Weekend!
I apologize for talking about my epiphanies at the dang rock climbing gym. There is a part of me that explains that nobody cares about insights that I have on the wall.
Unfortunately, there is another part of me that says “Jaybird, you’re not *THAT* special. If it takes you almost 46 years to figure this out, it might take someone else 40ish. Which means that posting this thought might help someone in their early 30’s.”
At which point I start thinking about how much *I* listened to other people when I was in my early 30’s and alternate between “hey, I listened to that one guy! Once!” and “Jeez, Jaybird. Just post something about what people should do if they win the lottery. Again.”
Anyway.
I went to the gym and there was this route on the wall upstairs that was fairly rough for me. I did somewhat okay on it until I got to the last 20% or so at which point it turned into some weird and diabolic route that required that I do the splits and this weird behind the leg thing and hang in such a way that my arms thought that they were doing a pull-up. I failed to complete the route. And then, the next couple of times I went, I tried to climb it but it turned into some weird formation about halfway through. I failed to complete the route.
And then, last Wednesday, I got on the wall and climbed through it like it was the easiest wall in the world. Like it was some simple little wall that they set up specifically for people who have never climbed before and they wanted to put something together to give folks confidence that, yes, even they could climb at the climbing gym. I was tempted to suspect that they added a couple of footholds and one handhold. “Nope! We didn’t touch it!”, the guy behind the counter assured me.
And so I went from “I can’t believe how tricky this is!” to “Did they change this so that it would be easier for fat and bald guys?” in one week.
And now I’m in a place where I can’t wait to go climbing again come Sunday so I can see what else is easier that didn’t used to be.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Image is “Play” by Clare Briggs. Used with permission of the Briggs estate.)
That thing has happened to me. It’s a good place to be.Report
I run into that situation often in jujitsu. You move your body how? WFT?! Then you work on it, link about it, go step by step, and bam! You’ve got it…or enough to know how to drill it and get better.
I spent 90 mins in a class where I was the lowest belt and the least amount of experience. I was gassed out at an hour and then we had rolling! Ugh. Spending all day friday recovering so I can go to class sat 🙂
Also buying clothes for my vacation.Report
I need to pack – am going to visit family (aging parents, so I plan on doing a lot of handyman type tasks they can’t any more) for about two weeks. (I will also have some “fun,” for my own value of fun – I want to make a couple of summer dresses, maybe just simple t-shirt dresses, for when it gets really hot here and I’m in the office working).
Other than that, IDK. My one big looming worry (“what happens if my mom fails her over-80 driver’s test”) has evaporated because she passed it (I probably should not have worried).
Mowed the lawn this morning and it darn near killed me with the humidity; need to edge tomorrow but am out of trimmer line so a trip to the stupid Lowe’s is in order.Report
School finished this week. YAY.
And last night we tidied up the front room of our very messy house enough that I can have people over to hang on the porch tonight without worrying that they will think more than “gee, their house is pretty messy” as they pass through it on the way to the loo. (Nearly none of those people read this blog, so I’m not worried about giving the game away ;).)
Saturday we’re taking Jay’s mom out for breakfast, Sunday we’re visiting with friends in Denver.
There shall also be sleeping in there. MUCH sleeping.
My 6-week leave starts in 8 days… stubborning it through until then so I get to do all the (lovely) end of year stuff, much of which is departmental tradition at this point.Report
You’re special, Jaybird. Just like everyone else! 🙂
So…if you’re going to Denver on Sunday, will we still be able to squeeze in a climbing somewhere?Report
Um. I don’t know!Report
@fish @jaybird We’re supposed to be in Denver at 2:30.
So if you get up early enough…Report
So you’re saying there’s a chance…Report
I’m saying as long as Jaybird is scrubbed and in the car by noon-30, I don’t care how he spends his morning.Report
I think this will be a restful weekend. My European vacation was largely being out from 8:30 a.m. to 11:00 PM or later every day. We walked a lot.Report
@saul-degraw Hope you had a great time. I am horribly jealous. I spent quite a bit of time in Florence (mumble, mumble) years ago I love it thereReport
We need a post about this.Report
Mostly be inside while we wait and see what the weather gods decide to do. The thunder has been rumbling pretty much continuously for the last 90 minutes, but there hasn’t been enough rain to get the tree trunks wet. The NWS discussion of the various models suggest the models put severe weather in this run, take it out next run, then put it back in again. Colder tomorrow — maybe 10 °F colder, maybe 20 °F. Might rain an inch, might rain eight. At least the worst of the forecasts keep the snow line above 7,500 ft, so don’t have worry about that.Report
It started raining here about an hour ago and I got nervous at the thought that there might be an open window upstairs and as soon as I left the basement, I realized OH MY GOSH IT’S HAIL AND THIS IS THE NOISIEST THUNDERSTORM EVER.
Seriously, it sounded like someone pouring an endless bowl of ball bearing down a marble staircase.Report
Hail can be moderately terrifying. We’ve had some bad bouts of it here over the years. Even with my car garaged and me trusting that a rogue stone won’t punch through the roof, it’s still nerve-wracking to listen to.Report
Every other year we have a storm that pretty much wipes out every car dealer in town.
In the future, car dealers will have parking garages.Report
The weather generally sucked over the weekend, but Monday was a magnificent morning to strap the bicycle on. Went by another of the new light rail stations today. If the @#$%&! PUC would let the trains start running on this line.Report
There’s a kids birthday party this afternoon, then the others are going camping with Mr T’s sister and her kids, and I will stay home and finally not be running around all over the place.
As it happens my long weekend alone to-do list is beside me:
Fix the kitchen faucet
Prune the plum trees
Bottle the beer
Glue that chair we can never fix because someone always need to sit in it before the glue would dry
Plant raspberriesReport
My wife is having her friends over, but apparently this is considered inclusive because I knew one of them in college. The other is her best friend, and the other person is married to the person from college. To go any further would be in line with my LiveJournal.
A more relevant tangent concerns your rock climbing epiphanies. People forget to let their minds relax. The left hemisphere constantly runs itself ragged being rational, detail-oriented, and logical while doing the heavy lifting for conscious entities. On the other hand, the right hemisphere remains a largely dismissed powerhouse often described as a heavy duty graphics card for the eyes and dreams. Yet the right hemisphere thinks symbolically, rather than lexically, often coming up with ideas coming out of left field. Akin to how Dawn Chan hears Go players describe AlphaGo’s strategies:
““They’re how I imagine games from far in the future,” Shi Yue, a top Go player from China, has told the press. A Go enthusiast named Jonathan Hop who’s been reviewing the games on YouTube calls the AlphaGo-versus-AlphaGo face-offs “Go from an alternate dimension.” From all accounts, one gets the sense that an alien civilization has dropped a cryptic guidebook in our midst: a manual that’s brilliant—or at least, the parts of it we can understand.”
A digression within this aside. There have been studies with people whose corpus callosum has been split to prevent epilepsy. The studies have people cover one eye and name an object. For example with one eye covered, they’ll immediately say apple. With the other eye covered, they’ll say “Round, red, sweet” among other adjectives to describe the apple but being unable to associate the word apple with the apple. Presque vu. Ask your wife what presque vu means since it’s French.
When both sides of the brain work in concert, they have a stronger apprehension of the phenomenal world. Still, the rational and conscious mind needs to rest every now and again. And during that downtime, the subconscious whispers images, scents, sounds, and feelings leading to epiphanies.
Which is why you tell me when you play vidyagaems, you find inspiration to write essays.
On le reddit, they call ’em showerthoughts. Of course that subreddit’s become a cesspool of millennials trying to be Steven Wright.
These insights. The inspiration. Epiphanies. They are glimpses of one’s true self, and when you share them it illustrates more about you than mere facts can convey.Report