Philosophizing » One Off

Boots Made for Walking

Mar 212010

Thursday, I purchased the first piece of equipment that I’m going to need for my big Wyoming backpacking trip this summer…perhaps the most important piece of equipment: my boots. I did a lot of research, asked my father, and settled on getting a pair of Hi-Tec Altitude IV boots. (I almost didn’t buy them because part of me can’t abide a company that spells its name "Hi-Tec" but I figured that a 50-60 mile hike at 10,000 feet is not really a time to be sitting on my high horse about spelling and grammar.

I want to break them in a little bit, so this weekend, I did a fair bit of walking. Saturday, I drove about 2 hours, and also spent about an hour walking around taking pictures. (See yesterday’s post.) Today, I woke up and took the dog for a 3-mile walk. Then I got home, climbed back into bed, and was just about to drift off to sleep when I got a call from my friend Bill, reminding me that we had planned on going on a hike to Cougar mountain in Bellevue. So, I got up, strapped my boots back on, and we went for a, shall we say, invigorating six mile hike through the forest taking pictures. Afterward, we decided to head over to Bellevue Botanical Gardens and, you guessed it, take some pictures, so we walked around for another mile or so.

Suffice it to say, my feet are a little sore. It’s been a long time (i.e. never) since I’ve walked 10 miles in a single day. I’m exhausted.

But, I was able to snap a few pictures that I didn’t hate. About 3/4 of the way through our hike out in the middle of the woods, we came across the corpse of an old car. I have absolutely no idea how this car got there, because there is nothing resembling a road anywhere near here. Most of the time, the path was only a 2-3 feet across. The only way I could think that the car might have made it there was if it had been dropped by plane from the sky or something. In any case, it was a pretty cool little chunk of metal in the middle of a very ferny and mossy forest, so, of course, we took lots of pictures.

One of the things that my hiking companions mentioned was the color of the green in the forest. For those who aren’t familiar with Seattle’s greenery, it’s a different shade of green than almost anywhere else I’ve ever lived. It’s almost electric. And moss grows on EVERYTHING. (I didn’t adjust the color on the photo below at all…this is exactly how it looks.) Even in Michigan, I never saw green like this. I guess they call it the Emerald City for a reason.

When I go hiking, I have a tendency to notice very small things on the ground since I’m watching where I’m going in order to prevent eating it in a giant mud puddle. One of the more interesting finds (besides a boatload of snails and slugs) was this fungus. I’d tell you to taste the rainbow, but something about this tells me that the rainbow might just kill you.

This is the time of year in Seattle where EVERYTHING is in bloom. A couple of weeks ago it was just starting, but now it’s really starting to go haywire. The Camellia, Rhododendron, Tulips, Daffodils, Jonquils, Hyacinth, Cherry Trees, Magnolias, Dogwoods–they’re all in full splendor right now. If you can combine those flowers with a sunny day and a blue sky, the flowers just sparkle.

So, all in all, I liked the way these photos came out far more than the ones from yesterday. Just goes to show, I guess, that even when you have a bad day, you just keep on keeping on, and eventually you begin to find what you’re looking for. Or something like that. I don’t want to start crafting life-lessons from a simple hike through the woods. If I start doing that now, imagine what a tome I’ll have to write when I get home from my Wyoming Trip in August. And I don’t have time to write a tome.

Picture This…

Philosophizing, Pictures, Ramblings 2 Responses »

Mar 202010

When I was about 16 years old, my father let me use (and eventually gave me) an old Minolta X500 SLR camera and a few lenses. It was completely manual…manual focus, manual aperture, shutter speed. I loved using that thing. I would trek it over to the Albion nature center or schlep it along on some drives through the back roads around Michigan. While my classmates were taking disposable cameras with them on school trips to Toronto or Band Festivals, I was lugging around this heavy SLR, a 28mm, a 50mm, and a 135mm lens. I was buying (and occasionally stealing…since I was a klepto back in those days) all KINDS of film, both color and black and white. I spent tons of money on getting my film developed. I just loved taking pictures.

Part of the problem, however, is that I just wasn’t very good at it. I read books, and practiced, but I never seemed to be able to get the hang of lighting and composition. As with many things that I have tried to do in my lifetime, I understand the technical aspect of what it is I was trying to do, but I never managed to grasp the artistry.

My love of photography has never really abated. I got my first modern SLR camera as a sophomore in college (Canon Rebel 2000). As a senior, I got my first digital camera (Minolta DIMAGE 7HI). My first Digital SLR came less than a year later when I got my Canon Digital Rebel. A year and a half ago, I got the Canon Rebel XTi. Then, just before Christmas, I traded up to what I hope will be the last digital camera I buy for a good long while: The Canon 7D. The 7D is a fantastic camera that does 18 Megapixel images, and 1080p Hi-Def video.

I also, over the last several years, have managed to cobble together a few fairly decent lenses…which supposedly are the main different in the quality of the photos. My favorite lenses are my 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 wide angle lens, my 50mm f/1.8 lens, and my 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. (Sorry for the geek speak for those who don’t know or care what those numbers mean.) (And, as another parenthetical, when I type the word lens, my fingers want to type it in as "lense." Not sure why.)

All in all, I’ve managed to cobble together a pretty good little set of gear for an amateur. I did some actor’s headshots and a few portrait sessions when I was in college and afterwards, some of which I’m pretty proud of.

But I’ve never seemed to be able to move my photography past the point of "workmanlike" to "artistic," and I’ve been struggling to figure out why that is. I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and I believe I’ve developed some insight:

1. I think that, overall, my frustration stems from the fact that I seem to be unable to capture the scene in front of me as I’m seeing it through my own eyes. I see things around me all the time that look absolutely beautiful to me. However, the instant I start trying to see it through the lens of my camera, I lose that vision. I don’t know whether it’s the fact that I’ve not yet mastered the technical aspects of my photography, and so I can’t translate what I see in my mind onto what I’m looking at on film, or whether I simply haven’t learned that translation layer yet. The camera can’t see things the same way that I can, and I’ve not been able to see things in the way that the camera does.

2. I think that, overall, I just struggle when it comes to visual creativity. (In reality, I feel like I struggle with creativity in general.) I’m really good a copying people or stealing ideas, but sometimes I have a hard time coming up with material on my own. For instance, I was looking through the Flickr stream of my friend Jamelah, and came across this photo and this photo. Jamelah does this "365 days" project where she takes a self portrait every day, and posts it online. And a lot of them are really, really good. They’re just so creative. And so well executed. I saw her photos and instead of using that as a springboard, all I could thing of were ways that I could copy or tweak her idea. I just struggle coming up with original ideas.

3. I rarely go off the beaten trail…both literally and figuratively. My drive for photography, like so much of what I do in my day-to-day life seems to come from proving that I can make a pictures that is just as beautiful or just as ______________ as someone else’s. I want to take portraits like Rachel Thurston. I want to take nature photography like Scott Bourne. I want to take landscapes like Chris Gin. I haven’t figured out what kind of photographer I want to be or what kind of photographs I want to take. So, as a result, I skim across the surface of several types of photography, never really getting good at any of them. I also don’t leave my comfortable world that often. So, it’s hard for me to find those sweeping panoramas or glorious vistas or unusual animals because if it’s not within a 10-minute drive of my house, I haven’t been there. So, I drive along the well-worn highways, take pictures of the same waterfalls, the same rusty old tractors, the same ferry boat ride panoramas that everyone else has photographed. As a result, much of my photography feels like snapshots instead of photos.

4. The digital toolbox. I may know my way around F-stops and shutter speeds, but when it comes to what to do with the final product, everything I’ve ever learned has been experimental. Some things I’ve gotten pretty good at (like retouching headshots) while other things (color correction, for instance) are troublesome for me. Plus, I’ve tended to use Photoshop to hack my way through fixing mistakes that never should have been made in the first place.

5. Some of it just my old self-doubt. I’ve always been one of those people who feels like, if his creativity isn’t the best and greatest, there’s no value in it. Why continue to create mediocre "art" when there are those out there who can do it so much better than you can. As I’ve started taking more photos again, I haven’t just enjoyed the process. The whole point of the process for me is to get a quality final product. And I think it’s that focus on the final product that prevents me from really learning and experimenting and creating in a way that I haven’t done before.

Today, I woke up early, threw the dog in the car, and drove down highway 202, east out of Redmond. I’ve never been that way, so I just drove to see where I’d end up. I ended up in a little tiny town called Fall City (population: 5000) not to far from the Snoqualmie water fall. I walked around, took a ton of photographs, and spent about two hours just meandering around the area. When I got home, I popped my memory card into the computer, and I was just disappointed with the results. I want to take that one picture, that one shot that just screams "AMAZING!" The one that you would want to use for your computer desktop, or even print up and hang on the wall. But out of the thousands of pictures that I’ve taken over the last couple of years, I can’t think of a single picture that I would want to hang on my wall. In fact, with all the photos that I’ve taken, the only thing of mine hanging up right now is 5 4×6 photos of tulips in a frame…and none of those are particularly good pictures on their own. They just happen to match my shower curtain.

It’s become painfully obvious to me that I’m not going to be one of those people who picks up a camera and starts making beautiful, amazing, life-altering photographs right away. I mean, come on, I’ve been taking photos on and off for over 15 years now. If I haven’t turned into the next Ansel Adams by now, I’m not going to. So, I think the real challenge for me to learn how to enjoy the process of photography, not fixating on the end result. The fact of the matter is that, I’ll probably continue to take pictures for the rest of my life because it’s one of the only ways that I’ve found to be even remotely creative in a visual space. And I have enjoyed it in the past, even when my photos were never that good.

I also need to really work on finding my way off the well-worn paths. I need to get out of my car and walk through the mud a little more. I need to experience things from a vantage point of someone other than a tourist. I need to be a little braver in asking people if I can photograph them or their pets or their flowers.

And I just need to keep taking pictures. Because, while my photos aren’t great, taking pictures is sure a whole lot cheaper than buying more equipment to take pictures that still aren’t great.

The Road Not Travelled

Philosophizing, Ramblings 2 Responses »

Feb 212010

Warning: this will be one of those self-reflective, contemplative, and a little depressed posts that crop up every now and again. If this doesn’t interest you, move along. Nothing to see here.

I had been looking forward to this weekend a great deal. Work for the last several weeks has been very demanding. I’ve been spending my time putting out fires, trying to fix problems, and dealing with the standard intra-office politics that plagues every single organization ever created by mankind. My weekends have been refuges for me. I’ve been able to relax, get away, do fun things, spend money, and generally enjoy myself thoroughly. So, after a particularly stressful week, I walked out of work on Friday ready for the weekend.

It was, to be blunt, disappointing.

The thing is that there is no reason it should have been. My weekend was spent much the same way as past weekends have been for months and months. I watched TV, played video games, went grocery shopping, grabbed some fast food, worked in the studio on some music, worked on an audiobook, surfed the web, and played with/walked the dog. I got a new bed delivered. I made rice pudding for the first time ever. (But without raisins, so it was actually good.)

But it’s 10:30 on a Sunday night, and I’m low.

When you’re young, you chart your life by the things that haven’t happened to you yet; by the things that you still have coming up. You look forward to starting school, going to Jr. High, going to your first dance (at the age of 14, if your Mormon), going to high school, going on your first day (at 16), graduating high school, going to college, graduating from college, getting a job. But I feel like that’s where it ends for me. (And let’s be honest…I didn’t even get half of the things I just listed off.) Most people get married, have kids, and then get to look forward to their kids’ milestones as much as their own, plus the additional milestone of being able to have the kids fly the nest and re-explore life as a single person. I, on the other hand, look at the remainder of my life and realize that my next milestone is retirement…which means that I’ve got 40 years of working jobs I don’t particularly care for in order to retire with enough money to live. Assuming that I don’t die of a heart attack in the 40s because of all the junk food I eat. Or get sick or injured. And heaven forbid that I spend the next 40 years working and retire only to find out that a) I’m too old to actually do anything I want to do or b) I don’t have anyone to do it with.

I spent this weekend doing the things that I wanted to do…and I largely enjoyed them. But I don’t feel like I’m working toward anything anymore. Even my resolutions seem forced…something to be working on for the sake of working on something…not because I really want to, or because I’m working toward something that’s really important to me.

For most of my life, there was always a path laid out before me. Granted, it was a path that I could not have followed, but at least there were milestones along the way. Once I finally started trying to chart my own future, I’ve come to realize that I don’t know where to go. I can’t be the good little Mormon boy with the wife and three adorable children, serving in Boy Scouts and teaching the Deacon’s Quorum. I can’t be the raging queen, out dancing at the clubs every night and hooking up with every ‘mo who crosses my path. I’m just stuck in between. And the thing about the middle ground? It’s in the middle. It’s bland, mediocre, unremarkable. It’s the Land of "Meh." It’s like a saw a fork in the road, and instead of taking the one "less travelled by," I just set up camp in the fork and watch people taking one road or the other while I sit there and try to learn the guitar or record an audiobook.

I’m not sure what the answer is…or if there even is an answer. And I feel rather disingenuous whining about feeling rudderless when I have friends and family who are struggling with real problems. I just wish I had something in my life that was driving me toward some greater end. A purpose, a milestone.

Or, maybe I should just start picking out retirement homes now…

The non-broken broken ankle

Gratitude, Health, Philosophizing, Whine No Responses »

Feb 152010

So, yesterday, it was raining, as it is wont to do here in the Seattle area. One of the worst things about the rain here, other than the overtly oppressive suicidal tendencies that it brings out in even the cheeriest among us, is that rain + eyeglasses = not fun. Have you ever tried to get water spots off of glasses? You might as well try to find a nice girlfriend for Liberace.

I mean, really? What girl wouldn’t be all over that? (BTW, I just interrupted the writing of this blog post for 15 minutes watching Liberace videos on YouTube. He was quite the fruitcake (hold the nuts) but man, could he play the piano.)

Anyway, last night, it was raining. And I was running across a parking lot to get back to my car. I also wear glasses, since I have an active, passionate loathing of contacts and sticking things in my eyes (but that’s another blog post.) In order to prevent my glasses from getting all spotted up, I tucked my head, and ran toward the car. Along the way, I happened to trip over one of these stupid things.

Or, more accurately, the tip of my shoe landed on the edge of one of those stupid things, and in the process, my foot got folded back so far my toes were nearly touching my shin.

I won’t tell you the words that came out of my mouth, but it was something along the lines of "Dang it. Poo. That smarts!" Or something. My memory of that night is a little hazy.

It did, in fact, hurt, as would be expected in any such situation. But I was able to drive home, and spent the next four hours playing video games and simply enjoying the last few fleeting moments of my freedom before I had to ~~prostitute myself again~~ go back to work. While the ankle was certainly tender, I was able to walk on it–even taking Luke out for his evening constitutional (is that what they call it these days?) before bed. I went to bed at midnight.

At about 1AM, I awoke in excruciating pain. Epic, miserable pain. My ankle hurt so badly I found myself whimpering involuntarily. It hurt to leave it still, it hurt to move it. And worst of all, I could feel myself going into a mild shock. I started shivering and trembling. (Luke was laying on the bed and it freaked him right the hell out. He started trying to calm me down by licking my hair. It was gross, but also very sweet.) I was so cold, and I couldn’t get warm.

My ankle wasn’t bruised, and had very little swelling, but it was very hot to the touch. I had pain radiating half-way up my shin, and over the top of my foot down around the ankle to my heel. I could feel it just throb with pain…a sensation I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced before.

I pulled back the covers and went to go get a couple of extra blankets, and the instant my injured ankle hit the ground, I collapsed in a heap with another mild exclamation ("Fudgesicles," I think I said.) I couldn’t put any weight on my injured ankle at all. I hopped to the bathroom, got a couple of blankets and about 800mg of Ibuprofen, and went back to bed, where I spent the next two hours shivering, in a significant amount of pain, and wondering if I needed to go to the hospital.

Here’s the problem, though: I drive a stick shift. It’s REALLY hard to drive a stick with one functional foot. And by hard, I mean impossible. And I wasn’t about to start calling up people at 2:30AM to take me to the hospital over a mangled ankle. So, I posted an update on Facebook just to take my mind off of how miserable I was, and eventually I went back to sleep.

This morning when I woke up, I was fully prepared to call someone and ask for a ride to the doctor’s office. I even called my parents and asked them if a broken bone is something you can go to a doctor’s office for, or if you need to go to a hospital. (My last broken bone was 26 years ago…I don’t remember it so well.) After I got off the phone, I got out of bed, and I was able to put weight on my leg again. The ankle was still very tender, but I was okay.

I ended up going to work, and hobbling around most of the day. As the day progressed, the muscles relaxed a bit, and I am now back to about 1/2 speed on my walking. I can even rotate my ankle slightly without discomfort. I can tell that the muscles are still very tight, and that, if I were to pivot on that ankle, it would hurt like a mother, but I’m taking it slow.

The whole experience freaked me out a little. When it comes to little hurts and scrapes, I tend to be fairly stoic about the pain. After I had my (less than successful) hair transplant surgeries, I didn’t even use my painkillers. (Well, I used them, but not for the pain associated with the surgery. Demerol or Vicodin knock the socks off of a Tylenol PM in the sleep aid department.) I mean, don’t get me wrong, I complain about pain a lot (like after a workout, when I want to look all impressive), but I know that I’m being a drama queen and just playing it for all it’s worth. I totally get that. But this time, it was different. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt that kind of physical pain in my life before. I was mentally trying to figure out how I was going to manage to pay for the X-Rays and hospital visit because my crappy insurance wouldn’t cover it until I had blown through my $2,000 deductible.

I’m glad that everything appears to have worked out fairly well. At the rate I’m going, I figure I’ll be back to normal on my ankle by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest. This was a learning experience for me. In review:

It’s always better to just take off your glasses if you have to go out in the rain.
Look where you’re going
Once again, I have proof that those 5 years of dance classes in college were a complete waste of money.
I should have gotten the automatic transmission instead of trying to save $1,000 by getting a stick shift. I knew I hated driving a stick.
Dogs are the best when you’re feeling vulnerable, scared, or in pain
Miracles sometimes even happen to the heathen among us
If you’re limping, just be prepared to be asked about 5,839 times a day why you are limping
Companies that don’t provide their employees (who have been working there for 2 1/2 years…I’m just sayin’) with decent medical insurance should be ashamed of themselves–it’s called loyalty.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to wrap up my ankle and go to bed…and hopefully this time, I won’t wake up whimpering in agony.

Insanity, thy name is Matt

Family, Oh. My. Hecks., Philosophizing, Ramblings, Vacations and Road Trips 4 Responses »

Dec 302009

I've often wondered how people manage to interact with me on a daily basis. Because it has become blatantly obviously that I'm completely and totally insane. What with the level of sheer crazy that I've managed to obtain over the last couple of weeks, I'm honestly surprised people have started talking to me in condescending child voices or surreptitiously avoiding my gaze (or presence) like you would a raving lunatic on the subway who is recruiting passengers for his long space journey to join the God Lukamis who lives on the planet Zimath. I, of course, didn't always consider myself to be completely mental. It's a condition that snuck up on me gradually. But here I am. Just recently, I found myself at a bit of a crossroads: I could either fight to maintain what little sanity I still possessed, or I could embrace my inherent mental unhinging with wild abandon.

I chose the latter.

And what, you may ask, is the thing that pushed over the edge from (relatively) sane, (barely) normal, suburban corporate life into my Tom Cruise-level of crazy? I can promise you, you're not going to see this coming. Are you ready?

…

Here it comes…

…

In August, I'm going on a 5-day backpacking trip through the Wind River Valley in Wyoming.

Serious. I'm going on a 50+ mile hike through the Wyoming high country. You can see several photos and a narrative at this website (which is also the source of the above photo).

On the surface, this may not seem like the standard definition of insanity, but let me explain why it is:

I haven't been camping since I was 15 years old
I didn't particularly enjoy it then
My idea of roughing it is spending a night in a Motel 6
There will be no electricity
Ergo, there will be no computers, cell phones, televisions, etc.
I have absolutely no experience on this kind of trip
I own no appropriate camping/hiking gear
It will be an elevations between 10,000 and 13,000 feet
I'm a lazy, lazy man
This will require pooping in a hole in the middle of nowhere outside in the open

One guess as to which one of those concerns me the most. (Hint: #10)

So, what happened what this: They say insanity runs in the genes. I'm not sure exactly who "they" is, but "they" say that. If "they" is correct, then I got my particular brand of insanity from my father. Last summer, my dad, his Twin Brother™ and two other men went on a rather dangerous and difficult 8 day (I think), 85 mile backpacking trip along the Highline Trail in the Uinta Mountains of Utah. He did this despite the fact that he is old enough to join AARP. When dad got back from his trip, I spent a lot of time on the phone with him as he related his experience. And my father is, if nothing else, a master storyteller. He painted a picture for me that stirred my blood with excitement. The trip was extremely difficult, but according to him, was a life-changing experience. He described the nights with the skies so clear you could see the milky way stretch from one horizon to the other; of locations so remote, places so isolated that it was easy to forget that you weren't the last man alive. He made me jealous. I have never experienced anything like that. The closest I get to experiences like that is when I take Luke to the dog park early enough in the morning that nobody else is out yet.

Also, this year, my little sister did something that was (to me) equally as impressive. She hiked from one rim of the grand canyon to the other rim in a single day, a total of some ridiculous sum like 23 miles. Her blog post about the experience got me going too. She managed to do something that was so difficult, but so completely rewarding. It's almost like the two things go hand in hand. Who knew?

So, when I went home for Christmas, dad showed me the pictures of his trip…and they were absolutely gorgeous. And again I was jealous. And then he did what he does every year: invite me to come along on the next trip. I believe that he was fully expecting that, like every year since I was 14, I would make some smart-ass comment about staying in a Motel 6, and that would be that. But his stories of the trail stirred something primal inside of me that has long been dormant/dead, and I got to thinking–"a dangerous pastime, I know". I'm fairly certain that I took him off guard when I said that I wanted to go.

I think it's fairly unlikly that I will ever be one of those avid backpackers/hikers/outdoorsman. Most of the time, I'd rather spend my weekend in my pajamas, sitting in front of my HDTV, and playing video games. Or shopping. Or going out to eat. Or giving myself an appendectomy with a garden scythe. But while doing those things (except for the appendectomy) are enjoyable, I feel like continuing to choose them over more participative activities is tantamount to throwing my life down the garbage disposal and flipping on the switch. I'm young(ish), relatively healthy, and I want to experience life. I have always assumed that I don't like backpacking, but I've never done it. And maybe I'd really, really enjoy it. Maybe I'll despise every second of it, and by the end of the trip, my dad will want to go all Abraham and Isaac on me up in the mountains because of my incessant complaining. But I won't know until I've tried it. There are enough things in life that I won't get to do because of time, money, fear, etc. I don't want to give up what could be a life-changing experience (or a great new hobby) without trying it.

Plus, I just spent a butt-load of money on a new camera. This seems like a truly excellent opportunity to do the kind of photography that most people don't even dream about. I mean, really, how often does someone (who isn't a photographer for National Geographic) get to carry a professional camera into the vast wilds for five days and snap photos like crazy?

So, I have agreed to go on a massive (for me) backpacking trip in August. I get out of breath going up three flights of stairs. My idea of exertion is making my bed. This means that training started on Monday and will continue through August. Training consists of:

Losing 20 Pounds (See Resolution #3)
Geting into Shape (See Resolution #6)
- Cardio (Running, doing stairs)
- Weights (Shoulders, Back, and Abs, especially…so I can carry a 45# pack)
- Start eating real, natural food to fuel the process
Begging, borrowing, or stealing as much equipment as necessary. I don't want to start spending hundreds of dollars on equipment until I know for sure this is going to be a long-term hobby for me. I don't need another money sink hole in my life, thank you very much
Practicing hiking. Start doing some day hikes on the weekends around the area. Bring dog for company.

It's day four of the new routine, and I've already lost four pounds. I've been running twice, except I can only run about a mile and a half, and now I have shin splints. But I must persevere. Because I'll be damned if I get out on the trail in August and I get my rear end handed to me by a couple of men old enough to get the senior citizen discount at Denny's. I may be inexperienced, but I'm going to make sure that by the time August rolls around, I'll be ready. Or I will have quit. But either way, we'll know.

I'm really, really excited for this trip. It hasn't even been fully planned yet, but I'm looking forward to it. As I was telling my (insane) father, I'm scared to death of it, because it's so new, but it's also exciting. I expect that it will be one of the more physically demanding things I've ever done in my life–going through puberty notwithstanding–but I feel like I really need to exert myself in a portion of my life. I need something that will roust me from my ever-deepening rut and give me the motivation to get my act in gear. I figure that there are few motivators more potent than the looming threat 50+ mile hike through the Wyoming high country with a heavy backpack and a couple of trash-talking geriatrics to get me headed down the right path.

And if I survive, I'll have a few amazing blog posts and (hopefully) thousands of pictures to share.

If I survive.

Most Wonderful Time

Family, Holidays, Philosophizing, Ramblings No Responses »

Dec 242009

The freeway was empty at 4:30 in the morning. At least, that’s the way it seemed. The shimmer of headlights from a far-distant automobile reminded me that I wasn't entirely alone as I made my way toward the airport the in pre-dawn darkness. But other than the telltale pinpricks of light miles behind me, I felt completely isolated.

It was also the kind of quiet that you can only get while driving alone in the darkness. The hum of the car had faded into the background as I watched the white dotted lines race past me. My decision not to turn on the radio was an unusual for me: I tend wither and die without a daily dose of NPR news coverage. Despite the absence of Karl Kassel’s dulcet tones, however, things were very peaceful. The clack of my tires rolling over the regularly-spaced expansion joints created a subtle double-time metronome, the perfect percussion for an a capella version of Silent Night, which sprang forth almost involuntarily.

It was a simple, perfect moment. I would not generally describe a freeway trip at 4:30AM on the way to the airport as a perfect moment. But this time—it was just perfect. I was going home for Christmas.

I don't really care about or for most holidays. I hate Halloween. I vilify Valentine's Day. In my world, a holiday's value is directly proportional to how many days of work I get to miss as a result. I don't decorate, I think celebrating holidays in the workplace is silly, and I don't go to the holiday parties. I don't give gifts, dress up, or bring holiday themed snacks to work. By all standard definitions of the word, I'm a holiday curmudgeon.

For every single holiday except Christmas. There's something special about Christmas that touches me in a way that no other holiday can. I decorate two months early. I spend Halloween night walking down the aisles of the stores looking at Christmas decorations. I listen to the music in July. I send out cards and letters. I go insane with the gifts for my family. And, of course, I always go out of my way to be “home” for the holiday. (Home being wherever my parents live.)

As I was driving along I-405 so early in the morning, I tried to reflect on why it is that adore Christmas so readily and completely while other holidays leave me somewhere on the spectrum between cold and rage-filled. I came to the conclusion that it’s because Christmas provides me with a single thing so often missing in my life: Peace.

The modern world is rarely a fertile ground for peace. Work, bills, responsibilities, money, e-mail, cell phones…they are all things that distract and excite. In my life, there’s no time to simply sit back, relax, and embrace the calm. I'm swamped with work, worrying about getting laid off, trying to figure out how I'm going to pay my bills, taking care of the dog, running errands, and generally filling my life with all sorts of cosmically unimportant problems, dramas, and issues. I’m checking e-mail, surfing the web, checking my investments, working on my business, talking on the phone, playing video games, watching TV, playing with my toys. Nothing I do in my life brings or provides peace. Except for those few days a year where I can set all that aside and just be with the ones I love.

At Christmastime, it's okay for a Curmudgeon to cast off his war-hardened demeanor and become like a child again. One of the most beloved Christmas stories, A Christmas Carol, is about just that. My never-ceasing bah humbugs of life can be set aside for a few days. I leave my world behind, shut down my email, refuse to answer phone calls from anyone but my family, and I just enjoy the company. No schedules, no requirements, no demands.

At Christmas, it's okay for a 31-year-old single man to smile at a little child standing in line to see Santa Claus and not feel as though people will think he’s a pedophillic pervert. It’s okay to sing songs and play games, to buy presents and give them with no expectation or requirement for reciprocation. It’s okay to tell tales of elves, reindeer, and Santa—to play along in a world of excitement and anticipation and childlike enthusiasm which simply doesn’t fit in the day-to-day adult world. It may seem simplistic, but that’s the beauty of the holiday. It is, at its root, simple. We adults manage to complicate and make frantic the holidays, but Christmas can and should be simple. And those things we feel we have to do for the holidays become all the more enjoyable because we get to do them for the ones we love.

When I was a young child, we often used to drive from our home in Southern Michigan to visit the grandparents in Northwest Ohio. We always did Christmas Day at our own home, we would regularly have our Christmas Eve in Ohio with the grandparents, then drive home late on Christmas eve to be at home for Santa's delivery. Most of the time on road trips, my siblings and I usually fought like cats and dogs. At the best of times, we all had our headphones on, and listened to our own respective Walkman for the whole trip doing our darnedest not to talk to one another. I remember the Christmas Eve drives being far more peace, even magical. We would sing Christmas Carols often. My infatuation with the song Silver Bells comes from singing the song as we drove through the Main Streets of small cities in Ohio bedecked with Christmas lights and decorations. We would retell the Christmas stories and legends about Santa, the Elves, Rudolph, and of course, about the Birth of Jesus.

And we talked: The kids would ask dad questions about how Santa did his thing, and my father, who was always lightning fast with improvisation, developed a mythology around Santa of which the Greeks could be envious. On more than one occasion, Dad would get us overly excited about the presents we were going to get tomorrow—his favorite line of all time being “you're going to like it SO MUUUUCH!” As it would get dark outside and my brother, sister, and mom would all fall asleep in the car, while I would stay awake with dad and we'd talk in low voices. I always stayed awake on road trips because I didn't feel like it was fair that dad was the only one who had to stay awake, and I wanted to keep him company. Those talks with dad made me feel special: like an adult whose opinions and thoughts really mattered. And one time, staring up at the sky, I was convinced that I actually saw Rudolph's red nose zooming past in the sky over the highway.

As I was driving in the dark to the airport at such an ungodly hour, I was powerfully reminded of those trips back from Ohio where we celebrated Christmas. Dad wasn't there to talk to, Jake and Megan not there asleep on the pillow on my lap, I wasn’t driving through small Ohio towns, and there weren’t even many Christmas decorations. But I was going home for Christmas.

That’s why I listen to Christmas music in July. That’s why the Christmas decorations go up well before Thanksgiving. I simply can’t wait to recapture the sheer peace and happiness of those times when my life was so much simpler. I was extremely blessed that my holidays were always filled with love, excitement, peace, and joy—I know many were not that fortunate—and I can’t wait to get back to it again.

So I will continue to drive to the airport at 4:30 in the morning, stand in a long security line, sit on a cramped, smelly airplane, and pay for the right to do so year after year. I will continue to put up my decorations after Halloween, and listen to Christmas music whenever the mood strikes…even if it's July. I'll still keep singing Silent Night or Silver Bells to myself in the car at night time. And I still check the sky every Christmas Eve night to see if I can spot Rudolph's glowing red nose way up above me.

Because Christmas truly is The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

Merry Christmas!

Where’s the Thanks?

Family, Food, Holidays, Philosophizing, Ramblings 1 Response »

Nov 262009

I love Christmas. I always have. In fact, as I have repeatedly expressed, often by overuse of the phrase "suck it," I love Christmas so much that I start decorating the day after Halloween, regardless of what certain unenlightened misers might say or think about my pre-emptive yuletide celebrations. My detractors, of whom I have many, often complain about the fact I’m putting up my Christmas decorations too early by spouting the well-worn quip (always with a whine in their voice), "But it’s not even Thanksgiving yet!" My response to such declarations are always the same (i.e., suck it.) I don’t decorate for Thanksgiving. I don’t really even celebrate Thanksgiving. To me, Thanksgiving is really nothing more than an excuse to get together and eat until you’re sick…something I’m perfectly capable of doing on my own, thank you very much. Also, any holiday which embraces the consumption of the foul putrescence known as pumpkin pie is a holiday I can’t get behind. Pumpkin pie is like nutmeg-flavored diarrhea in a crust. It’s like thick orange/brown mucous topped with Reddi-Whip. Just the thought of pumpkin pie makes me dry-heave a little. Foul, evil, nasty, disgusting, gag-inducing slime. Blech.

Over the last few weeks, as I’ve been telling people to suck it, I’ve been thinking somewhat about where my attitude about Thanksgiving came from. The holiday has always made me a little uncomfortable. To me, Thanksgiving was always about driving several hours to eat a meal with family members where, most of the time, there wasn’t anyone my age or anything fun to do. I was a very picky eater, so I was often stuck in a meal with food that wasn’t made the way I liked it. My siblings and I fought constantly when we were young, so being trapped in the car for a total of six hours in a single day should have been cause enough for my parents to sell us to the gypsies. (Why don’t we have gypsies in the US? I think a solid gypsy population could really do wonders for scaring bad little kids straight. I think I’ll work on that. Anyone want to be a gypsy? The pay’s not great, but you’ll get to enjoy the outdoors!) And most of all, I have a deep, abundant loathing of football. I despise the game to the depths of my cold, poisonous heart. To this day, hearing that omnipresent roar of a large crowd blasting through a television speaker with the ear-meltingly dull commentary over top, all while the harsh bluish lights of the stadium cast the field in a shadowless, erie glow is enough to turn me into a quivering mass, huddling in the corner and sucking my thumb. I hate football (and all sports) so much I’ve actually gone so far as to un-program ESPN and Fox Sports from my Tivo so I won’t even see them in the guide when I’m looking for something to watch. Any holiday that has, as a major part of the celebratory process, either a game of football or football on television is a holiday I don’t enjoy celebrating.

Then, when I went to college, my celebration of Thanksgiving really ceased because, for the most part, I spent my Thanksgivings alone or with people who invited me over out of pity, not necessarily because they wanted me around. My freshman year of college, I was the only person in the dorms, because I had to do a show Thanksgiving night. The next two years, I ate a total of 7 Thanksgiving dinners as I was on my mission–none of which were with my family, who I was missing terribly. The year after that, I was alone in my apartment because I was back doing another show. Then I spent Thanksgiving in the hold of a cruise ship. Then alone again. Then at the house of a family of a guy that my dad went to college with, and so on. By the time I was close to family again, the traditions of Thanksgiving had just been swept aside. Thanksgiving was usually just another day for me because usually as soon as dinner was over, I had to be back at the theatre for a show.

But most of all, I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving because, although I am not proud of admitting it, I’m not a very thankful person, and I never have been. I have a very difficult time looking past what I consider to be the shortcomings and downfalls of my life to see those things that are good. I have an exceptionally negative outlook on life in general, and I always have. So having a day where everyone spends all their time expounding upon all the things that bring them joy, all I am able to do is to sit back and consider how miserable I am. Then, it gets to be my turn, and I sit at my empty plate and turn on "Performer Matt," and say all the right words, and maybe even work up some emotion or fake being choked up for 45 seconds until it’s the next person’s turn. Then it gets switched right back off and I sit there miserable because someone just spent 3 minutes talking about how much they love their spouse and how their spouse makes them complete and I get angry all over again at not being able to say the same thing.

I’ve often wondered why gratitude in general is such a foreign concept to me, and has been as far back as I can remember. From the age where I was finally old enough to be able to understand what I was feeling, I have had an almost god-like ability to find the negative and to draw it close to my heart. I can remember coming home from school in first and second grade, and crying because I didn’t have any friends, even though I did have some friends. I remember Christmases where all I could focus on were the presents I didn’t get, to the point that I could never enjoy the presents I did get. I don’t know that, as I was experiencing it, I ever recognized the sacrifice or energy my parents spent on me. I even remember a phase in my spiritual ~~train wreck~~ journey where I made an effort in my prayers to only express thanks for my blessings and not to ask for anything in the hopes that it would help me be better at recognizing the blessings in my life. In the end, every single prayer or journal entry sounded exactly the same. I could make a list of 10 or 15 things that I was grateful for, and then I’d sit there, and my mind would go fuzzy, and I would be completely unable to think of anything else.

So, when Thanksgiving rolls around, I don’t "celebrate" the way most people do. I brag on my blog about the amazing meal that someone else is catering, and try to convince people to come and visit me so they can experience it too. And that’s it. I spent $40 bucks to eat an insanely delicious meal at a restaurant, and I get the day off work. But for most people, the food is only a very small part of Thanksgiving. It’s about the experience, the family, the process. And for me, the experience is really my least favorite part of the whole thing.

Besides, I just can’t, in good conscious, celebrate a holiday with such an atrocious color scheme. Orange, yellow, and brown? Blech. The 70s called. They want their color palette back.

I can’t glow with effusive gratitude like some people. I’m not a happy person, and I don’t really like my life all that much. That being said, there are a few things for which I am grateful:

I was born into the best family on Earth.
- I have the most wonderful, supportive parents
- The coolest sister who astonishes me with her strength and courage
- And a younger brother who has grown into an awe-inspiring man
- I have nieces that I love (but never get to see)
I have a dog that is a friend and a companion, and who showers me with the day-to-day love and affection that sometimes I so desperately need
Despite the rain, I live in one of the most wonderful places I’ve ever been (and I’ve been a lot of places)
My job allows me to pay the bills, buy my toys, and enjoy my hobbies
I have managed to find a modicum of peace in some aspects of my life that wasn’t there before
I have a wonderful mind that drives me to learn, experiment, create, build, and explore–and to enjoy the process almost more than the final result
I am done with my formal education
I have a warm(ish) apartment, a car than runs, clothes, and (obviously) ample food.

So, all in all, it sure could be a whole lot worse. I am able to see these things, and I hope, recognize them to a certain extent. I just hope that, as my life goes on, I will be able to find a way to let the gratitude overpower the things I feel are missing from my life, rather than the other way around. Until then, I hope you’ll forgive me if I skip over Thanksgiving a little and focus on Christmas instead.

Because I REALLY hate pumpkin pie.

Why Wait?

Philosophizing, Ramblings 3 Responses »

Jul 092009

On my last post about resolutions, WhiteEyebrows asked me why I was going to wait until November to write a novel rather than starting now. The answer to that question is that I am going to participate in the National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo is a program where you spend the month of November writing 50,000 words of a novel. The number of words is so high because the emphasis is simply getting the writing on the page (so to speak) not on making it perfect. It’s a common technique to overcome writer’s block. Just start writing down anything at all. I figure, if November is NaNoWriMo, then January could be NaNoEdMo (National Novel editing month). I have no belief that the novel I write in November will be “done” to the level of me being willing to show it to a living soul, but it will be a good start, and then I can work on editing it, if I so choose.

It’s an interesting activity: using quantity, not quality, as the measuring stick for an artistic creation. It’s something that seems counter-intuitive to an artistic pursuit. Or life in general when you think about it. While I was home on vacation, I was talking with my dad and we were joking about how many hobbies we have between us: photography, coin collecting, ham radio, playing the guitar, hiking, video games, music, web/graphic design, cooking, gardening, shooting, fishing, etc., etc., etc. My father said to me, “I will die long before I am able to try all of the hobbies I want to try.”

My response was, “So will I.”

The older I get, and the more experience I have interacting with other people, the more I begin to believe that this attitude is not entirely common. So many people I come across in my daily life have their one or two things that they like to do, and they are never particularly interested in going outside of those comfort zones. This simply doesn’t make sense to me at all. There are so many things in the world that I want to try. Pretty much the only thing keeping me from doing them is a lack of time and money, not fear or a lack of desire. I want to learn to Kayak. I want to make a movie. I want to write a novel, write a musical. I want to collect stamps. I want to travel. I want to learn woodworking, to repair a car. I want to go bike riding. I want to learn to write computer software, and to write several ideas for programs I’ve got stuck in my head. I want to sculpt and paint. I want to become an accomplished bowler. I want to run a successful business. I want to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. There’s just so much interesting, and different, and exciting out there that I’m not experiencing.

The one feeling I really don’t understand when it comes to this sort of thing, through, is being unwilling to try something simply because of the fear of failure. I have a friend who has talked openly and repeatedly about wanting to sing. He grew up loving music, singing along with commercials on TV. But his parents were unsupportive, and now he’s afraid to try to sing in public. He’s afraid of failing. So instead, he just doesn’t sing. I just don’t understand this. What’s wrong with failing? It happens to the best of us? It’s one thing to try something and discover you’re not so good at it, and decide not to continue. It’s quite another to simply not even try because you’re afraid you might not be good at it—especially if it’s something you really want to try.

When I was 14, my family got our very first computer for Christmas. It was a 368sx with a 40 Meg hard drive and, I think, 4 Megs of Ram. It ran DOS 3.1. By noon on Christmas day, I had accidentally reformatted the Hard Drive, and couldn’t get the computer to work. Nobody in my family knew what to do to fix it, so my dad took it back to the store (CompuPro) and had them fix the problem. About two weeks after that, while tinkering away on the inside of the computer, I did something and fried the motherboard. My dad again took it to the repair shop and paid to get it repaired. After that, he told me that if I broke the computer again, he wouldn’t get it fixed. Sure enough, a few weeks later, I did something else in my experimentations, and I mangled that computer with an expert hand. I didn’t know what I did, or how to fix it, so I started experimenting. Eventually, I figured out the problem. It went from there, and by the time I was 16, I had my own little business making house calls fixing people’s computers. Those skills tie directly into the way I make my living today.

Sure, I could have taken my dad’s warning, and played it safe with the computer. But then I’d probably still be dancing in an elf costume in some stupid dinner theatre in Hicksville, Tennessee for $300 a week. Actually, even that probably wouldn’t have happened, because I decided I wanted to try my hand at performing theatre as a Junior in High School. Honestly, if I wasn’t willing to try new things, I’d probably still be working as as a secretary for Robert’s Packaging in Battle Creek for $8.75 an hour.

Lately, I’ve been letting fear of change and fear of breaking away from routine hold me back from trying new things and branching out. Even I’m not immune. Well, I’m done waiting. I can’t use school as an excuse anymore. I’m not going to use work as an excuse anymore. There are things that I want to do in my life, and even if I live for another 70 years (goodness, I hope not) then there won’t be enough time to get it done. There is absolutely no reason for me to put it off any longer.

You shouldn’t either.

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Boots Made for Walking

Picture This…

The Road Not Travelled

The non-broken broken ankle

Insanity, thy name is Matt

Most Wonderful Time

Where’s the Thanks?

Why Wait?

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