Trying to watch Molly's Game ...

..  I'm trying, but it's not easy. For all the beauty and talent the actors have, it's haaaaaaard to chew through all the AaronSorkin-isms, the endless fast narration, dialogue and forced intellectual stuff that clashes directly with the act of her being incredibly timid, nice, scared little girl in court. She is as feisty as a razor blade when discussing psychoanalysis with her shrink dad at the age of 12, but when she finds out her phone texts were copied to her hard drives she goes on a five minute rant about how bad that is and oh, my...

.. Dunno. It's just ... if they talked a lot less, and a lot more convincingly, it would be great. But they only talk more and the script is Aaron Sorkin circle jerk. 

I've been trying to figure out, and I can't, what's bothering me about the actress's undertit. It's just weird. Did they use some weird glue or hairspray to make her boobs seem bubblier than tits naturally are? It's distracting. 

At the opening night she looks normal, so ... (And I know natural boobs that size don't stand up like that. She already looks perfect, I've no idea why they would try so hard to make her look fake...?)

Drej's expo in St.George Library

Preppin'...

The opening ...

 

 

MAN dad drove me today, that couldn't possibly have been his normal work tempo. Don't get me wrong - the day was perfection, but I barely managed to crawl home, I was so tired... We cleared out some of the fast-growing shrubbery and burnt two out of six small piles of vine branches from last season, joined by the energy workers who came to clear out the growth under power lines. Having me for the day, dad made sure I did a dozen things, up until the point I could hardly move anymore. My original work duty was to control the fire of the little pyres, since the terrain is fairly dry and it is a no-brainer in zero wind. However, if the wind suddenly starts to pick up, I have to keep the fire low and keep cleaning the zone around it. I love to do it, it's one of my favourite spring tasks. Dad trusts me, even though I doubt we've ever had a burning without me causing damage to either myself, our clothes, the dogs, the wires or work gear in general. I suppose that's half fun of it :D

Of course the brush we worked with was acacia, meaning that from head to toe I am perforated, regardless of outfit. I even sat on one of the 3cm thorns, for fuck'ssakes... And dad, who takes blood thinners, he comes out of these looking like someone dragged him around Troy. 

I still smell like smoke, after a nap and a shower (not in that order). The dog smells like smoke, sun and stolen cookies.

These trees may be dead
And the rivers run dry
But I stand on my hill
The king of all sky...

A D J E C T I V E S

(Unrelated)

Three new shows have landed, possibly worth watching - it's been a dry spell for a spell - Barry, Terror and Trust. I'll let you know if any of the them live up to the hype ...

(Less related)

Supposedly from now, the weather's gonna be getting warmer and , from time to time, less gray. 

Now to the jibbies :D

My mum complained - we had family lunch yesterday - that for every bunch of crime novels she orders on-line, they also send her a complimentary romance novel, for reasons unfathomable. I braved to check it out and discovered AN EYE OPENING new genre ...

I did NOT know books like this exist, I fuck you not. And I don't mean I didn't know people don't write them. Sure, I've written romance fan fiction with lotsa hookie when I was twelve - but this stuff gets ... sold in BILLIONS, is considered a superb Victorian novel, translated in 50+ languages and ... 

I am shot. Not shocked. Shot. It honestly feels like someone's shot me in the stomach. No, I'm not being dramatic. I exist in the world where Bill Bryson's latest is considered a bad book.

I could have sworn the author - a lady named Brenda Joyce is a fiction herself, a model posing as a bland, easily relatable Midwestern mother of four, while a studio does the actual writing - a number of ghost authors spewing horror onto pages, told to ... "Just when you think you cannot sink any lower ... start digging ..."  ... Now add an enthusiastic translator and ... This is what I want to show you.

Y'all know my war on adjectives. It's my vegan cause. Okay, look:

N.B., the count of D, is a passionate American with a secret past, who holds a vast estate near London. For his elegant, dark appearance and gloomy reputation he is known also as the Lord of Darkness. The rude Texan playboy is the opposite of a man fit to bring the woman out of an English beauty. 

J.B. is a naive English maiden. When one day she appears on the doorstep of a mighty stone mansion, she is shivering with fear - and excitement. Her naive nature is in sharp contrast to the passionate temperament of N.B. They are destined for a dark storm of passion ... but also a wild, unstoppable love. 

..


...
I

 ..
I got ... ng ... ng ..
I got chills.
The word passion is used three time. Naive is used twice. Three times they use double adjectives. And I fuck you not, this is rated AWESOME on Amazon.

I just don't know what to do. I at least hope there's some honest to Gawd fucking in here, because if I start reading and nobody KhalDrogos anyone, I'll borrow G's hatchet and commit the darkest of crimes.

Tomb-raiding and stuff..

MyMaja gave me another yoyo, having broken mine a little while back, and we've insisted on going to the movies since we haven't been in ages and the rules state it's not the quality of the movie that counts, it's the popcorn. G joined us. We watched the latest Tomb raider of which I can say - if you can appreciate how cute and committed to the role Mrs. Fassbender is, then it's watchable. The rest is really stupid. In fact, it's really dull, for an action-packed movie. That's some ghastly editing/directing right there. Matched only by some truly bad storytelling/writing. 

But she's super lovely.

Today I made a few rounds chasing the Pokies, a brand new one popped up, at some point the XP started coming three-fold. I even met one of my nemeses! Rockstar's been asking me about this. I know they've been lazy before I arrived - the gyms were manned by truly lame levels. Now it's game on. the almost-encounter was so nerdy: I neared a gym of my colour, when all of a sudden it turns red and two hefty pokies are suddenly inside. I notice I teeny tiny chubby girl in a parka the colour of raspberry ice-cream. I shout at her, as if "Come on!" and she puts her little head down, hurries away and vanishes out of sight. I see her later, doing my exact route, probably off to throw all my gyms off my colour, all my effort :D I have to make sure to educate her: I'm not really as scary as my legend would have it. Poor kids :D Haunted by a crazy old beagle-walking lady :D 

It's mother's day, so we purchased loads of plants and drove them to all our mothers. Still hardly any sign of spring. But the bees are doing great, all of them just fine - despite absurd drops, rises and again drops in temperature of late.

Tried joining a public trash-picking effort today, so as to help clean the town and park, but I didn't last long. Only five people showed up, so it was an endless drag, and I've seen all the human excrement, needles, condoms and filthy nose-wipes I care to see for a little while. My stomach was turning and I hid and fled after an hour. The notion of the community was decent, but if no-one shows up, it just doesn't work. There needs to be a sense of camaraderie to it, inspiring people to pick up litter. This way I just looked like a weird old lady with a trash bag and a dog chasing candy wrappers. 

To reward me for good intentions, the Universe sent me two out of two of my (not really :D ) dream threesome males to cross my path on the exact same bridge at the exact same time. The odds of that were impossible. One of them was waiting for the trash-picking event to begin, to report it, and I told him it's unlikely coming; the other came the other direction, taking his work children to play in the park. I was there, chasing Pokemonsies. Same bridge same time. Really, what were the odds? :D 

But in truth, my imagination already stretched as tight as a wire, what I wanted more than anything was to go home, wash my hand a couple more times (I stopped at the requirement home to wash them a few times already, then disinfect them and wash them again - despite we were given gloves)... and take a loooong shower. LONG. And I don't even like water. 

Then I crawled into bed with the sleeping General, told him about the failed trash-picking and the odds of the dream threesome and he would have probably killed me, but was too comfy and lazy so we just passed out and snored until lunch time. 

Still no sign of spring. I think I am getting depressed just a tiny whee little. I mean, I'm happy and naughty and perky and all, but... it feels more like wishful thinking than a spontaneous cheer that otherwise occurs when it's sunny and the world is full of colours.

30 km plus. Nowhere near my summer target, but not bad for the first long walk of the season ...

Ye, I dreamt I was angry. Chronically so. Because I could be home, but I was wasting my time in some foreign school. In the dream a school councillor suggested my private life is not much to fight for either, insinuating my lack of sex. (It's been 8 days since the infection. We tried fooling around but it feels unpleasant to go down that road.) Fuck her.

I dressed up nicely, layers, caps and shawls and all that jazz - it's still around zero unless the sun comes up, from time to time even bits of puffy icy rain falls - and kept to a level ground, so I don't sweat up, then descend and up again and down ... I wanted to see how far I can get before starting to feel uncomfortable. There's the hang (hung?) bridge first, then a close-by village, then the cleaning (river purification) station, then a large natural reserve pond (puddle). Two more bridges further on, before you get to a town that I usually got to halfway to my 50km destination. But today I wanted to mark the 40.000 steps count - 30 km or so, so the third bridge was the turning point. 

I know I am too heavy. Not for a moment was a tired or queasy, except for the horrific, almost unbearable hurting of my feet. However, I was trying out a new step. It's less stable (the ground was this thick creamy muddy ordeal, so you either walked very slowly or ran very ninja-like (not me).) and more using the front of the foot. In this shoe, the winter shoe, fingers have nowhere to spread, otherwise the burning sensation of the sole would have had more room to distribute. It uses more arms, this step, it's almost a bounce, like you're JUST about to start jogging. It's fast and the steps are longer, so instead of 20.000 steps back, I was missing 200. But for a while the soles burnt less agonisingly. 'Course then the ankles start to feel it. 

While Instagraming, it occurred to me that road, one I used to consider an almost mythological journey, is quite banal by now. There was no grass to speak of yet and no foliage, so finding a shrubbery to pee was annoying, because of course of the one hiker per hour two will pass by at that exact moment. Barky was lovely, too tired to really engage in any savage duels with other tiny dogs or swans.. It was a neat hike, listening to audio books and First Aid Kit sing their bizzare perky depressing songs. The river was lovely mint green variations, still parts icicles, parts raving spring whitewater.

Enough of this sickness shit, I want out. Even my dreams are angry.

Okay, so 23rd.

In other words OUR official first day of spring. 

I wanna go out. I have no idea what will happen and how far I will get, but I wanna go on a mini hike and see if I'm feeling any better, really. Physically I'm now, which can possibly also be the result of not moving enough out in fresh air. So, mini hike, here we come. The general has been alerted to keep the engine running in case I pass out by the time I get to the hang bridge. :P

Awww come ON stupid fucking UTI enought already

:(

I tried to do a random inkblot test on the net, but all I got was: vagina, vagina, vagina, vagina, a rare Pokemon!, vagina ...


I think this infection is getting to me...

UTI is not leaving as dramatically as I would have hoped; but that's probably on me - I gave that little fucker more than enough time to settle in and develop a defence strategy ... On the plus side - it's been so very cold and bleak outside, I'm not even rushing it. It's gonna be in the sub-zeroes 'till the rest of the week. I miss the comfort of being cold. But that'll teach me to underestimate an infection. 

We've been narrowing down the kid's college interests yestereve. It roused my ambition to finish college - archaeology of course - but if only I was a lot smarter, consistent and had money to waste. And didn't know the kind of depressing jobs that await at the end of that effort ... All the good ones are away f--

Actually, I suppose ...

Hmm ..

Hmmmmmmmm ...

 

'Twas equinox last night. dDidi's birthday is around these days - 23rd or 27th, but I no longer remember exactly when. 

... and now I'm peeing green.

I don't care how pharmaceutical companies are greedy, don't anyone ever tell you medicine is optional and should be boycotted. Medicine is majesty.
Six hours in the pills have taken, I am next to out of pain, I joke and laugh again. Fuck, but that was hurtful, like someone was using a 10 inch screwdriver to stab in and out of my pee hole :,( 
Medicine is majesty.

... aaaaaaaaaaaaaand the UTI comes back to bite me in the smooch.

No, but seriously.

It's been - what - nine days or so of me using homoeopathic stuff, keeping the thing under? And for the last two days it seemed like all of the symptoms were gone completely.

Morning, rainy, I go with the General's parents to the Bee Fair to purchase a year's worth of things a beekeeper needs AND G's very first very own hive box. <3 <3 <3 (I have to draw something nasty on it. It's customary for the hives to have a little funny drawing on them, and I painted a lot of his father's, but I wanna do something cute and mean for G, like a big old bear stealing his honey or something :D )

At 12:00 I come home and contact my ride for the lunch party I was asked to photo.

At 12:10 I go pee and it feels funny.

At 12: 25 I somehow need to pee again- not much came out, but the need was overwhelming - but I get the 'stabbed' pain in the clit and I just know. I am fucked. I write to apologise for the cancellation.

I manage to drag myself to the ER.

I BARELY manage to drag myself back. The General helps me get the medicine (amazing how distances in a small town become mindbogglingly vast when you're in pain.) I take the antibiotic and pass out, holding tight my mons Venus to keep it warm and not trickle uncontrollably. 

I'm almost in tolerable pain by now, having woken up and needing to - you guessed it - pee. I also need to eat lots of yogurt, because already I can feel my tummy bacteria protesting - I've bloated and need to burp a lot. There goes the entirety of my va-j-j flora as well. Antibiotics are brutal but by God I would blow the clever old little German dudes that came up with this shit..

I'm trying to think of (word for) an emotion that isn't love (tried, wasn't worth it) and isn't hate (because hate is just a depressing emotion unless it's really love, then it's sexy and okay), it's not quite disdain or pity, but not quite curiosity or desire ... It's not envy, it's not protectiveness, it's not friendship. Definitely not regret. But certainly not arousal.  The closest I can think of so far is 'a test', but that's not quite it either...

Tricky, tricky. 

Words fail me. Hide from me. That's a rare condition for an egomaniacal grammar Nazi to catch.

I have to say ... I've actually been to a pleasant funeral. Short. No fucking priests of any kind. (Last time I was there I was near slapping the fucktard and his little basket of money.)

Normally the idea of a wake is one of the worst - I cannot imagine losing a spouse and then throwing a party. But, as it turns out ... Some people are just naturally cheerful, full of energy and celebratory - of life past and what's to come. That surprised me a little. My father's family were/are rather infamously life-loving lot. Especially two glasses of good vine in, stories begin to surface, dosed with cheer and laughter, many against my dad. The widow told - they lived under the same roof at some point, while my dad worked as an illustrator in a crystal factory - how dad once stole a girl from a professional boxer, who not only came after dad, but came with the whole band of army buddies and they transformed dad near to death - he got the pin of a belt buckle impaled into his skull among other things. She was laughing how he was dragged home by (the widow's father, dad's uncle) and you couldn't count how many eyes or teeth he actually had, the face was so fucked up - his own father said if he had a gun he's shoot him; so they just left him to sleep next to the bathtub, where it was cool and little kids came peeking and laughing at him.

      Funny, because the way my dad told that story, he was the one who beat the boxer guy for throwing stones into the pool or something, and then - depending on whom you ask - a whole division, nay, battalion, nay, brigade came after dad, and he only just lost by a narrow margin. "You should have seen them!" kind of a story.

      I need to ask these people for more info. I've only ever had dad as source, but the other versions are hilariously embarrassing!

F*** horrors of shopping.. (for shoes)

Outside bookstores and art material shops, I cannot abide shopping. It makes me wanna cry. I am the universe's opposite of  normal females who love to buy shit they don't need - it just makes them look whatever passes for pretty for the season. I'm not saying pretty people aren't cool or that there are no handsome things I wouldn't know what to do with, but in all honesty, what the fuck would I want to do with clothes or non-functional shoes? I have too many of that stuff. I just need shit to serve a purpose. The colours being fab spring/summer or bringing out the green in my eyes is entirely optional.

That said, I needed new shoes, new trail runners. Physically needed - my old ones were causing me pain.

Here is a list of things "wrong" with my feet:

- My arches are too high. It is almost impossible for me to find fitting sandals. Or Dr. Martens.

- My foot length is 35.5 (around 5 US) My foot WIDTH is 38 (US size 7)

- My toes are impossibly short, with the pinky sticking out, a small hazelnut with a tiny hint of a thick nail tip. If those can, they will rip though the shoe side within weeks

- I cannot abide heels, so zero drop is perfect, whereas most shoes are built with a bit of heel

- They are pronated

... I didn't have the balls to order the Altras on-line, because it is paramount I try them first. We went to a large outdoor shoe outlet and it was terrible. I tried a dozen, but they are all almost exactly the same: they LOOK awesome, bright colours and some shit sewn with it to make them look interesting, but the toe box was always too snug, they were always on weird, unstable soles and most of them, I could tell, would fall apart after 250 miles.  

We tried Adidas, which, oddly, sold me the perfect pair two years ago - soft as slippers, memory foam soles, hardened outer rim, perfect toe box, which I wore every summer until today. They were amazing. Alas, this year Adidas has a joke of sports shoes - they are NOT in the slightest designed for outdoors, uncomfortable, difficult, unstable shoes - at least what little they were offering in that shop. 

I was about to leave crying, exhausted and feeling like shit, especially because in most stores nobody bothered for ages to come assist us. Miserable, we stopped for one last try at the store where G gets his work shoes, narrowing down the least wrong options with the help of a nice saleslady - a half serious case of an Adidas and a fancy Karrimor ... but then I tried - though i am never quite sure about them, their audience is split 50-50, Salomon and it wasn't terrible. I chose size 38, so three sizes too big, taking in consideration all hikers need at least a size too large to allow for the toes to spread. In my case not so much spread as just move around in the toe box a bit, not having the toenails bothered, ever. their price was slightly higher than others, which was reassuring, and I've already tested them a little. Good shoes, not sublime, but good. I'll test them some more tomorrow, see what the feet have to say after a distance. 

I think we did good. I can't wait for summer, when I can wear my old Karrimor sandals - oddly enough the best walking shoe I've ever owned. Weather prognosis is another chill wave with flakes in it. No matter. I have the holy trinity now: winter hiking boots, trail runners and sandals. Not ever need more.

Aaah, there it is ... the old bullet wounds ...

There we go. After four days of prodding, digging, drilling, poking, fishing and unearthing, I finally found it: that old feeling of worthlessness ... The old forgotten shrapnel lodged in my lower spine, etching at the spleen, etching deep at the liver. Reading some horror, watching  some dark movies, a fight with grandma, project going nowhere, incidentally breaking my favourite toy, the rain, the cold, the infected bladder, dad being a bit sick and having to drive to a funeral soon - all of these inspired - I also served myself some visual aid - that old emotion to lift it's ugly head. I knew it was still there. I knew it wasn't ever really gone. What is a decade to an inch-deep scar? I knew all this will cluster into a reason for feeling like I'm at the end of (f)light.

I am worth nothing, others are precious.
I am ugly, others are beautiful.
I am weak, others are brave.
I am average, others are exceptional.
I am a joke, others are a battle cry.
I am a grave moss, others are gems.

I know my old bullet wounds well. Nice of them to try and trick me, an almost kindness on their part. One of us must go back to sleep now.

Incidentally broke my yoyo in a fit of anger :/ Fuck. :,( So far it's been a rotten day. I blame the weather. Though my rain poncho seems to be awesome.

.. some of Annihilation ..

Ye, watching Annihilation, slowly. I gotsta wreen it, because I need to know more about the weird shit and am hoping the book will be all about it. I will say it skims the subtle balance between that shit that is terrifying and so very attractive at the same time - mutation, permutation, parasitic growth, fungi, malignant mosses, mould, root systems.. and my favourite - spores. All that stuff is very very bad in nature. To humans, I mean. Half of it will kill you and half of it will eat you alive - but half the time neither of you will know it's what's happening. 

It is an impossibly tricky confliction between wanting to explore the shimmering unknown and knowing you are utterly and completely fucked if you dare. Like Stalker, really. Minus the payoff.

Is it just me or do scientists get eaten A LOT?

Healing tea coming out of my ears. If I drink another cup of this bitter shit, I will start to howl. Come on, bladder. Be nice. I miss coffee. I'm trying to study the psychology of workplace stress and it's a fucking doozie if you haven't slept and - ironically - had coffee in days.Coffee coffee coffee sweet coffee...

Oh, look, they reprinted one of my books. Okay. 

It just occurred to me that having an observational hive is all cool and dandy, but our vineyard gets chemically treated every fortnight ... The little fuckers would glow in the dark by July. 

Eh :/

Eulogy to an old phone number

I sent a text to an old friend - well, an old phone, numbers that used to be so familiar to me - that probably no longer existed by a decade .. That phone was a good place for my kindler words to go to die. I'm sure they always landed softly. From before blinking green lights on their phones were everyone's thing, that phone has sent me long ago a thousand green winks. Sleep well, a fallen soldier. You were a dear.

An 'oldie', but it's been a nostalgic day ... :)

Neja Adamic

Poor Perkin...

LOL

Google search stressed today is the birthday of William Henry Perkin ... He has one of the saddest bios on Wiki I've read recently. In a funny way :D

Little teenage Willy tried to cure malaria, but instead changed fashion for the tasteless for eyer...

"Sir William Henry Perkin, FRS (12 March 1838 – 14 July 1907^[1]) was a British chemist best known for his accidental discovery of the first aniline dye: the purple mauveine. Though failing in trying to synthesise quinine for the treatment of malaria, he became successful in the field of dyes .."

Look at this sad face. 

 

Can't really sleep for all the tea I've been drinking, but he project I am on is hard .. Feedback is so inconsistent, every time I sit down to finish another panel, I stare at the screen, wondering: will they send me a right new draft without even looking at it, again? My brain is making summer plans ahead of time, I'm restless :D It's only been two days since kind of spring has ... sprung ...

.. Eh, fuck it. It's 4 am. I'm not fit for blogging duty...

Maybe I won't get sick after all...

This is probably an auto-jinx, but maybe I won't get sick after all. Maybe. It still hurts to pee, I am still not in a mood for sex, I can still feel the weight of my bladder constantly. For a moment I also thought the kidneys will join the party, because I drank A LOT of tea, but didn't need to use the potty all night. In my case that is highly unusual. But okay. No blood, and no progression of pain. Maybe I managed to weasel my way out of the worst part. It would be nice. I hate going to the doctor's. :/

Blimey. Photos work, too...

I am constantly amazed at what these tiny fuckers can do ... It's a fucking phone, man! It's ridicolous...

Hmm.. It's shabby, but it does work...

And photos?...

Publishing from me fooone...

Lemme see if this  works at all?

There is such a word as discombobulated :D

English language, ammarite?
Dis-com-bobu-lated ... Who comes up with these! :D

Bladder acting up :/

Arrrr... the Gods are punishing me. For inappropriate dreams, but mostly, I suppose, for not wearing my jacket in the middle of winter (yesterday's hike) :D I was going to force my body to toughen up, and now stand on the verge of a UTI. Those usually move very fast in my case - within hours I can no longer sit upright and am pissing blood. So far I am battling through it, drinking gallons of lingonberry tea and eating anti inflammatory pain-killers. We'll see what happens overnight ...

I've dreamt of someone I was sure I'm done dreaming of, and feelings I was hoping I was done harboring. Old stuff, triggered by a recent joke. Cliche, too - wanting to be accepted, hungering to be desired. It was a beautiful dream - architecturally, slightly submerged in clear water, beautiful old buildings made of pale stone, somewhat Roman furniture and curtains. Lovely stuff. Overall a pleasant dream, long and calm and cheerful. The people I used to know, unchanged, their attitudes unchanged. I wanted them to want me. It felt good to find them wanting me, as if at the time it would have changed anything if they cared to comprehend me - I wonder? Those people used to think there is something wrong me for wanting to be accepted by them. It may have been a transferal, Freudian or such, from being rejected by a mother - the one person you will always yearn the acceptance of, ironically.

         I was hoping I was past stuff 15 years less emotionally mature, but ... I suppose some people stain your senses and never truly leave. Seems pointless pretending they were never there. Like an amputated limb. Like an odd, tearful, confusing birthday party decades ago, that was actually kinda fun.

         

         I can't say I really mind. I prefer it to all those wants and lusts and emotional ambitions to just wither. I rather burn sickly and in sinful dreams, than not at all.

General bought me a set of layers to wear while hiking - a sport's bra, a T-shirt and a hoodie. The sports bra is not for me - everything is packed too tight and gets too moist. The shirt, though, is amazing - feather light and thin and so cool, and the hoodie is beyond awesome. The hood is just large enough to cover my whole head when it's too warm for a cap, and the sleeves are long and cute, with a thumb-slit. I tested the lot returning to Brnica to find my carabiner. It was so sunny and warm I not only wore my windbreaker for the first time this year, but took that off as well. The only downside was the snow, which has turned to ice, which has melted in mush and was almost impossible to walk on without wanting to curse and shout. My feet still hurt unbearably. I've no fucking idea why. Is it possible it's the shoes after all? I'll test this strange theory as soon as it gets dry.

A restful day ... Well, I walked around some shops with hiking gear and that garnered me 17.000 steps and four Pokemon eggs hatched. I wore my old boots so as to give the foot a chance to rest, before realising the sole on one is flapping off. No matter. It was adorable. One of my biggest worries - more a paranoia than an actual concern - is I will lose my toenails from improper footwear and excessive pounding of the toes against a too hard and too small toe box. They hurt yesterday, so I was taking it easy. I also oddly lowered my core temperature during the hike, being out in such cold for so long, so I couldn't get properly warm for most of the day. Plus I fell asleep for my afternoon nap at four and woke up at midnight. :D

The funny moment was, when I walked into a stationary store to check out some new Moleskins and sketching journals I totally don't need but absolutely must have (though luckily can't afford and General said he'll buy them for me the minute I fill up the 40 or so empty journals and notebooks I have... He just doesn't understand.) and saw the cutest fucking backpacks ever - hipster overload, soooo posh. I hugged one and thought: I could so totally work this as a hiking bag. Nevermind it's a school bag. I wish I had a photo. It was so adorable. It was what a cool kid would wear.

I also found a really really ugly Russian-made 250 g daypack, 25 liters, waterproof, virtually ideal for what I'm looking for. But ugly. And it cost, like, 20 bucks, not even that, whereas the hipster roll-down-the-top-and-faux-leather-straps cost three times that.

It's hard. Real hard. Do you go with utterly useless but incredibly cool-looking shit, or do you buy shit you will actually be able to use out in the field? It's just so hard.

Longest micro hike yet ... (Thankful for the beautiful winter we've been having ....)

:P

I've tried to do this one before - General drove me up onto the ridge and I tried to get to a ruin called Rifnik around 30 km removed ... It was a nightmare. First the rain caught me and I wasn't prepared, so when I had to cross a high grass meadow, I got soaked completely, then got lost on the rocky hill terrain and to top all of it, in a narrow gorge two dogs cornered Bark and me and it could have ended very, very badly.

       That hike - which was gonna be the first day of a five day hike - ended in tears and G came to pick me up to one of our cottages in the region (actually a place where we first had sex! I love that cottage!.. Though we haven't been there in years, really. Hm..) 

       Yesterday someone mentioned a five hour hike that is actually a really hard thing to do... It starts at the train station, then you have to walk to the ascend point, then ascend to the Celeian (Celje) cottage, walk over the ridge to Svetina peak (or village, in my case, because I CBA climbing the peak, fuck it), and then a three hour walk to the tower of Resevna and from there down..

       There is no way I can do a hike like that in five hours. I can, however, do it in six and a half. 

       Now, Celeian cottage is an easy enough, if tedious ascend - getting to the hill is a long level walk - I hatched two 2km Poke eggs during - then you spend about half an hour getting up. (More in my case, much less if you're a ninja.) I refuelled on my warm water and took off the micro spikes. From there, it's said to be an hour walk over a neat footpath, but the road was covered in snow, so I just walked the road until I made it to Svetina - a once exceptionally quaint setting (I based Kestrel's Verisimilitude on it), now slightly abandoned (no shop or rest to speak of.) 

        Because using the footpath from it down and directly to Resevna hill is where I once encountered the dangerous dogs, I opted for using the road until the next fork. That is how I discovered my phone has a navigational system and a nice lady tells you exactly where you need to go. Did not know that. It was really cute.

        My problem with maps, despite the fact I am exceptionally fond of them, is inconsistent use of road thickness... Sometimes the map will go great lenghts (sic) to show you a neat connecting road, but it will in fact be a useless, overgrown (in this case unwalked in 3 ft of snow) nothing of a path, all too easy to miss... Or it will show the end of a road and a marginal hint of a connection to an onwards village, yet when you finally reach it, it is a wide, bright, clear, maintained forest drive-through. What I'm saying is - it's confusing. I've missed marks before, because they were falsely advertised. Today I compared a screen cap of Google Earth to the village and counted the rooftops to find the right turn - because not all roads were ploughed and cleared and though the one I was after was supposed to be a meagre side-road, it was the only one available in the first place!

        By then I really had to pee. It was not possible to just step off the road into the forest, because the snow on the sides of the road was five feet high. Once I finally found a small path leading into a forest, I already had to poo as well, which was another bizarre, clumsy ordeal. Do not remember when was the last time I had to poo without a restroom. You'd think it would be the easiest thing and yet ... With all that snow, dog, possibility of people coming RIGHT then ... Brrrr. No fun.

         After two hours I made it over two minor peaks, over a forest road I remember as very lovely, following a ridge. I was beginning to wonder where the damn tower is when I finally see a monster of a hilltop, fucking far away, steep as all Hell. The weather was such that it was juuuuust a little to warm to be wearing snow pants - which I was - and I was really sweating in my privates on the up. It's not something I normally desire to do. In winter. Though cotton jeans takes longer to dry if wet, it does breathe loads better. The General was right when he said I need decent walking pants, but I have good pants for warm hikes as it is. I'm only hiking in waist-deep snow because I am thankful for the beautiful winter we've been having... Beside that, the velcro on my cheap parka is so exceptionally rough when frozen, it's been cutting my thumbs every time I brush pass a pocket or pass a collar and I now have loads of tiny cracks on my two first knuckles. Like I've been savaged by kittens :P

        The final ascend was a joke. If people hadn't gotten there yesterday, it would be impossible. Traces of people skiing, sure, but that mother was, I kid you not, good 75° angle incline. Not to mention I was impossibly tired by then. I am too heavy, my legs hurt too much. Not so much out of shape any longer as just ... old and fat.

         The tower was there, clean to climb - but I'm not much of a tower person and the weather was not photogenic at all, especially distances - so I just rolled down to the near-by cottage, of which I have fond memories, tied the mutt to the railing outside and rolled in. Had nice tea, wrote the hiking log, let the General, who was napping, know I am ready for the final descend.

         Of the two paths off Resevna and towards St.George, the laid back one is blacktop and the steep one is waaaay down through the woods. Blacktop is hell on the feet - the soles really really burn after a while. The steep one is hell on the knees. However, there was so much snow, every step was actually cushioned and though it would probably be too steep for me clean, right now it was perfect. It took me about an hour to get down to some semblance of a road, so I was able to direct the General, who drove up to collect us. I still don't know if Starbark totally loves our adventures or completely hates them, but she seemed chipper up until the very end and then she fell asleep on my leg :D Even though we stopped to buy kebabs :p

No road? No problem.

Please, no more! I'm done!

It's still around zero. The snow is said to thaw in the coming days, rain incoming and warmer - Marchy weather, so I wanna make the most of the snow and am planning a slightly longer hike tomorrow - knowing myself it will take me all the daylight hours ... The question is, do I take the camera with me? Argument against: I don't want to chance it getting a cold (battery can die like THAT and I can't afford a new one, they cost a fuckload.) 

Arguments for ....  Why the heck have a camera if you're not gonna be using it? It's literally it's only job.

I wanna make these cute cards, with texts informing hikers of the places - random and simply cute-like. Photos, photoshopped into watercolor mode...  (As I am too lazy to do actual watercolor :D )

LoL, we went to the movies, MyMaja and I, and I brought mini spikes in case it gets iced by nightfall.. Then we walk out of the theatre and it's 10 cm of fresh snow and still falling :D At midnight the streets were a ghost-town, only morons in cheap BMWs who can't drift other than on ice, sliding across crossroads.. It was mute, covered in snow and magnificent.

Checking if St.Martin's lake is still there ;)

G and I struck a deal that for every micro hike - 30.000 steps or 20 km or any peak above 650m (or two below) - make for a small dot and after I've gathered 20 dots, he buys me a piece of gear from my list. The first bit of gear I've marked is a PocketRocket. I'm five dots in :P

It was 21 degrees below freezing yesterday. So cold in fact, even the dog admitted it and from time to time started walking on three paws. I figured, if it got worse for her, I'd sacrifice the socks I wear as gloves to make her makeshift shoes.. It was too cold for making telephone calls and to inhale direct air. I wore G's scarf around my face to keep my breath moist and warm, causing frost to form on the hat and wrap. 

My great-uncle crossed Siberia to come home after the war. Loving it when it's so cold it hurts and you're completely alone in the world is in my blood. It hurts like hell :D Though, kudos to the shoes I have - never for a moment did I feel any ache or frostbite in my toes. My knees through the elastic jeans, on the other hand ... I didn't feel those at all :D 

Today I was asked to take a few pics of a kid hockey team, so working around a rink was almost room temperature :P 

Pickies are from a phone again - too cold for Marki - again, apologies :)