Small Town Wren

Camping at Devil’s Lake was an absolute blast. While some of our hiking was less than ideal in that we got a little lost and ended up scrambling down a vertical boulder field, it was all-in-all a successful trip. I felt a little unsteady in my new Keens (still too used to being barefoot) so Daniil convinced me to screw the shoes and play out on the cliff outcrop with him. It’s a shame the pictures of Daniil, Erica, and me from here were never posted. Ah well.

In places where the consequences of falling weren’t quite as dire, I ventured out in the shoes.

Others, such as Daniil, were far braver than I. Granted, they have far more rock climbing experience than me. Both Daniil and Hannes made it all the way to top of Devil’s Doorway. They were the Crazy Foreigner Contingent of the trip.

Photos courtesy of Hannes van Rooyen and Daniil the Russian.

I’m off to Devil’s Lake for a weekend of hiking and camping. Naturally, going rock climbing with the gang was the obvious choice for a pre-camping gear up.

Photo courtesy of Daniil the Russian.

Friday brought an exciting adventure to the city, despite my BFF ladydate cancelling on me. Always a tragedy. But all was remedied by the latest mainstage brought to you by the Neo-Futurists, CRISIS!: The Musical Game Show.

What a fun little adventure that was. While I was sad I didn’t make the cut to be a contestant, the whole evening proved to be excellent. If having eyes made at me by multiple cute girls is any indication to how the night went, well it be that! The winner of our night’s show was a very brave soul who spoke at some length about her experience as a transwoman, which of course prompted discussion among my male companions. I had to have a talking to them about how their “so brave and I support but ew ew ew” comments were not really supportive.

As sad as it is, I can’t really blame them. I know I still say really stupid and wrong things, and I’ve dated a transman and had a couple friends transition the other way. So for two heterosexual white males with no experience with the trans community, I guess I should be happy with what I got. Not that it makes it right, but it’s better than it could be. Also, I’m sure I said something else really stupid in this paragraph alone, which I sincerely apologize for and assure I meant no harm.

Back on track: Headed over to Rock Bottom with Michelle, Jeff, and Joe. I somehow wound up drinking three margaritas. This somehow lead to drinking wine until 7:30 in the morning at Michelle’s. None of us are sure when we decided this was a good idea. It was nice to see the sun rise; it’s been a long time for all of us.

Joe and I headed to Reggie’s to see his friend’s band, Under None, play, and to meet up with Kevin. This was a smashing success, led to some G&T’s and a SoCo Lime shot. However, my shirt broke. Yes. Broke. And suddenly my right boob was hanging out of my shirt (let’s all be thankful I was actually wearing underthings). This lead to lots of leering by creepy old dudes and yet another instance where I’ve had to pretend to be a male friend’s girlfriend to keep them off. Sigh.

The other instance being the previous night when some drunk dude in a dive so awesomely asked if I belonged to Joe with a pretty offensive gesture. Yeah, that’s a way to win girls over. I don’t care how drunk you are; that’s not okay. So yea, you bet your ass I belong to him in that moment. I belong to everyone except you.

I wanted to prove to my mother that I totally wore my life jacket at one point, so there’s no need to spazz. I also totally helped paddle that canoe.

Ken is clearly the more friendly of the two of us.

But I’m way cuter, even if I am wearing a hideous and cheap life preserver.

See! I totally helped.

Photos courtesy of Daniil the Russian.

Can we marvel at how much of a pimp I am in this picture?

I went canoeing from Ayers Landing with a whole bunch of folks yesterday. Yes, it was cold, and yes, it was dreary, but we all had a blast. I got to play Lazy Canoer by staying up front (which also meant I got the privilege of pushing branches out of the way when we went through some foliage.

We did twelve miles down the Fox with a stop for lunch and a (very) brief stop at a cave. Our group was about twenty, and we passed another group of twelve around Mile 6 who were extremely drunk. They kept trying to get us to drink beer with them, and while some of us obliged, most of us just wanted to paddle.

It was cold, but tons of fun. It’s been far too long since the last time I was on a boat of any kind (Staten Island Ferry not included).

Photo courtesy of Ken Blaszak.

I spent some money. About $140, actually, over the past 24 hours. Which for me, is quite a bit. It takes me over 10 hours of working to get that, or over three days. So it’s not chump change.

But I’m pretty happy with my purchases because they open a world of possibility for me. The most exciting (to me anyway) is my brand new Keen Newport H2s.

Purchased at Geische Shoes for $102 including tax. I’ve bought pretty much every single pair of shoes that I wear today from them. We’ve been buying shoes from them since I was a kid and I’ve never been unhappy with the service or the shoes. All three (yes three!) pairs of Birkenstocks come from their shelves, as well as half the pairs of heels I own. So this is my fifth big spender purchase at Geische, and I’m happy to support a local store over a chain.

My other purchase was a Bell Faction multisport helmet:

Not quite as cool as the Nutcase Melonhead helmet, but also $20 cheaper. I’m just glad it doesn’t look stupid like those aerodynamic helmets do.

What makes me most excited about these purchases is the possibilities they open up to me. I finally have good kayaking and hiking shoes. I can finally ride my bike to work and to other places. I can finally do stuff.

Tony and I and a bunch of other people went to the Festival of Colors last Saturday, which was held in Knoch Knolls Park in Naperville. It was, how do you say? A pretty rocking time. Basically I got to spend an afternoon chasing little kids around trying to cover them in green and yellow flour. As you can see, I managed to get quite colorful myself.

The Festival of Colors is an Indian thing welcoming the coming of Spring. It was really amazing, punctuated by  delicious Indian food. It really made me wish that American culture had more active cultural festivals. Ours are far too passive. It seems that our culture is becoming more divided and making us feel more isolated. Sometimes all I want to do is reach out and touch somebody, make them acknowledge that I exist, and they exist, and we exist.

How is it that I feel most alive when I play on borrowed time?

Photos courtesy of Tony Thomas.

Need I say more? If only I could convince myself the extra $10 over a Bell Faction is truly worth it. Sigh.

You smoke two cigarettes. One to mark your sadness. The second is to solidify your anger. There are monsters out there who refuse to recognize their own wickedness. They will believe that niceties are all that is owed. This is, in fact, false. These trolls, who would believe themselves men, refuse to accept the atrocities they have committed, and so insulate themselves with sympathetic but uninformed ears. They will lie and steal if necessary.

It is this egocentric-ism that becomes offended by these words. They talk themselves into believing that such words are dishonorable because how could anyone dare speak so ill of them? They bury the knowledge that the pain does not come because the words are lies, but because they are actually truth. And it is in this way they continue on through their lives, acutely aware of their misery but still refusing to investigate the true source. Instead, they blame those around them as much as they can, absolving themselves of all responsibility.

This suffering is their penance. It follows them and will continue to follow them until, in some moment of revelation, they realize blaming external sources will never kill the monster in their hearts and minds. They will never become men of happiness until they make amends for the horror they have sewn. It is the rare breed who recognizes this, I’m afraid.

How you recognize such pathetic goblins is through observation of behavior. Sadly, this is the only way to identify them so it is hard to keep them out of your life until the damage is already done. It’s always a tragic realization when you come to know someone as a monster. They will treat you terribly and convince you that it is your fault. This wretched species is doomed to repeat the mistakes of their pasts until they acknowledge their own terribleness (you will recall this is a critical part of many 12 Step programs).  They wrap themselves in their selfish blankets and continue on in life wondering why happiness is always eluding them. They will blame you and do everything in their power to dismantle you.

You cannot let this happen. It is tempting to try and rehabilitate the monster on your own, but this is a therapy that will remain fruitless. This will, in fact, only provide them with more opportunity to destroy you. Often, the best and only thing you can do is cut contact. They will try to apologize furiously when they realize this is the course of your action. False apologies are not to be accepted. True apologies can be considered, but only if they have the critical element: What can I do to make it better? Anything that lacks an offer of amends can only be a continuation of the parasitical behavior. A monster can only help itself, and the only true marker of this stretch for change is the true and complete apology and a cease & desist of tyrannical behavior.

I lost my job today. Not because of anything I did, but because the economy sucks and there’s a big union working to push me under the bus.

I’m done playing this game.