Boulder On

My body aches as I extend from the wall, trying to hold as much weight as I can with my skeleton instead of my biceps. I take a deep breath and slowly place my foot on the next hold.             “Nice move,” says Joe. “Remember to keep those feet quiet.”             What he means is that I shouldn’t stomp my foot on a hold, like I often do when I’m desperate to prevent myself from falling. Joe is the instructor of the class I’m taking at my gym: “Movement for Beginners.” If you want to know what Joe looks like, picture the first image that pops into your head when you read, “Arizona hippy,” and you’re probably right. The purpose of the class, amazingly enough, is to teach beginners how to climb properly. Since I’ve only been climbing since January, I’m still a beginner. A rock climbing training book I’m reading says you can’t really call yourself ...

Resting is a difficult concept; at least for me. I’m taking this Friday off from climbing even though I normally like to workout at my gym three times a week. It’s tough to do this because I have to actively force myself to rest. I’m sequestering myself for two reasons. The first is my manager took a vacation, so I had to cover for them during the week. The second is I was summoned and selected for jury duty. Let me just say jury duty is important, but it’s important in the way taking out the garbage or doing the dishes is important. It needs to be done, but unless you’re of a very small percentage of people, you don’t want to do it. Every assumption you have about jury duty is true. It’s a Kafkaesque nightmare of tedium, where the jury pool’s emotions range from apathetic annoyance to irate indignation. Statistically if you are selected for a jury, you won’t hear something exciting or interesting. You’ll listen to a grubby little case for a grubby little ...

I stare up at the pine tree in disbelief, unable to comprehend how it came to this. Up above I see a flash of orange in the evergreen, and I hear the plaintive cries of my cat Alastair who, stereotypically, is stuck in a tree.             It’s Monday, and we finally have a nice day of weather. Alastair has been constantly demanding to be let outside, but the cold weather has thwarted him. Now, mainly to shut him up, I’ve taken him for a walk on his leash. I keep him on the leash because weirdly enough, I’m afraid he’ll get stuck up a tree. Of our two cats he’s the dumb and precocious one, and if a squirrel leapt off a bridge, I’m certain he wouldn’t think twice about jump after it.             After the walk is over, I take him back to our apartment and take off his harness. Yet fool that I am I forget to close the back door, and he bolts out of the...