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

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.

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.

Memorial Day Weekend: By the Numbers

1.5 loads of laundry done (goal: 2)

2 out of 5 total Planet Earth DVDs watched on a 46-inch HD TV (obsessed), along with at least

5 episodes of the Deadliest Catch marathon

1 kick-butt 90-minute massage session

1 Lakers loss

70 degrees, or maybe not even, for a high temperature (boo)

$150 spent on a new blue polka-dot dress at Intuition (marked down from $310)

2 fancy cocktails consumed at Seven Grand downtown

1 new in-joke, at least (involving the "Pita-Pizza Connection")

45 minutes spent at the new Americana at Brand complex, competing for elbow room with about...

20 billion other shoppers

3 workouts since Friday evening, including 2 solid Hard Body Meltdown classes for a total of...

1,250 calories burned, which hardly neutralizes approximately...

50,000 calories consumed at...

3 barbecues, including

1 that was totally saturated with meats and meat paraphernalia, where I ate mostly desserts, and

1 that was almost fully vegetarian and included

1 recipe that I want to steal (portabella burgers with feta, pearl onions, garlic, dash of cayenne), plus

3 rounds of insanely concentrated fresh veggie juices that included stuff like kale. Overall, there were at least

5 instances when I felt like I would rather get my stomach pumped than endure the over-full feeling for another moment, but that's just

1 of the hazards of another great

3-day weekend among pals.

I Won the Lottery

More specifically, PBS selected my Antiques Roadshow ticket application by way of lottery! So I am the proud owner of two tickets to the Roadshow tour stop in sunny Palm Springs in June. Sweet!

My life rules.

Coachella Weekend 2008: Seen and Heard

A glut of dust
A naked man doing a cannonball
Hella. many. Uggs.
A tortilla being used as a coaster for a popsicle
Two grown men riding a six-foot-tall donkey-shaped piñata off a roof into a pool (N.B.: donkey piñatas apparently sink snout last in dramatic slow-mo)
A live donkey
Bangs in spades
Snow-covered mountaintops rising above 100-degree desert valleys
The entire Cathedral City police department being brought to bear on a harmless little pool party [halo]
A girl eating a popsicle while pumping gas in a bikini (come to think of it, that was me)
"Stars are just like Us! They pump gas!"
Many swimsuits cut rather shockingly high or low, many worn with fanny packs
"You're leaving? You're Ghandi?"
Acres of tents in which I was very glad not to be sleeping
Superlative lighting and art installations
Portishead and Prince
Mustaches transcending irony into another category I can't even name
Something about gladiator man-sandals paired with a Speedo?
A giant-size Gold's Gym T-shirt with rolled-up sleeves worn by a woman in a look that so poignantly and freakishly evoked my junior-high years it nearly made me turn into a pillar of salt to gaze upon
A lawn turned entirely to mud that will need to be resodded for sure
Copious beans and rice
Churros
Only one small puddle of barf, surprisingly
"It doesn't make sense to set up an ancillary towel camp poolside, when we have our base camp here on the grass." (Not my words in this case, but words I would have said because, hello, it's strategic.)
A man covered in paint and neck tattoos wielding a mallet
"This dive is called 'Call 911.'"
"This dive is called 'How We All End Up in Tomorrow's Paper.'"
My odometer flipping to 10,000 miles
Insane amounts of good clean fun

Thanks for the memories, Coachella 2008!

Spring Break '08

Tonight was going to be my first workout since returning from vacation last night around midnight. Running a little late for boxing class, I swiftly kicked off my work shoes in the locker room to swap them for my gym shoes when I looked down and realized...those aren't my feet. Whose feet are those? The toes look different. Stumpier, shorter. The ankles are fatter. Why? Oh wait, both legs are swollen from toes nearly to knees.

I started to run through all the things that had happened on our big Yucatan trip that could have resulted in this. Walking in Merida in skimpy sandals, I'd kicked the back of the blue-eyed boy's foot and had gotten a bruise on my pinkie toe that had turned all the colors of the rainbow (of which I had taken a million photos, Flat Stanley-style, posed with iguanas and ruins and things). But the toe was feeling better now, so it couldn't be that, could it? Shockingly, I hadn't gotten any notable bug bites, or did I, without realizing it? Ah, or was it the sunburn? On Sunday, on a beach in Tulum, the blue-eyed boy and I both turned red as lobsters (a trite expression for a really scary and painful experience) in a regrettable turn of events, which, I feared at that moment, would change the course of our trip from awesome to barely withstandable. But it didn't. Like Destiny's Child, we're survivors. And our trip freakin ruled, for real.

Here's how it went down.

On Thursday we flew into Cancun, rented a hooptie-ish Nissan Tsuru (which makes me laugh, because Tsuru is just like a Yiddish word meaning, roughly, aggravation, or like, issues, as in "girl has major tsuris," or at least that's the way I use it, which may be kind of a bastardization), and drove by way of the very expensive toll road (the cuota) all the way to Merida, the capital of the Yucatan. The 300-peso or so road offers only one stop, in Vallodolid, and is almost curiously well marked with signs that mostly tell you you're driving too fast. It's a straight shot through nothing but jungle.

Arriving at last, we checked in to an adorable little B&B, sheltered from the noise of the rather frenetic city behind thoughtful landscaping marked by waterfalls and a secluded pool. From this HQ, we set out the next day for our first day trip, to the ruins of Uxmal. A spectacular site. I told the blue-eyed boy, "As soon as we leave this place, I am going to imagine it was all a dream." Because it's so surreal, to see that glorious pyramid rising out of the jungle. We shared the cost of a guida with a family from Seattle, who had two little boys who were very well behaved. I liked this family because the dad was inquisitive and asked a lot of smart questions, and reminded me of my dad. (Later, at Chichen Itza, we'd meet a pair of medievalists-turned-engineers who I would take to for the same reason.)

Back in Merida, after a siesta, we strolled through the town in search of the pretty filigrana style of earrings I had wanted (but apparently you can mainly only find affordable, quality versions of these in the U.S., imported from Mexico, and not in Mexico itself). We ate and ate and strolled and strolled (the toe incident happened somewhere in here), and tried to find some ballet folklorico performance at the university, but alas it was happening instead the following Friday. That allowed us the opportunity to sleep earlier and wake earlier for the next adventure, this one to the ruins at Chichen Itza. I urge you to go and see Chichen once before you die. It is spectacular.

And the thing is, it's a major tourist attraction. Tour buses filled with mainly Europeans and Asians flood into this place, but, at least from my perspective, it didn't have that touristy feel; the former city is so huge—many kilometers in diameter—that the tourists are all spread out. And the fact that it's a wide-open space surrounded by and intermingled with jungle kind of dampens any noise. Even the dozens (hundreds, probably) of vendors who hawk their pottery and embroidery and things to the hoards actually kind of add color and spirit to the place, rather than take away from it. The vast ball field, observatory, and of course the iconic pyramid were among my favorite spots, and the figure of Chac-Mool carved there in stone seemed so deeply cute to me. Loved him. Bought a magnet bearing his likeness. See? Vendors.

Another thing? It's hot as all get out in Chichen Itza. We stayed three hours, but could have explored for days if not for A) it was suffocatingly hot and B) we, like, have jobs in California.

N.B.: Inexplicably the ruin sites on the Yucatan peninsula seem to have the most luxurious public bathrooms anywhere. Lots of marble. Kind of like the Wynn. OK, not like the Wynn, but more luxe than you might expect from public bathrooms in a Mexican jungle.

Moving on. Heading back toward the east side of the peninsula in the tsuris, I mean Tsuru, we stopped for a dip in Dzitnup, a cenote, or sinkhole in a cave filled with glassy fresh water. I had read much about the cenotes, including that Dzitnup offered water so turquoise and clear that "it might have been plucked from a dream." I'm going with no on that. The cave seemed a bit dank, and the water far from turquoise, with little natural light actually coming from the hole in the top of the cave. (Later, at Aktun Chen, my faith in the Yucatan's famed cenotes would be restored.)

With almost no daylight left of Saturday, we pulled into Tulum. In the darkness, we couldn't see the ocean yet (I was practically vibrating with anticipation; the beach portion of the trip had been the part about which I'd been dreaming forever), but we could sure hear the waves crashing feet from us. We checked in to our eight-room hotel; the reception desk is unmanned, so you go ask the bartender, who at his own pace finds the housekeeper, who strolls down the beach to find someone who feels like giving you a room key.

You see, there is no rush in Tulum for anything, and there is no need to throw your towel and bag down on the perfect spot on the beach before someone elese takes it because A) the spots are all perfect and B) there is no one else there. Thank god there is still a place like that on this earth. (Come to think of it, Treasure Beach, Jamaica is like that too, mon, likkle more.) Sun and wind power the hotel (both are in large supply), which has no air conditioner, but does have a ceiling fan, in which the blue-eyed boy accidentally inserted his hand while raising his arm to put on his shirt and sliced through a couple of fingers. It is fortunate that the casualty was not more significant; there aren't really hospitals in Tulum, so the general rule of thumb is, "be careful, for real."

When the sun came up, the vast expanse of beach sprawled in front of us, the sea a color so blue it requires a new word for blue, or not a word, but a gesture, or not a gesture, but a sigh. Incredible, unspeakable. You run out of superlatives quickly at the sight of Tulum.

As far as I can tell, Tulum is the playground of A) fancy, classy, adventuresome travelers with taste and at least a vague interest in yoga and B) total freakin hippies. Mostly palapas and cabanas and a few very diminutive hotels dot the beach; so too do tents set up by Berkeley types (probably at the end of their volunteer stints building latrines in Chiapas junior year) on the now completely unmanned stretches of sand formerly occupied by tiny hotels that were wiped out by Wilma in 2005. It's a peaceful commingling of types on this beach. Just peaceful and perfect.

So perfect. We walked easily along the beach a couple of kilometers to the ruins in Tulum, the only Mayan city built on the sea. We stopped for lunch at a very Corona-commercial-looking restaurant/hotel called, aptly, Vita e Bella, and later hired a fisherman to take us out to the reef where we could snorkel. I actually think I saw a barracuda, and some other great big fish, but it was a windy day in Tulum and the sea was choppy; I was seasick even swimming. (This is kind of classic, because I'd actually remembered to take Dramamine; I'd bought out the complete stock of over-the-counter therapies at the CVS in Westwood before we left). I was trying to talk to the fisherman in Spanish, but everything was coming out in Italian. It's funny how much Italian I realized I still know when I was trying to speak Spanish.

Yada yada, SPFs of all varieties, reapply, reapply, swim, sweat...look, we got real sunburned. It was bad. It was regrettable. By the end of the day, we were the big gringo jerks who were red as beets. And we had opposite reactions to the affliction: The blue-eyed boy couldn't get cool enough, and I couldn't get warm enough. I had the chills. After dinner (which I barely remember in my feverish state, but the photos I took suggest it was a gorgeous place), the blue-eyed boy sprawled out horizontally on the bed because he was trying to maximize the windshear coming from the open window. All I could do was moan, and I think I said something about needing some rum, but I was asleep by 9.

Falling asleep early in Tulum is a useful thing, because it is natural to wake up with the sun. Despite there being no technology- or traffic-type noises, there is plenty of noise indeed: The waves crash loudly and the birds' songs are, ahem, robust. It's a delightful kind of cacophony. Determined not to let our full-on gringo sunburns slow us down, we left Tulum for Aktun Chen, a spectacular sprawling cave and cenote in the jungle just north. Underground was the right place for our pink selves, and our guide shared so many insights about the geology that makes the Yucatan such an unusual place: something about it being like Swiss cheese under there, which it certainly seems to be. We wore hard hats to travel about 600 yards through many chambers of the cave; first we thought the hats were goofy props to make tourists feel like they were doing something treacherous, but we soon realized that they're actually smart tools against hanging stalagmites of all lengths. In the last chamber was a cenote that looked as clear as if there were no water there at all, only air. Faith in the beauty of Yucatecan cenotes: fully restored.

A few kilometers north still, we stopped for a quick snorkel jaunt at Akumal, a lagoon that is very protected from the open water and therefore waveless. I saw three turtles swimming together, and was just tickled. I found a piece of brain coral on the beach and picked it up. The blue-eyed boy kept teasing that customs was going to imprison me for plucking nature out of the reef, but whatever. I so didn't.

In a surprisingly uncharacteristic move, we pulled into Playa del Carmen with no hotel booked; I was almost testing myself to see if I could leave the last night of the trip to do whatever the heck we pleased, in whatever place, without totally freaking out that there was no plan. And I passed my own test. We ended up finding a completely adorable hotel, all colorful tiles and pretty bright linens...but not before getting pulled over by a Mexican motorcycle cop in aviators who was a ringer for one of the CHiPs. You see, the blue-eyed boy had mistakenly maneuvered the Tsuru the wrong way down a one-way street for a short distance before realizing his error, and we got busted. Somehow, in this moment, I spoke fluent Spanish, or so the blue-eyed boy tells me (I was so nervous and desperate, I kind of forgot what I said). Anyway, no ticket. Just a warning for the sunburned gringo and gringa who busted out the politest kind of text-book-learned high-school Spanish under pressure.

Our night in Playa was rather dreamy; the main drag, Avenida 5, is as touristy as anywhere (i.e. you could, if you wanted, buy there a T-shirt emblazoned with "I Love to Fart. Playa del Carmen") but really has charm and elegance somehow too. That night, I refused to take my glasses off in bed because that would be acknowledging that sleep was coming, and that would be acknowledging that the last night of our trip was over.

Not to waste a moment, we hustled the next day to Cozumel by ferry for a snorkel session amid parrot fish and schools of others in hues like neon purple. Back at Playa, it was back in the Tsuru (on which we logged more than 1,100 kilometers, all told) for the ride to Cancun to catch our flight home.

And that's where I am now, in bed with my cat and my mysteriously swollen legs. Looking at our zillions of pictures, I can't say we looked like Beyonce and Jay Z snapped canoodling in St. Tropez by the paparazzi, which is kind of how I thought we'd look. (Seriously, how deluded am I?) But, look, it's real hot out there and you sweat and you get sunburned and shred your fingers in the ceiling fan and stub your toes a bit and get seasick and your hair gets crazy frizzy when you dunk your head in the ocean if you don't instantly reapply product.

And that's how you know you're alive.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Wow, so I finally did it. I exhausted the World Wide Web. I've done so much Internet searching over the last week that I actually finished looking at all the Web pages ever posted regarding lodging in Tulum.

I don't recommend finishing the Internet like a book; it makes your eyes hurt. (Plus I managed to absentmindedly polish off most of a box of Life cereal in the process, which is not ideal.) But I do feel insanely educated now, just the way I like it.

See also: Reservation Mode.

In Which I Try to Ascertain my Comfort Level With Scorpions

And not the '80s hair band either, but actual crawling scorpions. I am in Reservation Mode now, fully in my element, researching and booking the details of our upcoming Yucatan vacation. There seem to be so many amazing things, and so many amazing nothings, to do there, I'm wishing we had four weeks rather than four days. Alas.

So, nu. Tulum. It seems to be a spectacularly unplugged place with little electric power, mostly wind and solar energy. So there seems to be little risk of accidentally stumbling into some kind of gross Sandals-type environment packed with fat Americans and sweating Swiss cheese on buffet tables. But I'm trying to figure if a relatively civilized hotel environment is the right choice, when there seem to be many tremendous palapa/tent-type options on the beach and in the jungle. But the more I read online, the more references I see to scorpions. Those things can hurt you, right? I mean, I'm not trying to be prissy, but. Also I am known for swelling up like a Macy's parade balloon when I get even a little mosquito bite that would be totally innocuous for someone else. I'm just saying, a girl ought to know herself.

One eco-hotel reviewer on TripAdvisor, who by the way loved one of the spots I am considering, mentioned that the place was not for people with "nervous dispositions" on account of all the "creepy crawlies." And that's when I was kind of like, OK, next. Unless I want to spend my rare vacation in the infirmary like I managed to do every summer at camp, I should probably keep looking for someplace, say, with more Aveda toiletries than nervous-disposition-challenging insects. Or at least somewhere in the middle.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

It's on like Donkey Kong.

Yucatan trip officially booked yesterday...check! 28 days and counting. (--->OK so I stole that image from the Web, sorry, but I will take lots of my own pics next month!) Coachella pool parties, get ready for us at the end of April! Grand Canyon hike happening in late June!

It's shaping up to be just the kind of spring/summer season I like. The vacation-packed, friend-filled, swimsuit-shopping-spree kind. Yes! Don't sleep on spring break, y'all. (The difference between now and college is that these days I actually deserve a vacation.)

Stay tuned. Last summer's going to be hard to beat, but I'm up for the challenge. Ladies, are ya with me?

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).

Things I Thought About During Yoga Class Tonight

work
house paint
spinach (whole wheat pasta with)
sweatbands (useful?)
blue-eyed boy
the Ashram (curious)
Super Bowl
Pasadena
TMZ
work
check-engine light
glasses
dry cleaning
rain (unhappy with)
mom
working out (tomorrow)
friend (AE, moving)
positivity (striving for)
work
restaurant recommendations (Grove adjacent)
friend (LP, studying Final Cut Pro)
tomatoes
vacation (Mexican Riviera cruise?)
vacation (Turkey?)
this list (making)
Valentine's Day
PBS
vacation (San Simeon?)
Coachella
wine
working out (last Thursday)
friend (MG, feathered haircut)
New York (Capella, moving to)
New York (work, traveling for)
steam cleaning (carpet)
Project Runway
Devon Aoki
Lululemon
headlines (punchy)
Obama
Dubai (L.A. Times article on)
Santa Barbara
sister (birthday, Wednesday)
Essie polish in Wicked
yogi rhetoric (vs. stereotypic California rhetoric)
Huell Howser
friend (MW, cute glasses)
looseleaf paper (notes from 1992 to EW on)
work
blue-eyed boy (cold, coming down with)
Ikea
Times Square
new dress (bras to wear with)
Zicam
Home Depot
donuts (I wish)
Bed Head mousse (integrate?)
State of the Union

Is anyone in here really getting close to achieving transcendence? Man, honestly, that must be amazing.

California's Gold

I was bummed when I thought I didn't have a bona fide hobby, but of course I've since realized I have a handful of great ones. At the top of my list lately has been exploring California.

When I talk about California, I get a super dork-out expression on my face, like I'm talking in a thick old-country accent about how the gold-paved U.S. opened its arms to me after I fled the pogroms, and it's not uncommon for me to tear up—no kidding. I even got emotional putting the new tags on my California plates this morning (I know, I know). In general my joy quotient has soared since I moved back almost two years ago. I've spent chunks of time in San Diego, Ventura, Lake Tahoe, Catalina, Palm Springs, Yosemite, and wine country, plus toured endlessly around the bay area and all manner of L.A. neighborhoods—and even enjoyed a quality summer afternoon in the Inland Empire. I really can't get enough, and it's inexhaustible anyway.

My latest thing is reading guidebooks even for places with which I thought I was already familiar; it's fun to drive around your own city and look things up in the index (plus it informs my Southern California-specific job, and my general knowledge base for living). This weekend was very guidebook-able, with a hike Saturday in Temescal Canyon, and then an impromptu Pasadena tour on Sunday, including the Norton Simon museum, Gamble house, and the Doo-Dah parade (OK, that one kind of got old, but the ease of access to the noodle shop and French Connection on the closed-to-traffic Colorado Boulevard broke up the monotony).

We were so touristed-out by the end of the day that we might have made our patented fake-snoring noise (I don't know how to render it in type, but it's something like chuuuh-syooo with a little whistle at the end) discretely in the 15th-century gallery shortly before museum-closing time. (And then we went to Home Depot. These days I find that it's best to be utterly physically exhausted by the end of the day if I want to have a prayer at beating my insomnia once I drop into bed.) And it was so worth it.

Incidentally, I came home to see that Huell Howser was also exploring Pasadena on his show. I'm kind of obsessed with Huell, and always think about what his reactions would be to things I see, mostly along the lines of "wow" and "that's amazing," and I imagine the sound of his silly voice and feel totally comforted. I could watch Huell on loop all day, every day. (I could do the same with First 48 and Forensic Files—R.I.P. Court TV—but those are indefensible.)

At any rate, at the risk of being too pat, I think we can all learn an important thing about enjoying life and about adventuring from the wide-eyed, voracious view-slurping Huell Howser.

And that's California's gold, for real.

Reservation Mode

I had to laugh last night when the blue-eyed boy said, "Uh-oh. My baby's going into reservation mode."

I was beginning to look into hotels for a work-related trip to cover the film festival in Santa Barbara at the end of the month, and I had picked up the phone to call a particular hotel, after that hotel's Web site had revealed there was no availability. This is what I do.

If I may say so, I think I am a fine vacation planner. I am an excellent researcher (derived from both my job as a reporter and my inability to accept any first answer I'm given), plus an indefatigable bargain hunter, but one with uncompromising hotel tastes. By no means does everyone believe this is the right way to plan or to spend a vacation. But it works for me, and so I descend (or ascend) into "reservation mode" when I am getting ready to go away. That means I:

1. Call every hotel whose Web site I have checked, and vice versa, to make sure that the information I have been quoted is the most accurate, and includes the lowest price for the best available room.
2. Search every individual airline's Web site, in addition to the travel search engines, because you never know what you will find. (And then I call each.)
3. Ask for a AAA discount anywhere. You may be shocked to find that I got 10 percent off at our likkle house on the relatively remote South coast of Jamaica.
4. Call back several times and continue to check Web sites of hotels at which I am already booked, just in case I can improve the rate or swap it to a better room.
5. Book multiple hotels at one time, if each can be canceled, in the event that any of the above pans out. (I know what you're thinking, but I never forget to cancel anything because I keep meticulous electronic records.)

If I ever decide to change professions, I have always said that eBay entrepreneur is my next calling. But I swear I'd be good too at planning vacations (for myself, under my own terms, so this would require some sort of lottery winnings).

Medical Mystery

That's me. The good news is, if you go somewhere with me, I'm the one likely to end up with the weird injury, not you. I am like the magnet that sucks them into my field. A few samples that spring immediately to mind:

Sledding incident, Lake Tahoe, December 2007.
All I know is that we caught air off some impromptu roadside jumps during several solid but fear-inspiring runs. At some point I said, "I think we got our $15 worth out of this plastic sled from Raley's and we should quit while we're ahead," and that this did not happen. Yada yada, I am still limping a week later from the tailbone bruise that won't quit. Blue-eyed boy, also on the sled, uninjured.

Toxic reaction, South coast of Jamaica, August 2007.
Right thigh and hand start to tingle and develop abraded-looking red bumps after contact with some kelp or something while snorkeling. Come to shore and receive treatment in medical shack. Therapy involves Jamaican version of Chris Rock's "...just put a little 'tussin on it." Three girlfriends, snorkeling in same area, do not suffer skin reactions (but get a good giggle out of the fulfilled predictability that I would and they wouldn't).

Friction overdose, Oakland, circa 2002.
Why did we think we could just swoosh down that concrete facsimile of a playground slide (looking back, it was probably a drain pipe) without drawing blood from thighs and elbows? (Oh right, all that champagne.) Hello, I was wearing a skirt. It's almost like I never qualified for those highly gifted magnet schools...

Grotesquely inflamed bee stings on notable body parts:

1. Tongue (while licking Popsicle, circa 1985, Camp Hollywoodland. Counselors administered second Popsicle in attempt to reduce swelling.)
2. Bottom of foot (stepped on bee in college, circa 1995, Berkeley. Resulted in preferential handicapped parking at Cal/SC football game. Score!)
3. Middle finger, right hand (after finally gathering nerve to relieve self discreetly under cover of draped blanket in Golden Gate park, October 2007, San Francisco.)
   

I'm sure I'll think of a million more, but I find it's better not to search my mental database for these painful (or itchy or otherwise crippling) memories. Meanwhile, I am continuing to stock the drawer labeled "Pain/Wound Care" in my bathroom.*


*Yes, this is true. One day, in a fit of productivity, I got out the label maker and marked the inside of every drawer in the house. There is hope for '08's resolutions yet!

Mini-Break Safari

The San Diego Wild Animal Park is awesome because you get to see things like giraffes, just running around. (Well, more like standing around and noshing. Who could blame them?) You know what a giraffe looks like because you have grown up looking at his likeness in magazines and logos and photos and things. But how many times in your life will you see a real giraffe?

Or this rad-looking guy?

Memba Wa Day Weh Wi Dweet?

I want to tell you what a soundsystem party is like in Jamaica.

Actually, I think soundsystem is the general term the Jamaicans use to describe any mobile party at which gigantic towers of speakers are brought to bear on a typically vacant space, and people come and listen. But I'll tell you about a soundsystem party near Treasure Beach, on the remote, virtually tourist-free south coast of Jamaica.

So we're there, last week, in Jamaica, four whiteys. Normally I would not call Mexican-American MG a whitey, nor would I call Russian-American AE a whitey, nor would I even typically consider my ethnic Jewish self a whitey, but we were all whiteys down there, relatively speaking. (We even got called whiteys a couple of times, but I'm pretty sure those remarks were only observations, not meant as judgments or disdain.)

We met a friend called Andy who told us he was going to take us to this party around 10:30 if we were interested. So we pile in his right-side-driver's-seat car, with his friend Ruell, and drive a ways to a parking lot where we hear loud music, and see lots of totally mild-tempered Jamaicans hanging around, drinking and smoking. The whole thing was very Heavy Metal Parking Lot, only different in the obvious ways.

Across the street, there's an outdoor staircase leading to a bar (N.B.: much of Jamaica doesn't really have wet bars--more like rooms with painted signs and wooden counters decked with bottles, and coolers full of ice) where folks make their way for Red Stripes and delightful Appleton rum drinks in plastic cups and some sort of gross energy drink/malt liquor hybrid called Magnum, which tastes like Dimetapp that's been in the fridge since 1981 plus moth ball juice.

So we're sticking fairly close to Andy and Ruell (ourselves being whiteys and all), and we're drinking, and trying to fit in (ha!) and lots of time passes, and we're still in the parking lot, and the whiteys start to wonder aloud to each other whether this parking lot is indeed the soundsystem itself. I mean, there seemed to be people, and music coming from somewhere, but no one was dancing, and WTF? We inquired with Andy, and he said we were just "waiting for the right time" to go "in." It was probably 1 a.m.

At some point, it became the right time. Andy gestured to us that we should follow him to a parked Corolla (which I guess belonged to the soundsystem's promoter) and each pay $200 Jamaican (about $3 U.S.) in exchange for wristbands that would get us into the actual soundsystem.

Someone opened a gate in a chain link fence, and we were inside. But it was still a parking lot. But it was the other side of the parking lot, the one with the giant towers of speakers emblazoned "Stone Love" and the DJ spinning mostly reggae and dancehall. Loud. Us whiteys figured we better put torn-up bits of napkins in our ears, which we did. Discretely, of course, mon.

We were all excited to see Jamaican girls dressed in bright colors dancing the night away. But we didn't, really. First off, it was mostly men. But more importantly, no one was really dancing yet. Apparently, the girls don't heed Sean Paul's call to shaaa-aaake their thiii-iiings until the sun comes up.

So when we crossed the chain link threshold again to go home, maybe around 3 a.m, we saw a sea of Jamaicans in the parking lot, their numbers tripled or more since we'd gone in, all angled toward the gate, waiting for the "right time." It was like Night of the Living Dead, the Caribbean version.

Anyway, bredrin, that's the story of the great south coast soundsystem of the summer of 2007.

Likkle more.

Highlight Reel

30! So far so good.

State of Self on Waning Days of Twenties

Spazzy, blessed, awesome. Not sure. Changeable.

Sometime early this week, I changed the course of my spazz attack (which was the standard no-baby-plans-yet boilerplate) to the wait, I'm too young to grow up, look how young I am, woooo!-variety spazz. Didn't see that coming.

In addition to my girls-only Jamaica trip at the end of the month, the blue-eyed boy had made plans for my upcoming birthday weekend involving sea kayaking in the Channel Islands near Ventura (an idea which, if I recall, I might have instigated after we watched a California's Gold episode about it, and, basically, if Huell Howser jumped off a cliff, I would do it too). But then I decided that sea kayaking seems like something staid that families do, and we're not a family, we're crazy fun young people, woooo, and we should go to Vegas instead and wear tiny, besequined dresses and bikinis with gold hardware (at least I should), and throw dice and be rowdy, and shop shop shop indiscriminately, and let it ride on red number 30, woooo! Because that's what the kids do! And that's essentially what I've wanted to do for most birthdays since I turned 21 (19).

Well, what happens when you think you might want to change plans a scant few days before your existing plans, is that airfare goes up so high that it's prohibitive, and who wants to drive into the desert during Friday rush hour, and then back all day Sunday when it's your birthday and you're sitting in the car with a hangover getting blasted in the face by the AC, eating Gardetto's party mix and Crystal Light Slurpees from the 7-11 on the interstate? So driving and flying are both out, which means Vegas is out for my 30th birthday this weekend.

So that locks us into our original kayaking plans, which I think will be awesome after all (if it had been viable to go to Vegas, I probably would have freaked out and insisted on reinstating the kayaking based on some impromptu consciousness shift) (hey, at least I know myself), and it will be good to feel healthy and alive out there on the pacific Pacific. I'm back on my eat-right/work-out kick (after a dastardly post-Half Dome June) and I've been all kinds of sore this week thanks to serious gym commitment. And I like the idea of feeling healthy and strong as I kiss 29 goodbye. (Sea kayaking Saturday + bowling birthday party Sunday clearly = monastically disciplined fitness regime, non?)

Today, I am wearing tiny shorts and sky-high sandals, and I got a few whistles from passing cars on my way to and fro Subway (veggie delight on wheat, bag of apples, Diet Coke) down Sunset Boulevard. Whether or not I am still wild at 30, apparently my legs still look good. (Actually, note to self: legs are bona fide asset. Why have never noticed?)

Last night at the after-party for the Espy awards, I told the blue-eyed boy I would not be morally averse to any procedure that would perk up my eye area a bit. It took him like four minutes too long, but he got around to saying, "You're perfect!" I think he's onto something.

...best and most supportive friends and fam ever, a job that is fun and challenging and full of perks and never boring, great condo with a separate walk-in closet just for shoes and accessories...

So, au revoir, twenties. I will miss the halcyon Berkeley years, and the New York years (although they were not hardly halcyon), but thank heaven I will not have to miss my woooo! wild friends, because I've still got em. See ya in sequins, girls...*


*Somebody please take me to Vegas in August, though, for real.

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."