gerry.life

  • More tempting than Cinnabon

    During the past week, I binge watched two series of Everest: Beyond the limit and listened to the audiobook of ‘Into thin air’ by John Krakauer.

    I highly recommended both, even if you have no interest in climbing mountains or stupid stuff like that. They are phenomenal studies in human psychology, ego, and humility in the face of failure.

    I don’t have aspirations of climbing Everest. At least not in this lifetime.

    I am, however, planning on going to Nepal and trekking up to Everest base camp. But keep that to yourself.

    Just about everyone I know hates the idea of Westerners going to Nepal, since these tourist scum leave behind their own mountain of oxygen cylinders, Snicker wrappers, and empty Perrier bottles. Nepal tourism is, apparently, symbolic of First World abuses of the planet.

    So, I’m sharing my plan to go to Nepal with you, and no one else!

    I have to confess, even though I won’t come within 10,000 feet of the summit, the prospect of trekking in the Everest foothills is still quite daunting. I’m not as young as I used to be, which makes altitude sickness potentially more serious.

    I’m in my mid-50s. A couple of years ago I had my cardiovascular system checked, out of interest rather than need. The test results suggested I have the heart, lungs and circulation of someone 10 to 12 years younger than my chronological age. That still means, at best I have a 40-something year old body.

    That is sobering. I feel strong and fit, but a 40-something body under stress is still not as resiliant as a 20-something body!

    So why do it? Why endure three weeks of squat toilets and altitude headaches? Why not go to Florida or Maui instead? Why risk pulmonary edema?

    I dunno. Perhaps I’m at a fork in my road.

    And as Yogi Berra famously said:

    “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!”

    So, a year from now I’ll pull on my hiking boots in Kathmandu and keep plodding uphill until a guide tells me to stop because it’s time to hike back down.

    Until then, no Cinnabon buns for me.

  • Sunset

    Point Pinole

  • Kidney beans

    A few years ago, I developed a kidney stone. It started — or at least the pain started — while I was at the gym. I felt a niggling pain in my back like I’d tweeted a muscle. So, rather than risk making it worse, I packed up and left the gym.

    By the time I got home, I was in agony. I’d never felt pain like it.

    Fortunately, the stone passed painlessly the following day. But, I was left with a nagging fear that it might happen again, so I signed up with a nutritionist. I wanted her advice on changes that would help minimize the risk of another stone forming.

    The week before our first meeting, I kept a food log. I had to record everything I ate and drank and the time of day. Doing this is a real motivation to eat clean and not to overeat.

    About to eat another slice of cake? You probably won’t if you know a few days from now someone will say ‘did you really need a third portion?’

    I was sure she would be impressed with my log. At that time I didn’t eat meat, dairy, or fast food. I was convinced she would think my diet was a model of moderation and healthy eating.

    But not so!

    My diet was a shit show. My ‘healthy’ lentil and tofu-ready meals contributed significantly to my 5,000 mg of salt daily. My regular evening pasta and marinara sauce plate sent my carb intake rocketing. My protein intake was miserably low.

    What I thought would be a minor tweak to my eating habits turned out to be a major overhaul.

    

  • What happens when you get older?

    I keep catch myself thinking like an ‘old person’. More than one I’ve thought “perhaps we should go for dinner a bit earlier, you know before the restaurant gets really busy and the service gets slow’’.

    I can trace my path to thinking like this back to when I commuted to work by train.

    For the first year or two I thought it was sad that some people stood in the same spot on the platform every morning.

    I made the conscious decision to always stand in a different spot. Sometimes at one end of the platform, sometimes in the middle. I tried hard to be random, but, humans are not good at random behavior. We are programmed to fall into patterns of behavior. It saves time and energy if you don’t have to think.

    So, like most other people I gravitated toward standing in the same spot. I mean, it was the best spot for guaranteeing I got a seat on the train. What’s wrong with that?

  • Going with the flow

    While I was hiding from COVID, I spent a lot of time writing. Usually, using one of the three fountain pens I acquired during the first month of ‘sheltering-in-place.’

    Of course, I could have written with one of the many pencils I own — I have a bit of a pencil addiction.

    Still, I felt this past year —more than any other year —was worth memorializing in ink on nice paper.

    For the ink, I settled on Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-peki. An ink that is not too light, not too dark. It’s just ‘right.’ And, it comes in a gorgeous, aesthetically pleasing glass bottle.

    I did try some green ink. I thought it would be a light, happy color to counter the gloom of the ever-increasing pandemic deaths. But, I soon realized green was more suited to writing a manifesto than recording my time at home.

    I also bought some notebooks filled with Tomoe River paper. This is the paper that gets positive reviews on every YouTube channel with fountain pens as a focus, And, they are not wrong. It is very, very nice to write on.

    So, what did I learn from all this writing on fine paper with my not too-blue ink?

    Firstly, and most unexpectedly. Writing with a pen and ink really — and I mean really — improved my writing on electronic devices. I’m not sure why. But, it did. Secondly, I did feel the pace of writing with a pen made me more aware of what I wanted to record. That, of course, was expected.

    Now, as the pandemic is drawing to a conclusion in my part of the world, I’m hooked on pens, ink, and paper. I just bought ‘one last fountain pen’, a few more bottles of ink, and a load of paper and notebooks from Asia. Hopefully, I keep going along this route. The benefits are well worth the time and (growing unecessarily) expense.

  • Remember?

    This was a writing class exercise.

    I remember

    I remember Miss Gallagher, my primary school teacher. She was the best daytime Mom.
    I remember my childhood dog, Kim. He was afraid of everything.
    I remember soccer games at school. I hated that stupid game.
    I remember fighting Bobby McDonald when I was six years old. My first and only playground scrap.
    I remember wearing shorts and Wellington boots on cold, rainy days. And the red marks the boots left on my calves
    I remember sitting on top of a double-decker bus with my parents. Everyone was smoking except for me.
    I remember helping my father dig the vegetable garden in the Spring and having to smell turnips and cabbage being boiled in the Autumn.
    I remember throwing my younger sister’s favorite toy over the garden fence. She also never forgot.
    I remember getting my long hair shaved off. My father was happy and said I looked like a soldier.
    I remember connecting a battery-powered radio to the AC mains. It never worked again.
    I remember the moon landing and my Uncle telling me it was historic.
    I remember listening to Russian broadcasts on my Short-Wave radio, even though I didn’t know what a five-year plan might be.
    I remember telling my mother that lightning could shoot along phone lines and into her ear. She was afraid of phones for the rest of her life.
    I remember pretending I was a DJ by turning my radio volume down and talking between tracks during the Sunday evening Top 20 chart show on Radio 1.
    I remember getting a guitar for Xmas and finding out I would never be the next Eric Clapton.
    I remember being unable to sleep on Xmas even when I knew Santa didn’t exist.

  • The GOAT

  • Bay Bridge

  • Lighting the sky

  • Stones on the water

    Point Pinole