Hillary Step and stuff

So ye, while reading Into Thin Air, which gets really depressing at times and awfully unsettling, I am a little bit sick as well and it feels incredibly appropriate. I have an odd nerve tension in my right biceps for absolutely no reason other than having caught a cold, and my nymphs are still enlarged and I am sleepy. Also one of my eyes is acting up. This is like less than 1% of an illness anyone on Everest had, but like putting on a costume, I am prolonging this illness while I read. Only have a day of text left, though. Drej suggested I read Hosseini's Kite Runner, but she narrated the plot in detail over the rainy doggy walk and I think it's not for me at this point. Excellent literature for sure, but really not my cup of tea ATM. 

The terrible events that took 13 lives at that one ascend as recalled by the journalist and later the people he interviewed while looking for answers offer some insight, while he continuously stresses - this is a later edition, so he feels bad about earlier editions being poorly backed up by facts and pelleted by accusations - that memory at high altitude is not only unreliable, it's downright messed up. there's a scene in which he recalls a fellow climber slide down towards the camp, but after nobody can find that climber, he thinks the man simply got lost and fell off the ledge. After he talks to another man that was on the mountain, the man tells this story from the other side - that HE was the one who ran into some idiot sitting in the snow and then he fell and slid down towards the camp. Both swear it wasn't them - but come to realize that it was them all along, they were just completely delusional. And nobody could find the Andy guy ever again. I think that's the man in the movie who takes off his clothes, but I had to pee at that point and missed it. 

Nobody ever found out why was it that Rob Hall broke his own time restrictions rule, aware of the storm and aware of the risk, but there you have it. Many factors contributed to the disaster, many small ones. None that could really be avoided, in the long run. Asshole co-climbers, ambitious socialite women and their telephones, tube malfunction that showed there's no oxygen left in the tanks when it was, crowd, many things. None of which you can improve on even today, because last year 19 people died from an avalanche, so there's always something.

This is my favorite part of the route via South Col: Hillary step. Dunno why, I just like the sound of it. Though the glaciers are wonderfully described and I love glaciers, and the Everest one is lovely, I still like the tiny horror that poses so many issues, bottleneck being just one of them. Either way, the book is an easy read and if you are even remotely into sports literature, it's a highly recommended piece. I'd love to get my hands on Anatoli's counter-publication.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxuCfDRpUXA
 
Meanwhile I watched the "Say 'I love you'", dubbed in English so I didn't have to look at it all the time while I did other stuff. It's a story of a very shy, anti-social and incredibly difficult-to-be-with girl, whom the most popular boy in school falls in love with. He is super nice, pretty and patient and although I felt like she's messing up a good thing most of the time, I finally understand what it means to KNOW somebody has problems with intimacy  - even just holding hands - and really building up towards their confidence slowly. half the time it felt like she doesn't deserve him, but all the time he knew she just doesn't know how to communicate her appreciation of his affection. I really liked it and will try to find another just as good. It didn't occur to me until now I could watch anime where nobody is trying to kill anybody else. I'm looking at you, Gangsta., you asshole. Though I've gotten myself some horror comic books like Nailbiter and Wytches to level out the load.