LaurieWrites

n. lacking courage; very fearful or timid

He told me last week that I was a coward. I said get it straight: I was a scarecrow, not a lion -- a fool, sure, but not a coward. Except I guess in some ways I am pathetically afraid, the person I am with him, anyway.

I still didn't like it. It still wasn't nice to hear.

People, through some fault of their own or none at all, mostly make you what you are to them, and also who you are in their orbit. The way they talk to you, you to them, how they hold or discard your heart, how they smell (this is important), what they ask of you and how they respond -- it makes you this being that you weren't the minute before you met them, the minute-before person who you will never be again, although if it's not right that's who you'll always be after going back to. It's freaky and uncomfortable. It's science. It's something else, isn't it?

We scrapped out this long, heartfelt, baffling road, he and I. A coward could never have survived it, would have dropped dead eleven months in, the first time she was made to feel unnecessary, inconsequential, distracting from the truly important stuff. And more than a decade later, it's never over, sometimes it feels like, except I think that calling me a coward ends the game, even if he's even partially right. It's not something I ever want anyone to say. It's not something I want someone to have even a partial hand in making me be. It's not something I want to be capable of on my own.

It is not who I am.

This is me a little while ago, in the summer time, my favorite. Flawed, absolutely. I have so much work to do, always, always, keep on moving, doing the work. Figure it out. Make the calls. Be so much better. Do the hard stuff because if you don't, who will? Try to achieve some semblance of what you're capable of before you die.

I still, after careful consideration of this assessment, don't think she is a coward, at least not in the ways that count the most around here.

 

It's better that we don't talk that much anymore. I don't think we bring out the best in each other.

Inoculated

I've had my shots.

Apparently there are some health risks inherent in traveling to parts of the world you've never been to before. Yesterday I had to spend $150 on vaccinations for the (rapidly approaching, shoot me please I don't have time to travel 10,000 miles twice and still get all my shit done, help me oh God why am I doing this? Oh, right.) trip to Vietnam in March. I've already spent a zillion dollars on a new camera (Nikon D80, sorry there's been no birth announcement of THAT baby yet...I am such a blog slacker, but honestly I'm still making friends with it), and an expedited passport, and I still have to deal with the not-small issue of whether or not I'm going to buy a smaller laptop because taking my Macbook seems really, really stupid in addition to all the other very heavy stuff I'll be carrying.

Did I mention how frail I am? And also that said center of my universe Macbook is currently not working? That yesterday I plugged it in and it was all, "Haha, you expect me to work? Because you have no time for me not to? And that you might care that every ounce of information you need to conduct your life is inside this dark, hellish screen? HA! Way to take me for granted, stupid human."

If my cute little Apple Store genius man does not tell me in approximately one hour and 45 minutes that this is a result of a suddenly-faulty charger, please brace yourself world for the screams.

Seriously, I cannot freak, all the while I am currently freaking. But this was not supposed to be about that. Shots. Yes.

I went to the campus health center yesterday which houses an International Travel Clinic, all capitalized and shit, because we are a major four-year research institution. It was actually a fairly good experience as those go that involve getting stuck with needles. I waded through the sea of apparently rapidly expiring college students littering the waiting room, flu germs swimming in the air, to go to the second floor and meet with a real-live doctor. She told me I needed a Hepatitis A shot, a combo cocktail of "Tetanus/Diphtheria/Pertussis", and a series of typhoid vaccine pills. Pertussis is Whooping Cough, which apparently is making a comeback in adults who "haven't had boosters", in case you were fresh out of things to worry about this fine winter's day.

Me (because I must torture the people with my pressing need to know): What is WHOOPING cough?
Doctor: Well, it's an upper respiratory condition that results in a cough with a WHOOPING sound.
Evil voice inside my head: Well, YEAH.
Me (see above): I'm just not sure what WHOOPING sounds like. I remember my grandmother talking about it but no one I know has ever had it.
Doctor: I'm not sure I've heard it, because I'm an internist. The pediatrician here has seen cases. 
Me: Probably best to avoid it, regardless.

She also said that I need to acquire insect repellent that has at least 25 percent DEET, which will probably set me spinning because again, frail. (I just made myself laugh. Rock.) Also, she mentioned Immodium, and wrote me a prescription for Cipro, the anti-Anthrax drug, which you're supposed to take if Immodium doesn't work and you've somehow stumbled into the jaws of intestinal death.

There's really not a better way to feel all warm and fuzzy inside before noon than to have someone say things like, "Eat no fruit or salad" and "insect-borne diseases can be really serious so you need to take precautions." I have no idea what Hanoi will be like. I'm not afraid of it, not at all, but I have never traveled to Asia and much of what I read tells me to literally and figuratively fasten my seatbelt. It's really exciting, but I don't want to do anything stupid or get sick and ruin my time and more importantly my ability to work while I'm there. A good chunk my work for the semester will be based on what I do in Vietnam - pictures, footage, interviews. I have to be at full strength.

It's not like we're sleeping in the open air, it's a hotel that has a home on TripAdvisor and everything. But without going into too much nauseating detail, dude, I have the worst stomach in the WORLD right now. This is not an unusual circumstance, not at all, but I am a mess. It's quite possible that Vietnamese food and water will improve my situation. But 20 hours on a plane will not, so I'm actually looking to go on some kind of pre-trip gastric IronWoman training program or something. Google has so far not been forthcoming with that.

The shots weren't bad. I am the best little soldier, really, which is a result of having scalpels and needles wielded in my direction since I was six weeks old, I'm pretty sure. Seriously, you think this sense of humor is organic? Listen to doctors and nurses and admissions types ramble on for most of your formative years and you'll quickly learn to go to your own happy place.

The nurse yesterday told me to wiggle my toes, first on my right foot and then on my left, which I thought was some kind of accupressure technique for blood flow, but it turns out that there I go, complicating things AGAIN. After it was over she said that thinking about your toes takes the focus off the needle going in your arm. It could be the ADD, but I am completely capable of wiggling my toes while still directing the majority of my energy to the sharp thing puncturing my skin just a few feet north. Just sayin'.

She told me my arm would hurt from the tetanus, and it does.  I took one typhoid pill last night, and have to take three more on alternate days through the end of the week. That is a live vaccine in a capsule, and has to be refrigerated. It's a very involved process but it's kind of interesting, actually, to read about all the terrible things that can possibly befall you when you venture off of your continent.

I had terrible nightmares last night that I was in some kind of grave medical distress and my mother called an ambulance that somehow never came. Most dreams can currently be interpreted to reflect an unmet or rapidly approaching deadline, which is the current (due tomorrow! At least a draft!) story of my life. We leave for this trip in three weeks, and believe me I am really excited, and additionally a little bit overwhelmed. I'll just be relieved when we touch down in Hanoi, and not just because it's a 15 hour plane trip to Korea and then five more to Vietnam. I'm really ready to get this show on the road.

Who you don't want to be sitting next to at the graduation

Stranger behind me:
"Hey dude, don't forget Jimmy's got the air horn. Don't sit next to him unless you want your ears blowed out."

Just Another Wall

I'll just put it right out there that I am a fan of terra firma. I like my feet on the ground in places like restaurants and stores that sell pretty things. I haven't gone on a roller coaster or a ferris wheel in years, although every summer I start to psych myself up...and it doesn't happen. (Maybe someday.) Beach sand is generally the most porous surface I'll stand on for an extended period of time. I don't even wear very high heels unless the outfit really warrants it.

So when I had a chance to go along on a rock climbing session at the women's retreat where I taught nature photography last weekend, of course I said yes. I mean, why not apply the "Alice through the looking glass" philosophy every day from here on out? You know the backwards one? The one where you take the thing that makes sense and turn it upside down and do or say the opposite? I'd say I'm pretty much embracing that philosophy lately (with admittedly spotty results, but still. It does make my life much more interesting.)

In the case of this past Saturday, it appears that it's the best way to work through any existing fear of being hoisted up on a rope for the purpose of scaling a fifty foot wall, which is to say: a lot of fear.  I stood outside on a genuinely beautiful Maryland spring day, one of the precious few we get every year before the humidity melts us all into the pavement like Dali clocks. I signed a waiver that said it was okay if I died doing this rock-climbing thing, after which there was a brief instructional period. It's always helpful to learn how to navigate your impending demise, it seems. When asked about my climbing experience, of course I said "stairs" because I am oh so very funny. Our impossibly fit instructors had heard this before, I believe, and smiled politely before they showed us how to get into our harnesses (yes, there were harnesses) and how to tie knots in the ropes that would hold us to each other and also to the ground. I basically failed Girl Scouts (culminating in the Great Humiliating Skirt-Making Incident) so my fingers had to push through that 10-year-old-girl memory to go "I'll get you, bastard knot. You'll be able to pilot the SS Minnow when this is all over." Which is to say, it might last for three hours before it runs you ashore, but not much more.

Still, a knot was made. See? Also, my girls are not this large at the appropriate distance. Here they're kind of distracting me with some sort of optical illusion that I know to be untrue because I'm looking down at them right now in person and the contrast is rather disappointing.

After the knot-tying we got into our harnesses. (And yes, this is something people do on purpose, ostensibly for fun.) Then we went down to the rock walls.

Oh my God.

Hottie climbing instructor showed us how to belay for each other, which actually keeps the person climbing stable in the harness as she climbs (or in my case clings pathetically to, seeking some kind of foothold, any kind of foothold would be nice, thanks) the wall. He didn't seem alarmed by the relative...flatness of the wall we were standing in front of, which was of course the flattest wall in the history of walls, oh dear Jesus, and of course my only thought at that point was could I go join the other small groups who were clearly standing in front of walls with a plethora of little ledges and places to actually STAND ON?

Belaying was hard for me too, because I am so not coordinated at first when trying anything, what with the mental blocks and all. I also seem to have a chemical imbalance that makes my hands do the opposite of the orders being barked at me, while I scream "SIR YES SIR" at a dude who has never been will never be in the military. This belaying involves this directional motion of pulling and stopping and braking, and even when told "DO NOT MOVE YOUR HAND OFF THE BRAKE AT ALL," of course I moved my hand off the brake because, well, screw you guys, this is the first TIME I've ever TRIED THIS and it's DIFFICULT and there's a HUMAN BEING on the other end of this rope, so whatever, I'm freaking out just a little bit and I could really use a cold drink so shut it.

Eventually he said my belaying technique was good enough to send this poor nice lady in my group climbing up the wall. She looked at me with my clearly faulty belaying technique with fear in her eyes. It is a testament to her sheer faith in humanity and also her extreme stupidity as a mother of small children who would get no insurance money because of that f'ing waiver we signed that she didn't say, "Nu-uh. That girl is NOT hauling my ass up this rock. Look - she's staring at the lizards again." (They were everywhere! And some were blue! And so pretty! Sorry.)

But somehow I managed it. It is also hard. People, generally speaking, are heavy - those of the normal adult-size anyway. My coach was all pleased because eventually my brain and my hands started working together, and I was a belaying fool. Belay I could, all the livelong day. It was nice out, for real. But then when she was done, after I'd gotten into this rope-pulling groove, he wanted me to climb this wall. (I don't know why that picture won't flip, by the way. Tried everything. It just won't.) Of course I said no, because that is what I do. After careful consideration and a break for a Diet Coke and to take some pictures of lizards and snakes, I told him I wanted to climb the one next to us, which actually looked doable for me. I knew that if I started on what he readily admitted was the most difficult wall there (Oh REALLY? The FLAT ONE? On my first day? Right!), I'd never make it, and therefore hate it, and never do it again. So I tried the second one.

 

This was still without a doubt the most difficult physical activity I have ever attempted. It was really, really hard, a hard that I couldn't have imagined from the ground, even. And I am at a place in my life where I am just too heavy, and also, more upsetting to me, clearly lacking my formerly reliable level of flexibility. I started off okay, but then about halfway up, things started not to make sense, and I lost my center of gravity. My knees banged into the rock, and I got nervous because you have no idea how much I need my knees right now for a variety of things. And I looked down, which is a mistake for me as well. I tried really hard to keep my feet in the crevices and to work with my hands also to move myself up, but beyond a certain point, the crevices were few, my limbs weren't working in concert and I guess my mind wasn't focused enough to make it work. I made it about 3/4 of the way up the wall before I asked to be let down, because literally my legs couldn't hold me up anymore, and I knew I wouldn't be able to do it in my current condition. The fact that I'd had about five hours of sleep in two nights didn't really help either.

 

You're supposed to be able to yell "TAKE" when you need a break, and the belayer lets the rope go slack so you can sit back and ostensibly relax in your harness, take in the view and whatnot. I apparently wasn't ready for the concept of relaxing in that particular venue yet. Maybe if I had, I could have gotten a reserve of strength back and made it up. Maybe next time.  I was disappointed I didn't make it up the whole way, but the fact that I tried this at all is pretty amazing, which you'd probably agree with if you knew even a little bit about me and my general lack of participation in most activities where people on the ground can watch me struggle with my insecurities about success in physical challenges, and also, let's face it, see my ass. The fact that these things don't really bother me so much anymore is quite nice. I'll rent out the billboard when it's completely conquered.

On Monday I was ridiculously sore. I mean...so sore that every step brought a litany of bitching that I couldn't really control, so I mostly kept it to myself. My ears were sore. Bruises sprang up on my knees, which I involuntarily went down on about halfway up the rock because I was like, "My feet? I'm supposed to scale this with my feet?" It's such a collection of movements and choices, like some lazy metaphor for life, that's what it is.

Tuesday was a little better, so I decided to ruin it by going back to the gym. I realized while clumsily ascending that wall that if I were a. still practicing yoga and b. down by about thirty pounds I could knock that sucker into next week. I've always been pretty flexible for someone who isn't thin, and the fact that I didn't feel flexible AT ALL when I tried to reach over for the next available ledge to grasp onto really bothered me. I'm in NYC for the week, and walking around last night I kept discovering new, painful muscles that I think had been curled up in horror since they confronted fifty feet of sheet rock, so that's been fun. Today, it's my shoulders that are finally unclenched, and my biceps hurt. From Saturday, can you believe? Serious business, this rock climbing thing, and seriously out of shape = me. I guess now that I'm moving into a house with  three men and eight bikes (not even kidding) I need to catch up.

That sissy Tobey Maguire is so lucky special effects exist, because the only wall he's climbing has steps carved into it, I know for sure.

All the photos (including the snake and one of the lizards, plus some super flattering shots of my aforementioned ass!) are here.

They put you on the treadmill...

I hate interval training. I hate it. I even hate the word 'interval', an ugly little word if I ever heard one. You can almost make the word 'larvae' from it - another one of my most-hated words.

Anyway, I hate it. I hate the stopping and the starting, the extreme exertion, the feeling of my skull unscrewing from the top of my head. I hate it. I hate it to the inverse degree that I love Led Zeppelin and real Coca-Cola and olives and driving with my sunroof open on a perfect day in October. My ex used to rail at me mercilessly about the need to do it if you really want to jack up your metabolism, but usually when he was telling me I ignored him. I thought I was ignoring him because I was trying really hard to do something like read a fascinating article about making snazzy bagged lunches in Woman's World (don't you love it when there's only one magazine left on the rack at the gym?) But I probably really ignored him because I kind of knew he was right, and admitting that ranks up there with sitting in rush hour traffic in the pouring rain with no coffee in a car with no radio. Undoable.

Cut to now, though, when after a solid month of working out, drinking a gross amount of water, parking farther away from my destination and all that shit - and NOT eating a pound of truffles, or real butter every day, or drinking half and half, or any other ridiculous practice which might explain this - I've gained FOUR F'ING POUNDS. I'm retaining water like a pregnant diabetic woman who just ate a bag of Chex Mix, and my knees hurt. It's just too soon for prosthetic joints, I swear.

So tonight, when I read an article about interval training while I was running away on the elliptical trainer, I said, "Okay, screw it. The time has come. I'm going to try this." And I lumbered over to the treadmill, set it on "manual", and started this ridiculous practice of running as fast as my crippled legs would carry me for a minute, and then alternating with a minute of "slow walking." At the same time, I had to keep track of the minutes, and attempt to reset the treadmill speed without being a cautionary tale on some web site somewhere about gym safety. ("Woman attempts interval training: Death by iPod cord strangulation") This is not easy, I'm telling you. Then there's the little factoid that I'm not in the habit of running more six miles an hour anywhere, EVER, even WHEN there's food involved. I'm more a fan of the leisurely stroll, to be honest with you.

I made it for a half hour, doing this interval thing, although there were a few hitches. Running, for instance, does things to one's gym clothing that bobbing up and down on the elliptical does not. Thank God my shorts didn't fall down, because tying them tighter what with managing all the controls and trying not to fall off when the conveyor jacked up from 3.6 to 6.2 was simply not possible. And I won't go into what the impact of running does to my thighs that walking does not. Ouch. I stopped feeling my calves halfway through, and my back is still screaming, "What fresh hell is THIS???" But I'm going to try it for a week. Or at least a couple days. And although I know I should not be scale obsessed, and should pay attention to how my CLOTHES fit, and how I FEEL, as opposed to the numbers, if I'm not down those few extra water-retained pounds by next week, it's half and half smoothies for ALL y'all.