January 2017

My favorite day of the year is my birthday.

This sounds arrogant, but how can it not be the best?

The last day of the year, it's the one universal day that everyone celebrates. All across the world, billions of wishes and memories are made that night. 

I, too, get to make my own memories. Sometimes they end horribly-- at least one has ended in tears-- but most years, they're wonderful, filled with friends and love and magic. I have favorite birthdays, but even the bad birthdays aren't really so bad. They're wonderful in their own way. 

This year was just as any other year. Good? Bad? It's hard to say, but it was unique. Another memory to file away in a dusty plastic sleeve, in hopes that the years don't wear away the contents.

Second winter in Joshua Tree!

This year, the weather was much better. There were some awful days leading up to Christmas, but Christmas day itself was beautiful! 

Can you imagine? A white Christmas in the desert! I've only had a white Christmas twice in my life, and I never would have guessed once would be out  in the desert. 

How magical the days are. 

And all the days following were much warmer than last year.

Or is it that this time I was more prepared?

Because on second thought, I remember now that last year I had forgotten my clothes back at home when I went to Joshua Tree, so the only clothes I had were the ones on my back and the emergency outfit I stash away in my sleeping bag! 

What a luxury, actually having season-appropriate clothes!

But to be fair, this year, the water jugs didn't freeze in my car as they did last year.

The Chube.

Man, I hate the Chube.

I know climbers are supposed to be overflowing with positivity and understate how hard things are and praise shitty movements and shitty holds as being delicate and requiring interesting technique, but every time I come to the Chube I just don't really want to do it. 

I might give up on it forever.

Or I guess, I just have to get good enough at bouldering where I'm psyched about it. 

Whatever, man. 

I only rope climbed one day in Joshua Tree.

Which is unfortunate, really, because Joshua Tree has a ton of amazing routes.

The problem, however, is that in the dead of winter, standing in the shade makes you feel like dying.

And being stuck belaying in the shade is the worst.

And belaying a climber up from the top, exposed to the wind, is also the worst.

But I love this route so I had to do it! 

I did this route, Orphan, last year, but still didn't send it this year. The crack on the bottom is ultra fun but I'm not good enough at wide climbing yet! The first time I did the route, I went through the wide section just right, and but this time I just got so turned around!

Even so, it's super fun and physical so I like it. 

One of the definite highlights of the trip though was getting to hang out with Cody.

It's funny.

I can climb in the gym every day, see the same regulars at the gym every day, even talk to them once in a while and share beta and encouragement-- and it means nothing.

I may not ever catch their names or share contact info. We'll never express interest in seeing each other or making a connection. If they stop showing up to the gym, I won't notice. 

Yet outside, travelling, climbing-- you spend one day climbing with someone, and somehow it means an eternity. 

I hung out with Cody for just a few days in Laos almost exactly three years ago.

This winter, he did the impossible and helped us secure camping in the forever-crowded-Hidden Valley Campground. We shared meals and beers, talked and chilled and climbed. 

I should be okay with this now-- that living in the city is one thing and travelling is another thing, especially since it's been three years since i quit travelling long-term, but somehow I still can't quite understand. And really, i am guilty of pervading this same isolation.

Either way, I'm grateful that I have these opportunities to meet such good people and to make such good connections-- these opportunities which are so hard to find in the bustle of city living. 

I'm pretty embarrassed to admit it, but after Joshua Tree, I replaced climbing with puzzles.

Specifically cat puzzles. 

This puzzle pictured above is just one of several cat puzzles I've accomplished in the months following Joshua Tree. It's actually pretty impressive, the collection of cat puzzles available through Amazon. 

Anyway, since November, I'd been seeing a physical therapist about some long-term pain I'd felt in my right shoulder and wrist. After various sessions, he, as they always do, recommended I take 2 months off climbing to recover.

I wasn't willing to give up climbing in Joshua Tree for the new year, but as soon as that trip ended, I decided to bite the bullet and take a full 10 weeks off to recover.

It turns out, when you don't spend your evenings in the climbing gym, you have a ton of free time.

So the rest of January was about finding ways to fill in that time productively.

Unfortunately, one of my answers was doing cat puzzles, which is very questionably productive.

But like, it's super cute and pretty meowvelous. 

I also tried to spend more time building relationships-- seeing friends, talking to family.

Trying to balance friendships and relationships with climbing and travelling has been one of my constant challenges these past few years, so this time off was a good opportunity to work on building upon those relationships.

It's a weird thing to not be good at-- building relationships-- but it's been a pretty constant issue for me for years. I excel at the initial friendship creation, but have historically failed at the friendship maintenance and depth part.

I've had people point this out to me directly, so I don't think it's a random paranoia. I'm not sure how I fix something like this, but I'll do my best. 

These past two pictures are of Santa Cruz. I love Santa Cruz. 

This one is of lanterns from the Lunar New Year.

I love paper lanterns.

They're gentle and bright.

I lament the death of culture and traditions like these, but I don't do anything to preserve them for future generations.

At some phase of my life, I hope I devote time to doing better at this.

A third thing I've been working on is eating better.

Cooking more nutritious things. Eating more vegetables. Making actual meals instead of eating parts of meals.

What I often do on my own is eat parts of meals. A hard boiled egg with salt. Then eat some spinach in dressing. Then eat a slice of bread with peanut butter. And that's a pretty typical meal for me! A hodgepodge of food eaten at roughly one time.

I'm trying to create meals that make sense and also learning how to cook meals requiring more culinary technique than boiling water or spreading peanut butter/jam/cheese onto a carb. 

I started in the desert and ended in the mountains. 

Snow on each end of the spectrum.

This winter has been a historic one for California-- after five years of absolute drought, we've had tons and tons of snow and rain all winter. It's endless.

I'd never seen so much snow in my life! Tahoe was covered! It was the first time in my life I understood that I could be completed covered in snow to the point of asphyxiation.

But this didn't stop us from building a cave in the snow large enough to seat 3 people comfortably.

It also didn't stop us from carving a beer pong table into the snow.

I didn't take pictures of them but I really should've. 

Things like that are worth capturing.