native Americans managed the landscape far before Europeans arrived, but the majority of the change has happened since the 1800s, with hydraulic mining for gold destroying the rocky river bottom, followed by logging, grazing, and the final insult: dams.  Not to mention destruction of riparian vegetation and introduced species - inadvertently and on purpose.  All bad for salmon.

A lot of times I am surprised by the sources of information I find when I am looking up particular topics.  For example, when I was studying methods in historical ecology for my qualifying exam, I would google carbon dating, or dendrochronology.  I shit you not, 9 times out of ten I got a creationist/intelligent design website that was attempting to hijack the science in order to prove that humans rode dinosaurs less than 6,000 years ago.  Going back to the Tuolumne River, most of the information I'm finding about trout and fishes in the river comes from flyfishing outfitters.  Those dudes KNOW their trout.  It's impressive.  Too bad a lot of those companies depend on planted trout...but that's pages of more blathering about fish that no one who reads this blog is interested in.

Okay!  So rock climbing...um...we're all interested in that right?  I did the comp Friday, climbed a bunch of routes in the gym today...going to Gold Wall Friday, biking a bunch.  Yep that's about it for climbing.  Oh wait! I know what I was going to ask you guys!  I did the comp Friday night, biked 20 miles yesterday, and climbed in the gym today.  Today I felt GREAT!  Do you think doing cardio helps recovery between climbing days?

It's competition time!

After bailing on Jailhouse with Dr. Rob yesterday (the pouring rain didn't do much for my already low-JH-psych-level), in a fit of emailing everyone I know about doing a gym session, I decided to do the Touchstone Bouldering Series comp tonight.  I went to one a few years back and did fairly well.  More importantly though, I got a KILLER workout.  Somehow the comp vibe makes me try harder, and put in more hours.  I'm really looking forward to getting on a bunch of new boulder problems, seeing some folks that I don't see too often, and climbing 'til I puke.  And then drinking beer.  YESSSSS!

So after I decided to do the comp, I had to email and call everyone to try to get them to compete too.  Ryan Moon and Jake Nelson will be there, and I think I may have convinced Shags to climb with me too.  Lyn and Natasha from SF are also going to be there, meaning I don't have a chance in hell to win anything.  Good thing the prizes are decided by raffle and not by where they place in the comp.  

In other news, I have found an excellent cycling partner.  My friend Sandrine has the same kind of motivation that I have to always push push push.  Her knee is hurt at the moment, so in her injured state I can actually keep up with her.  Plus we're going to try to make it to yoga classes...I'm counting on her to motivate me, and I think she's counting on me to motivate her too.  I'm getting pretty excited about doing other things besides climbing...am I losing my identity?  

I have to admit, yoga never seems that appealing, because I don't prioritize mental health benefits as much as physical benefits.  If I try to compare climbing, biking and yoga, and my criteria is only how much of a workout I'm getting, yoga will always fall behind.  BUT, I think that for me, having time to ATTEMPT to prevent my mind from wandering all over God's Green Earth is probably a good thing.  So we went to restorative yoga last night.  Boring, but nice.  Let's see if I can make it a habit...not so sure.  On the other hand, I realize that I spend a lot of time thinking about pointless crap, and it's hard not to be annoyed with myself for wasting energy like that...I'm just supposed to "notice my mind wandering, la-di-da."  Oh well.

People have asked me what my New Year's Resolutions are this year.  Up until now, I haven't given it much thought.  For some reason I've been abysmally lax in the whole planning long term stuff recently.  But here's for starters:

1. give myself injections on schedule. I've been so bad about this...I think it's because all of the places that I inject myself look cadaverous.  So much for ever wearing a bikini again.

2. eat healthfully (attempt to avoid wheat, excess fat and sugar)

3. get this trout manuscript out the door before spring break (at least to my co-author for revision).

4. participate more in lab activities, do better about my tasks (freezer and cleanup...yeah I got kind of hosed this year)

5. spend more time with my friends, spend less time with people who are not my friends

6. boulder more, bike more, do more yoga, and do more opposing exercises for shoulders, fingers, etc.

7.  Do more social stuff around Davis.  I was thinking the other day that I've actually made some really good friends here, despite being so obsessed with climbing that I miss out on a lot of stuff.  I think that not going to JH every weekend (like last season) has been one of the best things I've done for my sanity.

8.  score a date with the cute guy I met the other day (okay, pipe dream, but I'm trying).

9. Trip to the Creek, trip to Greece.

Obviously there's a lot more to do and to aspire to, but this is a start. Stuff that I can do on a daily or weekly basis is always good.  Seems like 2008 was a watershed year for me.  A lot of my values and priorities changed, probably because a lot of things in my life changed.  Part of me is sad that I don't think that listening to stories about climbing for hours on end is that interesting anymore, but a part of me is excited to see what will fill that space.  I think that much of this comes from not needing an climbing as an identity as much as I did...it always seemed like climbing made me stand apart from everyone else in the population (or at least I felt that way).  Hopefully it's a positive thing that I don't need it as much anymore.  I stand back and look at people who are still deep into it, and it's pretty interesting.  Actually, it's boring, but from a psychological self-reflective standpoint, it's interesting.

A little boredom never hurt anyone

Today has been interesting.  I found myself in the unique position of throwing a tantrum about something that I didn't care about.  I think I may have had an out of body experience. I think I may have channeled my inner Sunsh (sorry,  I still love you).  What was great about this tantrum is that I was able to utilize new technology to enhance the effect.  Google video chat.  

I'm not much of a tantrum thrower.  I tend to vent to friends before I vent to the person who is irritating me.  I think I just wanted attention.  The situation that caused me to throw a tantrum isn't even a big deal.  Paradoxically, what I find most interesting about the situation is my reaction, and not the situation itself.  

I feel like I've been acting, pretending, playing a role, whatever.  It's hard to describe.  I think that sometimes we get into ruts in our relations with people.  We end up going through the motions out of habit, rather than out of any particularly worthy motivation (okay, very subjective, but this isn't science).  Relationships have roles, and we play them for better or worse.  If I could visualize my relationship with my parents, I think it would look like the road on the way to Gold Wall. Deeply rutted, taking extra effort to stay out of the ruts and potholes.  It's way way easier to just drive in the well worn grooves.  

If you can ever take a step back and think about why you get upset about one thing or another (it's hard to do sometimes), then you can actually learn a lot.  What I don't understand is why, if a relationship is damaging to both parties, it's easier to go through the motions than to just forget about it.  Why is that?  Is it because what we know is always easier than what we don't? Is it because I don't want the other person to get what they want, so I try to make it more difficult, even if I don't care that much?  

Another odd thing to ponder: usually I pretend NOT to care, rather than pretending to care.  But why am I pretending anyway?  Why am I self-editing so much? What am I afraid of?

infusion ladies

I had what may be my last infusion of solu-medrol today.  I'm always pretty excited to see the infusion ladies, because they pamper me.  Unfortunately, there was a new infusion lady today.  And I don't think she is very bright.  Not only did she manage to not stick my gi-normous veins first go (what?), she would take the cap off of the needle and then scratch her head with that hand and open up the alcohol pads and stuff before sticking me.  Awesome.  I just love seeing sterile techniques in an infusion center where every ailment from cancer to AIDs gets treated.  If I were going to infuse myself, I think I would take the cap off LAST, considering this is the part of the whole apparatus that's going directly into my bloodstream.  But what do I know?

Normally I nap for a few hours, but for some reason it wasn't in the cards today, so I watched Beowulf.  Not bad.  The monsters were cool, especially Grendel.  Then I started Season 1 of The Wire...everyone always talks about how great it is, so I figure I have to give it a try.  I guess today they had 10 chemo patients in the morning, for only 8 chairs.  Busy day.  Nothing like honoring a civil rights leader like hanging out with the cancer patients.  yee-haw.

Now I feel a little crappy and a little wired and a little depressed.  Drugs.  I walked over the the Nugget and bought some stuff to make a banana cream pie for an inauguration party/pie bake-off tomorrow evening.  

I also found out that my housemate is moving out, which makes me sad.  She found cheaper rent somewhere else.  Finding a housemate in a college town in February sucks; I'm not too psyched about it.  What makes it even worse is that my parents have threatened to sell the house if I don't keep a housemate.  My parents kind of suck a lot of the time.  Maybe I could play the MS card: "selling the house and making me move would stress me out, and cause my immune system to potentially go haywire."  Is that wrong?

I went to Gold Wall yesterday with Ron and Chris, two older dudes.  It's the first time I've ever gotten a ride to Sonora from Davis.  I was on the fence about going, but the thought of not having to drive AT ALL to go climb was too irresistable.  As it turns out, it was super freakin' hot, but I had a lot of fun.  I tried my little proj, and then got on this amazing looooooong super fun .11d thing.  That route is SO FUN!  I like hanging out with people who aren't seething and overflowing with anxiety/obsession/restless energy.  I have a hard enough time dealing with my own.  I think that's one of the reasons I like Gold Wall so much this year...and like Jailhouse so much less.  That being said, I'm planning on going to Jailhouse Thursday with Dr. Rob.  I got on Hall of Justice last week, and though it's way over my head at the moment, at least it's new, and at least it's only .12- to the crux, which is halfway up.  So there's a lot of good climbing that I can do without hanging, which is basically all I want to do right now.  

bummed.

This weekend has been a bit of a bummer.  Good things have happened too, but the bad things seem to be coloring my mood more.

I visited my grandparents in Hopland yesterday.  My 92 yr old Grandfather is probably "circling the drain", and my 92 yr old Grandmother does everything for him.  He can barely move, he can't eat much, he can't take a shit or pee on his own.  It's depressing, to say the least.  Last night he insisted on sleeping in the living room, so Grandma couldn't hear him when he was yelling "AUDREY" at midnight, and at 6am.  Both times I had to wake my Grandma, the first so that she could help him pee, and the second because he had to poop.  The second time, they called me in because Grandpa couldn't get out of the chair without help to make it to the bathroom, so I needed to help lift him.  Fortunately, he has his own pee bottle, so when he has to pee it's easier.

It's a tough situation for many reasons.  Lots of those reasons go back very far in time, probably to even before I was born.  I have two sets of aunt/uncle and two cousins (one with a wife and stepkids) who live on the property (about 1400 acres or so), and Grandpa has managed to alienate all of them.  This means that people don't like to come and hang out in my grandparents' house, which means that a lot of the burden of care falls of grandma.  Watching my 95 lb grandma pull up my grandpa's pants, attempt to sort out his medications, and spring to action every time he hollers "Aaaaauudreey" is a site to behold.

I wish that I could be less squeamish, and I wish that I could help more.  It's very hard being in the house though.  Grandpa can't hear what I'm saying, he yells at Grandma all of the time, and basically he looks like death.  He sits in the living room with FoxNews blasting all day long.  The volume is so loud that you can't even have a conversation with another person in the room.  Mostly Grandma and I hang out in the kitchen, and she fills me in on her life, and the lives of everyone else on the ranch.  I never stay long - it's hard, and I always feel so bad when I leave.  Not to mention that everyone always gives me grief about not staying long enough.  All of this serves to feed my feelings of inadequacy as a good family member.  I leave feeling sad and selfish.

I knot that this situation is pretty typical.  Western medicine + geriatric care + society's attitude towards old people doesn't seem to work for anyone.  Why do we extend lives when lives are no longer worth living?  The amount of money and time and energy spent on adding a few more breaths to someone's life...I just don't know if it's worth it.  But how can you just not do anything if you can prescribe more pills and do more surgery to remove cancer?  If there is something, anything that can be done to address the myriad failures in a human body, are we obligated to act?  Death is programmed into life.  After we have passed reproductive age, cells and the organs they belong to stop regenerating.  Shit just starts to go wrong; repair mechanisms don't work or are slowed, our reproductive organs senesce.  All sorts of fun is had.

Anyway, it gets me thinking about my attitude towards death and aging: I'm terrified.  The fact that I have MS and can look at people in wheelchairs that have MS is terrifying.  The thought of being slowed physically and not being able to do what I want to do is horrifying.  Of course, that sort of thing probably won't happen to me, but it might.  No one likes to be confronted with their own inevitable mortality and decay.  Bad times for sure.

I'd like to talk to some people who've dealt a little more closely with dead or dying people.  My only experience with someone dying is seeing my sister in the funeral home, and she was already dead.  I'm not particularly sad about losing my grandfather...he's kind of an old bastard, and grandma would probably be a lot better off when he goes, but I'm sad about the situation in general.  I get so overwhelmed that I try to avoid it altogether.  I'm even afraid to touch my grandfather, because he looks so bad.  His skin is paper thin, he's super skinny, he has scars from a recent staph infection, his kidneys are failing so his ankles are super swollen...  Some people can just get in there and do what needs to be done.  Apparently I'm not one of those people.  It's almost like I can ignore the fact that I am "sick" and getting older if I'm not around sick and elderly people.  I don't know.

I'm sure I'll write more positive posts soon, but this is on my mind.

2008 Latest Edition - Did You Know 3.0 - From Meeting in Rome this Year

pretty wild. Makes me wonder why I'm in school.

James is a RAD DANCER

Besides being a very nice person, James Lucas is a major BIG DEAL DANCER.  

Word.

Bugs and rock climbing

I stumbled across this website while trying to identify a spider that a friend posted on her Facebook page.  It's called Bugguide.net and it's pretty much amazing.  The photos are spectacular and the page is very well organized (which is difficult, given that taxonomy by nature is NOT organized, though it purports to be...but whatever).  I like the click guide on the left side of the page-I'd be curious to see how efficient it is to use.

In other news, I've been climbing a bunch at Gold Wall and a little bit at Jailhouse.  I need to find a new project at Jailhouse, otherwise I'm pretty bored and unmotivated there.  The climbing is definitely fun, but the vibe there is VERY serious, and my refractory nature makes me want to not take it seriously, meaning not give a shit.  Anyway, I think I might try Cell Block, even though the bottom is crumbly and gross now.  Oh well.  Hopefully I'll get psyched.