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Svadhishthana's log

Yesterday went climbing again after a rest day. Goal was to send V5, but failed there. Got on 2 different problems of the grade, both of which felt very difficult. First problem favored shorter people. I had to start with my knee above my elbows at the start - extremely strenuous position to hold. Once I figured out good beta for the move, my right shoulder was feeling wonky, and the skin on my left ring finger was wearing thin, so I shelved it and hoped the next problem would suit me better. Second problem just had very awkward and difficult moves - start with a hand-heel match, then drop lower and power off the heel to crank up to bad holds, then battle through more bad holds, then enduro on jugs to the finish. I managed to make the first move, but the heel was so painful and awkward that I dropped off. Didn't fare much better on the hard moves after I drop the heel either. But my friend who climbs harder than me also failed to send and said it was harder than a lot of V6s he'd tried.

But after, I worked a V4 traverse. Started pumpy with jugs and poor feet, then a left hand sloper, sink into a low flag below it and cross into a sidepull. Then more good holds with bad feet for more pump just before a second crux to dead point for the top out jug. It was honestly not that hard of a problem, but I should pat myself on the back for a few things. First was good tactics. When I felt the problem was sendable but still difficult, I sussed beta and practiced the cross crux several times, rested, and put a send burn on it. I blew the final huck, which was dumb - I'd done that move before as part of another problem and knew it was difficult. I should have also practiced that part before a proper send go. But after I blew the top, I practiced that move a few times until I felt more comfortable with it. Then rested a while and went for the send - but blew it because I decided to change my beta for the crux in the moment because one of the holds was painful to hold, and I wanted to avoid the pain. I was pretty gassed after this attempt, but rested more, and then pulled on and sent. Things I did well were sussing beta, practicing cruxes, and resting sufficiently. The best thing I did was believing in my ability to still send - to still try hard - even after I was quite tired from my efforts earlier in the day. Things I could have improved - quitting earlier on the second V5 when it was obvious I wasn't close to sending; telling my friends to shut up when I was trying hard instead of talking shit; practicing visualizing during rest periods; warming up properly by climbing volume on easy problems and focusing on breathing and body positioning; fucking around in the morning instead of being prepared, done meditating and working out, ready to go before everyone else; being unclear with myself about what the actual goal of the day was.

So today I will be clear with my intention. I have today, then a rest day tomorrow, then one more day on rock here. My overall goal for the trip is to get an idea of my current bouldering grade. Currently it looks like my grade is V4 - I can get some in a day with some effort, but some elude me. That means that with good rest and multiple days of effort, I could probably send most V4s which are fair for the grade, some V5s, and V6s which match my style. So I will try to verify this by attempting to send more V4s and trying V5s and V6s very briefly to see if they seem possible, and then trying to send the harder grades if they do seem possible. Since my biggest opportunities for improvement are preparation and mental skills, my focus will be on these things - being prepared, using good tactics, being clear with my intentions, believing in my ability to send *today*, and trying really hard.
 
Annoying thing happened yesterday.

After posting here, I wanted to get my shit together. So got my shit packed, did a hangboard workout, and went out with my intention. First place my crew went had a few highball lines. I didn't want to get hurt pitching off the top, so I just walked up the most secure lines and then sat in the shade waiting until we moved on. I was annoyed because I felt I was wasting time not climbing on one of my last days here, and this was my fault because I hadn't been proactive in deciding where to go. This was because I hadn't been clear with myself about what I wanted out of the day - somewhere with shade, warm ups, and some non-highball V4-6 that might be my style. Then I should have researched what areas might have what I wanted, and communicated my preference to the group. But I didn't do that - oh well, I should have made the best of it anyway. It was the first place we visited, and I needed to warm up. I was annoyed the area wasn't perfect for me, but what I should have realized is that it was perfect for me to warm up, with many easy lines in the shade I could warm up and drill on. Importantly, I should have remembered the very simple and obvious fact that no one is forcing me to top out any given line I pulled on - I could have just climbed as high as I felt comfortable and then jumped off or down climbed. Because I had a problems focus instead of a solution focus, I missed the opportunities in front of me. And even if I wasn't stoked on doing that - the area had quite a few other people around, including attractive women, who I could have practiced introducing myself to to work on my social anxiety. Lucky for my dumb ass, most of my friends weren't too stoked on breaking their ankles either, and we headed to another area.

This area was home to a super classic V5 one of my friends was hyping me about. It was a bit tall, but still reasonable, and while the moves looked hard, they still seemed possible. I remembered my intention to try hard, and to believe a send was possible that day, and so I joined rhe crowd working the problem, awkwardly asking to pull on above their pads. I was afraid of embarrassing myself - it was a bunch of cool looking guys, which I was surprised to be intimidated by. And I was afraid of cutting in and not even being able to pull my ass off the ground - often the crux for my tall ass. As expected, I had a hard time with the opening moves - I could barely get my ass off the ground and was only able to limply tap the first hold. I felt some hesitation by my initial failure, but walked off the pads and started stretching my hips out, joking with the other guys about my height. The next time I pulled on, I started with one of my favorite tricks - starting at the end position for the move I can't do and trying to reverse it. Reversing the move felt impossible, but it gave me a better idea of body positioning, so I made some adjustments and immediately pulled back on and started climbing. Start on a decent 2 hand rail with bad smears underneath, scrunched up. Set up smears to turn the left hip in, then lock off to get your ass off the ground. Snatch a small blocky semi sidepull with the left, quickly reposition feet, then reach up right for the shark tooth undercling. Readjust the left smear, hike right foot up to a good big hold, then stand up into the undercling to reach up left to a good crimp. This is relatively easy, as you are now on your feet, so adjust feet to match your plumb line and cross to a good rail with the right, and immediately undo the cross to grab an even better pocket with the left. Then the second crux - work feet up to reach not great crimps with the right, feeling around for the best spot. Then work feet very high on bad footholds in a scrunched position until you can crank on the right crimp, stand up, and grab the top of a small pillar. From there, work feet and slap up bad slopers - doing a beached whale if necessary - to stand up on top.

I made it to the second crux, but was baffled by the bad feet and jumped off. I was still tired from yesterday, and I was tired yesterday, too. But I was surprised by how well I was doing still, despite the fatigue. I tried to use my best tactics - sussing beta, resting between burns, preserving skin. Most of my crew got tired and left, but one friend and I stuck around to keep working the problem. I knew I was powering down, but I was getting closer and closer to sticking the move at the second crux until... I walk up to the problem for a beta burn, reach up to the crimp with a three finger drag, pull on just like I had many times before.... and feel an uncomfortable pop in my wrist. I'm a bit concerned, but keep going with the burn like nothing happened. But when I get to the crux, I don't immediately figure it out and jump down. My hand and forearm feel weird. I immediately dunk them in the cold stream nearby and hold them there until they burn with the cold, then stop burning. But there is still an aching when I pull them out. Fuck.

On the car ride back, I feel my symptoms, remember the incident, and try to self diagnose. There is no localized pain. I feel stiffness and achiness in my index, middle, and ring fingers. There was a pop, but it wasn't audible. It hurts to hold a three finger drag - especially with the ring finger - in my forearm muscle. But I can hold a half crimp relatively pain free. My theory is that my flexors digitorum profundus tendons were under tension when I pulled on the crimp, but then they rolled over a boney protuberance in my wrist and snapped into a different position. This created a shock load on the passive tendon and ligament structures in my hand and fingers, as well as on the finger flexor muscle belly. So, best guess is nothing permanent, or even long lasting. Should respond to reasonable, intelligent loading. But still really annoying, since I won't be climbing hard for the rest of the trip, and probably for the next few weeks as well.

So, fuck. But at the same time, not the worst thing. I can use my recovery period to focus on strength training, improving endurance, getting chores done, and social anxiety.
 
Spent the last couple days being a bit depressed because of my injury, but some light hangboarding over the last two days has also helped it see significant improvement. But, trip is over, back in town, time to get things done. Meeting with my fwb in Utah again in a bit over a week, so want to get everything in order before then so I can enjoy the trip. So I'll knock out a bunch today and get another hangboard sesh in, then can get out climbing later this week assuming my injury feels better. My intention is to take care of these tasks today without stressing about them - instead, realizing that each one is an opportunity to learn something and enjoy my time in this life.
 
Yesterday woke, meditated, Spanish, and spent most of the day running around town buying tools and materials from FB marketplace. Then got back home, kb workout, hangboard workout, and started cleaning up some construction debris that had accumulated and was making the place look trashy. Then went to a friend's place to hang for a bit.

Upside was that I was busy all day and made progress on chores. Downside was that I didn't make time to work on my priority of social anxiety - though it strikes me that I didn't even need to make time. I could have integrated the practice into my day when running around buying things on FB - everyone was friendly, and I had quite a few pleasant conversations. Complimented one guy I bought a sawzall from on his Harley, and another I got some free shingles from on his Mischief Brew shirt. Talked about my life and real estate with a wealthy nearly retired real estate agent when I went to pick up his scrap deck railing, and got offered a job selling solar panels by a nice guy with a neck tattoo in a trailer park when I bought his washing machine. I think the lesson to take away here is that while I was doing these things, I should have been more present with the people, open to the possibility that they would have something interesting to say, and that they might be people I might want to know, rather than being in my head and just thinking about what I had to do next. I need to remember before showing up - everyone is worth my attention, so show up, smile, make eye contact, and be interested in them.

Today - work out, fill some propane, go to Airbnb, drop off propane, fix microwave door handle, replace hot tub cover, replace storm door closer, take inventory, return home, replace dishwasher, fix bed in van.
 
Been spending the last few days in an old plumbing shop disassembling their shelving to salvage lumber. Pretty blue collar labor with my drill, hammer, prybar, and sawzall, but I'm getting several hundred dollars worth of plywood and 2x4s for free. Then I can use those to build a shed in my back yard to serve as a workshop, and a place to work on my motorcycle while I rebuild it.

Kind of annoying, since I have other things that are actually more important to get done, like fixing my vans heater and vent fan, but the opportunity came up now, so it would be foolish not to capitalize on it. One pro is that the work is fairly enjoyable - just mindless work where I can listen to podcasts and audiobooks for hours. And the guy giving me the lumber said I'm a crazy hard worker and he'd give me a job on the spot if he had one available. But the downside is that it is beating me up - I haven't climbed or lifted in a couple days because my tank is just totally empty in the mornings and evenings. But I should finish up this task today. Then finish fixing van bed, and fix vent fan, and replace heater. And clean out my old dishwasher to sell it. Injury is feeling better, so then hoping to get out climbing with friends on Monday.
 
Just been cranking through chores the last couple days. Doing a last bit of cleaning, then off to disappear into the desert to hang with my fwb for a few days. Should be a nice break. After that I'm back in town, and hopefully will regain something of a more normal schedule where I can spend more time on long term goals instead of just cranking through chorin'. But more realistically, I'll come back and still have to do quite a few chores, and then I have a rope access training course the week after. So I'll need to study for that.

It does strike me that all my busy-ness is entirely voluntary. Annoying that I keep wishing I had more time, even though I have tons of time. But I know this is mostly just an excuse, since I waste time constantly. What I am really annoyed about is the amount of time I waste - I have things that need to get done and things I want to do. And even when I was working hard and ending the day exhausted, I was wasting time in the mornings and evenings doing things that were counterproductive to my recovery, like staring at my phone, when I could have been doing better things like going for walks to improve my circadian rhythm, journalling and planning my next day, or doing my dishes. It really is a vicious cycle - staring at a screen makes me tired, so I don't feel like doing anything, but then doing nothing is boring, so I look at a screen. He typed while looking at a screen.

Oh well. Off to fuck a girl on top of a desert tower.
 
Back from the desert. Good time, cool spot, but ran into an issue. My friend is quite subby, so she blew me a lot, which was great. But when I went to fuck her, I would go soft. Super annoying, and a bit of a wake up call. It's time for me to admit that it's time to end my experiments with fin. While I haven't posted much about it here, I started on it about 2 years ago. I got on and gradually ramped up to one pill per day, then noticed sides - ED and depression - and got off. Then became worried about my hair loss again and got back on it, even more gradually this time, and maxed out my dosage at 1/4 pill 3x/wk. But even at this dosage, the sides are still too much to be worth it - what's the point in looking good enough to fuck hot girls if my dick doesn't work to fuck them? I think it might also be a contributing factor to my overall sense of fatigue and malaise. So I'm gonna gradually ramp down until I'm totally off the stuff in 2 months. If I really can't live without hair, well, what better excuse to take a trip to Turkey?

Back in town now, and getting excited to dig in on personal projects and self improvement.

Listened to a bunch of podcasts while driving. In one on training for climbing, they talked about how Steve Bechtel had actually walked back his position on not training general aerobic work for climbers. And in another, Tim Ferris and MMM talk about the benefits of walking. And I remembered Huberman's advice about getting sunlight as early as possible. So I think I'm gonna begin starting my days with walks outside before I drink coffee. It's enough convergence of benefits to convince me to do something.
 
Yesterday took care of a bunch of chores. Got a lease renewal signed. Went outside for a bouldering sesh. Then hangboarding and kettlebells.

Today I have an interview for a potential side gig as a rope access tech repairing windmills. Then running up to my Airbnb to take care of a few more chores - fixing the microwave, taking inventory. Then wrapping up a few more things down here - oil change on vehicles, starting on taxes. Actually enjoying cranking all this out. Every chore I get done is a little more weight off my shoulders.
 
Interview went well. Guy basically said that as long as I pass my rope access course and am not an idiot or an asshole, I'll have a job. It seemed like 90% of the interview was him trying to sell me on working for the company - explaining how fast I'd get promotions and pay raises, talking about how safe they are, telling me how I'd have even more opportunities to make money with overtime and double overtime work. Blue collar employers kick ass! Downside is that he implied that they expect me to become a full time employee, which isn't really what I want - what I'm looking for is redundancy in my income-earning abilities, and a gig I can pick up and put down when I feel like it. I assumed I would need to make an initial commitment to learn the skills and gain experience and industry contacts - but I'm certainly not looking to burn through my whole year until November every year. The question is if I tell them that in the second interview they give me, which may lower the chance of me getting hired. And I think the right move is to tell them. While they seem like a good company, and it seems like I'd learn a lot of useful and profitable information from them, keeping secrets like this, that are important for them to know, is part of what made me miserable working in software. I think for me, it is psychologically important to be honest here because it is an action which directly targets my financial insecurity. By putting myself out there and actually asking for what I want, I am training my brain to remember that I am in a strong financial position already. I have passive income, I have a buffer, I have the ability to use my passive income assets to create active income, I can get low skill work easily through my contacts, and I can try getting high skill work as a software developer already. And with how easy it was to basically get offered this job, I shouldn't have much trouble finding another company that might be more accommodating to my desires.

Anyway, yesterday took care of some chores, then kbs, and got out bouldering.

Today, gonna repeat the trick. I have a big list of chores. Gonna do one small thing on each of them to knock them out quick. Then lift. Then boulder. Then I need to get home, shower, and eat dinner. More chores to take care of tomorrow, then have a hinge date planned relatively early, then I need to go to sleep early to wake up early and be ready for my first day of training Monday.
 
Yesterday woke up, meditated, duo, took care of some chores, kbs, hangboarding, then went out and spent the afternoon bouldering.

My local area has annoyingly stiff grades - in other areas I can often flash V3 and get V4 with some effort. Yesterday I failed to send even some V1s. Guess that's what you get when your area is established by guys with something to prove in the 60s and then accumulates 6 decades of polish. But it's not really anything to complain about - sandbagged or not, it's still good training. It just doesn't feed me ego as well. But some things I noticed about myself yesterday -

I don't like to lock off. I was taught as a beginner to "hang off my bones" and conserve energy as much as possible by using straight arms. This is a roped climber's mentality - moving smoothly and efficiently to climb through many meters of somewhat difficult moves. Being tall, I'm a big fan of this strategy - my additional weight and longer lever arms make holding strenuous positions even more strenuous, and I can often figure out beta to skip extremely strenuous cranking moves by making a big extension and reaching past them. But bouldering, I have no choice but to bend my elbows, a lot. It's mandatory for me to make bunchy moves in small boxes that many boulder problems demand.

I also noticed that I'm not a big fan of dropping into deep squats - probably for the same reason I don't like bending my elbows.

I'm definitely too snatchy with my movements. I need to remember that when I make a move dynamic, my movement should start by sagging out, then snapping in and up, *then* reaching for the next hold - not desperately slapping for the next hold as I fall out from the wall. This seems to occur mostly when I am on bad holds in strenuous positions, which makes sense - it's difficult to generate momentum in a strenuous, tenuous position. But it's also counterproductive. If I'm snatching the next hold, then there is still momentum in a strenuous position. It's just that I get to delay the moment of maximum effort, at the expense of making that effort even more difficult. That is, I'm hesitating out of a fear of making an effort, which results in even more effort later and an increased chance of failure. Nice little life lesson there.

Finally, the biggest thing I noticed is that I simply avoid trying hard. I seem to always keep looking for that key foothold or body position that will let me sink into a rest stance, instead of simply accepting that the moves are hard and I have to try.

So a few takeaways - I really need to hash out a good off-wall warmup to do. Since warming up specific muscles and movement patterns primes for their use, I should spend this time warming up those things I want to focus on using most - lockoffs, core tension, deep squatting positions. So maybe something emulating a horizontal and vertical lockoffs with a band, then some hallow holds, then Cossack squats. And as part of my warm up, set an intention for the session. And in my on-wall warm up, practice these movements and the intention.

Anyway, not relevant for the immediate future since I have my first rope access class tomorrow, and I expect I will have neither the time nor energy to climb for the next week.


Today is for taking care of chores and trying to get ready for the course tomorrow.
 
Went on a date Sunday night. I honestly wasn't looking forward to it - I knew I had to wake up early Monday to start my RA course, and the girl seemed a bit combative over text. And because she also had to wake up early, we scheduled to meet at 7 - daytime this time of year, which I dislike for dates. But I figure it'll be a good rep to get in anyway. So I show up and tell her I'm there - and she texts back apologizing that she mixed up the times and will be there in 15. Okay, whatever - I go to the bar and get a beer and call my mom for Mother's Day. Soon she shows up, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see she's a reverse catfish - hell yeah. We get to talking - she graduated as a mech-e, paying her way through school by being a welder, and now works on the business side of things at a construction company where she's the only girl in a company of 150 dudes. The conversation flows naturally, and I'm feeling pretty good. But at the same time, I'm already anticipating no lay - we both have to wake up early, and the clock is running out, so I figure I could plant the seed for a second date and kiss her. She kisses me back but pushes me away, saying she doesn't want to do it in the bar, so we finish our drinks and walk to her car. As soon as we get there she is super enthusiastic - she's aggressive and vocal, and admits she can cum via nipple stimulation, so I make that my mission. I manhandle her, get her bra off, and finger her over her pants, and pitch going back to mine a couple times, but she says she doesn't fuck on the first date. And since she doesn't fuck on the first date, she didn't shave her pubes, and she doesn't want to fuck without shaving her pubes. So with that option totally shut out, we just fool around like teenagers for a while before we both reluctantly decide we need to go to bed at around midnight. She pitches a second date at her place Friday to "watch a movie" before we leave, and I agree. The next morning, I wake up to see she sent me a middle finger emoji at 4:30 for keeping her up so late. Lol.

Yesterday was the first day of my RA course. So woke up *way* too early considering how late I'd stayed out the night before, blearily drank some coffee, and commuted to the training site, grabbing fast food breakfast on the way. The instructor and all the other candidates were cool, everyone there for about the same reasons, and we talk about shit we've done climbing and canyoneering. As expected, I already know how to do most things, and just need to adjust a bit to fit the safety standards. I finish most of the exercises first, and then repeat them trying to make them more fucked up for a better challenge.

After that, came home, ate dinner, took care of chores, and went to bed way earlier. I had another date set up for Monday night, and was grateful she asked for a rain check - probably means she'll flake on Wednesday now, but fuck it, I need the sleep.

One fail yesterday was that I ate out 3 different times - a real hemorrhage for money and health. I woke up too exhausted to cook breakfast, didn't pack a lunch, and was tired afterwards so didn't want to cook dinner. So lesson learned (yet again) - go to sleep early, do meal prep, and take care of as many morning chores as possible the night before.
 
Second day of RA course down. As expected, my body is feeling more beat up as the week goes on - a good endurance challenge of sorts. Yesterday I got home and pretty much just laid down and didn't move until I fell asleep. Hopefully I can stay awake for my date tonight, lol.
 
Just did my course eval. 100% on the written portion, no discrepancies on the practical portion, and the evaluator said I should work for his company rigging stages for concerts. Now to chill out for a couple hours, then go to Sunday girl's place to bang her. It's a good day.
 
LAY 21:

Easiest goddamn lay ever. I finish my course eval, go home, shower and chill for a bit, then drive to hers. Get there, take about 30 seconds to say hello, then start making out. We have a few drinks and watch TV while making out, feeling each other up, and talking shit. She doesn't want me to take her shirt off before the sun goes down, so I tease her that I can guarantee she'll be the one taking it off for me. She reeeeeally likes to talk shit and wrestle, giving me jabs for being a nerd and climbing on top of me. But she likes doing it so I'll give it right back and tell her she's a trashy bitch while I pull her off me and pin her down. And she mentioned on our first date that she can cum solely from nipple stimulation - a fact I liberally took advantage of, especially since she has excellent big tits. Eventually we get down to business - she sucks a good dick, and then changes her behavior and starts begging me to fuck her. I gladly oblige, and suddenly she's all compliments, telling me I'm perfect and my dick is amazing. She cums, I cum, we cuddle for a bit and chill some more, then go for a second round before I head home.

And now we're texting with her saying she wants me to keep coming around regularly to fuck her. It's almost hilarious how perfect she is.

=============

Today was a rest day. I've been getting super worked over for the past week, so I knew I wasn't doing shit today.

Tomorrow, back at it.
 
Been hammering away since the last post. Mostly focused on taking care of chores. I think what I really need to do is take some time for self-reflection and evaluation of various goals and how I am focusing my time. But then, I keep doing that and it keeps feeling a bit masturbatory. But I also feel like I am stuck on a treadmill of chasing second tier tasks instead of focusing on my top tier goals.

Saw the girl from the last lay report again last Wednesday. She seems extremely down to make this a casual, regular thing, which is great.

I happened to listen to an interview with Dave Macleod again recently, where he talks about low carb diets. Every time I hear him talk about it, my interest in them reignites. Macleod notes the benefits are:
- Less body fat
- More athleticism
- Better sleep
- More energy
- More injury resistance
- Resolution of chronic inflammatory conditions
- Resolution of moderate depression and anxiety

Which is quite the laundry list of fantastic outcomes - typically something that would make me chalk up such a solution as snake oil. On the other hand, Macleod is a published academic in both sports science and nutrition, is commonly cited as being the best all-around climber in the world at 45, and consistently presents a thoughtful, logical, and skeptical view on many topics. Add to this my own experiment with the keto diet a few years ago where I personally experienced fat loss and improvements in energy, mood, sleep, and executive function.

So I just ate the last tortilla in my kitchen, and I'm gonna stop eating carbs - for a while at least.
 
Been a while. Giving an update on everything that's gone down in my life, just cause I like to spill ink I guess. The following post was written in early January, but I didn't end up posting it then for reasons I'll describe in my next post.

SUMMER

Over the summer, I was definitely dealing with some fairly significant depression. More and more, I'm finding that when I'm not surrounded by people who I can trust and be open with, my mood dips and motivation wanes. This often compounds with and amplifies issues with sleep.

My experiment with keto over the summer didn't have the desired effect. I had consistent, all-day energy and felt quite strong - at one point I worked a 12 hour day of manual labor eating basically nothing the whole time, while my more experienced coworkers complained of tanking energy levels. My lifts continued going up, I was bouldering on the moonboard harder than ever. And I lost enough weight to get abs again. But the main effect I was seeking - improved mood - failed to manifest.

During this time, I once again tried finding a therapist. I will admit that my attempts here always lack a fair bit of effort - after some searching, I found one guy I might be interested in working with and met him for one session. He seemed like a nice guy with a lot of experience, but he seemed nervous during the session, which was off-putting. It's like, dude, you have 30 years experience talking to people, and your whole job is helping well-to-do neurotics like me manage their anxiety - shouldn't you be over this shit by now?

This kind of builds up my theory about why most therapy is useless - because most therapists are losers. They get a psych degree in college to figure out what is wrong with *themselves*. They find that the half-measures extolled by science-backed research allow them to "manage their symptoms", and accept that this is the best that anyone can ever do. Then they enter the field of therapy - well known for being extremely unlucritive - and spend their days listening to people who don't actually want to change whine about their problems. Since they make so little money, they can't afford to actually push their patients to move outside their comfort zones, since their clients would then drop them. Thus, the majority of the field functions by feeding the egos of neurotics by letting them constantly trauma-dump and feel justified in their victimhood. And then they post on Twitter about how great therapy is and how everyone should go to therapy. Jfc, just hit the bottle - it's cheaper and faster. Not to say there are no good therapists - but the fact that they are so rare means they will likely be difficult to find and charge a much higher fee than normal for their services, and will therefore not be covered by your insurance/national healthcare service.


Anyway, spent the summer cranking away at my rigging job, doing diy projects, and banging the girl from Lay 21 weekly.

Rigging job was super cool. Work is a little strenuous, but not overly so, and the places you get to go are sick. I dunno, I just get off on sprinting across an I-beam 50 meters above the ground while 300 people scurry around like ants below you putting together a stage. The hours suck sometimes - finishing a shift at 2:30 am, and starting your next at 7 isn't a ton of fun - but the work itself is cool, and the coworkers are awesome. A mix of dirtbag rock climbers, punks/ravers, and gruff blue collar guys. Due to my ongoing depression, my social anxiety was flaring up a lot, and I didn't get to know many people very well, which sucks. But by the end of the summer I got told multiple times by multiple people that I had already pretty much mastered the job.

Girl from Lay 21 is seriously the most chill and enjoyable girl I've had an ongoing thing with. She's tall, thin, has big tits, and basically just wants me to come over so she can blow me. Half the time I don't even put it in - I just fuck her throat, fuck her tits and cum on her chest, since it seems like she derives as much or more pleasure from that than from actual sex. Add to this, when she isn't in sub mode, she is absolutely *hilariously* mean, and we can basically fill a whole evening shit-talking each other.

Then built an extension on the deck of my Airbnb. A ridiculously time-intensive process for the sole benefit of being able to open the hot tub cover from the side - but worth it. Spent the rest of the summer building a shed/workshop in my back yard, so I can have a good spot to work on my motorcycle and other projects. Honestly just so fucking proud of the work I did on these - building load-bearing structures from the ground up.

Unfortunately, towards the end of summer I hit a wall. I was climbing 3-4 days per week, lifting 3-4 days per week, doing my rigging job, doing construction work, not sleeping enough due to insomnia and the rigging job, and had moved from normal keto to keto OMAD in an attempt to replicate the improved mood effects that I'd experienced before. I knew I was feeling more and more tired and low energy, and kept telling myself "*soon* I'll have a break and sleep a lot and really get back to 100%" - until one day I woke up for a work shift and literally my entire left arm hurt every time I moved it. Immediately started really prioritizing sleep, dropped weight and training days, and went to my PT who diagnosed it as a nerve issue caused by tightness in my pecs, in turn caused by overworking the muscles too much too fast in my new job while not recovering properly.

FALL

Spent fall thinking I was gonna skip town any day, and trying to recover from my over training. Got off keto to help the recovery, which caused me to gain a bunch of weight back. And it was just one thing after another stopping me from bouncing and doing what I wanted.

First disaster - one of my tenants decides he wants to move out, and gives me appropriate notice. No big deal, and nothing wrong with things on my end. He just had an opportunity to move in with his best friend. Good for him. But then, one by one, a bunch of others gave me the same notice - moving somewhere closer to work. Moving in with their bf. Just want a house with fewer people. All legitimate reasons.... but I ended up with 5 vacancies in a 6 person house over the course of 2 months. Fuck! I scrambled to fill the vacancies. Such a pain - especially because when people move into a big house like this, they want to know who their roommates are going to be, which makes getting tenants *even harder*. When the dust settled, I had one of my previous tenants left, three new tenants who were super chill, and two who.... were not so chill. One a motorcycle-riding, yoga-teaching, scruffy hippy dude. And one, a neurotic, pudgy, pretty boy. The hippy dude is pretty chill, but does weird shit like sitting in the back yard staring at a campfire all night, doing tequila shots to stay warm. And apparently he often forgets to do his dishes. The neurotic has a problem with this, and treats me like a combo servant/mother to demand/complain about every tiny issue in his life.

So I tell the hippy to do his dishes and stop doing weird shit, and that I'll give him one more month on his three month lease to see if he improves. I know he won't - he's too weird for that. But I'm hoping the fact that I'm not kicking him out will piss the neurotic off enough that he will move out on his own, and then I can kick hippy guy out for failure to do his damn dishes. Unfortunately, neurotic guy just gets upset, but cows when I point out - in the gentlest way possible - that other people are put off by his personality. He basically begs me to let him stay on for another month, and with extreme trepidation I agree.

That burned up basically all of September and October. But I'd got all my rooms filled, the weather was getting cooler, and I was eager to get to the desert, and hopefully spend all of November bouldering. And then... disaster again.

My home insurance contacted my agent and said I had to fix a bunch of stuff with my house. Apparently, due to the increased cost of labor and materials from inflation combined with legal limits to premium increases, every insurance company was trying to find legal reasons to drop everyone in the area. So they flew a drone onto my property and took pics of my "offences". The whole ordeal was fucking stupid. Delays waiting for my insurance to tell me exactly what needed to be fixed. Fixing those things. More delays as they came back again and told me it needed to be fixed a different way. And then eventually, then randomly coming back and saying they actually didn't need me to fix anything, and I was totally fine. But that was my November, except....

November is a great time to be in the desert. And with a bunch of new tenants, I felt like it would be great to socially bond them and integrate them with other people I knew by doing a canyoneering trip to Utah. So I rally a bunch of friends and we're all stoked, and it's gonna be a great time. Only two of my tenants are able to make it - but they're two of the cool ones! Everything is going great in the first canyon on the first day, until we get to a particular pothole full of water. People before me had all waded through - but being experienced in canyons, and not wanting to get wet yet, I tried to jump across. But I didn't make it. I landed in the water. And I landed *hard*. I only got my pants up to my knees wet, but I immediately felt my body go cold while my adrenaline spiked, and thought "uh... whoops". The rest of the day, I felt a pretty significant pain in the arch of my right foot, though I was still able to get through the canyon unassisted and lead the group out. But on the home back to camp, I definitely developed a *significant* limp. The next morning, it was clear my plans for more canyons and going bouldering were shot - my ankle was significantly swollen and could bear almost no weight. Fuck. The fact that I still had total use of my foot and ankle the day before indicated that nothing had totally ruptured... but the significant swelling and bruising indicated that there had been some damage to the ankle structure. Probably a grade 2 sprain. I spent one day hanging out in camp moping, then the next day started rehab - just doing a little walking, and doing a modification of my normal workout to allow a little but not a lot of load on the injured tissues.

WINTER P1

The moment my insurance said I'd sufficiently cowtowed their requirements, I threw everything on the ground and started packing my van. That night, I jumped in and started driving.

Spent Thanksgiving with the family of my friend who died last year, along with many of his other friends, and got a tattoo in his memory. Then turned the van south and headed to Mexico.

As soon as I crossed the border, it seemed like my depressive symptoms lifted for the first time in months. Something about the smell of hot air, bleached sewer water, street meat, and smog, I guess.

I knew my goal again. Get stronger. Get used to the rock and the style of the place. Rehab my ankle. And send my deceased friend's project. So since then I've been running up easier climbs with friends, and working the moves on the project on top rope solo. Have started a new workout routine that is faster and less fatiguing, focused on pure strength. Back on keto, and have lost a significant amount of weight - getting close to fighting weight for a send.

But at the same time, more issues on the home front. First, just before Christmas there was a tragedy. One of my tenants - one of the cool ones I mentioned before - fell while free soloing one of the Flat Irons and died. This didn't have the impact on me that my friend's death earlier that year had. I didn't know him as well - he was more an acquaintance than a friend. But all the same, it took a toll, and I spent some time making sure my other tenants knew I was there to support them, and reaching out to his family to let them know that I would support them logistically any way I could.

And this tragedy had a follow-on effect. Not long after, I heard that my hippy tenant was pissing everyone off again and behaving erratically. Apparently he wasn't just weird, but had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and the stress of his roommates death along with other stressors in his life had caused him to start disassociating. He started behaving extremely strangely, scaring my other tenants, and cut off all forms of electronic communication. This caused me quite a bit of stress. I got into contact with his parents to try to get him the help he needed, but they were little help. Started talking to a lawyer about how to evict him if it came to that. But thank God - yesterday he managed to make a phone call and tell me he was planning to move out in a week or two. Hopefully that'll be the end of that saga.
 
Anyway, enough of that stupid bullshit! On to what you actually care about!

LAY 22

It had been a while since I'd banged a new girl. Over the summer and fall, I'd been busy and depressed enough that getting laid had really taken a back seat to just getting shit done. But once I got to Mexico, I had more time again and my depression significantly lessened. Add to this, I have knowledge and status of the place I'm at, and generally feel pretty at ease talking to people - I noticed I had quite a few girls taking an interest in me.

So one day I'm at the crag with some friends. Still trying to get some fitness, and rehab my sprained ankle. Not really giving a fuck, just hanging out and jumping on whatever topropes people have put up. I get on the tr for a 12a I sent last year - it's still hard, especially since right now I'm a big fat fatty, but after a take or two I remember the moves and finish it up. I come back down to the ground and start talking shit with my friends, and a couple who has joined at the crag. I introduce myself, they do the same - the guy says he is interested in jumping on the route I just TR'd, and I spray him down with beta while my friends pack it in for the day and head out. I'm just having a good time, and stick around to watch him to see if my beta is helpful. I get some pics and video of him on-route, watch him get the flash of the route, tell him congrats and that I can get him the pics later, and say goodbye to him and his gf.

Later that night, one of the restaurants is hosting a dance party where a friend of mine is
DJing. So of course I head over to support him and have a good time. While the party is still getting started, I see the couple from earlier that day, and they wave me over to sit at their table. I hang out, we chat, his gf is telling me that she topped the route after he led it and felt surprisingly good on it given it's difficulty - congrats to her, so I offer a high five. She does... and wraps her fingers into mine so we're holding hands now.

Suddenly, a bunch of information clicks into place. She's bi. From SF. Working at a startup. OH, IT'S ON!!! I immediately switch to flirting with her - more eye contact, getting her number, hand on her thigh under the table. Eventually the party gets started in earnest and we break up to hit the dance floor and various other shenanigans ensue.

The next couple days we make some plans to climb over text and flirt a little. Then we're chatting about heading to a party when we have this exchange...

1000005837.pngWith cards on the table, the evening goes super smoothly. She shows up, sits on my lap, we dance and talk a bit. I tell her I'm not a relationship guy, and just let things ebb and flow without labels or expectations. She says that's called relationship anarchy. I fire back that I'm too much of an anarchist to assign a label like that to myself. She tells me she basically has the same policy. We make out and dance together for a while - she's clearly super into me, but tells me she doesn't bang on the first date. Whatever. We hang out with other people at the party, dance some more, have a good time, until she says "oh my god you've got me so horny, let's leave." So much for not banging on the first date, lol. I take her back to my van and fuck her like crazy, and dub her SF Poly Girl.

Thus begins our several week long not-relationship where we're regularly banging, while I run around flirting with other girls.

Of course, I'm still a little bitch, so most of those interactions go nowhere. But it is honestly unbelievably liberating to not give a fuck like this. To have a girl sitting on my lap and making out with me, and then going over to flirt with another girl, out in the open, in front of other people. I'm starting to feel like I finally have, like, the right to be attracted to women.

Also doesn't hurt that SF Poly Girl is straight up gorgeous and has a good body. Apparently a French dad and a Chinese mom, plus regular surfing, climbing, and yoga will do that to you.

Now, the big win and the emotional rollercoaster.

About a week after SF Poly Girl and I start hooking up, I get a message. A friend/acquaintance of mine is apparently coming down to Mexico for a week. We'd flirted a little in the past, but had never spent much time together while she was single. She complains that she's gonna be sharing a tent with her friend while down here, and I slyly offer her the guest bed in my van. She takes the hint, and we start flirting over text.

When I first see her in camp, she immediately jumps up on me and wraps her legs around my waist. We are both *very* touchy-feely, and we fuck around like this for most of the day. In the evening, she asks if I can give her a ride to the bank so she can withdraw some cash. What a great excuse for some alone time! So I drive her into town, she get some cash, and then as we're alone in my van I lean in for the kiss, and....

She's like "no, actually, I can't". Because the way we originally met was through her boyfriend at the time, who is a friend of mine. And apparently she had a rule not to sleep with friends of exes for a certain period of time after a breakup.

Ugh, fine. I tell her that I was planning on pitching a 3 way with SF Poly Girl to her, at which point she groans in frustration at her predicament. Apparently a 3 way has been on her list of things to do for a while. She straddles me in the driver's seat, and we spend a while teasing each other without actually kissing.

I tell her I'll respect her rule out of respect for her integrity and my friend. But that I will still tease her mercilessly while she's here. She finds this proposition *extremely* agreeable.

New Years arrives. My DJ friend is playing a party at one of the campgrounds. I have dinner with my friend's ex, some of my friends, and some of her friends, then head over to the party where SF Poly Girl meets me with some homemade margs she smuggled in. I break off to hang with her for a bit, we do some ketamine and make out, and join the dance party.

No doubt, 100% a peak experience in my sexual career was trading off between these two girls in the dance floor and having each of them grind on me in turn. Definitely felt like a total baller.

But high highs can lead to low lows. SF Poly Girl makes out with me at midnight, and then asks me if it's okay if she makes out with another guy. Per my own ethical code, I won't impose restrictions on another person I wouldn't want them to impose on me. So of course on one level I'm not particularly excited about this prospect - but on the other hand, I can't in good faith dance with two girls in one night, and expect those girls to not fuck around with other guys. So, kind of annoying, but whatever. But my friend's ex has also gotten tired of me turning her on with no release, and has found some other guy to dance and make out with. Fair enough - we owe nothing to each other, and I'd do the same thing in her position. I hang out with some friends for a while. Spend some time one on one with the poly ex of my friend who died last year, a little heart to heart. And I'm starting to feel pretty beat. I made it to midnight after mostly going to sleep at 10pm for the last couple weeks. I danced a ton. And now I'm low energy. I head back to the party, and see SF Poly Girl making out with *another* guy and start feeling a little depressed and frustrated. *I* want to be making out with *someone* right now... I look around and see all the other hot girls at the party - but social anxiety strikes, and I don't feel like I have the energy or mood to try meeting new people. I feel depressed for a while, and kind of float around having a not great time while trying to not look like I feel like shit, and then think - why am I feeling bad? Well, because I'm not making out with anyone. Why not? Because I'm tired, and because the band that got put on after my friend finished his set sucks. So *what do I want to do?* I want to say good night to people, and go the fuck to sleep. I say goodbye to my friends, walk over to SF Poly Girl in the middle of her makeout and smack her on the ass to get her attention. Tell her I'm calling it a night and tell her to have fun. She smiles, kisses me, and says she'll see me tomorrow.

As I walk back from the party, I have a pretty big swirl of emotions. They definitely aren't good - but a thought occurs to me to take the edge off. Manson says in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck (paraphrasing): "You'll never not have problems. Every time you solve a problem, new ones show up to take its place. But if you work hard, you can have *better* problems." So I laugh at myself a bit. What a great fucking problem I have. I'm broken up about the fact that I have to deal with the whims of two sexy women who want to have a 3 way with me. Poor me, lol. I lay down to go to sleep with this thought, and just before I go to sleep, I get a text from SF Poly Girl telling me she left right after I did, and went to bed super horny.

Maybe this is my bitch ass reading into things - but that made me feel good. We'd imposed no boundaries on each other, and she definitely could have gone home with another guy that night. But instead she chose not to, so I wouldn't feel left out of the fun. Which, at the end of the day, is what I want out of a non-relationship with no rules - doing things because you care, not because there's a rule.

Obviously the long term solution is to up my game so I can regularly just snag a girl in these cases, or else to control the frame enough that I can send girls I'm with out to bring around other girls instead of going to other guys, or just, yaknow, quit being such a bitch. But short term - having a girl just give a shit sure is nice.

Friend's ex ended up spending one night in my van before she left, and we got *dangerously* close to breaking her rule. Now that she's back state-side we've been sending flirty texts back and forth - she's saying she'll fuck me when I have abs again, lol. But I know all I need to do is show up and pull her hair.

SF Poly Girl stayed about a week after new years. We fucked several more times, and I took her up one of the longest climbs in the part to top out one of the formations here. Unlike a lot of other girls, she's actually a good climbing partner - tries to pull her weight, understands that the team is the priority, and doesn't complain. We're currently making plans to meet up in Canada for her birthday - my plan is to give
her a cream pie on route for a birthday present.
 
Part 2 of life update:

So there I was, feeling like a fuckin baller... Snagged a new fwb, had some other prospects going. Lifts were going up basically every session. Continuing to get skinny, and making progress on the project every session.

And then I got a bad night's sleep. I'd been sleeping surprisingly well since I arrived, but that night I just woke up at 4 am and then couldn't fall asleep again. Okay, annoying but nbd. Then the same thing happens the next night... I'm exhausted. I sleep through the night the next night, but wake up still feeling very tired. I start thinking I'm missing something - I've been having some stronger than usual muscle cramps, so I think maybe it's electrolytes. I start supplementing magnesium and sleep well for a night... then wake up in the middle of the night again. I notice a mild headache whenever I'm laying down. Some kinda sinus pressure. I do some more research into electrolytes on a keto diet, and up my dosage of sodium and potassium. Again, I feel better for a day, then feel crappy again. This is getting annoying - I constantly feel tired, and I'm breathing harder than normal just walking around. I go to the doctor to get some blood work done. The doc tells me to eat more fruits and vegetables. blood work comes back and says everything is pretty normal - slightly high potassium, slightly low magnesium. I start eating way more veggies, and finally manage to get my hands on some leafy greens. I feel way, way better, and do some research into what else I might have been missing. Maybe vitamin b9, folate. That didn't come up on my blood test, so I go back for another to get it checked. But eating more veggies I'm feeling a lot better, so it's more a matter of curiosity... until my symptoms come back and I start feeling like shit again. Fuck. B9 test comes back normal. I start looking into actual diseases I might have, go back and get some more blood work done - it comes back positive for Proteoux O19 and slight hyperthyroidism. This indicates being infected with a tick-borne illness like Rocky Mountains Spotted Fever, which is potentially deadly if left untreated. They give me a doxycycline prescription.

Taking doxy, I start feeling better day by day. First walking around some more. Then starting training again very light. After about a week in the stuff, I get back to the project, and finally manage to stick the crux move. I'm stoked - I'm back on track and there's still a chance I'll send before the season is over!

And then right at the tail end of my course of doxy, I start feeling bad again. *Really* bad. I start feeling dizzy just standing up. Significant shortness of breath. Chest pains. I start getting concerned that I'm having a heart attack or something. Fuck. I decide that this is it - I need American healthcare. I want to talk to a doctor in English. Feeling like shit, feeling like I failed and was defeated, I packed all my stuff up and drove back to the states.

At which point, I started dealing with the *American* healthcare system, which is a whole thing. I immediately went to the ER, where they reviewed all my test results from Mexico and took some more blood tests, and put me on an EKG... and told me that they didn't know what was wrong with me, but that I wasn't gonna die at this second. Okay, well fuck. I go to an urgent care the next day where another doc looks at all my test results, and tells me I probably *did* have RMSF, and that my decline after starting doxy was just the aftershocks of the illness. Apparently, the bacteria will release toxins into the body when they all die. He referred me to an infectious disease clinic. I spent a week going back and forth between the clinic and the urgent care trying to schedule an appointment, until the clinic just told me to fuck off since my most recent blood tests didn't show anything wrong with me. I got another referral, and got the same response. Finally, I got an appointment with a PCP, who confirmed, again, that I probably had RMSF, or maybe Typhoid, and that I was fine now and cleared for activity. All this took about 3 weeks - but luckily my condition was improving linearly in this time, and I'd returned to lifting, climbing, and taking care of chores around the house.

So the lesson is.... the American healthcare system is a cluster.

So... now what?

I'm headed to Utah for April, then probably to Yosemite in May, then probably to Canada in June.

Before Utah, I am working on some maintenance/upgrades to my van, and taking care of chores around the house to head off trouble down the road. I'm also enjoying having a full gym again and doing some barbell work, and am trying to get stronger and improve my lead head while I'm here before I head to Utah. Another issue - the ankle I sprained last fall hasn't completely healed, so I'm gonna see a PT on Friday.

Before Yosemite, I want to get more experience hooking, so I want to get out to some choss pile and practice my hooking skills for a bunch of laps on top rope.

And then once I get back from Canada, plan is to start working on my tiny house project, resume my rigging job to rack up some extra cash, and start focusing on sport climbing so I can return to Mexico next year and send the proj. Plan is to climb 52 5.12s before the end of the year.

And then there is girls. I feel like I'm on the cusp of a breakthrough, and I just need to break through it. My social circles seem to increasingly have enm people. Meeting SF Poly Girl in Utah. The poly girl who I stole from her ex is moving back to town from Oregon this summer. My friend's ex invited me bouldering yesterday - her ex was there, and she introduced me to another enm couple. Increasingly, I realize I need to engage directly with learning kink skills and getting comfortable in kink communities. Being able to adopt and stay in a good topping role, improving my rigging skills and getting more practice, and getting comfortable adopting this as part of my personality that I can express in various contexts.

Beyond that, I need to work on my social anxiety. I've been saying this for years, and I'm saying it again now. Plan: go do stupid things that scare me faster. Start being a regular at improv classes - the classic rec from both social anxiety people and puas for how to get comfortable expressing yourself. Plus, topping is a form of acting, so this should help there, too. Going to concerts and hitting the dance floor, which continues to scare the shit out of me depending on context. Practice introducing myself (happily and confidently) in new contexts.

Finally, keto. The last two times I tried this diet in the last year, I started off successful and then ended in a hard crash. Especially over the winter, I was feeling *excellent*. So its time to give it one last real shot - so I'm recruiting a nutritionist to try to troubleshoot and make sure I don't crash again.

=============================

Ever since I got my first hard on, I had this question lingering, unasked, in my mind - what makes it socially acceptable for a man to want a woman? Like, clearly it is okay sometimes, and clearly it isn't other times. What is it that makes a man acceptably sexual, and when is he a creep? Sure, looks help. Confidence helps. But a good looking, confident man can still come off as skeevy. And I think I figured out a quote that explains the issue satisfactorily to me -

"A man can lust after women as much as he wants, so long as it is exceeded by his lust for life"


So let's get to it. Let's love life.
 
Gonna start logging daily again. Objective is to cut the fluff and focus on what is important. So my goal is, every day, to do at least one thing that is a significant step in at least one of the following categories:

1) Having fun and enjoying life with others.
2) Meeting new people or engaging with new social groups.
3) Making a notable move towards achieving a goal - not daily little steps.
4) Challenging my anxieties/insecurities.

Today:
Already had a call with a nutritionist to talk about my diet. Gonna pull the trigger on paying for their services. (3)

Later going to the local maker space for the first part in a series of classes on welding. (1, 2)

Tomorrow:
Bouldering w/ some friends (1)

Friday:
PT appt for my ankle (3)

Attending a political rally (2,4)
 
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