I went climbing tonight with Eric and I’m getting slightly better. I had been climbing using any hold I could get and tonight I did routes for the first time, where you ascend a wall using only the holds with a particular color tape by them. I went right up a red tape route with a level six difficulty, whatever that means. I don’t think it works like the earthquake scale. The route was appropriately called “New Guy”.

My new harness got a little use as I fell off the wall a few times and it worked both perfectly and comfortably. Did I tell you I bought a bunch of climbing equipment when my student loans came in? I also bought a year pass to the climbing gym. They have a one day a year half price sale, so it was a little under two hundred for the membership, which is insanely cheap for a year at a climbing gym considering that you can easily spend forty on a day pass with related rentals. I also got some really nice equipment at a big REI sale. I am now an REI member. What is happening to me?

If you figure in the money I spent on the safety class and the full price climbs last year then I am a few hundred into this new hobby/sport/whatever. I still need to buy climbing shoes that are sized to me as the rental ones remind me of Chinese foot binding. I feel good about it, investing in my health and all. I can’t ever seen to exercise when there is no goal involved and getting up a wall seems as rational a goal as anything else in the fitness world. More so, when you consider the potential of needing to climb out of a canyon that your plane has crashed in while you are pursued by a grizzly bear. Yeah.

I know a couple of people who work at the gym so it’s a little odd to be at a new place and still feel so familiar. Karen’s (who I went to graduate school with in the nineties) younger brother Allen designed several of the routes that I’ve been climbing and his girlfriend Brandy works there as well. They’ve invited Jes and I to go camping and climbing on real rocks with them some weekend when my skills are a little better. I went to college with Brandy and actually knew her independently of Allen, who I still think of as being in high school.

Have you all watched my poetry movie? It took me a few hours to learn how to post video and get the credits in etc. Please comment if you liked it and maybe I’ll do more clips. Video Blogger suggested that driving to work is a popular video blog. I go by the St. Louis Arch everyday at dawn so that could be a fun clip. I like my new commute; there are several cathedrals and a good swath of the Mississippi River.

I said to Jes the other day, “People don’t comment as much as they used to.” She sagely replied, “No one comments anymore on anyone’s blog. I think that’s kind of over.” Here I am on the back end of tend once again. Well, in the words of Sebastian (not my dog), fight the nothing with all your might. I suppose it would make more sense if I quoted Falcore.