Rolling With The Cool Kids

The new bladesAn Additive Adventure Entry In Conjunction With OutsideTV.com and Osprey Packs

It’s taken three months, but it’s happened. I was spotted.  Rollerblading.  It was just as awkward as it sounds. I was skating on 30^th, or trying to skate amidst the gravel byproduct from recent construction. I rolled past a woman walking on the sidewalk and was just about to turn up my shuffle when her voice cut into my head.

   “Majka?”

I’d like it to be known that I could I have run—skated—away. I have those skills. But I stopped and talked shop. Yes, I was rollerblading. Sarah was going to yoga.  Did she ever blade? No. Want to? No. And so it went until we said goodbye and I took a hard left to hit the bike path. My new pink rollerblades are fast on the downhill and as I leaned back on my right brake I realized my opportunity. I could save the situation if I did something cool. But I didn’t know how to do anything cool on my skates, and so I just made sure not to fall....

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The Big Switch, An Additive Adventure Entry

Filing picks down for dry-tooling in the Boulder Rock Club: Ice Climbing Prep 2010.

In Conjunction With OutsideTV.com and Osprey Packs

It’s November 26^th. It’s 5 degrees in the mountains. It’s time to go ice climbing. To be fair, it’s been like this for a few weeks now. But it’s finally time for me to notice. I’m t-minus twenty-four hours from swinging into blue ice. It sounds glorious and exciting… and a bit terrifying. The question is: terrifying good, or terrifying bad?

It would probably be better not to talk about this—online, in a public forum, or even inside my head. It might be more effective to simply forge ahead and forget/ignore this anxiety. But that’s not how I operate. And besides, it takes so much blasted time to switch sports that you—if you are me—are going to have to get close to the deep dark thoughts just by virtue of the minutes spent preparing.

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The Rebirth of Slick, An Additive Adventure Entry

In Conjunction With OutsideTV.com

Three weeks from today, I’ll be flying to Ethiopia. I’ve been training for trip. I’ve been aqua jogging.

Actually, I just had to stop aqua jogging. I was over-training with the 12”-wide water-flotation device. In my defense, I was just trying to keep up with Astrid, the 65-year old woman with a hip and knee replacement. At 33 with two back surgeries, I was eating her aquatic dust. It’s a good thing I’ve finally been cleared to go back to climbing. It’s about time—East Africa is looming close.

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Bigger This Time

Self Portrait, attempt 13Believe the hype, drink the cool-aid, make the trip. That’s my motto this month. I didn’t start it. My friend Sara did. Actually, an intuitive did. Or, to be precise, my decision to go see an intuitive.

A month ago, while driving through the dark streets of Bozeman, I called Sara in Bend. We’d both lived together in Boulder a few years back. “I’m going to see an intuitive,” I announced.

“You know that’s a psychic, right?” Sara asked.

“No it’s not,” I said. “I’m not all oovy groovy like that.”

Sara laughed. “You’re the worst kind of oovy groovy. You’re closet oovy groovy.”

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Mountainfilm and Get in Shape Girl: Rehab in Pink

In my mind, it was in the middle of the Miss USA pageant when I first saw the ad. A cadre of young girls in leotards burst through a door and waved ribbons and moved their arms around with weighted wristbands. It was horrifying, even without the music.

“Get in shape girl, you know the feeling.”

“Get in shape girl, it’s so appealing.”

I was seven. It was right around the age when I cornered Reed in the coatroom and pinched him for saying mankind instead of humankind. I have no idea where this behavior came from. Nor do I understand why it was ok in my mind to watch the Miss Universe pageant and keep my own score (I was convinced the judges had it out for us Midwesterners), but the actions of Hasbro Toy Company were offensive. Fitness in a package? In the same aisle as Barbie? (In the same aisle as the Barbie I wanted?)

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