Lately Death Is Not By Mountain

My commitment, as you might have noticed, has been rather poor (by which I mean non-existant) for many months now. The recovery from surgery hasn't been fun. I stopped wishing I had died on the table within about a month of surgery, and was mostly better within two months of it. But the strange feelings haven't gone away. Walking makes it feel weird. Sometimes walking even makes it feel a little sore. But I'm not so bad off that I shouldn't be walking. I should be. I should be out and about in the world again.

On the other hand, I still have benefits from the improvement in my diet and the exercise I still get (yoga and bicycling). Before that fateful trip to the doctor I had had frequent and crushing illnesses. At the slightest hint of being sick I knew I'd crash and it would soon send me to bed for days at a time. Since improving my diet and exercise that hasn't happened. I can't quite claim I haven't been sick since this all started, but what illnesses I've had were merely annoying. My season allergies have gone away too. While people around me have been miserable from the juniper, I haven't. Normally the juniper makes me miss work at it's peak, and requires lots of drugs to keep myself sane and functioning. This year, my eyes felt a little irritated a couple of times, and when I've been outside in it I get a minor runny nose.

My conclusion: diet and exercise have tremendously improved my life. I do miss eating fried potatoes and chocolate as my main diet, but I can live without them I've found. Getting beef and pasta out of my diet has also shown me that neither seem to agree with my body well. Bionature organic pasta, in specific, is quite bad for me, which is sad because I like the taste of it.

In new news, I got a hold of some Vibram Five Fingers. They are the knock off of the Vivo Barefoot I've coveted for quite a while. The Vivo has proven impossible to get, and the Vibram has proven to be almost as impossible. But I have giant feet, and when I went to REI on Saturday I was certain they would be able to help me. After looking at my feet, the sales rep did admit that with my feet they probably did shoes for me. They didn't have many, but I left wearing a pair. I had a blister forming on my left foot by the time I was done shopping at REI, but once home I've been slapping athletic tape onto it and it is coming along nicely.

Turkey Creek needs to be visited again. Graduation is this weekend, and I'm not in good walking shape for it, so it won't be immediately. The 22nd or the 29th seem like good times to attempt it. It is only about 4.5 miles in and out, so I could probably hike it without any preparation (assuming I get to spend the night in the middle) but building up to it would probably be best. I really kind of like the idea of the five fingers as it will greatly simplify the three river crossings and the dozen or more stream crossings. Often by the end of the trek I've given up on dry feet and I'm just wading down the middle in my boots to avoid recreating the "wax on wax off" scene with my footwear.

This website MUST live again! I need to pick myself up, deal with the discomfort, and press on with my goal of going into the mountains.