Svadhishthana's log

[Svadhishthana]

Part 3: Analysis

The scene here seems unique in several ways, and is mostly similar to the long-term hostel scene Radical described in his travelling guide. But it might be better described as a sort of temporary, high turnover village. While cliques form, they typically aren't very exclusionary, other than in groups who are here only for a very short time. The longer term residents are actually typically very friendly and eager to make new friends, since everyone is constantly looking for climbing partners or beta on routes. And the scale is significantly larger than a single hostel - the different camps have different vibes, but everyone intermingles. And word travels *fast* through the village - I'll hear about rockfalls or accidents only an hour or two after they happen, and news of parties and events can make it's way around in only hours. But at the same time, most people are only here for a few weeks at most, with a small core (like me) staying for a month or more. The scene has a relatively leftward bent - my libertarian/anarchist views typically make me the most conservative voice in a conversation.

This situation, unfortunately, really lights up my anxiety around dating. For context, I had emotionally neglectful parents and was bullied and socially ostracized in school. This left my brain with the idea that friendship and social acceptance are rare and hard to get, making me paranoid of losing it. And since I exclusively got negative attention from women growing up, my brain defaults to the assumption that any move I make will immediately be rejected, and not only will the girl I hit on reject me (not that big of a deal) but also, she'll tell everyone she knows, which will destroy my whole social support system. Now, I know this is obviously a malfunctioning part of my brain just catastrophizing, but at the same time it is somewhat true. If you are generally liked and held in high regard in your community, women will expect and like it when you hit on them even if they aren't available, and it can actually be good for your odds since you are letting the other women around you know that you are available. But conversely, if you are held in low regard in your community, women will dislike it when you hit on them, and will tell other women, who will put their guard up and further lower your status. So the key is: be generally liked. I really need to internalize the lesson of the #metoo movement - fucking rapists were able to get away with it for decades simply because they were well liked and powerful. So if you are just a guy throwing his hat in the ring in a respectful way, and you are well liked generally, there is literally no negative consequence. At the end of the day, these negative patterns of thinking are why I fail. I have so much of an advantage over so many other guys - I'm tall, white, relatively wealthy, have hair, am in good shape, have a strong jawline and sharp features. Hell, now I even climb relatively hard and hang out with the other hot, hard climbers. But I'm getting trounced here by short, mangey chuffers, and letting opportunities slip away all because my mental game just sucks big fat donkey dick. M and another couple were talking about their poly relationships the other day and I almost had a goddamned panic attack because just mentioning my own sexuality near other people fucking terrifies me and makes me want to blow my brains out so I can exit the conversation.

Additional minor quibbles are that my logistics are bad (I'm sleeping in my Corolla), I'm not as hot as I could be (need a hair cut, and a belly pooch cut), and I could be dressing and accessorizing better. But with the amount of initial attention I'm getting, these things are inconsequential. If I had my head together and had any notion of how to game, I'd be slaying out here.

Specific things I need to work on:

- Be more aggressive about meeting people. Whenever a new person shows up, greet them and welcome them to the area. Figure out how to remember peoples' names the *first time*, and make a point to ask how long they are around for (a few opportunities slipped away simply because they left before I even thought of making a move).

- Figure out how to be the organizer/initiator of fun things that are going down. I'm such a follower here.

- Be more consistent in my schedule. It's pretty easy to skip bathing here, as almost no one does it every day. Plus it's too easy to push my meditation back because I wanted to sleep in, and then push work back because I was meditating, and then push working out back because I was busy working, etc. Getting chores done earlier means I can socialize earlier and easier.

- Figure out how to isolate. It is *so social* here, making an explicit move is hard to execute by just waiting for the two of you to be alone together. I need to figure out how to come up with excuses to be alone on the fly.

- Be more flirty on first meeting women. Stop assuming they are dating a guy just because they showed up with them or are hanging out with them. While being too aggressive is obviously a bad idea that will gain the ire of the other guys and will get you a reputation, you can at least be fun and make strong eye contact. Be okay flirting with two women at once. People will just assume it is your personality.

- Figure out how to ditch the annoying friend. Honestly, an advanced technique - this only happened once, after I dropped the ball a few times.

- Figure out how to turn a guy around who is going after the same girl. Again, advanced.

- Figure out how to be the guy who starts the party.

- Get comfortable dancing, and get okay at it.

- Learn Spanish. If I were somewhat proficient, I'd probably be able to get a good number of locals.
Part 4: Life Going Forward

Obviously, quitting my job has been delayed a bit. I still want to get my bonus, and back pay for my annual pay raise. And I need to get the Airbnb back up and running again.

Meanwhile, I've decided I want a real home base. So my plan in the medium term is to buy a used trailer, put it in my back yard in Denver, and fix it up so it is suitable for long term living. This will allow me to hang out in the Front Range and keep an eye on my investments when I need to while still living rent free - but with the added benefit of having my own toilet and shower. With some tasteful decorating and landscaping in the back yard, I think it'll be a hit with women - or at least the type of women that is my type.

Meditating over the last 2 months has proved immensely beneficial. I need to hammer it into my routine so I never miss a session, and can reap the benefits. I also want to try using psychedelics to help deal with my shit - will listen to the podcast episode Andy did and have reached out to a friend in town who worked with a psychedelic therapist.

Once I'm back in Denver, I want to try a season of focusing on bodybuilding. Taking a few months to fix Airbnb stuff and to get and fix up a trailer will provide me time for this. The crux here will not be overtraining, since I know my friends will want me to be getting out on the weekends - I'm already invited on 2 canyon trips, 2 rock climbing trips, an ice climbing trip, and a motorcycle trip.

Simultaneously, I can spin up the apps again and ping back a few girls I previously laid in the area. Circus girl reached out while I was down here, wanting to fuck, so hopefully she's still game once I get back. I wanna shoot for getting my lay count up to 20 before I quit. I think obviously, the AA program would really help me, but I'm extremely hesitant to do it in the town I live. But I will try giving the first few exercises a shot and see how I feel.

So now planning to quit my job in mid spring.

In the short term - let's see if I can land V (she just texted back), and shoot my shot with Si, K, and St.

LFG

 

[pancakemouse]

Wow. Your writing is captivating. What a portal into a world yet-unknown to KYIL. I am not in the scene, but plenty of good friends I went to college with in the Pacific Northwest would fit right in there.

Totally agree that you need to up your social circle game. Seems like boundless opportunity there. Looking forward to you being the king of the limestone when you report back.

 

[Aku]

Damn. Really captivating story. I was fully immersed. Seems like a cool environment.

I felt the frustration about you not acting on opportunities and wasting them away. That and the feeling of jealousy with the dude that came in with game and had all the female attention. I relate with those feelings.

It seems like you indeed have a lot of potential and are indeed wasting it by being a pussy. I am the same and unhappy about it. At least props to you for trying and asking some girls out even if it's done autistically.

With apps, it's easier because when we match, we know that there's already mutual attraction and willingness to mingle. But IRL it requires more balls.

Just gotta make it a habit of shooting our shoot and acting on opportunities without overthinking too much and success will be inevitable.

 

[Crimson]

I second Panacakemouse, your writing is really good and immersive. The story about your journey to Mexico sounds like a modern-day cowboy story, quite badass.

Looking forward to see how things work out for you over there.

 

[Svadhishthana]

Thanks for the replies, guys. But I only read them just now. After my last post I was just furious with myself. Not just for my actions and inadequacies, but for the fact that I got on here and cried about it after all the shit I'd already done.

So instead of indulging in self-pity on the internet, I fucked bitches instead.

PART 1 - Story time:

1.1 LAY 17: Shy Canasian Girl
After my last post, V and I made plans to go climbing Saturday. I accidentally take her on the longest, most perfect date I've ever not-planned. Show up late to the crag and get to our route. At 10c, it'll be relatively easy for me. When we arrive, there is already another party at the base. We take our time unpacking while the other party climbs, and I start breaking the touch barrier - had a nifty idea to warm up our fingers by crimping again each other and leaning back. I show off a bit by basically rowing her up and down. But after we've faffed about for quite a while at the base, it looks like the first party is just now finishing the first pitch, going extremely slowly. I vote to pass. V thinks it would be a dick move. After 10 more minutes, they're still at the first pitch anchors, yet to move. I suggest passing again, and V agrees. I fire the first pitch before their leader has made it 10 feet above their belay. At the belay, I ask to pass, and they oblige. I keep climbing, linking the second pitch. About halfway up, I realize I might not have brought enough draws, and start skipping bolts, running it out 20-30 feet on relatively moderate terrain. I set the belay at the top of pitch 2 and bring V up. In her tank top and sunglasses, she looks like a cool climber babe training to speed climb the nose, and I tell her so. Then I fire pitch 3 and 4, climbing fast and skipping more bolts. V leads the last easy pitch to top out, and I follow in my approach shoes. We simul-rap on the way down, enabling some more playful bumping around and shoulder to shoulder contact at the belays. We reach the ground without incident, and start talking about what to do next. She's got a stiffer single pitch she's been meaning to get on, so we head over there. At this point I'm getting nervous again - I've been flirting pretty well all day, but I haven't actually pulled the trigger and been explicit. I'm just thinking "fuck, am I gonna bitch out *again*??" I give her the first lead to hang the draws and encourage her through the hard parts while trying to figure out how to break the seal. She falls once or twice, tops out, I lower. I decide to just fucking nut up. I pull my shoes on, tie in, and get ready to climb. Just before I do, I lean in a bit closer so the party a few routes over can't hear and say "Hey, so I think you're really cute." She hesitates for a second. I maintain eye contact for a few moments... "I think you're cute too." Awkward pause... "I'm interested in you. Are you interested in me?" Another pause... "I don't know yet." That's weird. "Ok, well, if that makes you uncomfortable, you can just drop me when I'm climbing." She laughs at this. Then she asks the question I'm not a fan of on me - "So how old are you anyway?" Fuuuuck... I tell her I'm 31. "Oh, ok. You look young for your age. I'm 32." Brain=broken - she definitely looked more like 24-26, and acted like it, too. We pat ourselves on the back for our good genetics, and I onsight the route.

She's pretty beat from climbing now, but it's only early afternoon, so she's wondering what we're gonna do next. An idea comes to me - there's a little tourist attraction a short hike away. Nothing amazing, just a big tree, but those are a bit of a rarity in Mexico, so we start hiking. Chilling and talking. I've become more hesitant in my moves now that she's expressed reluctance. But we get to the tree and climb up into it a ways and talk about life. Hang out for a bit until a Mexican family drives their truck up to have a picnic there, and we start the walk back. She's hungry. I'm hungry too. Good news - I know of a secret restaurant we can go to that's actually on the way back. It's probably the fanciest restaurant around, and it's Italian night - shockingly empty, considering when I went there two weeks ago the restaurant was overflowing with people. We eat pasta, pizza, and brownies, and suck down a couple Coronas. Thank god she forgot her wallet, so I get to avoid that annoying song and dance and just pay.

It's night time now. We start walking out of the restaurant, pretty sluggish now from the carbs, beer, and exercise. But the walk wakes me up and I provide some stoke for going to a local brewery for some live music. We get in my car to drive into town. When she sits in my bed, where the passenger seat usually is, I make a joke - "I knew I'd get you in my bed somehow". We show up at the brewery and the party is already started - I grab a beer, and she gets an extra strong marg. We head over to where the band is playing, and ugh, dancing. I can't just hang in the back and do my shy guy dance - I gotta make a move. But I'm still nervous as fuck. We go through a few songs dancing separately until the beer has kicked in enough to overcome my stupid anxiety and I just grab her hand. I then proceed to dance with her in a fantastically *bad* fashion. I'm jerky, I have no rhythm, my leading is confusing and awkward at best. But she's smiling. I look into her eyes, lean in, and kiss her. She kisses me back. Fuck yeah!

We keep dancing for a few more songs, sometimes breaking off and sometimes coming back together, until the band ends its set. We grab one more beer in the bar and hang with some friends - they get a sampler plate of the brewery's snacks, and we both try some cricket. Our friends suggest going back to their hostel to hang out. I drive us over and we chill for a while watching them perform aerial silk maneuvers before I say to V "hey, wanna get out of here?" We pack up, head out, and get in my car outside the hostel. She's sitting in my bed. I lean in. She leans in. We kiss. I roll out of the driver's seat into the bed, on top of her, and start feeling up her body. Shirts come off. Pants come off. Condom goes on. We fuck.

Honestly, it was pretty bad. She was really focused on the kissing more than anything. It was dark, so I couldn't really see her body. She was pretty flat and had small nipples, which it turns out, isn't very attractive to me. She was pretty unresponsive and quiet. A combination of the beer, food, exercise, and awkward positions made it difficult to maintain a good rhythm and stay hard. And when she got on top she did a sort of grinding thing which didn't really stimulate me - plus after a while her bony hips started to hurt as they dug into mine. After quite a while, she manages to cum on my dick - I fuck her a while longer, and then call it a night. Pretend I finish, and then cuddle for a while.

Then the funniest part of the night. I get back in the driver's seat and start driving her back to her hostel. On the way there, we pass our friends who we'd just seen on the silks, walking to the same place. V gives a *meep!* and we keep driving without slowing down or looking at them. V is too embarrassed to be dropped off in front of them, so we keep driving, intending to loop back around. Then, as we drive down the road away from her hostel, we see her two guy friends that she came to Mexico with walking towards us! She double *meep!s* and we keep driving like nothing happened. Then we loop around and I drop her off with one last kiss.

The next night is her last night. She comes over to my camp with a friend and we hang out, drinking a bit. Eventually she starts hugging me in the kitchen, and we move over to my car again. I am honestly not stoked about this - I'm hungover and quite tired. We fuck for a bit, but eventually I just go soft and collapse next to her and cuddle for a while, talking about whatever, and then drive her back to her hostel.

1.2 LAY 18: Surprise!
Kr is a tall Czech redhead with nice tits and a big ass. When I saw her at the bar a couple nights ago, I was shocked by how receptive she was to me, and how quickly she actively *tried* to give me her contact info. But then for the rest of the night, she seemed to avoid me... But I send her a slightly flirty message, after a while she responds. I'm tired of my bitch-ass behavior recently, so I just message her "Hey so it's gonna be really hot tomorrow so I'm thinking of going to the shady bouldering cave. Wanna come? I figure I can combine two hot things to make a cool one. " Then there's a long pause before she agrees. Sick!

But now I'm out of condoms, and I don't have a ton of time to get more. I drive into town and grab a box, then get some work done in the climber's cafe. While I'm there, I see her walk in - she asks if she can get a ride back to her camp when I'm done working, since I drove. Tooling around the cafe, Si also shows up and we start chatting - almost a kinda date in itself, with her tossing me softball getting-to-know you questions. I wrap up work early and leave with Kr. We swing by her hostel and she changes and grabs a few things, then head to my camp to grab a few things. As we're at my camp getting ready to hike, Kr realizes she left her shoes at her hostel - ok, whatever, we can swing back and grab them. I throw my crash pad in the trunk and go to get in the car when I realize the car is locked. And my keys are in the crash pad. In the trunk. Fuck! But I keep chill, talk to the camp staff, and a maintenance guy is able to break into my car in about 5 minutes. We go back to Kr's hostel, grab her shoes, drive as close to the trailhead as possible, grab an extra 6 pack of TKT from a shop, and start hiking. Kr explains - in Czech, you can only climb if you are drinking. She only recently got into it, but she aspires to join the true lunatics in her country, climbing barefoot, with no chalk, on extremely runout climbs with ridiculously antiquated protection, as is the style. We chat amicably the way up, and when we get to the cave, we sit down to catch our breath. After chatting a bit, I try making a move, but she says she isn't feeling it right now. Ok, whatever, lets check this place out. We explore the cave a bit, poking around the various passages and squeezes, then get to actually climbing. We find a few problems and wail away on them for a bit - neither of us send, but I'm clearly much closer - and then we can see the cave getting darker and darker as the sun sets outside the cave entrance. We decide to call it on the climbing as all our lights are almost dead, and drink a few more beers in the night as we look out over the city lights. She apparently came from a rather conservative family with an abusive father. She'd had a boyfriend who was similarly abusive, but who was very boring - he only ever wanted to go to his job, drink, and hang out with his friends. He never wanted to leave his hometown. She'd gone to school and gotten a masters at her family's prodding in order to continue in the family business, and her family was pushing her to settle down, get married, and have kids. But then a close friend of hers died, and it spurred her to chase what she wanted. She broke up with her boyfriend and started whitewater kayaking, then climbing, and travelling. We talk about these things for quite a while - and then I make a move again. But she pushes back again. She explains this time - says I'm nice, and attractive, but.... there's another guy she's been seeing while she's here. And she thought they were together, but then she saw him hanging out with other girls. And she wants to know if they are together or not, but doesn't want to ask because she feels this is taking away his freedom. I disagree - I say that by withholding the truth about how she feels, she is taking away his freedom, since now he is making his decisions on less information than is available. I tell her that she should just ask, and then he can make his decision one way or another. She says she'll consider it. We hike back down, and grab dinner and some more beer from the only restaurant open. Then I drive her back to her place. She's being a bit more flirty now, I flirt back a little. At her hostel, she quickly grabs her things, then leans in and gives me a kiss before leaving.

Nighty night. Damn.

But I've still got a lead on Si. We message back and forth a bit, and I suggest getting out the next day. With some more confidence, but still a bit of nervousness, I message her "Hey, so I think you're really cute - so maybe we should go climbing somewhere without many people around." She messages back "Thanks! Also, I think my friends are coming, I hope that's okay!" Fuuuuuuuck. My brain jumps to all the worst case scenarios about how her friends are gonna beat me up or some shit. But I keep my cool and pack my shit and show up to get a few pitches in. Her friends, in fact, are quite friendly, but also quite lame. The whole group is outwardly kinda Christian. While Si is shy but cute, her friends are just kinda awkward, and it throws a wrench in any plans I might have had to make any moves. I decide that Si is just not hot enough for me to be putting this much effort in, so Imma just be friends - we wrap up the day and part amicably.

That night there's a party at the bar again. After two blowouts, I'm just looking to have a few beers and chill with some friends. So I have a few. I hit the dance floor - I see this as a sort of exposure therapy at this point, and am gradually becoming less inhibited, and strike up a conversation with a super cute half asian pot farmer from Cali. We vibe for a bit, but because I'm a bitch, I don't make a move and she loses interest. But I'm decently drunk now and still having a good time, so I hang with my friend, who is chatting with another guy, while his gf sits at the table. I sit down at the table next to her and start talking. She's making good eye contact. We high five. Our hands stay together. They end up in her lap, our fingers entwined. I lean in. She leans in. We start making out. My hands are on her. I ask if she wants to get out of here, and she agrees. As soon as we're out of the bar's gates and in the street, I'm making out with her again, feeling her up, slipping my hand down her shirt and grabbing her boobs under her bra. We walk back to her hostel with a few intermissions to feel each other up. Once we get inside, clothes come off immeditately and we start fucking like animals. Holy SHIT she's hot! Nice ass, nice boobs, pretty face, and oh my god my favorite - she's got abs! We fuck like crazy for about an hour until we both cum, at which point her friend (not her bf, it turns out) walks in on us totally naked, lol! She shoos him out and we get our clothes back on. Before I leave, I ask if I can get a picture of her topless - she obliges. I also snag her number and an invitation to hit her up if I'm ever in Portland. She thanks me for a memorable last night in Mexico, and I stumble back to my camp feeling like a total baller. Probably 30 minutes from meeting to clothes off. Now *this* is what getting laid is supposed to be like! Holy shit, fuck yes!

The next couple days, I recover from my hangover and go to a couple more parties, but nothing particularly interesting. Then Thursday comes around, and I realize it's the last day I don't have something planned for when I'm in Mexico.

 

[Svadhishthana]

1.3 THE TRIP
Before he left about 2 months ago, one of my friends had given me his entire stash of mushrooms so he wouldn't carry it across the border. I'd been keeping it hidden away, intending to take an introspective trip - but with the stress of the aforementioned issues with my investments, I held off. I didn't want to have a bad trip because of some shit happening elsewhere in my life. But on this day, I knew it was now or never.

I wrapped up work a bit early. Nothing too important going on, so I was pretty sure no one would bother me. Some friends were setting up a group acro yoga session, and stringing up a space net in a partially constructed building - but I had more important things to attend to. I emptied my pack of climbing gear, and packed a warm thick blanket, my headlamp, a gallon of water flavored with lime juice, my phone, my notebook, and the mushrooms. In the afternoon warmth, I started hiking. I gave friendly nods to the people I saw on the way, feeling very conspicuous even though I knew I looked very normal. I cut off on the trail going to the bouldering cave I'd visited a few days before - it seemed a good place for a trip. Relatively sheltered, usually deserted, with a good view. Once I was far enough up the trail that I was relatively sure no one would come upon me, I set the pack down, took my shirt off due to the heat, and started eating the mushrooms. I have no idea how much was in the bag, but it was definitely more than I'd ever consumed before. About 4 mouthfuls to chew down the whole bag, washed down with copious amounts of lime water. I kept hiking, and reached the cave after a few more minutes - but heard music coming from that direction. Shit, there was somebody there! Fuck! Whatever, the trail keeps going. I followed the trail deeper into the jungle hiking up a steep trail through the dense brush, looking for a suitable spot to have my trip - until it appeared. Just to my left was a place I'd heard of, but had never been in before. On the sheer walls of the mountain's face, a gap appeared. An alcove. I crashed through some brush towards it, and started walking in the entrance. Guarding entry was a short scramble aided by an old fixed line, leading to one level of the alcove. Above that, another fixed line led to another level. At the top level, I looked around. A bit steep and loose - I didn't like it. If I started moving around, I might slip and fall off a cliff. I downclimbed the rope to the upper tier becoming increasingly anxious. As I stood on solid ground on the lower tier, I realized the cause of my anxiety - the trip was starting! I could feel it - an intuitive knowledge - that the trip was starting *soon* and it was going to start *hard*. I had to find a good spot immediately. I rushed over to a large flat spot I'd eyed before and threw my pack on the ground in a panic. As fast as I could, I dug the blanket out and spread it on the ground. I pulled my water out and sat it down next to me. And I pulled my phone out and texted my friend - "Hey, I'm tripping hard alone in the jungle. You're my call out. If I don't text by morning, I'm {here}." I put my phone away and took out my notebook. This wasn't a trip to have fun. It was a trip with a purpose, and I felt the urgent need to set an intention - an ability that was slipping away by the second as my vision became shakier and my motor function decreased. I hurriedly flipped open my notebook to the next entry and wrote my intention. I'd planned to write down something more specific and eloquent - instead in the dying light with a barely-working pen and a barely-working hand, I scribbled what I really wanted.

Please heal me
Help me heal myself
Please

As soon as I looked up, I gasped - "holy shit!" All the rock walls around me were now covered in intricate geometric patterns. And not some hallucination bullshit where they move around and you can't really make them out. These patterns were *there*. They stayed in the same place when I moved my head back and forth - seemed painted on the rock as I leaned in to inspect them. But they couldn't be real. They hadn't been there a minute ago, and now they covered the whole rock face, rising hundreds of feet into the sky. My position was absolutely epic - sheer walls rose up on three of four sides, while the forth was open to the dramatic cliff lines and stars outside the alcove. Nowhere around me was there any trace of civilization except what I'd brought with me. I marveled at the beauty of the place for a while, until falling over on my side and curling up in a ball. My stomach felt terrible. They must have been bad mushrooms. I felt certain I was going to die. A stupid, entitled American hippy wandering into the Mexican jungle and poisoning himself - what a dumbass. Several times I sat up in panic, my brain screaming "GET BACK TO THE CAR! YOU HAVE TO GET BACK TO THE CAR WHERE IT'S SAFE!" But I lacked the strength to stand, so I would slouch back against the rock, or lie down again on the blanket. I was cold. I still had my shirt off from the earlier heat of the day, but now the sun had set and the chill breeze swept against my skin. "YOU HAVE TO GET BACK TO THE CAR!" But was I already there? I'm lying down. Is this my bed? Is there a difference between here and there? I'm already there. I never left. I was always there. And there was always here. I've been here all along. Space, time, and reality itself dissolved and lost meaning - it had all been an illusion. The nausea subsided, and I felt my body - specifically my lower body - in the way that animals must feel it. I was fully connected, had full control. My legs felt sinewy and powerful - I lifted my hips off the ground and felt the integrity of my whole body. I sat up, and suddenly felt energetic in my upper body. I felt light and lean. I *felt* myself stretch out and become a different person - a fuller person. A less inhibited person. And I leaned back against the rock and stared at the stars and felt the answers flood into my mind. I saw pleasure and suffering crashing against each other endlessly like a churning ocean, and nearly wept at the beauty of their interplay. I knew this churning, this clash, would go on forever, back and forth, and that was okay. And we would discover this knowledge again and again, and forget it again and again, and that was okay. Breaking through, I found perfect knowledge that forever is not forever and everything is not everything, and that this reality we inhabited was a flimsy facsimile of the TRUTH. I realized - why would I ever be afraid of death, now that I knew with perfect certainty that something else was waiting on the other side? I looked at the stars and felt pounding waves of relief and knew with absolute certainty - it was all about me. The whole universe, all of reality, it was all about me. For I was reality, observing itself. I laid down again on the ground, and pulled the blanket over myself for warmth. This time, my head laid not on the blanket, but on the bare ground, on the pointy rocks making up the earth here. I realized this as an opportunity to directly experience the crashing waves, and pressed my face harder into the rocks. The blanket was soft and warm on my body, while the rocks were sharp, cold, and hard on my face, and I relaxed and felt both sensations equally as parts of living a fully realized life. Suddenly, I sat back up. The other me, the larger me, the full me, looked up at the stars and expanded his body and told me out loud - "Ya gotta go to sleep, MAAAaayYYAAan". I then leaned back onto the rocks and looked around my surroundings, taking them in, and repeating over and over - "Fuuuuuuck yeaaaaah" and "Yeeeeeeessss!" and "Drrruuuuuuuugs!" After a while, I fell down to the ground again, and was overwhelmed with gratitude for everything working out to bring me to this moment. I knew with perfect clarity that I had packed this particular blanket so that I could have this particular experience. That I'd headed to the cave, but someone had been there to stop me from going there, so I could end up at this particular place. Everything had worked out perfectly, because I'd already known this would happen and had simply taken the steps to take myself here. And then I closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, I was much more lucid. I knew where I was. I knew I was coming down. But I also could notice the effects of the drugs still happening. In the starlight, I stared at one of the rock walls towering above me. It shifted back and forth. The outline moving second to second. I realized what I was seeing was my brain trying to create the vision that my mind would see, but that my brain was having issues because of the low light, and so these images were simply best approximations. I sat for a while observing this phenomenon, until a thought came into my head. Not in words, but in knowledge: You can already see the truth - it is just on the periphery. And with that, I knew it was time to go.

I stood up, feeling energetic and cheerful. I found my shirt, which had been sitting on the ground next to me the whole time. I packed my blanket and water and phone and notebook, and put on my headlamp for the descent, all the while smiling to myself, giddy. As I returned to the rope which I would downclimb off the first tier, I noticed something I hadn't before - hanging on the top of the rope was a small wire ring. I took it as a souvenir of my trip - then descended the rope and stumbled back through the jungle to my car for what remained of a good nights rest.

1.4 GOT INKED
The next day, I woke up tired, but mentally refreshed. That changed after breakfast - I think I ate some bad pork, and was extremely dehydrated after my trip, so I proceeded to feel like shit the rest of the day. Luckily, I had an appointment to look forward to - so at 5, I laid down in the bed in my friend's van and got my first tattoo. Stick and poke of a prickly pear to remember my time here.

As I'm getting the tattoo, I get a text from Kr, telling me about a party happening at her hostel that night with *way* too many emoji. God I'm feeling like garbage - but she's hot, and I'm motivated by my last lay. I take a 30 minute nap and head over. I'm planning to stay sober that night since I already feel like trash, but as soon as she sees me, Kr offers me some beer, and I take it, glad to be taking the edge off of both my anxiety and the illness. But my head just really isn't in the game. I try to flirt with the half asian pot farmer again, but she seems reticent, and I don't have the energy to break through. At one point I get a pretty good convo going with a girl with platinum blond dreads, but once I'm more flirty with her, she bounces off to her friends. Kr doesn't seem super receptive either, so after dancing for a bit, I decide to call it a night early and head home.

1.5 GOT BLING
The next night, there's a party that's supposed to be happening at my camp. But it's being put on by some people out of town, so I'm not sure if it'll be lame or not. I wander over to the bar and hang with some friends there, grabbing a caguama for the road to help me get in the partying mood. I'm still sick, but still motivated to get one more lay before I leave the country. However, when I get there, the party seems pretty lame. The band is good, but they're playing in florescent lighting, which is killing my vibe. And just in general I'm low energy because of how sick I am. I put down my half empty beer and decide to take a nap for a bit, and see if the party will pop off later. Later I wake up - the party *did* pop off while I was asleep, but some friends are trying to rally people to keep the party going at the brewery. Feels like my last shot, so I'm in. While we're waiting, I buy a wire wrap pendant from the guy who drives the brewery bus. He'd become a friend of mine while I'd lived there, and he made the jewelry himself. The stuff he made was honestly impressive, so I was happy to buy it off of him - and I think this is the first time I've actually felt good about buying jewelry. Every other time it felt fake - but this time, I was happy to be supporting my friend's art to gain something that would have personal meaning for me.

Unfortunately, going to the brewery was a bit of a blowout. Almost everyone was tired, so it ended up pretty much being a crowd of dudes. I drank a couple beers and hung out until the night was over, almost falling asleep on my feet.

1.6 LAST NIGHT IN MEXICO
I wake up the next morning still feeling like trash. So I just roll over and sleep for about half the day. I've pretty much given up on getting any more lays, but I still want to have a good last night. As I'm putting together a small snack for dinner, someone reminds me of a lucha libre event happening that night that I'd heard of before. Fuck, masked wrestlers in Mexico? That sounds like a great time! I start hyping it to various people around camp - including blond dreads girl - but most people are out once they realize we don't actually know where this thing is happening. Regardless, I get one couple to commit to going and I start driving us into town with the idea that we'll figure it out as we go. We manage to get a friend who is already there to drop us a pin, and end up driving down some deeply rutted Mexican back roads to a pretty sketchy area on the outskirts of town. But once we get there.... it's fucking sick! The first match is in progress, which appears to be a couple pre-teens body slamming each other. Each of the matches gets increasingly outrageous - at one point, one luchador does a flying tackle off the ring into another luchador, sending them both crashing into the crowd. Later, while the luchadores are having a brawl outside the ring close to the crowd, one of the other gringos gets caught up in the mayhem - they put him in a headlock, lift up his shirt, and slap him across the back with a leather belt! Now *that's* some shit you wouldn't see in the US!

And while we're watching all this, the guy who sold me the necklace comes over and says hello - he gave a few people a ride here, but can't give them a ride back. Could I help them out? Well of course I can. And as it happens, one of them is a cute girl who sits down near me along with two older guys she seems to know. We start chatting, I'm getting lots of good vibes. But also, I'm kind of looking at her friend. And listening to him. And I'm like... Is that El Cap speed climbing record holder, Paralellojam star, and pro climber Timmy O'Neal...? Wtf? He's having a great time as well, and all of us talk shit the whole night. When the show wraps up, I grab my friends I'd brought, and the cute girl and her friends, and we start heading to my car - but as we get there, her friends peel off, saying they managed to grab another ride, really helping me out by giving me space to manuvuer with the cute girl. As we drive back, I pitch a few ideas to people trying to keep the party going, like stopping at the brewery or just grabbing more beer, but everyone seems pretty tired, so I just drive back to my camp, which is right next to the cute girl's hostel. I keep the conversation going to keep the girl around while my friends grab their shit and leave - and she doesn't seem to be in a hurry. I suggest we walk over to her place - she says sure. We walk there, keep talking, and as we're standing outside her door talking about how the decor of her hostel is cute, I say "you know what else is cute?" She smiles and says "Me?" We start making out. After a few minutes, I ask if she wants to go into her room. She says she doesn't want to hook up, because she thinks it would make her feel bad. I say, okay, that's fine. We go back to making out. I start feeling her up a bit and she starts moaning a bit. She breaks off and reiterates her point about not wanting to hook up. I tell her that that's fine, and we go back to making out. This cycle happens a couple more times, until we finally break off and call it a night. She tells me it's the eyebrow piercing that did it for her.

As I walk home, I'm a little disappointed I didn't get the lay. But as I walk, I realize I'm really not unhappy about it. While she was cute, she was a bit chubby, so I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it anyway. I'd been too focused on *getting* the lay, and not focused enough on making sure it was actually something I wanted. So really, I was happy that she'd turned me down - we'd both gotten a good makeout sesh, and no one felt bad about themselves.

I get back to camp, and realize I have things to do. I'm planning on leaving first thing in the morning, so I won't have time to do anything else before I leave, so I pack up all my things and get everything ready to go. Then I visit my meditation spot in the jungle outside camp, thank the place for its assistance in training my mind, and bid it farewell. Finally, I walk over to the mountains, gazing up at their towering walls, remembering everything that had happened while I was here. Trying hard, and runouts, and getting scared, and succeeding. Crazy parties, unexpected sex, exploring new places, exploring my mind. And then I walked back through the darkness, got to my car, and went to sleep.

1.7 ONWARD
The drive back was uneventful, which is what I needed. Just north of the border, I stopped at a fast food burger joint and grabbed a burger and fries. They made my stomach feel like shit. I did the same thing for dinner, with the same result, and resolved to stop poisoning myself. The lonely, endless highways of west Texas seemed less boring now, and more soothing. Fearful of rural cops who might want to give me the tourist tax, and mindful of the fact that I was really in no rush to get home, I drove the speed limit the whole way. As the day wore on, I felt the impulse to keep going. To keep driving late into the night to make good time. But I remembered the admonition I'd given myself during the mushroom trip, and at 9 pm, pulled off the highway and into a farmer's field somewhere between Lubbock and Amarillo.

At 6 am, my alarm went off. I stumbled out of the car to piss in the barren field, and caught a beautiful sunrise of pink and purple hues splashed across the sky over the vast, open plains. After meditating in my bed, I crawled into the driver's seat and started my journey home again. As I drove, I thought of all the things I had to do upon returning. All the things I was looking forward to doing. And how I wanted to keep the lessons of Mexico as I returned to my normal life.

Since I've returned, life has been hectic. My water pipe is still not fixed, and that continues to be a headache. I've had to fix several things already in my van and around the house, and work and the little chores of day to day life are piling up and making things stressful. But I'm waking up on time and meditating in the morning. I'm making my todo lists and striking things out. And when I get stressed, I stop. I breathe. I notice the world around me and how my body feels. And maybe I take a nap.

Circus girl is back. We've been sexting for a couple weeks now and she sent me a nude yesterday. Tentatively planning to meet up tomorrow, so working on knocking out all my critical items by then. And then, on to the rest of my goals.

 

[Svadhishthana]

PART 2 - ANALYSIS:
Here, I'd like to analyze and codify some of the lessons I learned from my time spent in Mexico.

2.1 Climbing
I suppose the most obvious lesson here is that pyramids work. Once I arrived in Mexico, I built a large base of 11b and 11c routes, flailed on a few 11ds, and then was able to fire 3 12as in quick succession without much issue. While I could certainly always be stronger, it was quite obvious that the real things holding me back were body awareness and mental game.

Body awareness comes into play in that I've noticed that when I don't focus on it, my core tends to collapse. I disengage my lower core, losing the ability to transmit force into and out of my feet. My shoulders disengage and round forward, rather than staying in the strong and happy position of down and back. While improving overall core strength should certainly be a goal, a more important way to tackle this issue is simply to climb a lot of relatively easy pitches while consciously focusing on keeping the core solid and engaged the whole time. Interestingly, I've noticed the core-gently-engaged-and-aligned position is where I naturally gravitate when meditating, and I can settle into it much easier when climbing when I have a long warm up focused on deep breathing and relaxation. So mindfulness is likely the path forward here.

My mental game was my biggest issue on this trip. Climbing is scary - that's a big part of why I do it, and what I like about it. But it took me a long time to get my head in the game, where I could start actually trying hard when there was potential for taking a lead fall. And even after that point, a large part of my brain would be preoccupied with how much I didn't want to fall when I was trying hard moves above a bolt. This robbed me of the focus I needed to actually execute and send. However, I realized something else. When I was trying hard on my 12a projects, I wasn't only afraid of falling. Ticking the 12a grade would give me status and respect among other climbers - things which I felt like I didn't deserve. I was afraid of being a person that other people respect. I thought about this as I looked up at the route. I'd already given it a burn not long before. I was tired and knew I would be pumped. But I also knew the beta, and I knew it was possible. I knew I just had to overcome my fear. So I climbed, clipping the bolts, executing, trying to keep my breathing calm. I'd reached the last bolt, clipped it, and sunk the kneebar rest to get a few shakes. As I sat there, trying to depump before the final moves to the chains, the fear came raging back - "You're about to send!" it shouted "Don't do it! You don't deserve it!" And I said back to my fear "Fuck you, yes I do" before I made the last moves and clipped the chains.

As I lowered off, I realized that the route had actually been easy. I could have done more. The only thing stopping me was my lack of belief in myself.

2.2 People
When I got to Mexico, honestly, I was a nervous wreck. I'd basically been talking only to a few close friends for months, and had been wracked by stress and various life crises. I could barely look anyone in the eye, but luckily, I had some friends there already to meet.

Over time, I met a lot of people. And almost universally, they were friendly and kind and happy to meet me. A constant refrain during this time was that I would see someone around - sometimes for weeks. I would think they seemed like an interesting person, but would avoid talking to them because I felt they were standoffish, or wouldn't want to know me, or because I had nothing to say to them. But then, when we finally met, I would find them to be extremely friendly and welcoming. This applied especially to those people who appeared more standoffish at first, like my tattoo artist for example. I realized that their aloofness and intensity was actually shyness and anxiety - once the ice was broken between us, they were the most kind people I knew. And now, I think about how this is probably how I appear to many people as well. As my time in Mexico wore on, I recognized a new pattern - I kept not meeting people, then meeting them later and realizing I liked them. So what was happening was that I was stopping myself from meeting my good friends, and was therefore losing out on the time I would get to spend with them. Not to mention - the sooner I got to know people and the more people I knew, the better odds I would have with girls. So towards the end of my stay, I started making a more active effort to introduce myself to new people I saw as soon as I saw them, and this is something I should carry forward in my life back home. This is the meaning I'm trying to imbue into the pendant I bought, which I'm now wearing around my neck: people are kind.

2.3 Girls
Since most of my experience with women before this was on Tinder, I feel like I learned a lot in Mexico. On Tinder, I'm pre-screening women for those who are sexually available. In Mexico, I had to do this screen after I actually met them. On Tinder, you can meet and hook up without much in-between. In Mexico, it was difficult not to get to know a girl a bit more first - and have her get to know you - before hooking up.

This, of course, lowers my odds - since my default personality is quiet and depressed and stressed out. But mostly, I think my failure was driven primarily by a lack of sexual assertiveness. Because of a lack of this assertiveness, I failed to screen girls like Vi and Si - this led to me wasting a lot of time and energy on them, even though the results were sub-par at best. Meanwhile, also because of my lack of sexual assertiveness, I failed with G, L, M, Kr, St, the half asian pot farmer, and a half Filipina forester - I think with more assertiveness, more flirtatiousness, at least some of them would have been into me, based on the level of interest they displayed when I first met them. And finally, because of my lack of sexual assertiveness, I missed out on many other women simply because I never even made the first hint, either because I just "didn't have a reason to to talk to them" or because I thought they were with another guy for too long, or whatever. Meanwhile, the one good lay I had happened when I was drunk. I'd given up for the night, was unencumbered and just looking to enjoy myself, and thought the girl was already someone's gf. Then, I saw opportunity, did what I felt, and everything just fell into place.

At the same time, game isn't everything. That guy I was so angry about at the party didn't end up fucking V. *I* ended up fucking her, by being good looking and making a move. It's a reminder that game is really just the icing on the cake. What really makes it work is focusing on the fundamentals - being attractive, being (truly) confident and happy, talking to lots of girls, and making a move.

I need to fix my brain. And in particular, fix the part that is afraid of being sexually explicit with women.

2.4 Mushrooms
I asked the mushrooms to heal me, or to help me heal myself. I think they delivered.

On one hand, I don't entirely believe everything I experienced. Is there a life after death or a reality beyond this one? I don't know if I believe that. Is all of reality really all about me? Well, maybe - we could be in a simulation where I am the only truely conscious being in existance - but that's a bit of a philosophical dead end, and a pretty obvious way to get a messiah complex. But I think there are some good lessons to be learned.

Seeing the crashing waves of samsara was a reminder that pain is an inescapable part of life, but that I can see the beauty in it if I look at it as part of the whole of existence.

The awakening of my fuller self showed me a different way to think and live - completely engrossed with the beauty and perfection of the world, while being unconcerned about minor discomforts.

Realizing that reality existed all for me, is a way of saying - I need to be the main character in my own life.

My revelation about how everything had worked perfectly because I had known exactly what would happen ahead of time seems like nonsense - but also it should give me confidence in my ability to predict the future and pull it off, if only I listen to what I know inside myself ahead of time. I can already see the truth - it's just on the periphery.

And finally, most importantly, what I told myself: I need to sleep to heal myself. So obvious - why did I even need to go on a trip to figure that out? But it's true, and I'll try to abide by it from now on.

 

[pancakemouse]

2.3 Girls
Since most of my experience with women before this was on Tinder, I feel like I learned a lot in Mexico. On Tinder, I'm pre-screening women for those who are sexually available. In Mexico, I had to do this screen after I actually met them. On Tinder, you can meet and hook up without much in-between. In Mexico, it was difficult not to get to know a girl a bit more first - and have her get to know you - before hooking up.

This, of course, lowers my odds - since my default personality is quiet and depressed and stressed out. But mostly, I think my failure was driven primarily by a lack of sexual assertiveness. Because of a lack of this assertiveness, I failed to screen girls like Vi and Si - this led to me wasting a lot of time and energy on them, even though the results were sub-par at best. Meanwhile, also because of my lack of sexual assertiveness, I failed with G, L, M, Kr, St, the half asian pot farmer, and a half Filipina forester - I think with more assertiveness, more flirtatiousness, at least some of them would have been into me, based on the level of interest they displayed when I first met them. And finally, because of my lack of sexual assertiveness, I missed out on many other women simply because I never even made the first hint, either because I just "didn't have a reason to to talk to them" or because I thought they were with another guy for too long, or whatever. Meanwhile, the one good lay I had happened when I was drunk. I'd given up for the night, was unencumbered and just looking to enjoy myself, and thought the girl was already someone's gf. Then, I saw opportunity, did what I felt, and everything just fell into place.

At the same time, game isn't everything. That guy I was so angry about at the party didn't end up fucking V. *I* ended up fucking her, by being good looking and making a move. It's a reminder that game is really just the icing on the cake. What really makes it work is focusing on the fundamentals - being attractive, being (truly) confident and happy, talking to lots of girls, and making a move.

I need to fix my brain. And in particular, fix the part that is afraid of being sexually explicit with women.

I love the way you write. It's clear that you write for yourself and let the audience fill in the rest — such as your heavy use of climbing jargon. I think that we on this forum have the tendency to "write for the audience," but it's so much more fun when the person is clearly just flowing and immersing you into a different world.

About escalation, I see a pattern where you seem to be escalating at odd times in a bit of an uncalibrated manner (such a during a climb). My assumption would be that this is because you feel like you need to push yourself to do something explicitly or else you won't do it at all. It's great that you're taking action, but you can expect to be rejected or deflected more than you otherwise would.

Escalation is best done in an intimate setting with a ramp leading up to it. How you did it here was perfect:

I suggest we walk over to her place - she says sure. We walk there, keep talking, and as we're standing outside her door talking about how the decor of her hostel is cute, I say "you know what else is cute?" She smiles and says "Me?" We start making out.

A further step would be to stop verbalizing overtly and force yourself to only escalate non-verbally, through touch, body language, and eye contact.

 

[Svadhishthana]

Fuck it, I'm starting a boring-ass daily log again, because I have a bunch of shit I need to take care of to get back in the saddle.

Today, meant to lift and hang some drywall. But my Airbnb guests were having hot tub issues, so right now I'm sitting on my ass waiting for it to drain so I can refill it. The rest of the day was taken up by work work.

Hoping to get home in the evening and get my gym sesh in. Win for the day, though - installed a remote temperature sensor for the hot tub, so if it gets cold or the water level drops I'll know before shit starts breaking.

I spent the last two months trying to improve my sleep/recovery. Actually got pretty consistent for a bit, but then fell off the wagon and am back to getting a mix of terrible and mediocre sleep again. But the effort paid off somewhat. I found that following a yoga Nidra script lets me relax enough to fall asleep sooner most of the time, and seems to leave my body more rested upon waking. So I think my sleep would be greatly improved if I just did this regularly.

But then there's the other crux, which is actually making the decision to go to sleep. I can go to sleep on time regularly by leveraging a motivation to improve my sleep. But that kind of motivation is cheap, and wears out quick. A stroke of melancholy will knock that motivation down quite easily - at which point I say "just a little Netflix, to wind down." Except I don't say that, and instead I say to myself "looks like I'm pulling up Netflix again because I'm feeling dissatisfied, and I'm going to give in to the temptation because I'm a weak-willed motherfucker. You're hurting yourself right now and you know it and you're doing it anyway - ahhhh, sweet relief, doesn't it feel good to give in to self destruction?"

Anyway, I was reading my Castenada. One of his tasks is this:
You are weak because you talk to yourself too much (this describes me perfectly) - so whenever you start talking to yourself, instead, listen to the world around you.
So I'm gonna give that a shot. It fills the gap in my mediation practice, which says that if your daily life is counter to your daily meditation, it will be like trying to fill a sieve with water. By giving myself something always-present that I can actively focus on, I am hoping to improve my mental health and overall outlook, and thus my ability to not cave to my cravings, and thus my sleep, and thus my overall ability to get shit done, and thus reach my goals.

But anyway, that's not my focus right now. Maybe by not focusing on sleep, my sleep will be better. Right now I'm back where I've been too many fucking times before - just about ready to retire. Goal right now is to clean up some projects I'm working on, finish learning some climbing skills, and then quit by the end of August and spend September and most of October in The Valley. Then 2 weeks in Kalymnos. Then, maybe Sud America?

 

[AskTheDom]

Then 2 weeks in Kalymnos

heard is the rock climbing mecca of Europe, plus you can take some time in Greece? if you pass by Athens you are going to love your time there, and let me know if you do, I might be nearby this summer

 

[Svadhishthana]

heard is the rock climbing mecca of Europe, plus you can take some time in Greece?

That's the idea. I'm not much of a bolt clipper, so it was never high on my list, but friends convinced me it would be a good time with cheap food and party vibes.

if you pass by Athens you are going to love your time there, and let me know if you do, I might be nearby this summer

Will do! Might be on a tight deadline with flights, but also might just say fuck my return flight and hang there longer.

== Log ==
Managed to fix the hot tub yesterday until babysitting it until 10 pm. At least I got the temperature sensor in. That is such a relief - very satisfying watching the little graph with the water temperature increasing as the tub heats up overnight.

Stepping back a bit, my big goal for these two months is to retire and head to the valley to climb walls. That means hitting my financial numbers, finishing projects I have ongoing at my properties, learning wall climbing techniques, and buying wall gear.

Hitting my financial numbers means keeping spending in check, not getting fired from my day job, and possibly doing Airbnb cleanings if I have the time and need more money.

Finishing projects:
- Move 2 new tenants into my LTR (which means cleaning up and making the place pretty before they come around)
- Finish cleaning up the new climbing wall I put in the garage.
- Fix my bike (clogged carb)
- Make hot tub temperature sensors more permanent.
- (Maybe) trailer in the back yard.

Learning wall climbing techniques means working through the program outlined in Chris Mac's book, which I'm about 2/3 of the way through.

Buying gear means looking through the walls I might do, creating a master gear list, deciding on brands for each piece of gear, and either buying it or asking my tenant with prodeals to buy for me. I need to do this relatively soon to make sure the gear ships in time if there is an issue with it being out of stock or something.

On a weekly basis - lift 3x, climb (either learning wall techniques or pulling hard) 4x

On a daily basis - meditate, get morning sunlight, go to sleep on time (or at least only miss sleep for a good reason), post here.

Additional wrench - my friend is having his wedding next week and I'm a groomsman. So I need to get some fancy ass clothes and a haircut, and then I'm taking next week off to hang with him.

*And then*, if I have time, do some swiping and try to get laid.

So Today:
- Meditate
- Lift
- Look into fancy clothes
- Knock out/work on a workwork task
- Hang drywall around climbing wall
- Wall/aid practice

 

[AskTheDom]

Will do! Might be on a tight deadline with flights, but also might just say fuck my return flight and hang there longer.

Please do so, I remember I was a lurker a year ago and one of the big reasons I subscribes was to interact with people like you after I devoured your log in one breath!

 

[Svadhishthana]

Feeling pretty beat up today. Sore, and some tightness in both my neck and low back. I could blame the lifting, combined with construction labor, combined with climbing. But the real reason is poor recovery - I've been up til about midnight every night for the last three nights, and have been sleeping poorly. Fortunately, I've been staying up due to responsibilities, rather than my own self-destructive tendencies, so that's a win.

The loss yesterday was that I should have just bailed on climbing - the forecast kept changing, which kept shifting my plans. I ended up leaving for the crag at 5, which put me right into rush hour traffic. Got to the crag, practiced hauling once and saw the weather was already coming in again. Lowered my bag to do another rep, and then I hear angry booming across the sky - fuck! I haul my bag like a motherfucker, break down my anchor and pack up my gear, hoping my dumbass doesn't get fried hanging out on an exposed cliff face covered in metal climbing equipment in the middle of a thunderstorm. I have a rule in climbing - It's ok to die, but only if it's cool. If I die soloing a new route in the Andes, that's fine. But dying on a shitty little crag 15 minutes from home because I'm a dumbass who couldn't wait for good weather is not. So I spent an hour commuting and a handful of luck, and all I got was two hauls out of the 30 I need to do - a bad ROI. Lesson learned (again), don't go out with a sketch forecast.

I'm getting a few pings on Slack this morning from coworkers congratulating me on working at this company for 8 years. 8 fucking years. Fuck, that is too long. Yesterday, I saw I'd hit my retirement numbers in my bank account. It isn't real, since I still need to pay mortgages on the first and my credit card bills, but fuck it felt good to see that. I'm close.

To do today:
- Meditate
- Hang Drywall
- Get a haircut
- Get wedding clothes
- Plane tickets to Greece
- Empty my car so I can pack for next week
- Finish making wall gear list

 

[Svadhishthana]

Got a haircut yesterday, almost finished drywall with the help of one of my tenants, and almost finished wall gear list. Missed lifting because I was just too sore and didn't want to aggravate it.

Crappy sleep again last night. Got a late dinner with a couple beers with my tenant who helped me with the drywall and her bf. Cost me $35 - Jesus, what a dumb way to spend money when I could have stayed sober and cooked food at home.

Today:
- Meditate
- Wedding clothes
- Lift
- Drywall
- Plane tickets
- Pack for Wyoming
- Leave for Wyoming

 

[Svadhishthana]

Yesterday:
Finished drywall
Lifted
Got wedding clothes
Left for Wyoming.

Slept like crap at a stealth camp a few hours out of town, but woke at dawn and started driving again. Found a nice secluded spot along the highway and did a standing meditation session this morning - crazy calf and foot workout. Definitely something I should do regularly.

Today:
- Finish commute.
- Hang w/ friends.
- Plane tix
- Only drink if you send 11+

 

[Svadhishthana]

Two days ago:
Good day out climbing. Pushed myself, got pumped silly, took some fat whips on a 12. Did a good job getting over my sit-on-your-ass inertia. But then I got back to camp and got on the wifi, and found that my hot tub was broken.... again. Fuck. Apologized to the guest, got my repair guy on the phone, did everything I could. Still had a good time, but it kinda spoiled the night - I was hoping to get trashed and dance all night with the local cowpokes in their street festival.

Yesterday:
Woke up hung over and spent the morning bumming wifi working on the hot tub more. My repair guy came by and tried troubleshooting, but couldn't figure it out before he had to start his day job, and I couldn't get anyone else out or on the phone because of the holiday. So I just refunded my guest 90% of their money and apologized profusely. Now one of my friends and I who also has a tub are talking about how "it's always something". I think we're gonna end up overhauling all the components in our tubs with more robust options in the future.

Commuted back home a day early to get a head start on fixing the tub, and since the weather was trash anyway.

Today:
- Meditate
- Troubleshoot tub. Schedule repair if can't get it done myself.
- Inform guests checking in about sitch.
- Pay my hot tub guy
- Lift if I can fit it in
- Bachelor party for my friend.

 

[Svadhishthana]

Done with wedding stuff. Got lots of compliments on my looks and my toast as the best man. Super busy and tired now, stories later. Posting to maintain the habit.

 

[Svadhishthana]

Today:
- Aid practice
- Pack for alpine climb tomorrow
- Leave to sleep at the trailhead
Tomorrow:
- Sick alpine climb

 

[Svadhishthana]

Alpine climb was excellent, despite the fact that I forgot my climbing shoes and had to let my partner lead all the pitches while I followed in my approach shoes.

Monday I was totally trashed from climbing.

Tuesday one of my favorite tenants had a going away party/potluck. Had a few drinks and stayed up too late.

Wednesday my friends had a board game night that ran late, so bad sleep again.

Thursday a tenant had some friends over to grill and climb on the garage wall, so I had some burgers and brats and got a good sesh in. Went to sleep on time, but woke up way too early.

Today, leaving in the afternoon for a friend's birthday. He's vietnamese, so he's making us all pho and we're gonna hit some high altitude crags to beat the heat.

Alright, been putting this off too long. Girl stuff:

Still in a semi-self imposed dry spell. My social life and landlording obligations and general life stress have kept me from going hard on the apps. But some social opportunities presented themselves.

First, at the wedding. Unfortunately, there were only 2 single bridesmaids, and only one was hot - but she was quite hot. However, because I'm a little bitch, all I did was make a bit of eye contact, created a bit of sexual tension.... but never followed through. If I want to make excuses, I can say that I should have gotten better sleep and drank less, and I would have had a better head. Or I could say that I was caught up in supporting my friends for their wedding. But the *real* reason is that I'm still extremely nervous about making any moves on women around my friends, because I know this isn't congruous with how I've acted in the past and I implicitly fear social rejection. *Despite* the fact that me, another one of the groomsmen, and another guy invited to the wedding all openly talked to the bride about our prospects for fucking her bridesmaids during a hot tub session a couple weeks prior! And she gave us the the beta on her single friends to help us do it!

What I did was be a shy, autistic little bitch who mostly interacted with the people I already knew. Instead, I should have shown up with my game face on - meeting everybody, being friendly to everybody, proactively introducing myself, and not reverting to my dumbass shut-in tendencies. Having a good time, making sure everyone else was having a good time - that would have been really helping my friends out with their wedding. Having a good report with everyone, I would have had a good report with the hot girl, and I probably could have made a move. But I didn't.

On to the next one.

Weekend after the wedding, we all head to a crag to camp and climb for a few days. The nearby cowboy town is having a town festival, so we all head into town to check it out. I get catcalled in the crowd. Holy shit there are so many hot college girls walking around in boots and cowboy hats. There's live music on the street, and I am once again reminded of how I want to learn to dance since, holy shit, it seems like the only thing the people in town do is herd cattle and practice country swing. I have a drink and make a few sloppy dance moves with one of my tenants who came to the wedding, feeling awkward as fuck. So, danced poorly in front of a bunch of strangers who are better than me - I guess that's a win on the social anxiety front.

While we're chilling in camp recovering from the hangover the next morning, a new girl shows up. Apparently she's on summer break from her master's program, and is doing some ecology internship in the area. She's hot, I'm in my element, I start lightly flirting with her. Throughout the day, I try to balance giving her attention and compliments and leading her with not seeming needy and doing my own thing. About halfway through the day, she splits off to head back to camp, and I meet up with a friend and get one for-real challenging pitch in. It's an absolute battle - steep overhanging hand jams while struggling to plug gear that will keep me off the deck, into a full body stem where I need to control my breathing to maintain core tension, to a runout smeary chimney section at the top. By the time I pull around the lip and can sit down, I have to take a few minutes to chill out so I don't just vomit down onto the route that my partner still has to climb. We head back to camp, build a fire, and eat dinner - I make sure to snag a seat next to the girl I'm into. She's saying she should leave to head back to her ecology intern trailer tonight, since she has to tranquilize a bobcat early in the morning - but she also keeps having to "sample" the vodka lemonade I'm mixing up. The night gets later, everyone else goes to bed. I offer her a blanket to use from my van. She comes in, I tell her she could sleep in my bed if she wants..... after all, wouldn't that be more convenient? She's nervous, but asks me to pull my bed out so she can take a look. She sits down, I turn her chin towards me, and we start making out. But after some fooling around with clothes on, she tells me that she is *not* sleeping with me tonight. Apparently, she's "not that kind of girl". I tell her that's fine, keep making out with her. We get in bed together and I turn the lights down. I keep kissing her, grabbing her ass and boobs, turning her on more. She protests that she *really* needs to sleep, and I'm "annoying" and "distracting". Of course, she jumps right back into kissing me and grinding on my thigh after she says this. For the next couple hours, we oscillate between some deep convos, fooling around, and "sleeping". Around 4 am, we actually get some sleep, and in the morning she wakes up in nothing but her shorts. But true to her word, she didn't put out - just kept sending me flirty texts all the next day, even though our chances of meeting up again are slim to none. Looking back, I probably could have fucked her if I'd kept pushing a bit more - she admitted several times that she's easily convinced to do things. But she also admitted she'd just gotten out of a relationship where her ex had sexually assaulted her, so I'm not actually too mad about my lack of aggression here. I *should* have pushed further... But I definitely didn't want to overshoot.

On to the next one. One of my tenants has a friend stay here for a couple days. She's hot. I mostly ignore her, and cuddle with another girl on the couch in front of her. But as she's chilling around the house the day before she leaves, I invite her to hang with me in the garage and climb while I do some work. She agrees. I tease her and compliment her a bit, tell her I like her pants (they show off her ass pretty well), and she's having a good time in turn. She's trying to move here, and I tell her about a friend who has a place that might suit her. She gives me her number so I can tell her about it later. Nothing strong, but maybe something for the future.

On to the next one. A friend of a friend of a friend had become friends with one of my tenants. I made a few subtle passes at her at a potluck a couple months ago. Then she came on a canyoneering trip with us and was all over me. When the campfire dies down, I offer to help her refill her water to isolate her. Then make my move and kiss her. I invite her back to my car - still set up in bed mode since Mexico, and we fool around and get our tops off. She has big tits, something I can never seem to get online, and I have a delightful time fooling around - but she says she's not down to fuck because we're gross from the canyon. We trade numbers, but immediately after the trip she goes radio silent. Then a couple weeks ago, she randomly shows up at my house with one of my tenants. We end up on the bouldering mats alone and make out a bit, but nothing happens. Then about a week ago, one of my tenants hosts a pizza night, and she's there crashing the couch between hiking the Colorado trail and going to a music festival. She sits down next to me and we start doing some PDAs. I get her back to the bed in my van, but it is so late that I'm too tired to actually go for it. We fool around a bit and then I fall asleep. *Finally* yesterday morning she's still around the house. It's cloudy, so it's staying nice and cool in the van so far. I tell her I'm missing my notebook, and ask her to help me look for it - once she's in my van, we start getting physical again. But she's putting up resistance. She told me previously that she's usually not into guys... but she's into me. This time she tells me I'm the least feminine guy she's ever been into - all the other guys she was ever into were bi. We fool around for a couple hours until I have a work meeting. She says she should go and let me get to work, but I tell her to stay. The meeting is bullshit anyway - I have to speak for about 10 seconds and then listen to other people ramble for 30 minutes - so I play with her tits to entertain myself. She talks about how she likes being choked. How she likes pain, and proving she can take it. I start getting rougher. I choke her hard, clamp down on her nipples, slap her. She's more into this than anything else we've done and gets really horny... but she's on her period. So I pin her down, put her hand on my dick, and tell her to unzip my pants. She does it and starts blowing me. She says usually blowjobs are fun for 2 minutes and then she hates them, so I make sure to make this one fun for her - I keep abusing her, pinching her nipples, choking her, grabbing her hair and fucking her mouth, and giving her instructions on how to blow me until I cum in her mouth. She agrees that *this* was a fun bj. More fun stories:

- the first guy she fell in love with approached her in an airport bar. She told him "go away, I don't want to talk to you." When he ignored her, stayed, and kept talking to her, it turned her on.
- She hates being catcalled. Unless it's by someone hot. What makes someone hot? Choking her.
- She's never been in a relationship because she loses interest in anyone who is into her enough to want a relationship.

Anyway -
Today:
- Work
- Level hot tub
- Pack
- Leave for my friend's place
Tomorrow:
- Climb

 

[Svadhishthana]

Kinda disappointed in my weekend. Blew myself up on the garage wall on Tuesday and Thursday, so I flash pumped as soon as I pulled onto the 5.10 warmup. Was just generally tired as fuck the whole weekend, and spent a lot of it sleeping and napping. Also, forgot to bring my sun hoody, which totally sapped my motivation to even climb on sunny walls.

The last two weekends have been pretty unproductive, honestly, and my lack of preparation is the key element. Forgetting to pack critical gear. I'm screwing over not only myself, but also my partners. I need to start making gear checklists and using them.

Doing the last push workout of my current program this morning. Last pull will be on Wednesday. Then I'll test my maxes on Friday and Monday and move onto a new program. This was a strength and hypertrophy program focused on aesthetics, and it's worked quite well - my chest and arms were my weak points before, and they are noticeably bigger now. The girl with big tits who gave me a bj even complimented my chest several times. But I'm hitting the road soon, so hitting a gym 3x per week with all the barbells, dumbbells, cables, etc that I would need would be far less convenient. And the program takes up a lot of my recovery capacity. So after 6 months of bodybuilding, I'm looking forward to switching to a kettlebell program that is more focused on pure strength and work capacity, and which I get to do only 2x/wk.

Today:
- work
- fix up wood hot tub
- buy a lawn mower
- call dentist
- find dermatologist

Tomorrow
- work
- board sesh
- clean garage and bathroom for new tenant move in.