…beyond nice.

Baker climb was extremely rough but spectacular. I will write more about it when I get back from my Mount Rainier climb. I got back from Baker on Sunday, have been working every day since then. I will be leaving for my Rainier climb early tomorrow morning.

No, Rainier was not planned, I got a last minute invite and you know…Rainier has been on my todo list for a few years now, so I would be a fool to not jump on it. So I will tell you all about Baker and Rainier when I get back.

And in case you’re curious, we did hit summit!

I want to live in the city while I’m still relatively young. This way I can enjoy the walking to bars and stumbling home after. So is it bad when after a week of hitting happy hour almost every day, I start planning my happy hour at 1pm? Capitol Hill living is awesomely bad for my liver.

This Thursday my section is heading up for the Mount Baker climb. So far it looks like weather might be decent. Summer is crawling to Seattle this year.

I got moved to Section 2 from Section 1 because they had a couple people dropping from that section due to personal reasons, and since I was only tagging along for the last couple outings they figured it was easiest to move me. They asked me nicely, and I didn’t have any compelling reason to not switch aside from the weekend of the climb being a week later, so I told them I would switch.

Section 1 just did their summit attempt this weekend, and got turned back due to inclement weather.

I don’t think I can stomach training for a third attempt, so please please please let the weather be good on Mount Baker this weekend.

This is my second time, waiting for section 1 to come back with good news, and the second time that it didn’t happen. The first time was extremely heartbreaking with the death of a classmate. As I’ve said before, I didn’t know this classmate well, but I liked him instantly because he reminded me so much of my boyfriend, in mannerism and looks. When someone reminded you of someone near and dear, you feel bonded to them whether its reciprocated or not. I mourned his loss as someone near and dear. Though I did not know him well, I went to his funeral and wept my heart out.

This second time, I was glad that everyone made it home safely, I prayed for their safe return even though I’m not religious.

Either way, this is the week I’ve been training long and hard for. Even if we have to turn away from summit, I feel good that I’m pretty much in the best shape of my life. I feel very fortunate that I am in the position to have the time and support from loved ones to do this.

I almost didn’t hike up Si with 50lbs on Wednesday. My body rebelled. I had a stomach ache all morning. Then when I tried to get the pack on, it was pretty impossible for me to lift it from floor to back. I had to make sure the pack never touched the floor.

At home, I had to make sure the pack was sitting on the couch so I could back up into it. Soon as I clip the waist-band on, the weight is more manageable. Now, I said manageable, not lifted nor distributed beautifully, because oh god did it ever suck. I found a million little reasons why I had to skip the hike. Like, oh I could not find the tripod for my camera.

I had a very late start. On the drive there, the sky was dumping buckets of rain. It was raining so hard, people were driving 50 in a 70 mph zone to avoid hydroplaning. I kept thinking about how much more miserable the hike would be and maybe I should turn around…all the way to the trail head. Then at the trail head, I was thinking the rain was getting my socks too wet and this could lead to a nasty blister right before the big climb.

There was not a single step that I thought this could get easy with practice. But, each 0.5 mile markers went by and then it was the top. It has been so many months since I started training, but until I was at the top, I wasn’t sure if it was ever possible for me to carry close to 50 percent of my body weight up a mountain.

I’m glad I didn’t bitch out. We are leaving for the big climb is this coming Thursday, I’m more nervous over this than the LSATs.

The boyfriend had steak dinner planned out when I got back from the hike. We invited 3 guests over for dinner, but those 3 guests brought 3 guests, so we got to stress test our new place for entertaining people. Steaks were eaten, booze was drank, everyone had a great time.

I’m really loving the new home.

Mountaineering pictures often look so badass. Even my own mountaineering pictures, it looks like we are taking the mountain down and showing it who’s boss. The reality is so far from this image. Right off camera, I’m usually rocking myself madly and crying for my mommy.

Tomorrow, I will be carrying 50lbs up Mount Si. That’s close to 50% of my body weight, so you know, by virtue of being able to do this, I am a total badass. Right? Oh, how I wish.

I’ve seen other mountaineers train. They bounce past me with their five hundred pounds pack, long muscular limbs, bounding like graceful gazelles. Swooping down to pick up small children and elderly and carrying them up the mountain so we can all enjoy the view together.

I can be the next Bambi. Instead, I’m the neurotic hermit crab that chose a too big shell. Crawling along pitifully. Family walking by, poking it with a stick, “Is it still alive? Maybe it needs water, pour some water on it.” That just about sums up the pretty that is mountaineer me.

I’m still peeling too. Clumps of dead skin flaking off me. Every time I scratch my ears, a piece of skin sheds off. This is only after ONE day on the mountain. We are being warned that FOUR days will be that much worse. Places that we don’t even think of burning will burn. Like the inside of our noses. One suggestion is sticking a finger full of sunblock up the nose. Another is sticking a SPF Chapstick up there. Then, of course, the question is, do you carry two Chapsticks or just slum it up? There’s always the fear that you mix them up when oxygen deprived.

I love dogs. I would love to own a dog, but I really hate picking up and carrying dog poop. I hate it enough to never consider owning a dog until I have a giant yard with a corner set aside for doggie business. Still, people love their dogs enough to carrying some heavy bags of poop around. Guess who else carry poop around. Mountaineers! Yay! On mountains that are covered in snow all year round, human waste does not compost nicely into nature, it gets preserved for prosperity. So we get to bury it next to our tent like treasure than dig it up and carry it out like a prize we won.

The beauty of mountaineering is, despite all the less than glorious moments, the sum of the awesome will still come out so far ahead, that every moment leading up to the summit and back will be so worth it.

When I’m not complaining incessantly on this blog, I’ve been writing on my new blog. It’s a place where I complain about the process of becoming a lawyer.

It’s a goal of mine to learn how to write better, and as such, I want to be able to write more formally, with articles AND swearing only about half as much. I imagine the target audience to be other law students or law student hopefuls. My mental image of them is your average joe before their sense of humor is sucked out of them, but it’s starting to stifle a bit already. There’s a video game called “Bard’s Tale” where the game characters ask you questions and you have choices in response. It’s a bit like the old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. The options are usually “snarky” or “nice”. I feel like in life, when given choices, I have my mouse pointer permanently over “snarky”. When talking to lawyer types, I have to shift my pointer over. But old habits die fighting, gasping, wheezing.

The new condo is coming together nicely, but we completely missed the mark when budgeting for window treatment. It’s costing us $3500 to dress all our windows, which is at least a grand more than budgeted. Oh, but it will be so pretty.

We bought some curtains from Bed Bath & Beyond and they are room darkening. There are two things wrong with the curtains.

One, they are ugly, the fabric feels stiff, and it’s just not sitting on the window well. It’s like me in a sack dress. I’m short and average build, not the thin and petite build. A sack dress makes me look fat and dumpy. So, I blame the curtains for making my windows look fat.

Two, the darkening works too well. Before moving in, I assumed that as the streets get busy during the day, the noise of other people going about their day will wake me up. It could be because the bedroom is set very far back or just high enough, but I don’t hear much. What little city noise I hear is actually soothing. With the lack of telltale light, I can sleep all day. It’s dangerous for productivity. Not to mention I might miss breakfast and elevensies, the most important meals of the day.

Doing nothing feels a bit over-rated. There has been issues with transferring money to Vanguard, and I’ve been ignoring it for the last month because thinking about it made my blood boil and that was the last thing I wanted to deal with. Now that I have a moment, it feels like it’s time.

I’m back to reading for pleasure and not reading more excerpts while trying to identify the tone of the author and paying close attention to the difference between “many” and “several”.

I do want to focus on learning how to write better again.

Our dining table came in over the weekend. It’s such a great place to write from. I love the sound of the city as people hustle and bustle by.

Maybe I’ll even get to catch a movie tonight. I’ve been wanting to see Kung Fu Panda 2 and X-Men for a while now. Oh, we might even get a chance to walk to the theater. The thought behind moving here is that we can walk to the local places for entertainment. The only walking we’ve been doing is from the car to the elevator to our condo with endless boxes.

I am sunburned to shit. My nose is peeling to the skin. The raw red patches are spackled with cover-up so as to not scare small children. It seems no matter how hard I try, the snowfield will always find where the sunscreen is thinly applied.

Last time I was on a sunny snowfield, my ears got all blistery the next day, so I slathered it on this time, but I missed a spot where my ears connect to my temple. It’s peeling. And my nose. I applied and re-applied sunscreen to avoid the dramatic raccoon eyes but when applying with both hands, they converge on my nose, and I seem the miss the exact center of my nose, so I have a bright burned line down the center of my face. To complete the hotness, I wore a high-necked shirt, that I unzipped ever so slightly when it got hot, so I have a red triangle where my collar bones come together. The boyfriend said it looks like I got some tribal marking.

That could be the origins of tribal markings. Weird sunburns. My tribal marking is a red line down my face with an arrow pointing downward. I’m my own tribal animal.

Last week, I had to take a passport photo for the LSAT ticket. We were warned to not change our appearance AT ALL. That is, if I had a beard in my photo, I better be sporting a fine beard come test day. No haircuts. No dye jobs. Nothing. On the morning of my heading to take the picture, I told my boyfriend I’m either getting a suspicious zit or cold sore. He told me if I had a cold sore, I would have to nurse that thing until test day, just in case they disqualify me. They might.

This last month has been so insane. Worrying about mortgage loan. Then worrying about moving. Followed by worrying about not putting the place together on time for the boyfriend’s family visiting and staying with us. My cousins from England visiting. Boyfriend’s family visiting. Conditioning for mountaineering class. Gathering all the gear needed for the overnight class outing. LSAT class. Studying for LSAT. Get my butt kicked on outing. Take LSAT. Work. Tomorrow will be my first day off since LSAT, I am soooo going to enjoy some guilt-free sitting on the couch doing not a damned thing.

Thank fucking god that is over. I don’t know how I did, but quite frankly at this moment, I don’t care. It just feels like a huge weight has been lifted. And it feels like I can really use a stiff drink!  Cheers!!!