READING AND EATING

This little patch of free time between semesters has rendered me nearly useless for anything but reading.

I have managed to cook a little — some homemade bread and, most remarkably, a quinoa salad with corn and zucchini and an olive oil/orange juice dressing. Very, very tasty. The recipe was from Vegetarian Times, a magazine I picked up at the co-op and will now subscribe to, having tested and approved of its offerings. I am eager to try its recipe for vegan strawberry shortcake, mainly because it's prefaced with something like "you wouldn't think this could be good, but it is." That sort of thing always snares me. It's like a challenge, a leap of faith that the sum of mediocre parts will be magically out of this world.

Speaking of strawberries, I was wandering around the co-op today, getting some quinoa (I have Rick to thank for introducing me to this ancient, wondrous food — the "mother of all grains," as the Incas called it), and I noticed that the strawberries were remarkably cheap — for the co-op. They looked plump and red, but I saw some hand-lettering on the price sign that said "as is." Huh? Have you ever seen such a thing at a grocery store? What in the world can that mean? That they taste like crap? (Generally, a store wouldn't be quite so frank about the worth of its produce, as all of us who've gotten a tasteless peach or mushy apple or sour grape know). That they've had complaints? That they're not really organic? That they're just not as good as they look?

As is.

Hmmm. I should have asked, because now it's driving me nuts. I may have to inquire tomorrow when I go back for some vegan margarine for my shortcakes. My diet includes dairy — boy, does it ever — but I feel obligated to follow the recipe to a T; that will allow me to judge in good faith whether it's "suprisingly good."

Above is a picture of a strawberry shortcake — nonvegan — that Erin and I concocted earlier this spring. We baked the shortcakes from scratch, sugared up some berries until they surrendered their lusciousness and whipped up some heavy cream with vanilla. Neither of us had made whipped cream at home before. It's shockingly easy, provided you have a hand-mixer. I was quite pleased with this dish, even though the cakes could have been a bit sweeter and lighter. Now I'm dying to see how the vegan recipe compares.

One thing I've become addicted to recently is a restaurant here that gets most of its ingredients from local farmers and ranchers. It has a lightly fried tofu sandwich that knocks my socks off — on a whole-grain bun with burger toppings. For a side I usually get a fresh-green salad with an apple-mustard dressing, but last time — I just wandered in for an afternoon snack — I got a bowl of peas and carrots that made me smile from ear to ear.

That was a big digression. I started out saying I had been doing little but reading. As soon as the semester ended, I made myself a big to-do list — I actually made this list while waiting for a tofu sandwich to be served by a hippie chick with dreadlocks — and this list contained the type of things you would need whole days to do, like clean out the basement, shave Rupert, seal my cedar steps, clean and wax my car, etc. Of course I haven't done any of this stuff. Most of it I totally forgot about as soon as I bit into my heavenly sandwich.

I have, however, managed to read some books — not in my usual 10-pages-before-bed way either, but leisurely, to my heart's content, for hours on end. I don't come from a household where people sit around and read for the better part of a day, and certainly not in the middle of the afternoon. I come from a household where, even if you're "retired," you get up early and make yourself "useful" for eight hours or so. You weed the yard, you "maintain" something around the house, you build a cabinet or clean a cabinet, you bake, you balance the checkbook, you do something or you help someone else do something.

I'm glad now that I came from that kind of household. I wasn't glad when I was young. I used to wish that my parents had been intellectuals or artists, but the older I get the more I appreciate that they were exactly who they were. I'm not like them, and I don't idealize them, but a bit of them — maybe the part that says "don't ask too many whys" — rubbed off on me, and I'm grateful for that. If they had been anyone else, I don't think this amazing book — Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men" — would have meant as much to me.

Not that its details bear any resemblance to my life; it's a very violent, cowboyish book about a drug deal gone bad. It's macho.

And it's very sparely written, the complete opposite of the lushly detailed, woman-centered Alice Munro stories I'm reading in "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage." Two writers couldn't be more different, and yet their sensibilities strike me as exactly the same: a certain stamina for living, for plodding on, even in the face of apparent meaninglessness; a certain sense of wonder about every day, every minute, every fact; a certain shaking of the head in disbelief — and resignation — at the situations that befall us. (Things happen to you they happen, says one of the characters in "No Country." They dont ask first. They dont require your permission.)

Something I can't stop thinking about from McCarthy's book:

He looked at her. After a while he said: It's not about knowin where you are. It's about thinkin you got there without takin anything with you. Your notions about startin over. Or anybody's. You dont start over. That's what it's about. Ever step you take is forever. You cant make it go away. None of it ...

You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday dont count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it's made out of. Nothin else.

Yes.

Nothin else.

As is.

CROWING POOPDUCKS GOT BACK

I should be able to tie up a few loose ends now that I'm done with the spring semester. There are "part twos" and "threes" of various posts hanging. I haven't forgotten.

But before that, I need to wrap up my supervisor training. The five-week course finished last week — culminating in a cheesetastic graduation ceremony — and while I'd be content to let the whole experience dissipate into thin air like a foul odor, a few things happened toward the end that are worth committing to paper.

The first is already the stuff of legend, so those of you who've heard tell can skip to the next.

• Each morning of the class began with what the instructor, in her homespun way, liked to call "crowing," a process by which you keep a positive spin on your outlook by sharing good things that have happened to you (vs. the incessant complaining that we humans typically treat each other to). I'm all for counting your blessings, of course, but the exercise has limited appeal among strangers. I mean, some people were crowing stuff like "I finally got my RV de-winterized; I'm happy about that" or "My daughter got a ride to school this morning so I could sleep 10 more minutes." I mean, even the Chief Encourager was having trouble working up excitement about this dull fare.

So she finally came up with a new strategy: Name one song that you identify with right now. The first guy up says, "Comfortably Numb." The Chief Encourager says, "What? Comfortably Dumb?" Snickers ensue. "Who sings that?" she asks. "I don't know it." More snickers, amid explanations. (The Chief Encourager has never heard of Pink Floyd). Up next, I say "Crazy" — not to make fun, but only because I was drawing a blank on all songs ever sung except the one that was playing in my car 10 minutes ago as I pulled up to the classroom. Nevertheless, more snickers. Dumb. Crazy. A theme in the making. What will the next girl say? All eyes are on her.

She's ready: "I'm gonna go with 'Baby Got Back.'"

"Baby got what?" the Chief Encourager asks.

"Back," the girl says, as if that explains everything.

"I don't know that one," the CE says, with a grandmotherly smile.

More snickers.

"I can sing it," the girl offers.

More snickers, mixed with disbelief.

The CE is obviously thrilled by this spirit of volunteerism, which has been sorely lacking up to now.

"You want to sing it? Sure. Go ahead!"

The girl straightens up in her chair, extends her elbows, does a rap-style rolling motion, then belts out:

I like big butts and I cannot lie
You other brothers can't deny
That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist
And a round thing in your face
You get sprung, wanna pull out your tough
'Cause you notice that butt was stuffed
Deep in the jeans she's wearing
I'm hooked and I can't stop staring
Oh baby, I wanna get wit'cha
And take your picture

Silence.

I turn to my co-worker, my mouth agape in disbelief, his agape in horror.

It's like someone farted in church. Out loud. On purpose.

The girl appears not to notice. The CE apparently has not understood a word, although her slightly perplexed face reveals a vague sense that the Precious Moments atmosphere of her classroom has been sullied.

The girl explains: "I like this song because it's about big butts and how it's OK to have a bigger butt — that not all girls have to be the same. I think it's a really positive message about women and diversity."

To keep from exploding, I release my pressure valve by calmly asking, "Who is it that sings that?"

"I don't know," the girl says, "some black guy."

• Speaking of songs: On one of the evaluations we had to fill out daily, I complained that a training video was overtly religious, which I considered to be inappropriate for a mandatory, work-related class. The video was about a guy and his severely disabled son who competed together in triathlons. The background song, played loudly throughout, was all about Jesus:

Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel
Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still
Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all
I can only imagine

I had not complained about anything on the evaluations, because (1) I thought it would be a waste of ink; and (2) the evaluations were not anonymous— we HAD to sign them. I didn't want to stand out as a Negative Nelly, but I thought showing that video was so beyond the pale that I couldn't let it pass. So I simply wrote: "The Christian music video was not appropriate in this setting." Sure enough, the next class, the CE plops down beside me and says she "appreciated" my comment. I feel extremely awkward and say, "Well, the video would work without the sound. I think attaching the specifically Christian music to it needlessly limits the message." As I say this, I notice that she is wearing a large silver cross around her neck, and I remember what she said about her "faith" being so important to her (right up there with her sports car, which she talked about as though it was God's reward for being a "success"), and I think about all the little scroll-saw signs everywhere that say things like "Faith" and "Believe." She assures me that she found the same video but with a Bryan Adams song playing in the background. "That shouldn't bother anyone," she says, with a challenging smile. "Should it?" Clearly meaning: Even godless, pants-wearing women like yourself can't be offended by a harmless Canadian pop star, can they? I want to point out that the issue is not my being "offended" or overly sensitive or irreligious; the issue is the principle — well-regarded in most circles — that secular, professional settings should not be imbued with religious messages. But I realize that saying such a thing would only confirm in her a suspicion that I've suffered from too much "education," that I'm the classic product of God being "kicked out" of public schools.

• First the Lord. Then men. Then meat. I have indeed suffered loss at the hands of public education! But the CE took pity on me for the last one. She saw me eating a big plate of cheesy rice as everyone else was enjoying a chicken breast.

"You don't eat meat?" she says.

"No," I say, almost apologetically.

"Well, you should have said something."

"It's not a big deal," I say.

(I didn't reveal my vegetarian "lifestyle" for the same reason I didn't reveal my gay "lifestyle" every time she made assumptions that we were all married heterosexuals: I didn't want to seem too finicky.)

"We just never know how to plan because some of them don't even eat eggs or dairy," she says.

Them? What happened to the touchy-feely we're-all-in-this-together spiel?

The next class, she pulls me aside and tells me that the convicted-murderer-turned-caterer has made me an egg-salad sandwich for lunch. With cheese.

• On the last day of class, the CE was talking about "negative" and "toxic" people and how we should limit our interactions with such types because they tend to "awfulize everything." (Verbizing nouns and adjectives is really smiled upon in the self-help community). Such people inject their problems into every situation and conversation and end up sucking all the life and joy out of everyone around them. The way she advised reacting to this situation was really profound. She said: "Avoid poopducks like the plague."

When I get a scroll saw, that's the first saying I'm going to carve. And I'm going to hang it above my door.

WOULD YOU DO THIS?

That is, get naked with 20,000 people in a public square to have your picture taken?

WITHDRAWAL

For more than a year now one of my absolute favorite things has been to read installments of Erin's kid diary — a chronicle of her life from age 12 through her early college years.

And now that pleasure has come to an end. She posted the last entry yesterday.

Already I feel a big gaping hole where a daily amusement used to be. I wonder how long I'll automatically click on my "Kid Erin" link, only to realize as the page is loading that there will be nothing new there — no new crushes, no new travails, no new happiness, no new heartache, no new forks in the road that most girls travel from boy crazy to crazy boy.

I think those of us who have enjoyed the sticker-and-doodle-laden tableaux of her youth should encourage her to start another diary — to record in equal measure the wonders and commonplaces of her young adulthood and make it available in her dotage, like a Madame de Sevigny of central Kansas, a Pepys of the prairie.

We should at the very least thank her. She'd enjoy a toast, I'm sure, even though the attention would embarrass her.

So here's my little offering: Thanks for sharing the Awkward Years, Erin. It's been a treat to get a window into your past — and the past of others who were inspired to share by the example of your frankness. Mostly when we make friends with other adults all we ever know about their "life before" is a trickle of info here and there, mostly self-serving, mostly ill-remembered. We never get real-time accounts of the sort that enable us to say things like "Remember when you cried in the bathroom because Isrrael wouldn't dance with you?" and to almost feel that we were there.

THIS MORNING (A LIFE LESSON)

When traveling through a soup of fog, it's good to follow someone who keeps things interesting.

ONE MOON AT THE CREEK

Yay! Rick is back from his climbing sojourn in the land of the Latter-Day Saints. "The ropes are washed and now drying on the shower rod," he says, offering this glimpse of his adventure:

One Moon at The Creek

A few of North America’s renowned climbing areas are known by surprisingly generic geographic terms. Yosemite National Park boasts two such: The Valley is the home of soaring granite walls such as El Capitan and the iconic Half Dome while the high alpine country of domes and peaks in the north of the park is known simply as The Meadows. In California at least, The Gorge means Owens River Gorge. And somewhere in New England or thereabouts is a placed called The Ledge. Ask climbers anywhere in the world where is The Creek, and most will tell you that it is in the American desert southwest and might even be able to tell you that it is about an hour or so from Moab, Utah.

I wandered through Moab in the very early ‘90s just as I was starting to climb. It wasn’t well known to climbers or most anyone else in those days, and it showed. After heady days for uranium in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Moab followed the usual path of mining boom towns and sank into a tattered funk once the U.S. military had heaped up a stockpile of tens of thousands of nuclear bombs and the civilian power industry decided it wouldn’t bother trying to build hundreds more nuclear power plants after all. But I went through just as mountain biking was taking off and the bikers were discovering that the Moab area had hundreds of miles of great rides. Climbing, too, was a growing sport and the '90s saw a renewed interest in climbing cracks after a decade of infatuation with the Euro-style climbing of overhanging limestone pockets. And somewhere in there, the practitioners of mechanized recreation discovered the area as well.

These days Moab suffers from the same cancer that inflicts a lot of popular spots in the West. The relentless poison of money has caused a sprawling tumor on the south side of the town where people who pay far too little in taxes and are thereby perplexed about what to do with their heaps of cash build gargantuan monstrosities carefully designed to destroy as much desert as they can afford. Meanwhile, the people who actually work in Moab get modest wages and cannot afford the high rents so they live in garages, closets, or old buses parked in back yards or the remnants of orchards that haven’t yet been plowed under.

But the climbing at The Creek is as good as ever. Or even better since, with miles of cliffs, people are always establishing new climbs. The number of climbers has kept going up, of course, but if you climb the harder stuff or are willing to hike even a bit, you can easily get away from the crowds. There are some new restrictions on camping, but the scene is still a lot more laid back than you find at many other places. This year I didn’t make arrangements to meet anybody, figuring that I would run into plenty of old friends anyway. I did. But I camped in a nice large spot that had a slowly changing set of inhabitants who were mostly people I had not met before.

Over the years I’ve noticed that many of my friends are adherents to New Age religions and enthusiasts for New Age comodification. While their ideas are sheer bunk, these people are often very friendly and the sort of relaxed, quasi-hippy types that I like. True to form, we had quite a collection of New Agers. Foremost among them was Swiss Miss, a very tall, very blonde woman in her early 30s who was originally from Switzerland but now lives in L.A. She was a decided social butterfly. Although she had been going to The Creek for only two years, she must have known three times more people there than I did. She was sharp and very observant, but completely snowed over by the New Age hucksters. She had recently paid some guy in L.A. 400 and some dollars to take a class to learn to tell people to lie on their backs and blow on small rocks. The point of doing so, it seems, is that this somehow rids the body of bad thoughts, bad habits, bad patterns, or even bad holograms — the allegories were flexible and included a smattering of Eastern mysticism as well. Like me, she was at The Creek for a month. But she took a week off and drove all the way to Pine Ridge, South Dakota, to hang out with a shaman she thought she would learn something from. I doubt she got much in line of that, but she did learn about the stark poverty and hopelessness on the reservation.

For the first part of my trip, the campsite also had Cat Woman and Runaway. These two had driven a very long time to get out from under the snowy conditions in Canada to climb in the desert. Cat Woman had a large long-haired cat she kept on a leash and took to the crags with her. Amazingly, the cat seemed cool with this. She said the cat was part Maine Coon Cat. Maybe so; it sure was big. Everyone else said that when Cat Woman was down last fall, she seemed reasonably cool. But on that trip she had brought her boyfriend. I never met the sad sack, but we can only call him Whipping Boy. The story was that he would stand quietly and belay Cat Woman for hours on end on climbs that were too hard for her. As she became more and more frustrated, she would let loose a torrent of abuse on poor Whipping Boy. In this way she was able to be nice to everyone else. This spring, Whipping Boy stayed up north, so Cat Woman attacked one partner after another. First up was Runaway, an unassuming recent college grad. Runaway quickly decided the situation was totally fucked and talked the Brit into ferrying her off to Moab early one morning while Cat Woman was still asleep. From there she took a bus to Salt Lake to catch a plane back home. Cat Woman soon ran through her other possible belayers and then left herself. But before she left, she screamed at most of the dog owners around. There are no regulations about dogs at The Creek, so, of course, everybody lets their dogs run loose. The idea of tying up their dog because some nut case was worried about her cat didn’t make sense to anybody.

One of the liveliest members of our group was Owl Girl. She had only been climbing two years, but was pretty good since she was both energetic and motivated. She had a flexible work schedule that consisted of intermittent contracts to do field observations of Spotted Owls. Owl Girl was rather small, but she managed to put away most of a gallon of wine and a fair bit of whiskey one night. She was even up and about the next day. I had not met Owl Girl before, but I knew her good friend Crash. I gave him a ride back to camp a few years ago when he was looking for somebody with a four-wheel drive that could pull him out of a ditch. He has done in every car or truck that he has owned. This year he was driving an old work truck with the side bins like, say, the ones the phone company uses. He pedaled back to camp late one afternoon on his bike. He had been driving fast down one of the dirt roads and caught more air off a rise than he was expecting. When he came down, he blew out two tires. For the next week he was juggling trying to climb with arranging rides to and from town with his tires. You should never ever ride with Crash. He reduced Swiss Miss to tears one time.

Springtime is peak snowbird season and there were Canadians from many parts of that country. One that hung out with us while not actually living in our camp was Donut Boy. He had a very simple concept of good food. To be good, food had to have lots and lots of fat. And there was no food as good as a donut. He would go on at great length about the ideal donut and was a firm believer that glazed donuts are sometimes ruined by a glaze that has too much sugar. The superior glaze is mostly butter with just a modest amount of sugar. He had plenty of time for donuts since he wasn’t climbing. His shoulder was bothering him, apparently as a consequence of a very difficult to explain attempt at break dancing a few weeks earlier while In Joshua Tree.

So there you have the main cast of characters. The plan was to also have a lot of photos of people, dogs and climbing. Sadly, though, my cheap, aging camera didn’t comply. What had been an occasional bit of weirdness has become a permanent freakout and the camera now only takes pictures of its own demented digital mind. You don’t want see that psychotic place.

But all is not lost. Other people take pictures and post them to the Internet. So if you would like to see a photo illustrated account of one of the fine towers we climbed, click on this thread.