OH NO!!!

I am hanging on to the tailgate of the wagon... my feet drag a little in the dust... my forearms are sore and my fingers weary... the tailgate is rattling its hinges as the wagon bounces over rocks and ruts... it's moving faster and faster and bouncing harder and harder... and I am barely hanging on.

I have been doing a lot of climbing... so my grip should be stronger... I should be able to climb back on... everything should be okay.

I do NOT want to fall off the wagon!

Just say no to falling off the wagon! Hold on! Hold on! Hold on, hold on with a grip so tight it dams my blood and makes my head feel light...

Merry Christmas!

Any ideas as to what was meant here? This is on a washroom door in a restaurant in Edmonton. There is another note just like it on the men's washroom.
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Jean-Paul Sartre was here...

I'm at the end of this very cul-de-sac, and have been for nearly a week. The passing of time is accompanied by dermal desertification. Blood oozes from the cracks, magma-like. My nose is always bloody.

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Buying vs. Earning

Good news, The Time Traveler's Wife is turning out to be a good read... and my nieces are actually pretty fun to be around. The age gap between the two of them makes for a bit of awkwardness... and perhaps my sensitivity to that awkwardness is because I'm acutely aware of what the little one won't remember 30 years from now...

Edmonton reminds me a lot of Montreal and Ottawa... cold, flat, and grey... but like Montreal and Ottawa, Edmonton happens to be the place where people who mean something to me live... so since it's not possible to get these people to move... I guess I'll just have to get used to paying tonnes of money to fly to cold, flat, grey places every now and then.

I got my grade back for my course. I got an A. I made a frighteningly minimal effort and got an A in a graduate level course on a subject that I knew next to nothing about. I'm starting to worry that a master's degree is not so much an education as it is a purchase. Either that, or I'm a genius.

I'm missing the surf already...

First thought

I'm sitting in the Comox Airport waiting for my flight. I begin to read a book recommended most recently by the playwright, less recently by Cleone. I decided to buy _The Time Traveler's Wife_ for airport and plane reading. So here I am, at the airport, without my copy of _Infinite Jest_, worried that I may have made a horrible mistake-- the first paragraph is not at all promising.

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Good timing...

As it turns out, my flight doesn't leave until 2:15 from Comox... which means that if I get up really early on Friday... I can get another surf in on Friday before I leave! This realization brightened my entire day.

I cleaned the bottom and rails on my NSP today. There are a LOT of paint chips in that board... I should definitely be more careful... and but now, I really really want to refinish it in black... and name it Ortho Stice.

I decided today to stop challenging myself on difficult climbing routes... instead, I'm going to work on endurance on easy routes... which will build up strength... which will make difficult routes less difficult in the future. I climbed the green route six times without rest, then climbed it may more times, but with breaks between every two or three. I think I've got a plan.

On a completely unrelated note... I am failing even to realize what a relief it has been to be completely done my first semester of the MPA. On my way back in the new year, I'm going to take the ferry to Victoria to pick up my textbooks... and make another visit to Munro's...

Two more nights of climbing and one morning surf before I go and freeze my ass off.

An altogether-satifactory day...

Today was a day off... but... I had an appointment with a dental surgeon in Nanaimo... so most of the day would be squandered on driving. Knowing that I'm not going to have another opportunity to surf until after I get back from Edmonton, I got up super early to go for a surf. I was in my wetsuit and out the door before first light... by the time I got to Cox Bay, however, there was already someone in the water... a shortboarder in the corner.

I paddled out at LBL, and caught a closeout right off the bat. Keeping in mind the advice to be more selective about which waves I go for, I let a lot of them go by... which was good... because more of them than not were closeouts. For the first half hour or so, I made two big drops that quickly closed out... and decided that maybe today wasn't really the best day for a surf that has to last me two weeks. Whenever there are big drops, there aren't chilled out peeling waves... which are what I'm all about. I considered calling it quits and going home and getting organized to go to Nanaimo... maybe get there early and do some Christmas shopping... but this was going to be my last surf until at least the 28th... so I stayed. Good thing I stayed! I ended up catching three super awesome long rides that were totally overhead! The buoy report said 6 feet... but it was definitely bigger than that... the reason why I know it was totally overhead was because all the waves I saw other people catch were also way overhead... and they did not look like extraordinarily short people. When I was about to leave (had to get back by 9AM to shower so that I'd have plenty of time to get to Nanaimo), I decided that I would paddle out just one more time... and catch just one more good one. I paddled back out, and as soon as I got to the outside, this perfect looking wave started coming my way... I went for it... and it *was* perfect... an overhead peeling right... and I was in the perfect spot for it... it was all very... perfect. I really wanted another... but realizing that that one was a gift from the conductor, I left, grateful for that perfect ride on the perfect wave.

And then it was to Nanaimo... the dental surgeon's office, where I ran into someone with whom I surfed on Saturday, who had also driven all the way from Tofino! We could have carpooled!

After the appointment, I went and shopped (I hate shopping!)... and got a huge pile of groceries for $37 that would probably have cost me $80 in Tofino. It took me almost three and a half hours to get back from Nanaimo. The huge storm that's blowing right now was a blizzard all the way till Kerr Creek... it was probably the most demanding drive I've ever done. Dark, stormy, white-out conditions... and that narrow highway shared with buses and semi trailers.

But what fun! Where else can you surf big waves in the morning and then drive through a blizzard in the evening?

Every Bit Counts-- Destroying the Earth, One Cup at a Time

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You can't just have one...

December has been an excellent surf month. Today, I enjoyed clean surf for three hours without wearing a hood. I was going to leave, and then I just wanted one more good one... and I'd stay and wait... and I'd get one more good one. The problem with a good ride is that it makes you want another... so I would wait again... and again... and again. "I thought you were going to leave three rides ago!"... yes, I was... but... well, you know how these things go... I've heard that some people have this problem with chocolate chip cookies. I don't really understand that... but if it's anything like getting a good ride, I guess I do understand.

Everyone has been asking me where Bluepath is... and I have had to explain why it's standing in my living room rather than with me in the surf. It is (I've learned, three repairs later) a very delicate board. Sure, the glass is heavy and strong... but my skull is even stronger. And while I haven't had any board injuries lately (or what would have resulted in board injuries if the NSP were injurable), the process of getting a board in and out of my car and in and out of my house exposes it to unnecessary risk of damage. Once the summer comes and I am again surfing every day and the temperature can be relied upon to stay above zero, I will be on the Bluepath again. In the meanwhile, I am having a really good time on the NSP... which I've considered painting black... and renaming Ortho Stice, which I think is an awesome name for a surfboard, especially once painted black.

I am also planning on getting some foam blocks made for the Bluepath... for when I'm in the parking lot and needing to put the board down, for waxing, for instance. Seeing as I've got a 9.5" fin on the Bluepath... the foam, compressed (by weight of board and downward force from waxing), would have to be at least 10" high. Or maybe blocks that are covered in foam... that might be easier... something strong... and light... maybe a hollow half cylinder?

My final exam is due at midnight tomorrow... maybe I should work on that instead of thinking about support for my surfboards...

Another surfing milestone...

I had the day off work today... and so went surfing. I had no idea that Cox Bay could be that busy on a Friday in December. I had some fun rides today... lefts and rights... shoulder high.

I had been out for about an hour or so when ULTE1 said hi. I have no idea how long he had been there... and wouldn't have known it was him if he hadn't said anything. I can't tell shortboarders apart most of the time... not even if I know the shortboarder really well. This was, I know it is hard to believe, the first time I have ever been in the water with ULTE1. (Okay, except for the day we met)... it used to be that if I knew he was on the same beach (teaching, always), I would lose my ability to surf, and just give up and leave. I was a little concerned that his sitting there would make it impossible for me to surf... and for about three minutes, I was all goofy and weird. I didn't paddle for two waves that I really should have gone for... and when the third one came along, I went for it, and surfed beautifully (a peeling left) and paddled back out. I was all good again. We both surfed... watched each other surf... and seemed also to be aware of the watching. Ridiculous that, after all these years, we would for the first time be concerned with our watchability, one for the other. And this is no speculation... there were a few show-off rides out there today.

So, now, I am truly comfortable in the surf. Comfortable and confident. I had suspected for a while that I actually can surf... probably at around the same time as the BNs validation... but now I really believe it. And somehow... the ULTE1 validation seems like an even bigger deal... with more meaning. If I can surf with ULTE1, I can surf with anyone. (OOooo... it rhymes!)

It's almost Hawaiian...

An entire week of sunshine and a weekend of northwest wind made it almost Hawaiian. There was clean, chest-high surf for Saturday and Sunday. Seeing as I can only surf on the weekends now (working from dark to dark), I'm leaving the Bluepath in my living room and taking the 11' NSP out. It's turning out to be an excellent board, whose full potential I am only beginning to discover. A few times now, I've made improbably beautiful bottom turns while going right. When I go left, I'm generally able to move much more efficiently and adjust where I am on the wave much more subtly, without making the urgent and dramatic turns as when I go right. I've been doing cheater cheater fives (cheater fives about a foot back from the nose)... and if these conditions hold... I'll be doing real cheater fives before the summer is here.

I had decided a while back to sell the 9'1" and buy a 9'6"... but the more time I spend on the 11' NSP, the more I'm realizing that I already have my winter board. Of course, I'm saying this after a weekend of clean, small surf... and the story could be entirely different after a few weekends of real winter surf, when I can't even get the board to the beach...