New story soon
I’m working on the final revision of Bones of Ice. Hopefully, I’ll get it published tomorrow, although it might end up being next week – we’ll see.
Bones of Ice follows the story of Jade, a surveyor stranded on an uninhabited planet, and picks up where On Ice left off.
I’ve also started writing the story of what happens next, at last! I was worried, when I spent the last couple of months not writing anything new. It looks like it’s coming back to me, though. 
I managed not to get lost on the way home…
I managed not to get lost on the way home… which is more than I can say for on the way *to* the place I’ve been taking my car for service for at least five years.
Yes, it’s one of *those* days. It’s sometimes disconcerting to have such variable mental capabilities. Mostly on days like this, when I’m at a nadir. Zenith days are a little weird too, but mainly I just enjoy them while they last.
I can’t even pretend I think it’s a brain tumor or something new or unusual, because I’ve been like this my whole life. Some days I’m brilliant, and others I can’t talk clearly, can’t tell right from left, and can’t find my way anywhere reliably. It always baffled and annoyed my family, because it’s hard to understand why I can’t do today what I do almost every single other day with no problem. (And no, it’s not just driving, that’s just where it’s most obvious.)
*I* don’t understand why either – I just try to be aware of what kind of day it is and compensate. Put off errands and decisions and so on if I can, and if I realize in time. Do more at work on my good days so I can slack off without anyone noticing too much on my bad days.
And I really appreciate Brian, who can watch me take the wrong exit on the way to the car place, and when we finally get there just observe “you’re really bad today!” and understand that it’s just one of those days. Just one of the many reasons we’ve been together 17 years.
In other news, here are some cool articles I’ve read in the past couple of days:
Did Bacteria Spark Multicellular Life?
Can the mapping drones from Prometheus be far behind?
And finally, Have you heard of Instructables? I hadn’t really thought about it before reading this article, but I’ve used a couple of Instructables guides that I found via Google – one on knots and another on making a paracord bracelet. If you’re into making stuff – not just crafts either – it could be a fun place to browse around.
Crossfit update
It feels like Crossfit is getting harder rather than easier – probably because I’m getting a little stronger, and therefore able to push myself harder, and not scale the workout down quite as much as I was at first.
In some ways, Monday and Thursday this week (our 8th and 9th full classes since finishing the on-ramp intro classes) each felt like the most difficult workout I’ve done in my life. I’m certainly still feeling a bit worn out, even if my muscles aren’t complaining much today.
It’s hard not to let it be discouraging…
I’ve been coping by comparing it to my other favorite way to make myself want to collapse like a wet noodle – climbing the beautiful Mount Monadnock in Jaffrey, NH.
We’ve been visiting the state park at least once most years since first discovering it in college – so for a little over a decade.
Sometimes I make it to the top.
More times I turn back early so that the other people in my party don’t have to wait a couple of hours once they get to the car for me to make it down too. Sometimes if I’ve been sick, I just putter around some of the side trails rather than heading straight up.
However far up the trail I get, the journey down is always an exercise in working through exhaustion and balancing rest breaks against the desire to get back to the car without making my friends wait too long. (Or depending on how late we start the climb, before it gets dark out!)
The thing is, though, the two experiences – Crossfit and Mount Monadnock – are both completely different and strangely similar.
Both involve pushing myself to my limits while trying to be just cautious enough to avoid injury.
Both leave me shaking, exhausted, and strangely satisfied. The fact that one takes an hour and the other takes 4-5 hours doesn’t seem to matter much at all. After all, both involve not giving up until you’re done.
(Though I’ll admit it’s much more *possible* to give up in the middle of a Crossfit workout. If you’re halfway up a mountain and the car’s at the bottom, you have to get there somehow.)
Both require a balance of effort and realism, whether using a lighter weight or doing fewer rounds in Crossfit, or taking enough breaks to keep from hurting myself on the trail.
Both involve a similar sense of accomplishment at the end.
I guess what I’m getting at – for me now, for anyone thinking about or at a similar beginner’s stage of Crossfit, or for that matter anyone pondering whether to try climbing Mount Monadnock – is that this *is* something doable, no matter how overwhelming it sometimes feels.
I hope so, anyway.
Still tired, but…
Not as tired as I was last week. Today was our last day of the “On-ramp” intro classes for Crossfit, and we practiced the “Clean” lift. (see below)
One of my favorite things about this so far is that everything is scalable. For the lifts, we did a lot of practice with plain lengths of PVC first, to get the idea of the form before adding weight. Then scale up to doing the lift with a bare bar – I’m currently practicing with a bare 15 lb bar for most things. Then add weights, or go to a heavier bar, etc.
A year ago, if you listed off different exercises and asked which I had no interest or actual aversion to, lifting weights would have been right at the top of the list, and Olympic-style lifting wouldn’t even have occurred to me as a thing. But it’s actually kind of fun!
My brain seems to be recovering along with the rest of my body too (if slowly), and I’m actually getting hints of a new story to work on too, yay!!!
© 2010 Catherine Wechsler, used with permission.
