Round.

I've never really understood the expression "out of shape". Right now I'm in nearly perfect shape, since, really, how much more perfect can you get than a sphere?

I went XC skiing today up at Snoqualmie Pass and found myself constantly leaning on my poles and muttering aboot how "out of shape" I am. I'm paying the price of finishing my thesis (which is now completely done!) with a shocking lack of fitness and an unsightly surplus of body mass. But where you and I might say "out of shape" others might say "shapely". How do you tell the difference? Why do nearly opposite sayings mean the same thing?

So next time I hold my side, panting my way up a short flight of stairs, instead of muttering aboot how out-of-shape I am, I'll simply pride myself on being quite a shapely young thing.

Yes, that'll do much nicer, I think.

Ignorance is bliss, as long as you don't know about it.

I was talking with my friend Rich about my last post. Rich is a great photographer and a snide little bastard (but his criticisms of my photos are usually constructive, after being snide). I was saying that I especially liked the photo of the kid, and he commented that it seemed a bit out of focus to him. Then he offered the rule of thumb that the a person's eyes are what should be in focus. Presumably I had focused on the kid's torso because that was simply easier.

But after boasting in the caption that I 'quite liked' the photo I felt a bit stupid. I even thought about altering or deleting the post. And so, like almost every other thought I've ever had, this provoked a day dream. Why did Rich's comment change the way I felt about the photo so much? The more I thought about it, I realized the reason: ignorance may be bliss, but blissfully ignorant people look like assholes to people who know better. And I realized that I just made myself into into that asshole - someone who was pleased as puddin' with his shitty photo, with no idea that it violated a pretty basic principle of how to take a good photo.

But I thought about this more. Some people hold a particular belief or emotion simply because they don't know any better. This has always been a demographic that I hate. Some people defend blissful ignorance, of course - if the photo makes you happy, why do you need to know that it sucks? Mine is not really a happy attitude - though I obviously don't expect to be the best at everything, I try not to boast too much about my inevitable mediocrity. And when I get caught in a slip-up, a moment of actually not understanding what "good"is, I get flustered. Others are more easily pleased. I think this dichotomy of attitudes toward life may, at least partly, explain why people feel so strongly one way or the other about Sarah Palin, for example. So perhaps my out-of-focus photo is a metaphor for Life In America. And maybe that's how I always meant it.

So I found two more portraits that I've always liked. Both are of Jed. The first one violates my rule a bit of what qualifies as a 'people picture', since it is a skiing photo, but its close enough. It was taken skiing back from what we thought would be the first peak ascent of Nenana Mountain. It wasn't. It was, however, every bit as cold as it looks. The photo was taken during a brief lull in the bitterly cold wind. The second photo was from a time period in which I was pretty much Jed's only friend (the title of the .jpeg, from when I scanned the photo years back, is jedbeingjed.) He was probably about 19 and this was around the time he got booted off the UAF ski team. He got booted, basically, for being the person in this photo. I don't remember why I took this picture - it is a bit out of character of the types of photos that I take - but I think I was just finishing the roll of film and this moment seemed to be worth capturing, even at the time. If I outlive him, I'll see that this photo is at his wake.

I hate people pictures.

It rarely occurs to me to take a picture of people that aren't climbing, standing on top of something they just climbed, or naked. Its not really that I hate people pictures, I just rarely take non-action shots of people (except for self portraits. I'm thinking of doing a post of exclusively camera-held-at-arms-length pictures of me and some unfortunate bystander. I have jillions of them, and some are uniquely unflattering.) I was thinking about this, and I thought of these three pictures, which are among my favorites. All were shot in Morocco, in the Atlas mountains.


A market outside Marrakesh. Kind of an action shot, really, but I quite like the photo.

This guy owned a guest house that I stayed at.

























This is his son. I like this picture quite a lot. Apparently this kid was 13 years old. Maybe some day I'll try shooting more people pictures.

Partner getting 2: how do I do it?

Well, I don't know. I do know how I don't do it. This is an actual email that I sent someone. He never replied. All the same, it ranks in my own little mind as one of the funniest emails I've ever written.

Lonely climber likes angry rap and long skis on alder-choked logging roads:

Me: shy 20-something, insecure about mixed and runouts. I enjoy solid lead on plastic ice, but like a nice, tight top rope when things are thin. I'm eager to please and so move fast and safely. Easy-going and frequently say "nice lead, that was tough" even when it wasn't. Was in rocky relationship until recently, but he ran off to Europe with my best friend. Longing for that feeling of hanging from a thread again.

You: strong arms a must! Must have a keen sense of adventure for new alpine mixed route near Squamish. Must have a flexible schedule for south-facing route. This ones a keeper - with splitter granite, its sure to be an area classic! Sorry, must be in Pacific Northwest, not interested in a long distance relationship.

Here are some photos to see if I'm right for you:
[url still a secret]

Email me, and maybe we're a match!
Toproper82 xoxoxoxo lol lol

The bit about 'was in a rocky relationship...' made me laugh especially hard. Yes, there is the dumb pun aboot rocks, but at the time Nick was in Chamonix climbing with Jed.

Partner getting

Jed Brown and I near the summit of Aiguille Noire on the first of three nights spent on the Peuterey Integrale on Mont Blanc. Jed led every single pitch of the whole route.

I'm the one eating.

photo (c) Jed Brown

It has become something of a running joke in my life that the one thing that I truly excel at is surrounding myself with talented people, and tricking them into doing all the leading. I've written a couple of little diatribes on the subject, and these will be my next couple of postings. This one I wrote for the VOC journal:

As far as I can tell, Nick never has to take a shit.

He only eats once per day, he never gets cold, never gets blisters, always has his harness on before I have mine out of my pack, never gets tired, never gets pumped, and never gets scared. He’s the perfect partner, if low self-esteem is your thing.

But it is my thing. I’m the best partner getter I’ve ever even heard of – Conrad Anker is at least a competent climber. Good climbers, I mean really good climbers – veterans of Fitzroy and the Infinite Spur – have offered to go climbing with me, without me even asking. But if you’re not careful, being around unbridled excellence all the time can really start to tear you down. The only time I feel good about myself is that fleeting moment at the end of the day between when someone who asked what route I’ve just done gives an impressed “whoa” and the moment that I remember that my partner led the whole thing, and that I had to pull through on all the cruxes.

Sometime I should try climbing with someone worse than me. Someone who’ll look at me with humility and barely-suppressed terror flashing through their eyes and say “I dunno, dude, I think you better lead this one.”

Of course, then we’d have to bail.

How my tick list ruined climbing

The Tick List started out innocently enough. I decided that my technical climbing was limiting the number of alpine routes available to me, so I decided to focus on cragging for the summer. Susie and I made plans to live in Squamish for the summer with some other friends, and I started thinking about what I wanted to do. I got myself so confused about all the great routes to do that I figured I oughta write them down.

I called it a Tick List, hung it on the fridge, and it inspired many a good conversation.

I my mind, they were just routes to check out. Things I wanted to go see. Almost all long routes, usually on parts of walls that I hadn’t been on before. There were a couple of things that I had been on before and wanted to redpoint, some I just wanted to swing leads and check out, and some that I figured I would just get towed up.

Susie and the other roommates in our Squamish house got inspired by the tick list and made their own. Our house became a revolving door of hard climbers, many of them compulsive projectors. “Oh no,” said one friend about a tick list that wasn’t even mine, “you can’t tick it unless you’ve sent it.”

Suddenly, I started down a slippery slope. With an innocent enough comment, she had turned my Tick List against me. It was a happy list of Experiences To Have and suddenly it became a list of impossible onsights. Imagine dreaming of “one day going to France” and then suddenly feeling like you have to be elected president.

And all of our tick lists were growing. It became a competitive game inadvertently involving quantity over quality. Susie had simply made a list of climbs she wanted to do – including an out-of-the-way 5-star 5.7 that we’d just never gotten around to doing – and was consequently ticking them off at a stunning rate. Having improved by 8 grades in six weeks also left her with a huge pool of climbs within her ability that she hadn’t done before. People commented. “Wow, Susie has way more ticks than you guys – you got some work to do.” So I started adding things – one pitch climbs several grades harder than I’d ever climbed before.

You see, the thing about me is that I was never any fucking good at kickball, either. I’ve always been a lousy athlete. I’ve improved at climbing at a rate of about one letter grade every two or three years – sending these climbs on my miserable piece of shit Tick List was a pipe dream. I don’t particularly enjoy projecting, I don’t enjoy competition, and I don’t much like falling, either. But I’m being egged on, explicitly and by the conversation of the various people streaming through the house all obsessed by the roof cracks they’re projecting. “Yeah, just keep working them, you’ll get it. We all made fun of Little Mike when he was hang-dogging routes that he didn’t have a prayer on, but now he’s sending that shit.”

Great. I guess I’ll go take another 10-footer onto that fixed pin. I wonder if it’ll blow this time?

And what settled in as a harsh reality was that Susie is almost unquestionably a better climber than me now. I briefly found myself secretly hoping that she’d fall and that I’d send so that I can get ahead of her on the list. We men sure do become pathetic when our egos are threatened.

My little Tick List had suddenly turned climbing into a competition – and one that I was losing at an increasing rate. This was why I liked climbing more than kickball – it’s not a competition. Whether I was competing with other people or just with the damn piece of paper, I didn’t like it. I took it down, but the damage was done. My tick list ruined climbing.

I ain't into S&M, I just love it when you call me Master

Defended my thesis yesterday. Some revisions, but thank god that monkey is (most of the way) off my back.

First blog post: an afternoon at Red Heather

The other day, Susie and I went for a quick tour up at Diamond Head. The skiing was dogshit (it rained the day before) but it always manages to be purty up there.

Then begin the self-portrait shenanigans:

But afternoon wore into evening,

and it was time to head home.

Breaking the silence

I'm joining the rest of my generation and blogging about my life. I think this is done to try to convince ourselves that we aren't boring, and my other efforts have thus far been wasted. I hope that I can convince you that I'm not boring. Here goes.