The art of shopping (or evading it)

COUNTDOWN: 23 days

What's new - not much. A couple packages arrived, including my Ecuador climbing/hiking guide (sobering how unlikely a climb up Chimborazo, etc., will be for me... but still fun to read about, at least), and two pairs of pants by Mountain Hardwear. These pants are especially wonderful because of the material they're made of - a super-stretchy, water-resistant fabric. So they're great if you gain a little weight or lose a little too. Unless they're too big, which for me, they are. The waist is almost perfect, but the legs are incredibly wide and long. I'm hoping they'll shrink at least a little bit in the wash, but another benefit to these pants is they don't change size, and after two years of heavy use, they still look new.

I finally kicked myself out the door to do some shopping. I highly dislike shopping. I'm well aware that shopping fills only a fraction of a percent of a void better filled by more meaningful activities. My mom has (had?) a shopping addiction that I almost caught, except department stores actually make me very nauseous. So, meaning to go to Algonquin for the one-stop mall, I managed to go in the very opposite direction to the stores along Route 14 in Crystal Lake. Towards the top of 'things I most hate to shop for' are sunglasses. None ever fit, and if they do, they wear out almost immediately. And I do feel goofy in 99.9% of the glasses I try on. I shop for black, silver, dark gray sleek frames... so of course I ended up buying pink-framed glasses. PINK. Pink is the opposite of every criteria of mine, ever.

Next was Borders to take them up on their 33% off coupon for a Spanish book that focuses on informal conversation. The book would probably even be handy in English - how many times have I been at a loss for words of praise or interest? It's not that I'm not interested, I'm just sick of saying 'wow, awesome, cool, sweet, nice, etc. etc.' So it'll be nice to be conversation savvy in Spanish.

Next... I got bored of shopping and ended up in Cafe Firefly for a drink.

Success!! Er... well... *relative* success. My kind of success.

I'm in the middle of accomplishing another of my tasks on the Great Big List of Things I Need to do Before I Leave: organizing photos on my lap top and deleting ones I don't want/need. I'm finding some fun ones I forgot about, like:

Dad trying out the new snow blower on our driveway, late 2009 or early 2010?


Where I feel most peaceful, centered, optimistic - on mountains. What is it with mountains? It's the wild places that make us feel human. Where they remind us we're vulnerable, that life is ephemeral but still important. It's not about conquering the mountain, it's not about conquering yourself, it's about finding freedom and total release. Huh... maybe I should post some Henry Miller stuff next.


Sevendust guitarist, 2010. One of my favorite activities is shooting concerts. This night, I discovered how difficult it is shooting metal bands - the strobe lights are constantly flickering, so I resorted to rapid fire shooting with white balance adjustments. I got a bunch of good photos, but this one stood out the most. Right before the guitarist was white washed in blue light, at the perfect moment, I caught him.

Maybe I'll post more another day.