Friday, March 30, 2007

On looking 25? +-

"May I help you?"

"I need to buy a Spring bus pass."

"That will be $30 cash or check only."

"How about payroll deduction?"

"Oh, sure, okay, I need to see your Western I.D."

"I thought it was $20."

"I thought you were a student."

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

The only other band that will keep me out late on a school night.

Arrive late, park close, sit in chair through opener, hog front and center stage in a smoke free bar with nice ambiance, with a musician playing his guitar in your face and the lead singer a foot away. How does it get any better than that? My favorite band, Son Volt, kicked off their tour supporting their new CD release, Searching, right here in Bellingham. So I didn't know any of the new songs, no one did, it just came out. But they broke into their old favorites after awhile. That close, the sound kind of sucks and you have to wear ear plugs, but to be that close? Closest I've ever felt to being a groupie. It's even worth feeling a bit brain dead today. One of these days, I'll catch up on sleep...

Some lyrics for y'all...

::Still Be Around::
I don't see you through the windshield
I don't see you in faces looking back at me
Alcohol doesn't have much that matters to say
Can't imagine where you and time to kill will stay

When the bible is a bottle
And the hardwood floor is home
When morning comes twice a day or not at all
If I break in two will you put me back together?
When this puzzle's figured out will you still be around
To say you've just been there
Walking the line upside down

Walked and breathed many a cancerous mile
Where the bat of an eye is too slow to beat the coffin
They won't tell it on the TV
They can't say it on the radio
They pay to move it off the shelf and into our minds
Until you can't tell the truth
When it's right in front of your eyes

When the bible is a bottle
And the hardwood floor is home
When morning comes twice a day or not at all
If I break in two will you put me back together?
When this puzzle's figured out will you still be around
To say you've just been there
Walking the line upside down

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Sunday, March 25, 2007

(Trying to be) 25 again

"Alice in Chains Tribute". That was all that was on the pub's listing, and all I needed to see to get me to go out and stay out beyond my bedtime on a night I knew I'd be going snowboarding the next morning. They didn't get into the Alice in Chains songs until well past 11pm, and by then I'd made some acquaintances who were in their 20s by joining them on the dance floor (we were "it") while the first band played Just One Kiss. One was a hair dresser and the other a dog groomer, cute as button girly girls. Oh to be 25.

Something about the music of that band.. reaches me.... and this cover band did it very, very well.. although I never saw Alice in Chains for real, from what I've heard of their music they were spot on. The Jar of Flies band was very appreciative of their audience and noted how helpful everyone had been to them in Bellingham.

Fast forward to Sunday morning, my friend Abby calls me back at 7:40 and decides not to join me on the mountain. I'd had about 6 hours of sleep at this point and decided to turn off my 8am alarm and try to sleep off my hangover. It almost worked, and I was at the mountain by 12:30. Unfortunately I had to rent poles, because I forgot mine. I was determined to bring out my Split board for the first time, and I had picked a marvelous day: breaking clouds with periods of intense sun, followed by little snow flurries on top of about a foot of solid, soft powder. By solid I mean the avalanche conditions were optimal; everything that was going to slide slid the day before when it was raining all day. So I didn't feel too nervous about going it alone. It was near 1pm by the time I got the poles and drove to Heather Meadows and put my gear together.

Just out of the parking lot a couple gals asked if they could film me. They were working on a promo for Mt. Baker showing how people use the resort. They had tried to get footage at the lower base area, but the weather was really bad down there. When they were done, I had to go back to the car and swap out my snow hat for a sun visor. And put the jacket in the backpack.

Climbing up was the easy part. The skins on the bottoms of the "skis" prevented backwards motion in all but the steepest terrain. I felt like a champion, able to pull off the established track at any moment and not sink. I was an elf, gliding on white marshmallows. Although the old pain in my groin that I get hiking eventually surfaced, it beat the heck out of boot-packing it. The only hard part was a steep switchback; wasn't sure where to put the skis to make the turn. I ended up sliding backwards and falling, taking off the skis, crawling back to the trail, pointing them in the direction I wanted to go and locking into the bindings. Let me be clear - I am very glad I have Flow bindings, which allow quick in and out of those things.

When I reached my destination for descent, I had a problem that was more difficult to overcome than I'd imagined: Instead of a clear floor of carpeting below me to put my board together, I was on a 30 degree slope filled with very light powder that liked to move on top of my board or wherever I was trying to work. There are small nooks and crannies on the board that needed to be free of ice to get the thing together. I took awhile to figure out how to put the snowboard together with all the metal parts in their proper place in this environment. The lack of sleep and dehydration symptoms exacerbated my frustrations, but eventually I got it.


I called Abby and chewed her out for not being with me in these epic conditions, then called another friend in Cali who hates the cold. The reception up there is really good, although it seems miles from nowhere. (I was at a point between Blueberry ridge and Table Mountain, not far from Artist's Point.) I loaded myself into the snowboard bindings and started down, very, very fast, feeling awkward on this 159 cm board. My regular board is 154. Plus it makes funny noises and doesn't feel as stable as a regular snowboard. Because it isn't.

The run should have been a very simple one, although a little steep, there were no tracks and all the avalanche debri was off to one side. But I got going so fast I think I freaked out and tried, after a couple turns, to control it too much and did a somersault... somehow the ski poles stayed locked into the side of my backpack and didn't impale me. I sat a while and cleared the snow out of my sunglasses (yes.. sunglasses, not goggles!) and tried again.. only to end up sliding on my belly a few yards... Okay c'mon pull it together! I managed to ride out the rest where there were tracks to cross and avalanche death cookies to avoid, but for some reason I think the challenge of those things made me have to concentrate harder, and I made it to the bottom without any further mishaps. I apologized to the guys down below that I was probably painful to watch. They were just glad I hadn't hurt myself. Yeah, that.

Then came the gear issue again.. I had to convert my snowboard back into skis, and at first I just did that, and realized it was too steep uphill, even at a 10% grade, to not have the skins on. So I put the skins on and started up. Then I got to the trail in bounds and realized the skins made me go to slow to glide down hill, and I was running out of time because I had to return the poles by 4:15. So I got off the skis again and took off the skins.

Now is the really embarassing part: I cannot ski. I mean it. The greenest green hill was freaking me out. All these edges, wanting to go every which way! It took what felt like forever to get to the car and I was sure I was going to crash. I even walked the last little steep part just before the parking lot. If I didn't have to return the poles, I would have converted it back into a snowboard again. At least there wouldn't have been fresh powder to interfere with the locking mechanisms.

The guy at the rental shop found me in the parking lot and did his best to make me feel like crap for returning the gear late. It was less than 10 minutes late, but he made sure I knew he wasn't happy about it. Phooey. I even drove from the upper lot to the lower one in my snowboard boots, passing some tourists in an area not set up for passing.

So here I sit, exhausted, smelly, with a fat cat in my lap, wondering if I'll be too tired to go to work tomorrow. Sure feels like it. I mean, I'm not 25 any more...

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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Little Miss Indigo

Last night I got into a g-mail chat with one of my oldest dearest friends, Susan, whom I met just out of college in some church group. She is now married with three beautiful children and seems to be living the life most would envy, yet I know better. Between nanny issues, a too-brilliant-for-his-own-good son, (this kid remembered my name after not seeing me a year.. when he was FOUR), uppity neighbors and a husband who works himself to death, it ain't easy. She told me about some things she's tried that have actually helped her; one is the discovery of the term "indigo" for personalities and why we (she considers me one too) have a harder time than most assimilating into this society. My favorite trait on the list is this:

Have deep empathy for others, yet an intolerance of stupidity.


Some others also rang true:

Can easily be taken advantage of because of your innate desire to be
of service.
May be idealistic or hypercritical
You are a great BS detector and you do not like people who lie and who
do not come from integrity.
Are afraid to stand in your power or speak your truth, for fear of not
being heard or understood
You are a pleaser


She said, We have no interest in getting into the box.
Yet we are frustrated that so many others want to, and we don't understand why.

I often thought these things had more to do with my birth sign, although since I am wholeheartedly opposed to studying such things (not that there's not something to it, God just says "hey don't go there") I never gave it a lot of thought. But now someone has finally found a category for me. I feel like I need to seek this stuff out; find a community of us "misunderstoods".

She's beeing doing something called "EFT", "Emotional Freedom Techniques" and even suggested a therapist in my area who embraces this. I need to read up on it more before deciding if therapy would help.

The other book I'm reading was recommended by a friend who has fallen under the spell of Scientology (from Christianity, to my regret), but I'm humoring her by reading one of L Ron's books, The Science of Survival. (I read Dianetics, it had some interesting points.) As with all religions, they all have some element of truth. And if I can take away a few gems from it, what is the harm. Plus it will give me some insight into her odd cult.

It's not like I'm looking for another answer besides Jesus; I'm looking for answers as to why I don't like hardly anyone I meet in churches. With all the buzz about the law of attraction (e.g. The Secret) I have to examine why here is a religion, Jesus, that I was attracted to, and so are others, yet I'm not experiencing much attraction factor when it comes to the others in this religion. At least, in the fundamentally styled non-denoms or something close to it I've been attending for nearly 30 years. I finallly did find a church I feel I can attend, the offshoot (church plant) of the mega-church I've been attending. The pastor is also a graphic designer, so we have that in common. After service they do a community-style lunch and I sat with a couple who seemed about my age. We got talking about movies and she just didn't get "Little Miss Sunshine" and I'm thinking, how can you not 'get' that movie? How can you not LOVE that family and all their problems? She also was afraid to dress in any way that didn't scream conservative.

I also found out from my friend Susan that Chuck Jr. quit his church last year, Calvary Capo Beach. I was there when both his wife and the worship pastor left in the same week. Back when he had hair. There's an interesting article about it in the LA Times (Father, Son and Holy Rift). Come to think about it, I went to Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa back when Chuck Smith Sr. had hair.

Monday, March 12, 2007

CSI Whistler

11 years ago at Whistler I made arrangements to stay a little longer with someone outside my group, but my alarm didn't go off on time the morning we were supposed to leave, and no one in my group knew where I was. When I finally got a hold of someone they said that they were worried, but had been reassured that "nothing bad ever happens in Whistler". What a difference a decade makes. On my way to the hotel pickup place for the catboarding operator, I noticed a major corridor in the village had been blocked off with police tape, police cars were all over and several guards were making sure no one crossed the yellow tape. This was about 7:15 am. The tape was still up when I got back that afternoon, with foot traffic being re-routed.

I picked up one of the local freebee papers and read that there had been three sexual assaults, make sure you don't walk alone at night. The night before I'd walked alone through a dark passageway about 11 pm. A guy was behind me and I turned around to look at him. If he did anyything to me I wanted to at least recognize his face. Fortunately I made it to the lit street path without any difficulty. I thought I was going to have company for the 15 minute walk from the restuarant to the condo, but by the time I got my coat and hat and umbrella put together, I looked up and everyone was gone.

Turns out there had been a shooting in the plaza. Someone had heard a siren around 5am.

More pics from the weekend.