New Habit

Something my coworker said to me today struck me as a bit funny…he asked me if I was getting used to my new hair. I’m thinking am I getting used to laughing myself out of the shower because I don’t have to spend half of my life shampooing my hair? I told him, “Well, I don’t have to look at myself, so there’s not a lot to get used to on my part.” The one weird thing I did mention that I’m still adjusting to is…I sometimes catch people staring at me…and I’m thinking, “What? Do I have something on my face?” Oh wait…it’s because I don’t have hair.

Headlee Pass

I got up on Sunday with the bad taste of our Vancouver trip ending in my mouth. I was also oddly tired so I bummed around for a bit. Then I realized it’s stupid to bum around. So I decided to go for a day hike. I’ve been wanted to hit Vesper Peak for a while so I figured that could be good. However due to the excessive bumming and Sunday being my lazy day and all, I didn’t get to the trailhead until nearly 2 in the afternoon. I brought my headlamp because I figured if the trail wasn’t too rough, I could still maybe go for summit.

The trail is beyond rough. The easier parts of it involved navigating through numerous creeks with random wood pieces haphazardly draped across it, like a death trap pretending it could aid a hiker in crossing but will give under the smallest amount of weight. I sank in past ankle deep water while stepping on one of these wood pieces (thanks again, gaiters, you are the love of my life).

After the treeline, the trail winds through some brush which claws and bites at hikers. Beyond the brush are loose gravels/boulders galore. Those that have read my blog knows loose gravels and I are sworn enemies. Random cairns marked the path, but it would be hard to try to locate in the dark. Seeing how difficult it could be to navigate, I figured I could just wait to hit summit another day…Headlee Pass would make a good turn around point.

Because I cut the hike short, it wasn’t nearly as much of a workout…but hiking still does good stuff for my soul. It helps me focus on what’s important. Take the border patrol…sure he was being an asshole, but I shouldn’t let him ruin my really good trip with my sister. We had a great time, those are the memories that are important…those are what should stick in my head. Hiking is good for that…it takes away the anger and leaves everything else behind. In the grand scheme of life, one bad border patrol shouldn't overshadow time well spent with family.

Slide of hike here.

Border Assholes

The Friday after my backpacking trip ended up being a gorgeous day, which I should probably be upset over since that meant had I stayed on the trail, it might have been okay. I don’t know if I felt bad about cutting out early, especially looking at the soggy mess when I tried to clean all the muddy gear in the morning. I didn’t think I would have enough time to sufficiently dry out everything and be in good shape. Regardless, my sister called me up and asked if I wanted to go Vancouver with her to pick up some stuff for her bar, so we drove up Friday night to party and ate tons of wonderful food and went shopping for stuff on Saturday.

We went to this nice club in downtown Vancouver which was playing the best RB/Hiphop mix I had heard in a very damned long time. Soon as we hit the bar, a guy came up to me and asked if he could rub my head for good luck. I told him, “No, I don’t know where that hand has been.” He started apologizing over and over for being rude and asked to buy me a drink. I told him he didn’t have to but, he did.

Toward the end of the night, some random drunk guy came up to me and rubbed my head…WTF? Then when my sister and I were dancing next to this table, one guy said, “Wow, I love your hair. Can I buy you ladies a drink?” Hmmm…note to self, if I’m ever too broke to afford my own drinks, just shave my hair. My sister and I had an awesome time at the club, drinking and dancing.

The next morning, we went out for some dimsum, for those that don’t know, Vancouver has some of the best Chinese food because of their huge Hong Kong population. Back before 1997, a lot of the rich Hong Kong people freaked out when the place was being handed over from England back to China, so those that could afford it, immigrated the hell out…mostly to Canada.

While we were having dimsum, some of the ladies pushing the pastries carts around would come by and they would stare dumbly at my head. A girl with shaved head confuses them…I think they probably think I’m a Buddhist monk…except I’m ordering meat dishes. So they naturally assumed I’m just not Chinese, because no decent Chinese girl would shave their head. They kept speaking broken English to us despite the fact that I speak perfectly good Chinese. It’s like they are culturally disowning me.

We went shopping afterwards at this huge Chinese mall where everyone bore holes in the back of my head from their very intense stares. EVERYONE. Even my sister commented, “Oh my god, they can’t seem to stop staring, they don’t even care if you see them staring.”

Still, it was a great trip with good food…right until the end. The border patrol decided to stop us because my sister was driving a very pimped out loaner Cadillac Escalade (loaner because her Escalade is still in the shop). Not only did they search the car inside out, when the guy came back in after finding nothing he searched our purses. They weren’t going to find a damned thing, we were so clean we squeaked. Both of us could pass a blood and urine test at that point. Okay, I understand the border patrols are doing a good thing by keeping our borders safe, but this guy was a nit-wit ass-wipe. I didn’t care that he searched my purse; I didn’t carry a lot of crap in there. He actually took every article out and asked about each of them. Like my cellphone, he opened it…saw my camera phone picture, and asked who the snowboarder was. “That would be my lesbian girlfriend with long hair, dickhead.” Of course I told him it was me. Then he said some retarded shit like, “You think snowboarding is fun because it’s dangerous?” WTF? Yeah, I like living dangerously, does that mean I have a kilo of heroin in the car? Then the shithead took out my camera and turned it to see if I have pictures in them. What the hell? Was he hoping for pictures I had posing next to the world’s tallest cannibis plant? The memory card was empty, but what if I took personal pictures with them? I was beginning to feel very violated.

Then the stupid idiot pulled out my oil-blotting paper and asked, “What’s this? This is rolling paper.” He seemed so fucking pleased with himself to have found incriminating evidence. I told him, “No, those are oil blotting paper, it’s make-up on paper by Shiseido.” He pulled out a sheet, like he intended to send it to the lab or something. I told him, “Look at it, one side has powder on it.” He insisted it looked like rolling paper. My sister commented, “We don’t smoke, I don’t understand why people would roll cigarettes when you can buy them all packed anyhow.” He said he thinks they’re being used to roll joints. We tell him to ask one of the ladies, they’ll know what blotting paper is. He asks…the lady he asked didn’t know about this blotting paper, but she told him flat out that’s definitely NOT rolling paper. Fucktard! He sniffs it and said, “Yeah, it doesn’t smell like it.” Then packs my stuff back and hands my bag to me. I have very low opinion of border patrols now. Fucking asshole!

Buck Creek Pass

After a good and proper head shaving, what’s a girl gotta do to properly celebrate? Why go for a long solo backpacking trip of course. I had all this big and elaborate plans to backpack the Spider Meadow – Buck Creek Loop…which would be 44 miles in 4 days.
My trip plan was something like this:
Day 1: 10 miles to Buck Creek Pass
Day 2: 10.5 miles to Image Lake
Day 3: 14 miles to Spider Gap
Day 4: 9.5 back to car

While hiking 14 miles in one day seems a bit insane with a full pack, that particular section is almost completely flat - the worst part of it would be the first day with the most elevation gain. I wanted to head out on Monday, but the weather was dreadful and the forecast said maybe tomorrow will be better. Tuesday rolled around and the weather was just as bad with a forecast that the next day could be better. Wednesday came and same thing…with a 4 day trip in mind, I couldn’t sit around any longer so I decided to bite the bullet and pray for good weather.

The drive out to that loop was insane, it took over 4 hours to get there…I was on the trail around 3:30p.m. and I had 10 miles to cover. So I hiked. It drizzled most of the first 3 hours then it became a downpour when night time hits. Because it had rained for the past 3-4 days, the trail was a nice goopy mess with mud often coming up to my ankles, thank God for gaiters. I have to say, I worried a lot about solo hiking for hours in the dark, but it wasn’t bad at all. By the time I got to Buck Creek Pass and found the campsite and got my tent all setup, it was 9:30p.m. I figured that to be not too bad of a time for a little gal carrying fucking 35lbs worth of gear with 5 days worth of food.

I did a big no-no thing and cooked dinner in my tent - yeah, I know gas poisoning danger blah blah…but by 9:30, it wasn’t merely raining up in the mountain pass, it was rain combined with strong wind…you know the kind of wind that could diverge a heavy downpour to aim straight up your ass. Warm food in a cozy tent when it’s raining out is nice. I set up my mattress and sleeping bag and slept like a happy log…until 2:30a.m. Dear god, I forgot to go pee before I went to bed. I heard the wind howling against my tent and cringed, not wanting to drag myself out of my warm cocoon…but I had to go so badly. So out in the pouring freezing rain I went. Thanks for the free enema, but I brought my own T.P. After that, I slept so damned well…there isn’t any lullaby as sweet as rain on a tent.

I woke up at 7:30 and the rain was still going strong. Damn you, rain, go away, I appreciate the good sleep and all, but you can go now. I snuggled back hoping maybe it’ll go away in another hour. 8:30 rain seems to be slowing down, I figured I should hunt down some water since it was hard to locate the previous night in the dark. Finally around 9:30 or so, the rain stopped. I almost did a little dance – but then it started snowing. The world turned to a white flurry. I had to throw in my gloves and decided to head home. I could suck it up and deal with the rain, but I fear getting snowed in up in the pass – everything I had was soaked or damp from the constant rain, they started freezing up with the snow. So I packed up all my crap and made for home. My pack which was previously 35 lbs was probably closer to 40 lbs by the end of my trip due to all the rain-soaked gear. I probably packed out another 50 lbs or so of mud too – because what girl could resist free mud? When I got home, I found that I skinned one side of my hip from where the extra heavy pack was resting. Overall, cold snow and blistery hips aside, I had a really good time. I enjoyed solo backpacking a lot more than I thought I would. Pretty soon, I’ll move out to the woods, grow my own carrots and make my own bombs.

The one really cool thing about this trip is I saw two guys on the trail…they were doing the trip that I thought I might consider doing one day which is hike the entire PCT trail. They started in Mexico back in May 15th…I told them they were making some damned awesome time. They said, “Yeah, but it snowed on us the last 3 days.” I can’t imagine how hard it must be for them. I saw that they had only packed an open face tarp to save weight…that means any time they have freezing rain or snow combined with gusty wind, they get soaked. Still, I’m very happy for them that their trip is almost complete and from the current weather forecast, they should have at least another week of awesome weather.

Slide of hike here.

Happiest Freak Show

My cubicle was the freak show today. I wasn’t too shocked being the first day back at work after being gone for a week…and people seeing my shaved head for the first time. A few coworkers came over and petted my head saying, “I can’t resist.” I figured it’s payback for all those years I petted guys’ heads. One coworker came by saying, “I’m not sure why… Oh, I get it now. Wow!” Apparently my boss told him to come see me…just to see me. People from the other end of the building came by to see because they heard from so-and-so…and everyone that stopped by asked why I decided to shave my head. Overall, people reacted well, but there was definitely a reaction, unlike a typical haircut where usually only the girls comment on. In our weekly team meeting today, I was the only girl and my hair was the shortest in the entire room.

I did make a point to yell at one of my backpacking buddy for not informing me of how wonderful it is to have short hair for hiking, his response, “Oh it’s not only good for hiking.” Damn men! Damn you all for not telling me. He did mentioned that he assumed it’s common knowledge that short hair rocks. I don’t think people with long hair truly understand how much it rocks.

While I was at the gym today…I actually washed my hair for the first time. I normally can’t do that, I would shower at the gym, but have to shower “for realz” when I get home because my hair requires special shampoo and conditioner that costs 50 billion dollars then it would take another 8.9 hours of drying and primping to make it look good. Now, it’s more like, “You got soap? Any kind of soap? Even dish soap would work.” Rub dry with a small paper towel. Done. Life is good. Happiness is having super low maintenance hair.

Baldy Is Alive!

I haven’t written in so long, especially after shaving all my hair off, that one might suspect I’ve crawled into some sort of hole (head first) and died. This is quite the opposite of the truth. I’ve been out celebrating. I really, really, really, (a few more really) enjoy my lack of hair. In fact, I feel like going back to all my hiking and backpacking buddies and kicking them each in the nuts about 10 times a piece for not letting me know how much more joyful life is to have insanely short hair while out in the woods. The absolute best part of it all has to come down to the first bathroom visit after a good hike, you can just stick your head under the sink and rinse your entire head and feel amazing (works every damned time)!
So what did my mom have to say about all this after all my stressing? She’s said something to the effect of, “Oh, you cut it that short? It’s creepy.” Still, she was laughing at it, and honestly her reaction puts her decades ahead of the typical Chinese person – which I encountered a lot of while visiting Vancouver B.C. with my sister over the weekend. Chinese people don't understand a girl with shaved head, they ALL stared with their jaws hanging - even the waitresses at the Chinese restaurants did that, right next to our table. When I have a moment, I’ll put up a little vacation post.

Streamlining

I’ve been talking about shaving my hair for so long now that it feels like it would never happen…it’s like I’ve been snapping my fingers to your face to get your attention. I’m sorry, I have breasts; if I want your attention, I know how to get it.

Part of why I just keep talking about it, is because my blog sometimes serve as a written internal dialogue to myself. It’s like I’m debugging myself in writing. I get it out in the open for myself to peruse and inspect, poke at it a couple of times with a stick, and find a solution to what my problem is…god knows I have tons of issues, my bug list is off the chart.

Initially I wanted to get my hair chopped off because it was becoming too much of a pain in the ass, I feel like I was wasting quality time maintaining it. Then I hated the fact that my hair didn’t feel like hair due to many years of bleaching and dying, I missed my natural hair. I thought it would be nice to just cut it real short…then I thought why not just shave all off? Then I got scared. I was scared of shaving my hair. I was afraid that it would leave me less pretty. That pissed me the hell off. I have a problem with my being afraid of something like not having my hair. I felt that I was trivializing what I feel like I have to offer the world (like my fine ass). I guess I was questioning how I see my self worth.

I set a date with my best friend for the shave a short while back but chickened out at the last minute because I was deathly afraid of freaking my mom out. Of course a small part of me was freaking out. Since then, day by day, little by little, my various fears have been eating away at me until I have to turn around and kick it in the nuts. It’s simply not me to let things gnaw at me forever.

So I got off my ass and told my mom about the haircutting thing and warned her it would be less than half an inch long. I set another date to cut my hair with Brian. I told him I wanted to do it this weekend. Then I got that last minute permit to climb Mount St. Helens, so I figured I could go climb that in the morning and get my hair cut that night. I figured a nice long solo hike would allow me to clear my head and give me a chance to rethink this whole excess hair removal process. I tried to make sure I wasn’t doing this as a self dare…in other words, I gave myself the option to not go for it if I had any doubt in my mind. I had the three hours drive each way to and from the volcano and the six hours hike to do some thinking. In the end, I felt that if anything, my hair cut was long overdue and I just really wanted it off.

I got back to Seattle around 7…met up with Brian at 10. Being my best friend and all, he didn’t try to talk me into or out of anything, he simply chatted with me to make sure I knew what I was doing and that I really wanted it done. He had all sorts of shaving stuff out. We discussed how close of a shave I wanted. He warned me that because I had gotten so tanned, if I shaved it too close to the skin, my super white scalp might create too much of a contrast…not to mention in his experience he always liked the one week after a close shave look more. So we decided he was going to go through my hair with his various beard trimmer accessories…going shorter as we go, until we find the length that I liked.


We drank some wine. I tied my hair up, braided it, cinched it again and off it went. I was oddly not nervous the whole time. We both knew there’s the possibility that it could go bad…that Brian could be consoling me at the end of the night. Hell, I even told him, if it goes badly, instead of going out for beer, he’ll go fetch it, and we’ll order pizza and be happy. It all turned out well. With the interim cuts and pictures, I know my hair will grow out well. There were various points where I was looking pixie-ish and I could have stopped with a cute cut, but I wanted my hair shaved at least for a moment. In the end, we stopped at about quarter inch. I’ve got this funny tan line at where my braided hair parts but…I like my hair short.

We went out for beer afterward while I sat around and massaged my scalp all night. So good…holy cows…the wind in my scalp…I’m so streamlined. And without my further ado because I love you all:

Mount St. Helens

Mount St. Helens was a wonderful day hike. It’s tough but not too tough. The entire trip took me six hours including the snack/lunch break I had up top…although if you’re not in hiking shape, I wouldn’t count on that time. I ran into my coworker and her friends on the way up, they had started about an hour and a half before me, and they were still making their way up when I was coming back down.

The day was extremely foggy, so I can’t say much about the view at all. I was actually a bit worried I would miss yet another summit because as I was going up…five different parties came back down, and from speaking to them briefly, none of them made it to the summit. All of them got nervous because of the dense fog and decided to turn around. Hiking on this volcano was quite different from many other hikes in that, there’s a lot of easy rock scrambling to do…and with rock scrambles, there’s not an obvious packed down trail. The trail is marked with tall wooden posts spaced ~20 yards apart which is a helpful guide on clear days, but yesterday, the fog was so dense it was hard to see from pole to pole. People turned back because it was hard enough to find the next pole, they were very worried they’ll lose the trail on the way back down. I brought my GPS so I just marked the poles as I went along, so that the worst that would happen was my not finding the next pole – at least I knew I could always find my way home.

The fog did slowly lift a bit through out the day, but never enough to allow for a spectacle view of where we stood. At the peak, we nearly got a glimpse of the center of the volcano, but then more fog quickly rolled in, and our hopes were dashed. It was such a sad moment, one moment I heard a girl yell to everyone up top, “Guys, look! Look!” Everyone peered over the ridge, “Ooooh.” And then nothing. It snowed quite a bit on my way back down, but about 2/3 of the way down, the sun lifted a bit and I actually saw bits of my surrounding for a change. What little I could see was glorious.

I brought my helmet as per instruction on the website, I was the ONLY one with a helmet. Not only was I the special kid on the mountain, but I was the special kid that has no friends. It would appear everyone else hiked with five generations of family or a 50 member pit crew complete with cheerleading squad. They all asked me if I was hiking alone. Yes, I have no friends, just let me put on my helmet before I hurt myself.


Hike slide here.

Ballistas of Doom

So I was talking to a coworker of mine about hiking the other day because I saw her hiking Mount Si. She mentioned hiking Mount Saint Helens this Saturday, and I told her how jealous I was that she managed to snag a permit on time when my buddies and I have tried but they sold out. Apparently she and her friends got their permits a few months back…because they’re not lazy bastards like me…buuuut, they have one person that dropped out. Guess who got a permit!?

So I was looking at the Mount St. Helens website and they have a list of stuff that I should be bringing for my climb. The first item on the list is a climber’s helmet to “protect your head in the event of volcanic ballistics.” Now shouldn’t that read “Park closed”? Also as an old D&D geek who played one too many game of GURPs I know our head has a natural +2 armor because of our skull…so what about the rest of my squishy self in the event of volcanic ballistics? Of course the second item I need is a “Dust Mask”…that doesn’t look like armor class 10 to me.

Combine that hawt look with item number 3, Goggles, I'm one extra special looking kid. Yes, I've become that hypochondriac Chinese kid that can't go on a minor hike without wearing a helmet while worrying about catching the bird flu. Go, me!

According to the site…the volcano is still very much active, so um…wish me good luck.

Random side note, my sister lost yet another cellphone.

Oh, and I just picked up a new toy, because it's not like I'm flat-ass broke from buying all my stupid gear. I can't even afford Top Ramen at this point. But...I'm a material stuff whore and this was too sweet to pass up. As a DS programmer, this bright bright screen makes me happy while feeling like punching Nintendo in the jaw for always releasing a shoddy product first intentionally, then releasing their super slick version later.

Shakespeare in Love

Yesterday was our company’s annual golf day. Every single year, I opt to pass on golfing because I’ve never touched a golf club before and I was always afraid to make a fool of myself in front of all my coworkers. This year, I thought…you know, I’ve tried so damned many new things this year that making a fool out of myself is like an old familiar friend…not to mention despite the fact that I look like an idiot, I’ve always had fun.

So I tried golfing…touched a “real” golf club (no, putt-putt golf does not count) for the first time. Yes, I most certainly did make a fool out of myself many times. Like a bad comedy movie, I stepped up to the ball and swung and hit the air, about 657 times before actually managing to hit the damned ball. I had a very good time. The day was simply beautiful. There were random moments when the day felt magical in this weird, “Holy cats, I’m not working on a Tuesday and I get to be outside in the beautiful weather learning how to golf.” It’s definitely worth making a fool out of yourself. Our company rented golf carts for ALL of us, so driving around recklessly trying to flip over the cart was fun too (really what else would a bunch of people that make video games for a living do?).

Being racially Chinese, I’ve been taught since a very young age to be very aware of others. Everything that I do…what will other people say? As I’m aging, I’m caring less. I still care about what certain people think of me. I care if my friends think I’m good friend. I care if my siblings think I’m a good friend and sibling to them.

I’ve been staring at the climbing wall on my gym for over a year and a half…wanting to climb but always afraid to because NO ONE else has climbed it…ever. I’m climbing the damned thing now. Yeah, I don’t care that the wall takes up an entire side of one wall and everyone stares at that wall. So everyone gets to see my ass hanging at strange angles and I fall off the damned thing shouting curses at it once in a while…big deal.

Most of all, I care a lot about what my mom thinks. I worry about worrying her. I try to not cause her random undue stress in her life – but I still have to live my life. I finally got off my cowardly ass and told my mom I wanted to cut my hair really really short. No, I did not use the word “shave” because tact is always a good thing when it comes to moms. She was…surprisingly understanding. I told her I was planning to cut my hair super short and I didn’t want her to freak out. She asked how short…I said, short like shorter than some boys’ cut short. She didn’t say anything so, I told her I really wanted to cut off all the red parts of my hair and just grow it back black, I’m just tired of having to bleach and dye my hair, it doesn’t even feel like hair anymore. She actually thought it was a great idea, she never liked us dying our hair in the first place. Why did I dye my hair when my mom didn’t approve of that? Well, I was in a different place in my life back then, I was in a screw-what-my-mom-thinks phase. She asked if I was worried about whether or not I could wear a boy’s hair style well…I told her I’m not worried, because my hair grows quick anyhow. She asked if my sister was cutting my hair for me, I told her no, because my sister felt like it was a waste of my longish hair to chop it all off. My mom didn’t seem to mind too much.

I know as an adult I should be able to live my life as I like, but mothers are precious beings that deserve some amount of respect. I simply feel like a better person when I don’t completely disregard my mother’s feelings.

I know this shaving my head thing is not going to help reverse my morphing to a man image…but I figured maybe I could milk it. Like I could enter drag queen contests…and outdo Gwyneth in playing a "girl who, who plays a boy who plays a girls" (quote from some radio commercial).

Sneaky Freeway Entrance

Today, I biked for as long as my little legs could carry me - right onto a 520 freeway entrance. Yes, I’m a smart one. I figured that out when cars were whirling past me rapidly accelerating…then I see the road leading onto the floating bridge. Sure, they had all sorts of signs that warned cyclist to not enter, but you know…road signs when you’re in riding oblivion, they’re just suggestions until you get caught…or crushed by a speeding car.

Still, I’m really enjoying biking, and I really need to get a road bike. Having road bikers effortless pass you when you’re pedaling with all your might makes you want to throw sticks at their spokes (live action Paperboy!). I’ve been looking for a decent used Klein bike, but hawt damned, there aren’t that many short legged cyclists out there.

To Be A Man

For the first time since about April, I woke up on Saturday and did NOT feel like hiking. My arms were sore because I tried to do some climbing at my gym yesterday…yeah I did all of one traverse and I was aching today. Yes, I am a pussy for whining like a little bitch over some minor muscle fatigue, but I haven’t felt a single muscle twinge since I first started hiking. I went kayaking for 1.5 hours and didn’t feel any stiffness in the shoulders, how the hell does ONE traverse hurt me?

My other excuse for not wanting to hike was that the sky looked angry. It looked like it had plans to do some rumbling, then dumping buckets of water on you, then shouting “Fuck you!” while hurling bolts of lightning at your feet. Angry. When the sky looked that pissed off at us mere mortals, the best thing to do is to stay in bed.

Of course, I couldn’t stay in bed. I got up and thought maybe I’ll try to hike Vesper Peak and maybe the clouds would clear up. As I was driving there, it started raining. Now I’m not a big wuss when it comes to rain, I’ll hike in any weather, but Vesper Peak calls for some heavy duty scrambling to the top…and trying to climb wet granite is suicidal in my book, so I made a detour. I beelined for Mount Si, because I couldn’t really think of where else I would like to go…and because I still didn’t feel like hiking.

The parking lot for Si was surprisingly empty, usually half of Seattle is hiking this mountain on Saturdays – I was betting everyone else was smart enough to stay in bed. I sat in the lot for a moment, thinking I really didn’t feel like hiking. I could just go home and crawl in bed, it would be so nice and I’ve hiked Si a billion times this year already. Pussy! Get the fuck out of the car now. I actually sat in my car and had an internal dialect with myself for about five minutes trying to get my ass outside to hike. Had the whiney bitch been anyone besides myself I would have kicked her out of my car and never call her hiking again…alas, it was my own sorry ass, and I managed to eventually drag myself out.

Not too surprisingly, once I was on the trail, I felt great. I felt so damned good, I started speed hiking, which is something I normally suck at because my legs are half the length of everyone. It was an awesome workout and for the first time since forever, I was passing up everyone along the way instead of the other way around. I was feeling so damned happy.

And then I got stung by a bee. Yeah, this happened out of nowhere, I didn’t even see a single bee on the trail. I was just hiking along, my hands gripping my trekking poles, when I felt this sharp pain on the side of my right hand. Since there was not another bee around, there couldn’t have been a hive to defend, so this bee just chose to commit suicide, on me. Okay, I understand that a bee’s lot in life must not be all that great, being their one purpose is to serve The Woman, so okay, if the bee is having some kind of meaning of life crisis…fine go kill yourself. But this is like someone jumping out at a car to kill itself, it traumatizes the poor driver…couldn’t bee have picked a better asshole to die on? Like that dude that talks business loudly on his cellphone while hiking? Why me? The worst part is, the suicidal bastard left his parts of his little furry ass on me…do you know have much that freaks a poor girl out!? Damn!

Still, I made it to the top in 1.5 hours…not super fast, but I was happy enough. It was nice and chilly up top, so I sat down and had a wonderful cup of hot chai. Life was great.

On the drive home, I had a weird craving for a white nectarine. So I stopped by the nearest grocery store. They had this wonderful floral section next to the fruits and I smelled the beautiful fragrance of fresh-cut flowers…then I smelled something less pleasant. It smelled like a homeless man. I stared suspiciously at the people near me…did they not bathe before going food shopping? Then I noticed the odor was following me…dear god, it was me. I sniffed the sleeves of my shirt…maybe I left the shirt in the washer for too long before drying it? Nope, it smelled like Tide, freshly laundered Tide. Then I realize, it was toward my back. Ewwww. It was from my backpack. I’m a sweaty monster, when you see me hiking with only my sports bra, it’s not to shame the other male hikers with my six pack, it’s because I’m overheating like mad and sweating enough to drown myself. The back and straps on my pack is ALWAYS drenched by the time I hit summit…I guess over time, all the collective sweat has turned my bag into a homeless man. I had been carrying a homeless man on my back all this time. Dear god, it’s terrible to smell so bad…I got so self-conscious – you know when you can smell it, it means you’re beyond stinky. I felt the need to apologize to other people, “Forgive me for being so stinky around your food.” Of course I did the best thing…which is pay and hurry the hell out. I had the privilege of smelling that god-awful funk all the way home. Lucky.

I got home and downloaded the picture I took at the top of Si. It would appear smelling like a homeless man has turned me into a man.

Club On!

You know what’s sad… When the day is glorious, with the sun shining bright, and light breeze blowing by. The commute traffic is medium so you gather a nice speed increasing the wind flow ever so slightly while still moving the whole time. Then I find an old club mix on CD, and the music is pumping! The drum beats on and my heart is pounding! Whoooo-hooo! And I jump out on my work parking lot! Ready to program! Fuck yeah! Sad.

Summer, My Love

It’s been happening a lot lately…I sit in front of the computer with the intention of composing a post…and I draw a blank. It’s like I ran out of shit to complain about, is that even possible? Maybe I’ve achieved perfect happiness…I’m at complete peace with the world. Hahahaha-hahaha-haha. *ouch* I hurt myself. Hell, I can talk smack myself all day, so how could I possibly run out of things to write?

Summer is nearing an end. *sob* How is that possible? Summer, you and I have only just gotten to know each other. Sure I bitch up a storm when you cause my armpits to sweat and I go into horrible writing coma when it gets 2 degrees above comfortable, but I’m a sweaty brat like that. And yeah, I’ve been plotting all sorts of winter backpacking trips but at least I do that all sneaky-like with emails behind your back and not out in the open while telling you to go fuck yourself. So please, stick around just a bit longer, the views from mountain tops are not the same in the autumn clouds.

I’ve rediscovered the joys of bike riding. I now feel like kicking all my friends that road bikes that never bothered telling me how much fun it is to just get out and ride – well, maybe one guy did, but I assumed he was on crack at the time because…who the fuck likes riding back before I discovered anyhow? Oh gosh, riding on the road is so wonderful – I’ve been a (really bad) mountain biker up till recently and as such I always rode in constant fear of losing all my teeth in a nasty spill. There is no fear of losing your teeth (limbs maybe) in road biking and the wind…wow, the wind in your hair and all over you is such an exhilarating feeling. I love riding on Lake Washington Blvd, because it’s relatively flat and the views are gorgeous and the cars are used to cyclist and the road just goes on forever… I used to cruise that blvd in my car and would stop at certain point but on a bike, I really didn’t want to stop…it’s that nice of a ride.

So of course now I’m pining away for a new road bike. I figured I can pick one up for hopefully cheaper at the end of the season. *cough*whensummergoesaway*cough*





View from Leschi Park
tonight -->

Mount Pugh

You know what is the most painful part of hiking mountains? Being forced to turn back. It hurts so much, especially when you can see the summit just lurking around the corner. A couple weekends ago, I missed the Gothic Peak summit because of the creepy loose gravels, this time it was just straight-up fear. I freaked out near the summit of Mount Pugh.

The Sunday morning started with a slight foreboding hint. Both Daniel and I were oddly out of sorts, just tired. I was extremely sleep deprived because my sorry ass went out and got smashed on Friday night which for some reason, alcohol has a way of fucking with my sleep pattern. Daniel had been up packing for his trip out to the east coast. Still, after a mile or so into the trail we both felt better. The first 3.8 miles of the trail was extremely easy. Then it climbs aggressively toward Stujack Pass, this is where most people would stop. I couldn’t figure out why so many people would get so close to the summit only to turn back, this rarely ever happens on these types of hike.

Then I get to the knife-jack ridge leading up to the Pugh summit. Ever watch a movie where some chick was stuck on a crumbling balcony and some random dude would tell the chick to give him her hand and she sits there like an idiot staring down at the ledge? That was me. I have never been completely stupid struck like this in my entire life. The ridge up to Pugh wasn’t even technical at all, I’ve climbed way worse stuff, but the problem is, at some point, the ridge narrows to about two feet wide with crumbling dirt on each side, and I can see the steep drop on each side. I knew it was just my mind playing horrible tricks on me, and I knew it was easy enough to just keep moving, but my body would not respond. We stopped on the ridge for lunch in hopes that maybe I’ll get over my fears during that time, but it only made things worse. Sitting on the ridge and staring down at the valley some 6000+ ft below (keeping in mind, our Columbia Tower which is a 76 stories skyscraper is only 967 ft tall) made my stomach queasy as hell and it actually made the return trip off that ridge extremely slow, my limbs where stiff, retarded and doing just about everything it could to kill me.

So in the end, we didn’t hit summit (which stands at 7,201 ft tall) even though Daniel could have easily tagged it if he wanted to…the guy used to rappel and doesn’t understand acrophobia at all. We were less than half a mile from the top and had climbed 4800ft out of the 5400ft. Sucks, I’ll have to find a way to overcome this phobia and come back next year. This is one that will haunt me for a while, because it’s really one thing to have the trail get medieval on your ass, but it's an irritating something else when it’s your mind betraying you.

Slide of hike here. The entire world looks a bit hazy this day because of some major forest fire nearby. I highly recommend this hike if you don't have paralyzing fear of heights. It really was a fun hike.