I went swing dancing tonight. For New Year’s Eve. I had a good time, but my sister is right. Swing dancing is her thing, not mine. I probably would have been happier playing D&D. Let me reiterate though, I still had a good time.
New Year’s Eve has a lot of pressure behind it. It is supposed to be the big party day, but it will never meet expectations. My initial plan was to do some computer work, but I’m still glad I went out instead.
I heard once that one of the best times to pick up girls is on New Year’s Eve, because they are examining their lives and probably have low self-esteem. Something like that. Swing dancing is rather chaste; There isn’t much alcohol flowing around at these events. As opposed to the bump and grind of bar dancing, which is probably where the pick-up should be happening. I know if I had gone to a bar it would have been far more depressing; I still don’t have the confidence to approach women I don’t know. But swing dancing is not a good place to pick up women.
The other problem is that I am the wrong age for swing dancing. All the girls there seem to be much older or younger than me. I’ll happily dance with them, but now that I have hit the magical age of 35 and have hit the next age category, asking a university girl for her number feels creepy. (It has actually felt creepy for awhile.)
Opinion: The men in swing dancing are the leads, so they are responsible for the direction of the dance. You can tell a lot about a particular male by observing its plummage. A floppy hat is a sign that “I own this entire dance floor and I plan to explore every part of it. I will be kicking a lot while I do this.” God help you if they are wearing suspenders too.

My ankle hurts.

I got kicked out of my parent’s home today.
When I say it like that it sounds worse than it actually was. I was going to go home today; Work tomorrow and all. However, this morning, in the greater Calgary area, there was a huge dump of snow. My mother figured that it would be better if I left earlier in case there was any traffic problems. So I didn’t get the homemade lunch I had been hoping for.
I had trouble getting out of the driveway, as I have had frequently in the past. It is rather steep and traction is not as present as one would hope for. Calgary was pretty easy; It was Sunday morning and heavy snowfall so there weren’t many people on the roads. However one person did cut me off and covered my entire car with brown snow. It ruined any visibility in my side-view mirrors. Still, I got to Edmonton without too much trouble after that. Fifteen minutes north of Airdrie there was no snow.

My family does the Christmas thing on the eve. So I got my loot tonight.
I seem to have a cooking theme this year. I got a lot of presents that are for the kitchen: Rice cooker, cookbook, fondue set, vacuum marinator. I am completely ready to hold parties now.

Driving down to Calgary was a little different this time. I’ve usually been able to leave work early enough that I can still do the trip in daylight. Or at least mostly daylight. This time I was at work later on nearly the shortest day of the year. It was easily dark by the time I was passing through Red Deer.
Red Deer looks different in the dark.
At one point I was wondering if I had made a wrong turn and was actually heading towards Rocky Mountain House. I guess “wrong turn” would be an incorrect term. Considering it is ONE road from Edmonton to Calgary, with no intersections, it would be very hard to take a wrong turn. More likely I would have accidentally taken an exit. And things that sound utterly silly in the cold light of the computer screen make a searing sense when you are trying to keep your car steady on a dark road. Where are the signs that would tell me what road this is, the road I’ve been on for the last hour?
I certainly didn’t want to risk trying to unfold a map.
Thankfully, I had had my iPhone working at providing audio entertainment. A nice glowing screen awaited my thumb, easy to see in the dark of the car. A few screen presses presents the maps and GPS and I can see I’m clearly on QE2 and I must have been delusional to think otherwise.
i.e. I’m at my parent’s now.

I have now been 35 for an entire month.
I’ve noticed that when I fill out surveys now, I am in a new age category. I guess I’m officially old.
Contiki only allow people up to age 35 to go on their tours. I really enjoyed going on my European trip with them, and I was thinking of trying to do another one this year. It’s my last chance to go on a (any) tour that is guaranteed not to have seniors on it (besides me.) But I’ve signed up for ultra-marathons that are going to evaporate my vacation time.
I remember ten years ago, when there was a tech bubble going on, that I had decided I would be a millionaire by the time I was 35. Ah, to be young and stupid again. There is certainly no investment bubble going on now.
But I am older, and my instinct right now is to get maudlin and write in my journal about the direction (and lack thereof) of my life. But you don’t want to hear about that. So I think you should go eat some pie instead. You’ll like it better.

I have that marathon-and-a-half in about four weeks. So I have to get some distance runs in. Which means I can’t get out of my Sunday runs. So, despite it being a -40 windchill, I was out on Sunday morning to run 29km. My group only did 27.5km. And we really didn’t see anyone else out running.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that on Monday morning I noticed that my nose appears to be trying to fall off.
Running makes you stupid.

I have mentioned before my video rental strategy. The alphabetic method.
I’ve been feeling fairly good about it. I’ve recently finished with the numbers and the “A”s. I am now getting movies that start with a “B”. Since I’ve been busy these days I am trying to get shorter movies so that I have more time for other things. When I got Bicentennial Man I had to watch it over three nights. (Query: Can Hollywood do an Isaac Asimov robot movie without horribly violating the three laws?) So shorter movies are good.
Today at the video store, I wandered around a bit and found the featured directors section. There I saw movies I hadn’t seen by Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola that both started with “A” and had running times close to three hours. I had enough trouble with American Gangster. How am I going to fit these ones in?

The weather for running today was great. The traction was not great.
Among my friends, I can put some of them into two groups. There is the running group and there is the feast group.
The running group friends deny doing any peer pressure, but they are very good at it. It is my own decision to run ultras and they can’t force me into it. But I know that if they do it, and I don’t, I’ll never live it down. And it will gnaw at me. They also just assume I will. They know me well.
The feast group are not runners. They are more consumers of food. But I digress. They are also doing peer pressure on me. They tell me I shouldn’t run ultras. Their main points are usually what I was complaining about while training for the last one. There is one among them who does think I should, but he is an aberration. He is an enabler. Their leader though, who I shall refer to as “S”, is the most insistent that I shouldn’t run an ultra again. However, I’m not so sure about her anymore.
The last entry I wrote was perfect bait for her to tell me that I shouldn’t do an ultra. I even pictured her telling me, and most importantly, wagging her finger at me. I let her know this at the next consuming of food event. She said I shouldn’t, but she never once wagged her finger at me. Is her finger broken? No! I saw her wag it at someone else that evening. But never at me. So I think this is a case of, her-lips-said-no-but-her-finger-said-yes.
So, now that I know what she really thinks, I’ve signed up for the Blackfoot Ultra. I have signed away my free time for the next year.
I’m sure she’ll approve.

Now that it is cold out, I’ve brought out a warmer jacket. It’s one I got when I did the Death Race. It is one of those bomber jackets, cloth with leather arms. The kind you would find on students in sports leagues.
And that’s the thing. When I wear it, I feel like one of those jocks I used to see hanging around school, acting cool. (When they weren’t beating me up after class.) I don’t really like that feeling. I didn’t like them then.
If I think about it, I have retained my nerdity, but I am now probably healthier than any of those jocks I saw in school. I ran a stupid distance and lived to tell the tale.
And now that my injury seems to actually be making progress on the path to health, I’m getting stupid again.
There is the Alberta Triple Crown which is a series of three ultramarathons that one tries to complete in a single calendar year. A few months ago I thought that was stupid. Times have changed.
The first is just 100km, the Blackfoot Ultra in May. I should be healed by then. I mentioned the idea of just that ultra to my physical therapist, and she thought it was too close to the last ultra, which will be the Walt Disney World Goofy in January. According to her, one should only run one ultra a year.
Sounds like good advice.
But, as a runner, I have learned that we are great at giving well thought-out advice, but terrible at following it.

It is American Thanksgiving and so I did my turkey day. The real holiday for the Americans was back in Thursday, but I don’t get the day off, so work with me here.
This was actually a lot less pressure than in previous years. I didn’t feel stressed, and everything seemed to go more or less correctly. My timing was good. I think the biggest problem was the gravy was too salty. Probably because I used chicken broth instead of water to replace the part that steamed off.
We didn’t get into an American style arguments though…
Even though I felt like a total hillbilly, the electric carving knife was a lot of fun.
And the people stayed much later than they have done on any other party. We even did some Karaoke. All in all a success.

Yesterday, in the late evening I went to a convention happening in Edmonton. I’ll pretend the name of it is Taboo and not mention it any further. Among the things being showed off was an energy drink called Beaver Buzz. It was trying a little too hard to be Canadian, but I will admit the Saskatoon berry flavour was the best. Since I’m cheap and thirsty I happily took their free samples. I was out until midnight so I got too bed late.
It was only when I was actually trying to get to sleep did it finally click with me that energy drinks have a lot of caffeine. And this drink had something to prove. Of course they put in too much.
As usual I had to get up early for my run today. It went well, and I did feel pain at some point but I finished it strong. I did make sure I didn’t run quickly up the hills and let the other people be the first to finish. After brunch though, I collapsed and took as much of a nap as I am able to.

My leg is still hurting. It just doesn’t seem to be getting better. I took two weeks off, and it that didn’t seem to help. And that Disney run is coming in January. That is coming up rapidly.
My physical therapist actually was wondering about acupuncture. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

When I was in Jamaica, something happened to my feet and legs. They got itchy and red. Bumps appeared. My sandals felt like an irritant against my feet. There was swelling involved. A nurse there told me to take some benadryl and that did seem to help. Someone else thought it was sand mites.
Since I came home my feet have been getting better. They still look a little wrinkly in places, or dry in others. With occasional itchiness. Maybe I should go see a doctor, but if I’m getting better I don’t think I need to be concerned. And I need to get around to unpacking my suitcases.
I’ve found that I need to unpack as soon as I get home from a vacation. If I wait at all, it will end up taking weeks to get around to it. Case in point.
This evening I got started on parts of it so I could do laundry. I was a little surprised to notice a funny smell. I checked it out, and found that my leather sandals were now covered in fungus. They looked moldy. That’s not a good sign. Luckily they were wrapped in a plastic bag the entire time so the infection hasn’t spread. But now I’m beginning to think that the sandals were becoming part of the problem.
I should probably just throw them out, but I’ll make a token effort to clean them.

I read an interesting article today. For all I know it will change my life. But that does seem to be the theme of it. Change. I need to change my routine often.
If you know me, you probably know that I’m not big on change. I get into ruts very easily, and I like them. I like to be able to predict where I’ll be. If I do something one year, I expect I will do it again the next year.
Of course, I now have to figure out how to do all this changing.
But I should now try and do more new things. This is an opportunity for my friends to totally abuse my trust.

And it is now my birthday. Another year around the sun. This, I suppose, is a special one because it is divisible by 5. And 7, if you math people want to play with factors.
Introspection is par for the course here. I’m specifically going to relate it to my vacation I just had.
I really enjoyed Jamaica. Life felt so easy there. And I’m not talking about not having to do work and being surrounded by beautiful women. People, who know me, know that I do not do well around beautiful women. They are a source of added stress.
But it is different there. I felt relaxed and I didn’t have any trouble talking to the pretty girls. I could be myself and not feel judged.
When I am home, I constantly feel judged. I try to put forward an image of myself as a perfect being. Someone without any human weaknesses. This is, of course, impossible, but it is important for me to present this façade. I am trying to appear inhuman, and I need to stop this.
Am I trying to be a Vulcan?
I thought I got over that years ago, but it still seems to stick to me.
Am I two different people? One is the face I pretend to be, and the other only comes out on vacation. I suppose that could be true for anyone, but I can’t help but feel it is somewhat more extreme for me. Would I feel better if I was more honest with myself and my friends. Would stress go away? Would I be happier?
For the record though, I’m still not gay. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

I’m home. Safely. Most major organs are intact.

It was a beautiful day today. The sun was shining, the waves looked fairly calm. And I’ve been waiting at the airport for nearly three hours.
It takes an hour and a half to get to the airport from the resort. But busses don’t run as often on a Sunday, so I had to leave at a more inconvenient time. (On Saturdays they are leaving every hour.) So at ten o’clock I said my goodbyes to the few remaining friends and boarded the bus. I got to the airport at about eleven thirty. My flight isn’t leaving until 2:45. It feels like a waste of a good day. But the real world is calling and I can’t put it off forever.
My biggest concern right now is that my feet have had a rash for most of my stay here. I’ve been told by a non-medical person that it is sand mites. But as far as I am concerned, it just makes my feet itchy. I’m wondering if the sandals I kept wearing helped in the problem? Now I’m wearing shoes for a winter climate. They aren’t too bad, but I’m wondering how it will look when I take them off tonight.

Okay, I didn’t actually drink more than one horrid shot. But I compensated in other ways. The highlight of the whole night was spending it cuddling with the professional model for several hours. I did get a few mixed signals. She didn’t want to kiss at all, but I did see her necking with another guy who is quite a bit more aggressive. Still, she did want to spend her time with me.
Then she disappeared. She wanted to talk to some other people who were hanging around. I decided to take the opportunity to help my bodypainter friend with camera troubles and did a quick trip to my room to grab some stuff. When I got back she was gone. Others said that she said she would be back, but I didn’t see her for the rest of the night. Apparently the E she had rolled made her a bit ADD.
This was the last night before my friends were mostly leaving. So I didn’t want to waste it sleeping. I continued to hang out around the resort, finding small groups of them.
Eventually the sun rose. I did know that the beautiful porn star was leaving at 6:00, so I helped her with her stuff. Mostly though I stopped her from oversleeping. She’s invited me to visit her in L.A. and I am very tempted.
After she was gone I took a short nap (although I’m not sure I actually fell to sleep) and then got up to say goodbye to the next group of people leaving. I continued that pattern for most of the morning, until noon when I found the professional model again. We cuddled for a few hours and then I sent her off on her bus to the airport.
The weather has been interesting today. There is a hurricane hitting Cuba, narrowly missing us. While the rest of the week was calm and cloudy, today has been almost stormy. The wind isn’t blowing too hard, but the waves are crashing on the shore, destroying some of the boardwalk.
I found out how powerful the waves were when I went to the nude pool to get some filtered sunlight and kept getting splashed when the waves went over the walls. I did try and take a nap. I missed sunset completely. I heard it was beautiful.
Now I’m tired. I’m going to bed. My bags are mostly packed. It should be an easy trip home tomorrow.

Today was fairly laid back. It has been the first real sunny day for the entire week. I spent time with the professional model. She’s really cool. I’ve also been hearing comments from people that I should be naked, or skimpily dressed more often. Women here are admiring my body. I feel like a piece of meat. It’s great!
I still have to get over my social phobias. I clutch a camera and take pictures instead of just living in the moment. And I have taken a lot of pictures. My 4 GB memory card is full. I wish I could download it to my computer, but my card reader doesn’t recognize it. I think it is too big for reader to handle.
I also keep forgetting to drink. Alcohol that is. It doesn’t seem to be stopping me much. Tomorrow though, a lot of my friends are leaving. I will have to be more proactive in socialization now. Drinks for everyone!

It is finally beautiful out. The sun is shining. It is almost uncomfortably warm. There is a beautiful women to my left in a photo shoot. Life is good.
And what am I doing? Fooling around on a computer.

Nerd.

It was ever so nice to sleep in today. I should probably have taken a shower before bed because my sheets got covered in bodypaint. But eventually I did get up to have breakfast. I was fairly lazy, the high point being going water-skiing. I thought about signing up for scuba diving tomorrow, except I don’t seem to have packed the card that says I know how to dive.
In the afternoon I spent time in the nude pool area getting some sun and reading an old Time magazine. The problem here has been that there hasn’t been much sun. I can’t really remember seeing any. Continually overcast. But it is much warmer than home and I can deal without sunlight. To compensate we are treated to nice calm oceans that are great for water-skiing.
For a lark, I tried a “pole dancing for men” class. I have a new respect for the women of the pole now. You need a lot of upper body strength to do anything there. That is a quality I do not have.

It actually took me awhile to get to dinner. I still didn’t have energy. Something must be wrong because I actually spent a bit of time fooling around with a computer game. Sitting in my room! But eventually I did leave and had a pleasant dinner at the Pastafari restaurant. Unfortunately I ate some shrimp, which eventually started the allergic reaction we know and love. Just a stomach ache though.
I took some Benadryl for the shrimp, and to help with another allergic reaction my legs seem to be going through. In addition to the decongestant and the vitamin pills I’ve taken, I was in a weird state. I had trouble listening during dinner.
After dinner there was the tribal party. I just used my gladiator loin cloth and a pair of sandals. That seemed to work. But to make it better, I got the local body painter to paint some muscles on me. I looked really ripped now. At least until I take a shower. But I’m going to put that off as long as possible.
Tomorrow I will do my best to sleep in.

I don’t think I’ll be able to go scuba diving here. My throat was scratchy last night, and I feel somewhat congested. Congested is very bad when diving. It’s not too severe, and maybe it will go away. I can still go water-skiing.
This is probably because I’m not getting enough sleep. I got up early to go on the excursion so I didn’t get a lot. On top of that, I haven’t been sleeping well. I don’t feel like I’m getting into the deep sleep that gives you a restful night. I’ve been totally without energy most of today.
The excursion this morning was a canopy tour in the mountains of Jamaica. That means you travel on zip lines through the jungle. It was fun to fly through the forest. In a way it was like a Disney ride. Especially the one where you just plummet to the ground. It was an experience, but I don’t think it is one I would want to do again. It didn’t feel worth the money. I preferred the horseback ride I did last year.
Maybe I’ll try the Jamaican dogsled team.
I’ve taken a sleepless nap now, but I don’t feel healed. Still, I do need to go eat dinner.

Just happened; Achingly beautiful porn star knocked on my door in the middle of the night.
Looking for someone else.

So, the night I’ve stayed up the latest will be followed by the morning I want to get up the earliest. That is, if I want to go on an excursion with the achingly beautiful porn star.
Today has been a good day for my self-esteem. I started it feeling a little down. A water-skiing didn’t improve it a lot. Maybe the lie down I had after breakfast helped? No, the real thing was a professional model who kept gushing over how good I looked and wanted to talk to me. She liked back rubs and foot massages as well. I spent a lot of time with her. You could say I’m still doing-it-wrong, but I consulted with some other people who have been coming here, and they’ve been doing-it-wrong too. I feel better now.
Other than that, there was a pool party in the quad. It was a lot of fun, with raunchy inflatable pool toys abounding. There was a fire eating demonstration, with hands on experience. I found out that fire tastes like gas. And the wrist is the most sensitive part of the arm to fire, whereas the rest of the forearm doesn’t even seem to care. Well, the hair I used to have did, but we shall talk of it no more.