2008 Giveth and 2008 Taketh Away

TAKETH AWAY
Same-sex marriage rights in California
The blue-eyed boy (reinstalled in friendship capacity)
An assistant editor in L.A.
A significant chunk of my freelance budget
Many thousands of magazine jobs, and many more thousands of other jobs too
Five pounds
Some of the moisture in my hair (see below: blonder)
Hope for another consecutive Raiders football season

GIVETH
The same five pounds
One Huell Howser autographed print and one California's Gold tote bag
President-elect Barack Obama
The Palin rap on SNL
A new iPhone
A nicely blonder head of curls (see above: lost moisture)
An unforgettable trip to Mexico
Best Coachella weekend yet
A triumphant Grand Canyon hike
So, so much thrilling possibility

Walking in L.A.

We had some joke in college about my friends calling me Patch, because we figured it was only a matter of time before I ended up with another clutzy eye injury. (I like to think it was also because I'm a Raiders fan to the core, but it wasn't.) Really, you can't argue with hard facts.

But lately I'm starting to realize that my toes are my new most vulnerable area to injury. In the last year, I haven't had much undamaged-toe time.

Last summer, there was the matter of the Half Dome hike, during which I managed to bloody one toe after not cutting the adjacent toenail short enough. And I ended up with two unsightly black-and-blue patches under my big toenails that took nearly a year to grow out fully.

Then in Mexico, wearing skimpy flats, I accidentally made contact with the back of my travel partner's shoe, resulting in a baby toe that turned all the colors of the rainbow. Nonetheless, I vowed I would shove my foot into a fin for snorkeling even if it meant I had to cut the offending toe clear off. Nothing was going to keep me from being face down looking at turtles in the Caribbean, and nothing did (although a vicious sunburn necessitated a tank top over the bikini, but that's neither here nor there on the toe topic).

And most recently, there was the Grand Canyon hike, which, because of the intense, all-downhill grade for the entire first day, led eventually to a giant blister under one of the big toenails. A blister that would pop while I was minding my own business a week later, and when I was not prepared for, ahem, the flood. When I eventually took the polish off, it was clear that I would lose that toenail sooner or later, because instead of being transparent, it was opaque white. But it hung on, and I dutifully kept it polished and groomed.

Flash forward to last weekend, up in San Francisco, where I was enjoying a Korean-style massage until I gasped during the aggressive foot-massage part. Look, I knew I would lose that toenail eventually, so I wasn't as worried about that as I was about the post-traumatic stress syndrome I would have caused the poor masseuse if she ended up with my big red-painted toenail in her hand on Labor Day. Still it hung on.

But not for long. Wednesday, it finally gave up the ghost. At work. So I went straight to the nail salon on Sunset Boulevard during an essential impromptu lunch break, and got a prosthetic. It looked pretty good and convincing, but apparently the acrylic was too thin and it started to loosen at an inopportune time as I sat in five-inch open-toed sandals in a corner booth at Trader Vic's at the Beverly Wilshire late on Friday night. Not cute, people. Not cute.

Back to a different salon on Saturday for a better version of the acrylic replacement, before hitting the MTV Video Music Awards event circuit, where it is not appropriate to show up and represent your magazine with nasty feet. Two years the pedicurist said she worked on perfecting the toenail-replacement technique she was using on me. Two years! Only the best for my problematic phalanges.

Anyway, all of this is to say that toe is the new eye in my injury proneness. It's only a matter of time before the next incident, I fear. Thank heaven for modern pedicure science.

Good Morning, Los Angeles

6:20 a.m.: Alarm on Treo sounds. Check email while phone is in hand. Mistake.

6:50 a.m.: Out the door.

7:09 a.m.: Arrive at entrance to Runyon Canyon, after a miraculous 19-minute trip from Westwood to Hollywood. Spend next 15 minutes looking for parking. Note to self that tons of other Angelenos have already finished their morning hikes. Perplexing and impressive. Wait for one such hiker to vacate parking space and pounce on it.

7:25 a.m.: Hit the trail with MA. Dominate conversation, as usual, with wildly interesting tales of reentry into dating world. Take opposite route this time: longer trail up, steeper trail down. Admire peoples' cute puppies and American Apparel short shorts. Perfect 45-minute loop.

8:10 a.m.: Back to car.

8:30 a.m.: Hit gym in West Hollywood for condensed ab-targeted workout. Shower without feeling rushed. See Janice Dickinson, sans make-up, animatedly discussing the worth of Hermes Birkin bags ("Really? For $10,000, do you think any bag is even worth it?") with another female gym goer. Note to self that a whole different set of irrelevant celebrities works out at this time of day.

9:15 a.m.: Stop for coffee at Primo. Order iced, get hot. When iced arrives eventually, say, "You know, if that hot one's headed for the trash, I'll drink it too rather than let it go to waste." Leave with two-for-one coffees, feeling justified, since it's highway robbery in there anyway. Sit down to text underwhelming Dickinson tip to AD for her celebrity-sighting blog, assuming that it won't make cut. While sitting, try without success to eavesdrop on cutie boxing instructor's convo with miscellaneous woman at restaurant.

9:30 a.m.: In chair at work. Ready for Thursday. Ready for anything.

Workout Notes: Week of August 18

Some girl did the entire jump-aroundy Fit-Body Workout class yesterday without taking off her sunglasses. Really?

In Ab Lab on Monday, the guy who hollered the expletive when he couldn't hold the plank anymore was positioned close enough to the instructor's mic to broadcast the utterance to the whole room, which I enjoyed, particularly as I continued to hold my plank (sucka).

I'm convinced Fabio is stalking me, since I see him at the gym every. single. time I work out, without a single exception that I can recall. (Or maybe he just never leaves the building.)

I'm very excited now that the Hard-Body Meltdown instructor calls me "girl." Great workout, girl! Thanks for the hard work, girl! It makes me feel like the popular kid in class, not unlike when my fiery Miami boxing partner calls me "mami."

Speaking of boxing: At the Coffee Bean this morning, I got another compliment on my pink boxing gloves, which dangled from my gym bag. Best investment ever. And the CPW (cost per wear) is almost nothing by now.

Hiking Runyon Canyon is absolutely my new favorite thing. (Monday, it was after work. Tomorrow, before work. Whee!) You don't necessarily want every hike to be such a quintessentially L.A. scene—with all those dogs and lean sports bra-clad torsos—but once in a while, it's completely fun and hilarious. And the views!

God, I love this town.

The Grand Canyon Hike Report

This is the story of our hike down and up the Grand Canyon, on Sunday and Monday, June 29 and 30, 2008. Or rather, this is only my story. No doubt the other seven adventurers in our group—in total we were seven women, one man, all hovering around 30, with varying fitness levels and heat and fear tolerances, from the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas—all have their own. But at least this one thing is surely universal among us: It was an unforgettable, tremendous thing.

Led fearlessly and tirelessly by trip organizer LP, we set up at Mather campground on Saturday night and tried to get to sleep as early as possible for an early-morning wake up. Racked with adrenaline and nerves, I don't think I slept for more than two 45-minute intervals; I could hear my heart beating in my ears.

We intended to wake up at 4 a.m., but I was up at 3:30, and so was most of the rest of our crew, everyone filling their hydration bags and packing and repacking their packs by light of headlamps. Mostly on account of our need to take two shuttle buses to the trail head, we got a slightly later start than planned, but were generally still on track: At 5:45 a.m., we set off down the South Kaibab trail.

The reason for the necessity of an early start is the rapidly rising temperature in late June in the canyon. National Park Service posters, displayed prominently throughout the park, generally seem to try to discourage hiking altogether, particularly in the summer heat. These signs basically warn you that your death is imminent, no matter your age or fitness level, so don't do it. Or if you must, then for god's sake be prepared. But probably just don't do it. (One of these posters in particular, which described the overheating death of a 26-year-old girl, made quite an impression on me, and probably accounted in large part for my lack of sleep the first night.)

But around 6 a.m. the thermometer had likely not hit 80 yet, and we were in good shape. From the top you head straight down at a tremendously steep grade (hikers often take this trail down, but rarely ever take the same one up on account of its arduous angle). And the view is wide open (I believe this is called "exposure" in hiking circles) as the trail follows the ridge line. You really have to suspend your disbelief to imagine that humans can get all the way down there, and then can get all the way up. To start, my pack was about 25 pounds, and I believe many of our other group members' were fairly comparable.

We stopped for rest and snacks a couple of times, saw a pair of condors with massive wing spans, and generally took our time to enjoy the view. With the temperature still mild even around 9 a.m., and the trip strictly downhill, our crew seemed to be holding up just fine. But during one break for shade, BC began to reveal her discomfort. We encouraged her to try to take some salty snacks to replenish some electrolytes, but she had no appetite, and she vomited here. My guess was that the problem was nerves.

You see, hiking into the Grand Canyon is a head trip. Generally, when you embark on a big hike, you know that you are free to reevaluate your goal at any point and go back down. You do the Grand Canyon in the reverse of a typical trek: first down and then up. So every step you continue to take into that abyss is one you know you must match during the crawl out. This can be a serious psychological disadvantage, particularly as you gaze out on that expanse from the South Kaibab trail. After managing a few peanuts and absorbing some pep talk, BC summoned her strength and we headed down again; I believe her new goal was to get to the bottom and find a ranger to inquire about an alternate way out, maybe on a mule. Onward we went.

We passed dust in all colors—bright red and white in addition to some greenish landscape—and much evidence of mules on the trails in the form of their prolific excrement. On one set of switchbacks, we stepped off the trail to let a mule train pass.

On the 6.9-mile, sharply descending South Kaibab—although it is a terrifically groomed trail befitting a park visited by 5 million oglers annually—there are few markers to encourage hikers. There are no potable water sources, and neither is there any visible water. At some point we saw off in the distance a shelter containing composting toilets, and we hustled toward it. The tiny glimpse seemed to take months to become a reality. Once there, AK, MIG, and I sat down against the structure, elevating our legs on our packs (which we'd read was a smart plan to reduce swelling whenever possible during breaks). As we waited for the rest of our group, we acknowledged that we were leaning against a toilet shed, and maybe that wasn't the most sanitary nor the classiest thing for ladies to do. But who cared? It was shade. MIG asked me what time it was, and I noted it was 10 a.m. We were both shocked—it already seemed we'd been up for days.

We scarfed down some more electrolyte chews and snacks, and talked to a couple of other hikers who passed. When you're this far down into the canyon, there are few others: It's too far for a day hike (except for a pathological few), so it's only the small group of committed campers who populate the trail in that area. We saw perhaps 10 other hikers between there and the bottom.

Funny, it was at that point that I thought we were close to the bottom. In fact, there was still a vast stretch of switchbacks separating us from the Bright Angel campground where we'd sleep that night. We caught our first glimpse of the Colorado River, and it motivated us to add a little extra spring to our step. And then we zigzagged across a few more switchbacks. And then we saw the river again and again and again... like an oasis that was hardly getting nearer no matter how much we walked. Eventually we got close enough to see the current moving (at an impressive clip), and to see the Black Suspension Bridge that spanned it, and the small tunnel that led onto it. I'd expected to be terrified of this bridge (my fear of heights had reared its head mercilessly on Half Dome), but from above, it actually looked like a thrill, beyond which was the reward of a cold creek and an end to the day's hike.

As we descended this set of switchbacks, I was feeling my first real physical symptoms. The continual pressure of my big toenails against my hiking shoes was causing seriously painful tenderness, of which I was acutely aware with each step. Also, we were nearing the bottom, and I'd say the temps in the sun were getting close to the 115-degree range.

Finally, we reached the tunnel (a few feet of shade!) and crossed the bridge. And to my delight, I wasn't afraid at all.

We could see down to a small beach on the river, exposed to full sun, at which a few folks were taking dips into the cold water. At that point, LP was suffering pretty bad from the heat, and my toes couldn't take much more. Everyone was close to their physical limits. According to my trusty Polar heart rate monitor, I'd burned about 2,200 calories by then. (It would be about twice that on the ascent.)

We wet our shirts and towels in the river, and walked the last half mile to camp. I changed into my swimsuit right there in the open (privacy is an irrelevant luxury when things are that raw), and we all got into Bright Angel creek... overjoyed.

The creek, which runs through the meandering row of camp sites, is rocky and cold and spectacular, and it's the thing that saves some hikers' lives who may be close to expiring from heat exhaustion by the time they reach it. (Seriously: One of the park service's strongly worded signs at the bottom encouraged summer hikers to get in the creek stat upon reaching it.)

That evening was one of the more surreal and wonderful of my life. After cooling down in the creek, a few of us headed into the canteen at Phantom Ranch for some iced tea and—shockingly—light air conditioning. There, you can buy postcards and stamps, and deposit the cards in a leather sack, from which they will be retrieved and brought to the post office on the rim by way of mule train. I amused myself by attempting to write five of these postcards without any sort of motor skills (the hike and the heat, not to mention the complete lack of sleep, had rendered those skills ancient history by this point, about 3 p.m.). I didn't have addresses with me, so I guessed on the ones I didn't have memorized (and who memorizes in the age of technology?), and I'm not sure I wrote anything that made sense. I imagine that reading one of these cards now would be something like writing a note to myself while high on hallucinogens, and then looking at it later, wondering whose creepy handwriting that was and what the heck that person was even trying to say. (So, apologies to those of you dear friends and family members who may actually receive these strange missives. But know they were written with love! And unfathomable fatigue!)

MC, whose profession is travel planning, had made persistent daily calls to the Phantom Ranch to try to secure some meals for us (which generally must be booked a year in advance), and had succeeded. So the eight of us were able to eat, depending on our preferences, steak or vegetarian chili with salad and cold drinks. Our group had these meals in two shifts, the first at 5 p.m., and the second at 6:30. Since MIG and I were on the second shift, we first played cards at a picnic table in front of the small dining hall, and then attempted to play hangman on a small notebook I'd carried with me. The word she'd selected was cougar, but the stick figure woman representing me almost met her fate before I could guess that simple little word. I guessed "S." And then after a long pause, "Um... S" again. I was so spent, I'd forgotten most of the letters in the alphabet.

The doors to the dining hall opened, and DML, LP, and AE—the first shifters—emerged happy and refreshed after their steak meals. Just then—and this is not for dramatic effect, it's actually true—monsoon-force winds began to blow. It was an ultra-hot, powerful wind, as if produced by a hair dryer. It was like nothing else.

After our own meals of veggie chili, we attended a brief ranger talk at a small amphitheater at Phantom Ranch. I was so fatigued that I was completely without filters, and I found myself shouting out things—even slightly lewd things, and hello, there were kids there—like a heckler at a comedy club. But I think he enjoyed it, this unconventional ranger, who talked at a clip, with deep enthusiasm, using words that indicated he was probably from Santa Cruz. He ended his geology talk with a sing-along—but it wasn't Kumbaya or anything; it was Metallica. It's entirely possible that I hallucinated this out of fatigue, but I'm pretty sure the other girls who were also in attendance will back me up.

We cooled ourselves in the river one last time before sleep. MIG and I had a tent; we'd heard it was going to be about 60 degrees overnight at the bottom, but I believe it had to be closer to 90. The girls in our group with only bug bivies (net shelters) had the smarter idea by a mile. I slept in my swimsuit bottom and filthy tanktop from the day's hike, over (not in) my sleeping bag, and I sweated profusely all over its synthetic materials. Later I would realize that I had been so tired I'd actually forgotten to even open the valve on my camping pad, and thus it didn't inflate. But even this insomniac might have been able to sleep on shards of glass when that exhausted, so it was moot.

At 4:15 a.m., we were up again for day two, our hike out of the canyon via the Bright Angel trail, a much longer route in distance (about 9.5 miles), but one with a lesser grade, some shade along the way, several potable water stops, and the chance to walk alongside creek water for at least a mile or more. It was not too hot yet at that time of the morning, and we were in good spirits. Sweet BC had found her strength and courage, and had decided to set out first to give herself a psychological edge, I'm guessing. She was making great time.

The rest of us were keeping a steady pace, first along Silver Bridge, which unlike Black features only an open grate below hikers' feet, which shows clear through to the river. Again, I found this enjoyable and not fear inspiring to my own great surprise. However it was on this bridge that my camera blinked low battery, and then pooped out for good. Nothing makes me feel more impotent than being without a camera. But, assured that seven other hikers were documenting our experience, I gulped down that disappointment and trekked on.

About four miles into the trip up (which we knew was about half of the distance along the trail, but far less in difficulty), we came to Indian Gardens, a little oasis with shade, potable water, and a creek running through. There, we ate the sack lunches we'd picked up from the Phantom Ranch. (I ate my bagel and cream cheese as if I were a wild dog, hurling pieces into the air and hoping some landed in my mouth. Somehow, DML managed to slice his neatly, and I joked that he might like some capers and roasted tomatoes on his gourmet dish.) We poured what seemed like the thousandth batch of electrolyte powders into our water vessels, and we were already cursing the notion of neon-colored warm water. (But from everything we'd heard, this diligence was going to save our lives, for sure.) I took off my shoes (something that makes you nervous—because you know if you do it you will never want to put those suckers back on, but you must), and went down to the creek to soak my feet in the cold water. LP and MIG slid right into the shallow creek, clothes and all. Afterward, I put more Moleskin on my big toes, which were definitely feeling the impact, and I was already guessing I might lose at least one of those toenails eventually. (At blog press time, the status of the toenail was still indeterminate.)

We'd heard initially that hikers would be smart to wait out the heat of the day here at Indian Gardens until 4 p.m. before beginning the rest of the trek up. But we'd arrived there shortly after 9 a.m., and were satisfied we'd had enough of a break by around 10:30. Plus, I'd asked Ranger Metallica the night before what he'd thought about that theory, and he said don't worry about spending the whole day there—keep going if you feel ready; there's a rest house only a mile and a half above it. So off we went.

The next stretch of trail is dubbed "the furnace." This bit is hot as hell, as you might expect from its moniker, and dusty. It was a long mile and a half until the rest house, known as Three Mile Rest House, as it's three miles from the top of the rim. In my memory, this rest house had a bit of a party atmosphere. There were at least 10 people seeking respite there, filling up at the water spigot, elevating their legs, and scarfing snacks. We met a group of hikers from Flagstaff who were doing rim to river to rim in a single day—attempting in half the time what we were doing in two days (a thing that is so, so discouraged by the park service). The funny thing was these world-class hikers were using Wal-Mart broomsticks for walking sticks. I think because I was absolutely loopy from heat and fatigue, I found this fact unbelievably funny.

There is no toilet here, so I found a tree (pardon). Liquid turns neatly to clay in that soil, which keeps it all very contained and tidy. No fuss, no mess! I ran my tanktop under the spigot and put it on soaking wet. That kept me cool for about 10 seconds.

As AE and I were leaving the rest house in good spirits, a ranger there told us that our group looked like we were in great condition, compared to the state of many other hikers who reach that point. He said he was deputizing us—that we were to give safety tips (regarding electrolytes, water, shade, rest) to anyone we might pass who looked like they were in trouble. He said we looked like we knew what we were doing. Maybe Ranger Rick says that to all the ladies, but I was feeling really good. (Actually, the whole way up, my heart rate never got much higher than 160, which is a vast improvement over the 180s I'd seen on my monitor as I was hoofing up the Vernal Falls stretch at Half Dome last year.)

On the trip up to Mile and a Half Rest House (guess why it is so named), things were starting to feel more treacherous. It was the full heat of the day now (maybe shy of 100 degrees since we were closer to the top, which can be 20 degrees or so cooler than down at the bottom). And plus the impact of my toes against my shoes was getting more intense. That next rest house is cruel in that you need to take several stairs to reach it. Also, it is rather small, with room for only, say, two hikers to sit with legs elevated. Also, this rest house has a bathroom with composting toilets, but those are in another shelter, at least 30 paces away. Thirty backtracking paces feels like a lot at this point in the hike—trust me.

Some N.B.s: By this point my pack was probably around 20 pounds, because I'd drank much of the water and eaten much of the food, and I'd put my camping pad in a duffel bag shared by several group members, which a mule carried to the top. Certainly DML's and LP's packs must have been heavier as they did not make use of space in the mule duffel. The whole trip down, I'd drank about three electrolyte-packed liters of water. On the way up, it was more like six. I was recalling Chris Rock's sketch about "Put a little Tussin on it," because we had conditioned ourselves to think like that about electrolytes. The cure all. Knee hurts? Sprinkle a little electrolyte powder on there.

We knew we were close to the top now, but looking up, the rim still seemed like an unbelievable way up, not to mention it looked like a sheer cliff. But that's what switchbacks are for. And more, and more, and more, and more of them, mostly exposed to full sun. The switchbacks can be demoralizing, and AK was exhausted and frustrated; you can see the top now, but it seems like you'll just never get there.

As we got closer, we saw more people on the trail, day hikers who came down with only a small bottle of water and no pack, and who were looking very, very clean in white Lacoste things. We looked like hell—covered in red dust and sweat and Moleskin, swollen and shuffling—and we knew it. It was a funny contrast to see them, and I wonder what they thought of us.

Finally, almost unfathomably, we crept up on it: There was the sign marking the trail head. We'd done it! MIG and I stood at the top and waved our arms and hollered cheers as loudly as we could as our fellow hikers crested the cliff too. We had all done it, and we'd all done great. It was a feeling of unmitigated joy.

And deep physical pain. My toes were useless, and the consensus seemed to be that our calves all hurt like all get out. LP's knee, which had been ailing her long before the trip, must have throbbed under the red-mud stained bandage she'd wrapped around it. We all tried to be patient through a few group photos with arms raised in triumph before we got on the shuttle to head back to camp. We moved slowly, Thriller-video style, in a limp apparently known as the "Kaibab Shuffle" among Grand Canyon hikers.

On the bus, I told the woman next to me: "Oh dear, I'm sorry if I offend." We didn't smell good. We didn't look good. And we felt like a million bucks.

Sunday night—thanks in part to a combination of Lunesta, red wine, celebratory champagne, ear plugs, and a black-out sleep mask, not to mention a 10-hour trek out of the depths of the Grand Canyon—I slept like a corpse. (And was also thankful not to be one after the harrowing experience.)

The 500-mile drive home to Los Angeles from Arizona via Route 66 with MIG and AK was filled with triumphant giggles, dirty jokes, and quips about electrolytes, water consumption, and salty snacks, which had been both our saviors and our albatrosses on the hike.

And our drive was filled with talk about what impossible heights we'll try for next year, in both the literal and life-goal senses of the word.

Peaks and Valleys

Sweet. A blog post about a dream I had last night. Snore, right?

But seriously. We were on a balcony of a very, very tall high-rise building. Actually, we thought were were on the balcony, but later realized we were actually hovering near it in a basket trailing from a helicopter. For a girl with a moderate fear of heights, this was a nervous-making thing. After what seemed like forever in that state, the helicopter finally took off, soaring away from the building, carrying only me now in its basket, and then lowered gracefully so that my basket was gliding over the clearest Caribbean-looking ocean imaginable, where the sea was the faintest shade of blue, but mostly only showed right through to the sand below. It was heavenly. I was getting ready to drop in for a swim.

...and then a private caller woke me up at 6 a.m. for the second time this week. I will get you if I find you.

I'm sure this dreaming of heights, of soaring, of potentially plummeting, has something to do with the Grand Canyon trek, kicking off in T minus two days now. Two!

Temperature range: forecast at 39 to 108 degrees. Approximate percent grade for much of the way up: 15. Friends crazy enough to attempt: Nine, including me.

Subject line of today's pre-hike thread: "Just to add to your anxiety..."

Notable graf contained therein: "Apparently there is also a slight chance of showers this weekend. Which sounds kind of wonderful in 105-degree heat, but I have no idea what that means in terms of lightening killing us on the trail. Never fear... it's not likely, statistically, to kill more than one of us. That's only a one in nine chance you'll be fried."

Whew! Cake.

Beware of Women Who Make Lists

That was the punch line of some comic strip ADG and I read in college. And we found it perplexing and not funny. Because we know that women who make lists are the best kinds.

With the big Grand Canyon hike near on the horizon, by now I'd be knee deep in lists, and many of the items on those would be crossed off already. But I got distracted (not my style, but "life comes at you fast," as the commercials say). So it's T minus eight days until departure and I'm... listless.

You see, there is a lot to think about when packing for the Grand Canyon hike. The temperature at the top rim is supposed to be something like 30 degrees cooler than the temperature at the bottom. At the top, we'll be car camping and can bring luxuries like air mattresses and real pillows. For the bottom, it's whatever you can cram in your pack and carry first all the way down and then all the way up without dying. It's supposed to be like 9 million degrees, or really, above 100. So even if my booty is in shape for this (and even that is questionable), my lists lag woefully behind.

But there's time. I bought a new pack with a solid frame and a camping pad from REI, plus some mysterious dehydrated food packages that become lasagna when you reconstitute them. Just this week I've bought six Clif bars and replaced the battery in my trusty Polar heart rate monitor, which I am counting on to tell me among many other things that I burned 10,000 calories over the two-day trek. Coupled with the info on LP's pedometer, I should be able to sate my voracious appetite for information. I need data. I'm like a data vampire.

Next up, I think I'll buy a dependable visor or hat (the desperate need for sun protection is as much about vanity as anything else, but hey, at least I know myself) and maybe a new tank top with built-in sports bra that will have to be up to a serious task.

List making aside, one benefit of recent distractions is that I have not been devouring every blog ever written on hiking the Grand Canyon by way of the Bright Angel trail. (This so-called preparation did not help me before Half Dome last year.) In the only one I read several months ago, some lesbians faced serious complications from heat exhaustion and vomited uncontrollably. Or something like that; I kind of blocked it out.

Anyway, regular readers of this blog will appreciate the great symbol it will be if I manage to claw myself out of a giant hole in the earth. And you know what, y'all? It's on.

Sands/Hourglass

I bought three bunches of daffodils yesterday at Trader Joe's and they've already all opened into terrific yellow blooms in vases around my house. Daffodils always make me smile on account of this memory: In Berkeley, there was a thing called the Daffodil Festival, which was some kind of Greek-system charity fund-raiser. All the sorority houses would sell bunches of five flowers for $1 on Sproul Plaza. For that price, it seemed the campus became transformed into a brightly hued kinetic sculpture, with blooms peeking from bobbing backpacks, tucked behind ears on happy heads, and sitting in sills all along Bancroft. For a limited time, the sunny accessory seemed to transcend genres; who wouldn't want one of those pretty little things? Such a fond springtime memory from an era during which a handful of life's greatest gifts converged: youth, optimism, curiosity, hope, friendship, and learning. Le sigh.

Today I have the first sunburn of the season after a hike in Malibu with the girls (during which we figured out the answers to all the world's mysteries, natch) across five little streams to a graceful waterfall. Warm weather is my happy place.

You can take the girl out of California, but... please don't.

Every Moment Frontin' and Maxin'

Yeah, I know that headline is about as relevant to 2008 as my last headline, which made reference to the Olson twins' weight, which hasn't been news in five years. But the first hint of beautiful weather every year will forever remind me of Fresh Prince's "Summertime," and I'm totally OK with that. (Plus the line about hustling to the mall to get a shorts set cracks me up for its specificity, just like that Usher lyric in "Confessions Part II" about, "hand in hand at the Beverly Center, like, man, not givin' a damn who sees me..." You go, Usher, all up in the Beverly Center with an Ice Blended and a Cinnabon. Maybe lyrics about going to the mall are just inherently funny?)

Sweet Jesus, it is an insanely gorgeous summer day out there. I had been slipping on my New Year's resolution to take lunch breaks since award season took over my life, but I'm going to try to get back on that wagon. I walked to the bank and back, and I'm shvitzing like a gavone. It's 80+ out there.

This is good news because I have been craving thermons, and scrambling to put together the best possible spring vacation under some limitations of time and loot. We started out with grand dreams of Tulum, then briefly considered Hawaii, but now we might be priced out of our airfare budget on account of it's going to be Easter weekend and crazy expensive. So, somehow this trip is being rewritten into a Sequoia hiking jaunt, or a Palm Springs foray. And those both sound divine, but a girl is trying to go snorkeling. SNORKELING IN WARM WATER is what I see on the inside of my eyelids when I blink. It's all I want. So stay tuned.

That said, the local B12 is doing me good, and I'm counting my blessings that my health has been restored. Yesterday, I felt like myself physically for the first time since before I got sick. (I have been dividing everything in my assessment into categories of BIGS—before I got sick—and AIGS—after I got sick). Last week, after the delightful vomiting attack mercifully subsided, it gave way initially to a lousy feeling of utter fatigue, like I was dragging 50-pound weights around by my ankles. Maybe it was just effects of the dehydration, or the result of my inability to stomach enough calories to sustain a robust life, or maybe I was even still sick. But I was beginning to panic that it was going to be a semi-permanent state. Wrong! I am back up and running at full capacity (and that means that I am in the condition to go to boxing class tonight and get whooped).

And I shudder to think here might be one particular reason why: BIGS, my coffee, alcohol, and Ambien intake was healthy (and by healthy I only mean vigorous). AIGS, I essentially cut out most of the coffee, booze, and sleep aids all at once. I think I can feel my insides getting all scoured out as a result. Day by day, I am becoming one of those creepy L.A. non-substance-using hiker types. And I can be OK with that. (At least for a while).

Who You Callin...?

It was another beautiful winter day out there on Saturday, kiddies.

Auld Lang Syne Language

Happy New Year, lovelies! I thoroughly enjoyed the last couple weeks of 2007, which involved a lot of friend time, and family time, and a lot of touring around California, which—and I know I repeat myself—you just can't beat. It's so breathtaking, our state.
On New Year's Eve, in a friend's Russian Hill apartment in San Francisco, MT innocently inquired as to my hobbies (no doubt after I'd said something snotty about how busy I am and how robust my blessed life already is, dang, lay off). All I could think of to say on the spot was "working out" (which might be a kind of lame cop-out L.A. answer), and "blogging" (which is also kind of a cop-out, since my Internet self is a more composed, less-interesting, anecdotified version of my real-life self and adventures, and I haven't blogged much lately anyway, like I'm Princess Melissa or something). Then of course there is watching Project Runway while texting, but you don't have to tell me that's not a hobby. And hair is not a hobby; it's damage control executed with scientific precision. I like to think I am a good and dutiful friend to many among a close-knit but large group of folks, and I know good friends are an earned privilege. But a hobby? Not so much, I guess.

And of course there's work, which I have resolved to remember in 2008 is not a hobby, but a job—albeit one that happens to consume most of my time including evenings and weekends on account of events, and one that not coincidentally combines things that I deeply care about: writing, photography, and career. Still, how did I come up job-swamped and hobby-free in the waning weeks of 2007? The Sassy-reading 1989 version of me would not have seen that coming.

So I'm putting this out there to friends and strangers, this question of what my new hobby will be in 2008. Can you help me with a suggestion? I always lean toward hobbies that I can parlay/multi-task into being, say, money making as well as fitness promoting, or perhaps crafty and meditative and entrepreneurial and tummy flattening all at once. I'm into free-time efficiencies. But of course, I'm open to any constructive or fun ideas. Whether you know me or not and you've got one, hit me.

[Current potential hobby front runners are Italian language refreshing, healthy vegetarian cooking at a higher level, volleyball (which seems like cheating, because it's one of the blue-eyed boy's existing hobbies, and he'd be coaching me), tennis (same deal), hiking (fab, but achingly obvious)...]

I thank you in advance for your ideas. And I wish all of us more joy in 2008 than we possibly could have known was coming. Then bam—you got it.

The Half Dome Report

Our group of 10 adventurers is back from Yosemite where we embarked yesterday on our big, much-anticipated Half Dome hike. Just got back now, in fact. I walked in the door, took a fabulously long shower (if only it never had to end), and emerged with about 32 ounces of leave-in conditioner in the ol’ mane—which was desperately worse for the wear. And I’m utterly exhausted, but I thought it would be the most honest and raw time to write about the experience, so here goes.

Some background for those readers who may have come upon this by Googling “hiking Half Dome” or the like: I am 29 and do four to five rigorous weight training and cardio workouts per week in the gym, but I’m not known for being outdoorsy or a hiker. I am fond of clean fingernails and so forth, but I was eager to take on this challenge because LP was such a dutiful and excited leader (this adventure having been on her to-do list forever) and I was grateful for the opportunity to try something I would not likely initiate myself. It goes without saying, but my experience was not identical to the other hikers in my group, and this is only my tale of the intense journey undertaken alongside them.

I’d read so many blogs about the hike before attempting it, and I found that nearly all of the writers focused on the physical experience, with little mention of the emotional one, so that’s much of what I’ll write here (which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me in real life). I also hope I’ll get the chronology of trail milestones right, because many of them have already merged together in my memory.

***
We awoke at 5 AM yesterday, and made it to the trail head at about 7:45 AM. (We’d already walked an easy mile from the car to that point.) We took the Mist Trail up the first couple miles, which takes you past Vernal Falls via an intense stretch of granite stairs. Per the trail’s name, it was wet and we were prepared with windbreakers (although it was the beginning of the end for my hair). I was wearing a heart rate monitor, and noticed I was really coming close to my maximum heart rate even in this first stretch (although I’m convinced my heart rate at rest has increased by 10+ BPM in the last few months due to work-related stress, so that was probably not an unrelated factor in the high reading). I’m sure we were all feeling exerted, but I really felt fine and recharged after a short Power Bar rest to enjoy the fantastic view. At this point, DL had a bit of a nose bleed, which may have already been an altitude issue, since we’d come from Los Angeles and the Yosemite Valley floor is at 4,000 feet—and I believe we’d already climbed about 2,000 feet from there. (The blue-eyed guy later told me that it was around here that he saw a woman vomiting from exertion off to the side. When her hat fell off her head, her boyfriend, who was cautiously standing paces away said, “Ah, your hat fell.” Nice guy.) A bit further up, an arcing rainbow spanned the notch view through the granite. Spectacular.

More granite steps upon more and more, and I was managing, but a few of us stopped to the side to wait for another to catch up. We ate some more trail mix and pressed on. Keep in mind that this hike is more than eight miles to the top, and nearly all of it is accomplished by going continually up, up, up.

But there is one sandy stretch of about a mile that is roughly flat, which we encountered next. This is such a nice relief. The Merced River runs next to it, the pine smell pervades, and some wildflowers grow. And it’s perhaps the first time I could really appreciate those things because I wasn’t just focusing on the work involved with ascent. There’s a bathroom here with a composting toilet (if I recall that’s the last stop before the squat-behind-a-tree method becomes the go-to relief). Also around here you get your first glimpse of the dome, but it’s sort of a meaningless gauge of distance because there are so many switchbacks over about five miles still between you and it. But with the extreme zoom on my camera I was able to catch my first sight of the folks climbing up the cables at the very top.

At this point, I’d already drank two liters of water from my Platypus (I’d found it hard to ration since you can’t see how much remains in your backpack), but our group had use of a filter and pumped water at the next stream we encountered, which, it turned out was the last filterable water I remember seeing. According to my Polar heart rate monitor (which I have tested and believe is fully reliable), I’d already burned close to 2,000 calories at this point. And we saw a very pretty little butterfly alight near the spring.

At some point we saw a sign that said 2.0 miles to Half Dome, and I mistakenly allowed myself to feel like we were almost there. (Ha.) (HA!) This was a particularly treacherous stretch, and my heart rate monitor was flashing at me (I never read the manual, of course, but I assume the flashing heart means cease and desist. SE suggested I apply more sunscreen because my chest was getting pink, but I’m like, “Girl, I think that’s just my heart trying to leap out of my chest…” I believe most of us girls, who had clustered together at this point, were in roughly the same condition.) Five of us gals sat down to rest on a fallen tree. Another girl, a stranger, passed us and said, “FYI, there are termites all over that log.” And we all just looked at her and managed a giggle when we realized that no mere termite swarm in the vicinity of our shorts-clad bums was going to deprive us of this little rest.

The blue-eyed guy, whom I hadn’t seen for miles—and ended up being somewhat of a dark horse master of this hike—came bounding down the hill to pick up my pack for me and carry it a few dozen paces, since he’d already been up further and mysteriously had energy to spare. Not too much further up and we came to a clearing where for the first time we could see—everything. Everything! The valley floor thousands of feet below, snow left on other peaks, waterfalls. And to the left and up, Half Dome. There we could clearly see the treacherous cables that guide hikers up the last 1,000 or so nearly vertical feet (I’ve read it’s a 45-degree grade, but it looks like, er, 9 million degrees) to the top—the cables about which I’d read so much and knew I was going to have to overcome tremendous fear to conquer. But what we also saw below the cables were a bunch of folks scurrying up a cable-less stretch of granite in a way that seemed, at least from where we were standing, to defy gravity. Looking at those hikers, I said to LP, “I don’t get it.” And she goes, “I absolutely don’t get it either. How…?”

Pressing on, we got to that stretch next. It’s a series of switchback steps cut into the granite, which I either had not read about, or had not understood the severity of. So up, up, up I’m heading, facing straight into the rock, until I heard the woman right in front of me say to her friend, “I need to go back down right now,” with an urgency that flipped a switch in me. I looked down. And then, in Hitchcockian fashion (perhaps not, but I like the film-school drama of saying so), my view got all distorted and foreshortened and vertiginous. And I started to panic. I wanted to train my brain to keep the fear at bay, but my physical body betrayed me and I began to hyperventilate. I moved off to the side of the path and clutched on to a bit of granite (natch—what else?), and three of the girls in my crew caught up with me and comforted me.

And then I heard a man’s voice from a few paces above say, “You need some of this?” And there was a guy clutching onto a small pine tree with his right arm and holding out a bottle of Jack with his left. Turned out he’d experienced a spell of the same vertigo and his girlfriend had gone ahead without him. He was essentially paralyzed with fear—clutching some flora and a bottle in desperation. (Which I admit is at least a little bit hilarious in retrospect. But I didn't agree that drinking on the side of a mountain could help one get either up or down safely.) Somehow, inspired by the girls’ pep talks, and my determination to press on in spite of the fear, (oh, and a small blue anti-anxiety pill from the bejeweled pill box in my backpack—what, like I was leaving camp without it?), we all headed up the switchbacks and our new friend put away the bottle and followed suit. I was holding onto the rocks instead of walking fully upright—leaning in gave me more confidence. Seeing my condition (and hearing my loud hyperventilation) I got a lot of encouragement from hikers passing us on the way down. “One hundred more yards—you’re there. Right where those two trees are—you’re so there…” someone said. I looked up and saw the blue-eyed guy standing by two trees and I mustered all my strength to hustle up toward him. In this stretch, though, there were no steps at all—just an impossibly steep slab of granite that is more than a little bit sandy.

I scrambled up quickly ahead of the others knowing I had to do it in one fell swoop—like ripping off a band-aid—if I was going to do it at all.

At the top, the girls sat down next to me, and I put my head in the blue-eyed guy’s lap and cried a little bit. I had read in several other blogs that this hike provoked tears in others for a number of reasons—exertion, elation, and convoluted feelings of triumph and insignificance in the face of, “this giant whirling rock [that is our earth] and how we're all going to die,” to quote a j-school buddy and commenter on this blog.

Tracing his fingers around the dirt and rocks, the blue-eyed guy discovered a left-behind ring and gave it to me. It has a silvery pearl in the center and some brown stones beside and, by the looks of it, it was probably owned by a hiker who uses rock crystal deodorant and wears Tevas, but it fits me just fine and I adore it.

We were at 8,000 feet now. Although the cables still remained, I felt I’d made it. I’d overcome the panic on the switchbacks and was content to wait with many other hikers (including our new pal with the Jack Daniels) who also waited for friends to make that last ascent. But the more I sat (along with another member of our own group), the more I battled the decision to go on. (Even trip organizer LP had looked at that daunting path of cables and said, "I'm not even sure that I want to..." but the hesitation passed and she boldly went on.) The line to get to the cables was actually nearly an hour long (Yosemite rush hour!) and I had a lot of time to contemplate whether I should join back up with my crew and head on up the cliff. I was looking for a sign. At some point, it was too late because those members of our group who were going had already headed up, and I was in absolutely no place to tackle that without support—given that I was not sure I was in any place to tackle it with support. Then some disappointment set in because I knew—I know for sure—I had the strength (mostly upper body is required) to make it, but the height held me back. And the times I saw an unsecured hat or water bottle skitter off the side of that cliff and clang down into oblivion—well, I was relieved with my choice.

MJ and I waited near the cables for a while, and then decided to make our way slowly down the switchbacks and meet our crew at the clearing below; that would give us time to tackle the challenge at our own pace. I found this actually far less disconcerting on the way down than on the way up—in fact, hardly disconcerting at all (small blue pill at work, perhaps? I wondered if I should have taken it a little sooner). We met up with the crew after they returned from the summit, and I continued to bite back some disappointment on the way down that I hadn’t attempted the cables. (Although—notwithstanding my confidence in my upper body strength from those “Armed and Dangerous” classes at the gym—I’m not sure how a Jewish girl with a Jewish mom and a piano-drop mindset* could really ever do that part, but I'm sure it happens. In fact, AE was a fine example yesterday! Although her outlook is generally more sunny-side than piano-drop, bless her heart for it.)

It was after 4 PM now and getting late to start down. All the blogs that I read that said going down was not easier on the body than going up, but that was far from true in our experience. We took the John Muir trail—longer in distance but with fewer granite steps—and made it all the way to the bottom in about three and a half hours and my heart rate never went above 134 in those 8.6 or so downhill miles. We were able to filter some more water from the river (I drank three liters on the way up and had been plum out for the way down) and I managed to get in some good heart-to-heart convos (or was it just altitude/exertion/spiritual experience-induced T.M.I.?) with each the blue-eyed guy and dear old friend LP on the way.

We did pass one other hiker who asked us how our day had been and of course we said it was amazing, even through our exhaustion—because indeed it had been so incredible—and she said, “I stopped having fun hours ago.” Hmm, I felt bad for the friend walking with her who must have had to listen to those complaints for about 15 miles. Later, we passed a charming group of deer, and a bit further down, I got a “Go Bears!” from a gal who saw the Cal logo on my visor, which tickled me to no end (natch). And somehow, even though I had visible dirt caked everywhere and a blond afro roughly the size of Manhattan island, some Stanford alum tried to pick me up on the way down the mountain. Of course, I have a boyfriend. And, importantly (with only one notable exception)—Cal girls worth their blue and gold don’t date Stanford boys anyway.

Then, just as dark was setting in around 8 PM, we made it to the bottom.

The blue-eyed boy was driving my car back to camp. I got in the passenger’s seat and, without warning, fell right to sleep mid-sentence. Back at Wawona, I was so exhausted that I flung myself about haphazardly like a pinball in the tent trying to change into my sweats and out of my hiking gear. By the light of the flashlight, I noticed blood caked in the inside of my white sock, but was in no state to investigate. I was like, “I’ll just file this under T for ‘deal with it tomorrow’…”

I dragged myself to the campfire, fairly catatonic from exhaustion—but strangely not at all hungry or thirsty. (I think the adrenaline had suppressed my hunger all day, since I never had felt like eating and had only forced myself. N.B.: According to my trusty heart rate monitor, I burned close to 6,000 calories all told, far more than the 2,500 or so some other bloggers have suggested.) It all gets very blurry here—I thought it was from fatigue, but it likely also had something to do with the high ratio of whiskey to hot chocolate in my mug—but we laughed and carried on and congratulated ourselves on doing this tremendous thing. I was seriously touched when KB produced a piece of my hair from who knows where and told me he’d brought it to the top so my DNA made it up the cables indeed even if I didn’t. That sounds like some kind of yarn, but if it’s really true, I think it’s adorable.

Yada, yada, veggie sausages, s’mores, popcorn, putting stuff on the fire to see if it would explode—details are sketchy. At some point we were back in the tent, but couldn’t sleep right away—and not just because of the ongoing revelry around the fire outside. The blue-eyed boy said to me, “All I see is granite when I close my eyes.” And it was just what I had been thinking too.

This morning I woke up with a headache (dehydration? whiskey hangover? combo?) and sore hip flexors and calves. A very, very cold river runs near the Wawona camp grounds, and after we all took an excruciating dip, I swear I came out feeling perfectly good as new. I said, “I feel just like I had a bit of a tough workout at the gym yesterday—nothing more than that!” [Spoiler alert: that was foreshadowing.]

We packed up camp, took a series of fabulously goofy group photos, said our goodbyes, and headed out. (Sniff…I hate when wonderful things have to end.)

Afterward, the blue-eyed guy and I had a 300-mile drive home, and we stopped periodically—once for gas, once to get lost in a very lousy part of Fresno, once for pea soup at a place shaped like a big windmill, and once for coffee and Half Dome postcards. And each time I got out of the car my legs betrayed me and threatned to collapse under me like foldable tent poles and it was like learning to walk from scratch. The blue-eyed guy said, “Aw. You’re just like a little fawn.” A totally fair comparison (but he was limping too).

And so, over the Grapevine and through the woods, I just hours ago made it back home to good ol’ Westwood and my clothes-eating cat. Scanning the weekend mail, I pulled out an envelope containing my renewed passport. How’s that for well-timed poetry? One massive hike tackled in an ineffably beautiful national park, zillions of new adventures to go.

*From Aimee Bender's essay "House of Love and Bragging" in The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt:

"Here is the scene. Something good just happened. I am happy about it. Maybe it was a good writing day, or I am in a good relationship, or I have helped someone, or I feel a sense of self in a true, deep way. I am walking to the market, to buy myself a peach and fizzy water. It's a beautiful blue day. Or it's not, but my mood is so high that it doesn't matter. I myself am a beautful blue day.

Little do I know that the piano shipment in the freight airplane high above me has had a mishap. The baby grand piano, which was right at the bottom of the aircraft, has come loose. Someone didn't lock that airplane door. He was drunk. He was in a bad mood. The piano wasn't tied properly. It has been hanging there, by three legs—by two legs—by one leg and now it has tumbled out of the airplane. I am still walking to the store. Whistle, whistle. I do a little skip.

Miles above me, whirring through the air, is this giant black paino, gaining speed as it goes. Free-falling. I am thinking about the good thing that has happened today, thinking about it. How nice I feel. How glad I am today. You'd think I would look up at the whirring sound, and maybe cars honk at me to look up, but I am oblivious, content, and proud. I step right into the path, and the piano flattens me into a pancake.

Better keep my eyes up. Better be vigilant, particularly on those good days. Any good day not marked by worry and vigilance will be met with tragedy. It exhausts me even to write it.

Secular me? Ha."

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

You know how if, like, your arm hurts, and you start looking on the Internet for all the reasons your arm could hurt, then you end up determining that you're going to die in an instant and you probably have the flesh-eating bacteria or cancer? The Internet is scary like that.

I'm experiencing a similar thing the more I read about the Half Dome hike, now less than three weeks away. I have yet to find a blogger writing about the experience who doesn't mention that training in the gym won't prepare you, and that going down is not easier on your body than going up, and that this will be a 12-hour ordeal so if we don't manage to start right at daybreak, well, then, we're basically screwed. All scary points, but manageable.

But here's the detail that got way under my skin this weekend: the matter of the last quarter mile, the bit where you climb at a 45-degree grade using the Yosemite-provided cables, which will shred your hands as you hold on for dear life, so you better bring gloves. The upper-body-strength requirement doesn't scare me so much here (although I'm sure it should) but it's the fear-inspiring height that I hadn't spent much time thinking about before this weekend. Apparently, according to bloggers who have done the hike, many hikers panic when faced with the cables and don't make the ascent. It could only be a very daunting thing that could make a hiker turn back just shy of the summit, after he has already made it 4,000 vertical feet over eight miles and six hours or so.

Anyway, note to self. If you know you suffer from insomnia, don't read a blog that includes this comment right before you try to go to bed:

The cables are intimidating because: If you slip, you will fall to your death, no doubt about it.

Update: Did it on June 2, 2007! Read my story here.