the dirtbag life

Very soon after I came back from my Yosemite trip last October, I found out that my roommate Lina had accepted a new job in San Diego.  It was very exciting for her, but I had to find a roommate fast.

I posted an ad on Craigslist right away for November.  At the same time, I posted on my FB page.  Remembering how much effort it was to find Lina, I was dreading the search for a new roommate.  

Lucky for me, a climbing dirtbag came along.  He was ready to move in ASAP.  

I had promised him a few months back that I was going to feature his dirtbag life on my blog.  It took me a while, but here it is.

According to the Urban Dictionary, typically more useful for us foreign folks than Miriam-Webster, a dirtbag is defined as follows:

1.	dirtbag	266 up, 105 down
	a white trash, wife beating, beer guzzling bastard. Often associated with cut-off shorts and mullets and incest you can take a dirtbag out of the country but you can't take the country out of a dirtbag! buy dirtbag mugs & shirts by Audra Apr 9, 2003 share this add a video
2.	dirtbag	112 up, 28 down
	A person who is committed to a given (usually extreme) lifestyle to the point of abandoning employment and other societal norms in order to pursue said lifestyle. Dirtbags can be distinguished from hippies by the fact that dirtbags have a specific reason for their living communaly and generally non-hygenically; dirtbags are seeking to spend all of their moments pursuing their lifestyle The best examles of dirtbags and dirtbagging are the communities of climbers that can be found in any of the major climbing areas of North America--Squamish, BC; Yosemite, CA; Joshua Tree, CA; etc. buy dirtbag mugs & shirts hippy bum climber surfer backpacker hitch hiker by Shay (dirtbag wannabe) Aug 17, 2007 share this add a video
3.	Dirtbag	119 up, 67 down
	1:A dirty person. Someone who doesn't clean often, or lacks a certain hygiene level.Usually assocated with white trash, or trailer park trash. 2:Used as a insult to intimidate someone Greg Marvin is such a dirtbag.

Well it looks like we know which one I am talking about.

My roommate Brian (now ex-roomie) is a true dirtbag.  I do not know the whole story, but this is what I know.  A few years back, after working for a large defense contractor in Philly, he decided to leave everything behind to climb around the world.  According to his blog (which I highly recommend), he went around the following countries in Asia:

• India – 3 months
• Pakistan – 1 month
• China – 2 months
• Vietnam – 2 months
• Cambodia
• Thailand – 2 months
• Laos – 1 month
• Back to China, including Tibet – 5 months
• Nepal – 1 month

Now I have heard many people leave for a few months at a time to go on climbing trips.  But to leave for a few years takes courage.  I admire the willingness to give up on the comfort of everyday life to focus on the few things that are important to you.  For him, that was climbing outside.  And there are many people like Brian, in this sub-culture lifestyle traveling around the world.  Dirtbags know their own kind too, since they would run into each other at different climbing areas.  

He said that he eventually ran out of money, and had to come back to work.  That was last summer.  Now, Boston is his temporary home base.  He tries to work long hours to rack up the hours.

The day that he moved into my apartment, he had two duffel bags and a smaller bag.  It took him 5 minutes.  

I was extremely impressed.  He had a whole bag of climbing gear, and the other bags had his clothes, including a few nice shirts and ties.  A laptop.  He did not look like a dirty hippy, although being a dirtbag he was used to not showering everyday.  I mean, why shower if you don't smell yet, right?

I studied him as him he was a different species.  I was curious what this lifestyle entailed.  

Based on my observation, there are a few things he cannot live without:

1. His Cafe Americano.  Before he even turns on his laptop, he turns on the espresso machine.  Don't even try to talk to him until he makes his coffee.
2. His laptop.  He found his preferred chair in the living room, and every morning, he would sit at that chair and get on his laptop.  He would say things like, "the internet weather is crappy today" or "did you hear about so and so climbing report?*"
3. Climbing, of course.  Indoors, outdoors, wherever.  Climbing is part of this dirtbag's life, and he is good at it too.
4. His bike.  We have argued over why it is better to bike instead of to walk to Market Basket.  He is stubborn and wins.  I continue to walk.  
5. His friends.  The man is not without attachments, as much as he want so avoid attachments to objects.  He has friends all over the world that care about him.  However, they know that if they are too friendly to him, he might just show up at their door and stay on their couch for weeks if not months.

*I have to say that this was the first time that I lived with a serious climber.  I was definitely not used to waking up and hearing climbing trip reports from my roommates.  Later on I would find out that Chris also does the exact same thing.  I guess I am just not as dedicated at reading the climbing reports as these guys are.

"So are you just going to keep moving around?  Doesn't that make you feel like you are always in transition? Does that make you tired?"  I asked him yesterday.  I felt that I would not be able to live his lifestyle for a long period of time.  

Apparently, Brian is so used to being on the road, that it doesn't bother him at all.  His current job takes him to Boston.  But when the contract is over, he might be off to somewhere new, like Turkey, or Patagonia.  Learning to live off very little and having enough saved up makes him have the flexibility to just disappear for a few months.  Or years.  

He has decided that he wants to live in a van instead of owning a house.  You know, like Alex Honnold that was featured on 60 Minutes.  

He is also looking for a dirtbag lady friend that will be willing to live in a van with him and climb around the world.  So if you know one that he hasn't met yet, do pass that contact along.  He is a good guy.

Actually, he has indicated that if he meets the right woman, that he is negotiable and will live in a house if he has to.  So there.

the accident.

It's been a long time since I wrote.

I know.

I am feel guilty for dropping my blog completely for an extended period.  But life got somewhat busy  and complicated right around the time I wrote the last post about being a single female.  Complicated in a good way, that is.

I fell in love.

It's funny sometimes how things work.  Just when you feel borderline hopeless about finding the perfect person, when anxiety builds up, loneliness, and boredom.  There were many false starts as well.  Several people that I was excited to meet, but somehow things didn't work out one way or another.

Then on a random day in the fall, I was talking to Chris at the gym about climbing the Recom-Beast.  I had met Chris last winter on a cold night at the MITOC Intervale cabin parking lot.   I was with a friend Antoine attending winter school and staying at the cabin, while Chris and his ice climbing partner Deb were going to sleep outside in a tent.  We invited them to join us in the cabin, and they gladly took the offer with the single-digit temps outside.  It wasn't particularly memorable of a night, but we both remembered that's how we met.  There was very little conversation, since both parties had to get up relatively early the following morning.

Then very soon after, I went away to China.  It was a messy time of my life.  I had just broken up with my ex whom I'd lived with with for the last few years.  Things were rough emotionally and financially.  I wanted to get away and just focus on work.  I got lost along the way.

As most of you know, the project ended earlier than we had all expected, and I was back to Cambridge in August.  It was a welcome return.  I was able to join the Yosemite crew in October and climb some of the classic routes, and in November return to Indian Creek for the SECOND time in a year and climb for another week.  Not only that, winter came so late this year that we were still bouldering outside in January.

People who saw my photos on FB asked me if I still had a job.  Of course I did.  But without a boyfriend I was able to devote all my free time to climbing.  It was great, and I really have no regrets.

So on this random day in the fall, Chris and I were chatting about climbing in Cathedral.  Neither of us had done Recom-Beast.  Since Max had already done it earlier in the summer while I was away, I figured that I would ask someone else to climb it with me.  Glen had made it sound so scary of a climb that I really wanted to make sure that I had a good partner to go with.

Not that I had ever climbed with Chris indoors or outdoors at that point.  But there was some sort of mutual understanding that we climb at about the same level.  He said that he climbed at Cathedral often, and that was good enough for me.  This is how new partnerships form in the climbing community, right?

Following our plan, the weather forecast turned out to be terrible for that weekend.  What else is there to do aside from climbing when the weather is bad?  The answer is go grab dinner and watch climbing videos at home (yeah I know, we are total geeks).  After watching a few videos, Chris started telling me about his upcoming trip to Patagonia.  He had the same kind of excitement talking about traveling and climbing as I do.  He started showing me photos of Valle Cochamo.  You can tell that he has visited the website a few hundred of times, dreaming of all the climbs.

"It's like the Yosemite of South America!"  He was psyched.
"You should come!" He continued.
I looked at him in a very skeptical way, "really?"
"It would be great to have you join me." He replied in a more serious face.

photo by climbing.com

Initially, he was just inviting me because it would be nice to have a climbing partner to travel down to Patagonia together.  But as we got to know each other better over the course of the next few weeks, we were more and more certain that we wanted to meet up in Cochamo.  To us, this would not only be a climbing trip, but also a time to enjoy each other's company in a very special place of the world.

A place where we can take in the beauty of nature as if the two of us are the only ones  on this planet.

Earlier this month, Chris left for Patagonia to start his 3-month journey, one that he has planned for the last year. He too, was running away from something.  He didn't really know where he wanted to be and what he was looking for.  But he wanted to get away.

And somehow, two lost climbers found each other and found their way out together.

In less than three weeks, I will be meeting Chris in Patagonia and climbing in Valle Cochamo for three weeks.  I am really looking forward to this trip, as this may be the only major climbing trip that I take in 2012.

Can't wait.

panic attack

  Between all the election jibber-jabber, the slow growing economy, and the Chinese taking over, an interesting article came along by Kate Bolick in The Atlantic. Probably a lot of you have already read All the Single Ladies, but if you haven't, definitely worth the read.  It's a long piece, but very well researched.

So why am I talking about this?

This is from the first few paragraphs of the article:

In 2001, when I was 28, I broke up with my boyfriend. Allan and I had been together for three years, and there was no good reason to end things. He was (and remains) an exceptional person, intelligent, good-looking, loyal, kind. My friends, many of whom were married or in marriage-track relationships, were bewildered. I was bewildered. To account for my behavior, all I had were two intangible yet undeniable convictions: something was missing; I wasn’t ready to settle down.

...On good days, I felt secure that I’d done the right thing. Learning to be alone would make me a better person, and eventually a better partner. On bad days, I feared I would be alone forever. Had I made the biggest mistake of my life? 

Ten years later, I occasionally ask myself the same question. Today I am 39, with too many ex-boyfriends to count and, I am told, two grim-seeming options to face down: either stay single or settle for a “good enough” mate. At this point, certainly, falling in love and getting married may be less a matter of choice than a stroke of wild great luck. A decade ago, luck didn’t even cross my mind. I’d been in love before, and I’d be in love again. This wasn’t hubris so much as naïveté; I’d had serious, long-term boyfriends since my freshman year of high school, and simply couldn’t envision my life any differently. 

I almost hyperventilated after reading the entire article.  That could be me.

Apparently, the unconventional choices in life may have some unconventional endings as well. 

The thought of living in solidarity or in a place where there are a lot of supportive single women also made my hyperventilate.  I can barely live with one other female, let alone a group all nearby.  In recent years as an adult, I have been surrounded by mostly men.  Engineering school, grad school in engineering again, all the older generation acousticians, and of course, all the climbers.  Is this, in someways, also unconventional?

While I was in Yosemite, I met two hard-core female climbers on the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral.  In chatting with one of them, I told her about how little I climbed with other female climbers.  I could tell, that she probably climbs mostly with other female climbers.  She said that it was inspiring to climb with other female climbers, especially strong ones.  I can imagine that climbing with a female partner can create a more supportive role than climbing with a male partner if the male partner is significantly stronger.  I definitely would want to find more female buddies to test it out.  I honestly think that what is important is the personality and less the gender.  But I'll have to find out.

And I digress, always talking about climbing.  Even on a post that was meant to be about something else.

Back to the hyperventilating.

I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE THAT LONG!  WHAT IF IT HAPPENS TO ME?  I screamed through GChat to Reid, who first posted the article up on FB.

Don't worry about it.  It should be inspiring to you.  I don't remember the exact words, but that is basically what he said to me.  He was not amused by my reaction. 

Only after a few weeks, after I've had more time to calm myself down and stop having nightmares, was I able to put some thoughts down for this post.  Okay, it wasn't that bad, but I did think about it for a bit after reading it.  Plus I was busy climbing outside.  Work was a bit chaotic.  All the reasons for not writing another post sooner.

He is right though, what are the chances.  I go to a meat market about twice a week.  Where there are TONS of single men and women wearing very little.  Right?

Don't shit where you eat.  Brian told me today on GChat in reference to dating people from the gym.  

And Brian is right too.  I have eaten my own crap before.  It was pretty terrible.  It was even more terrible when friends of yours feed more of your own crap to you. 

But without some risk, there won't be any reward.  So I'm willing to take a gamble and maybe eat and shit at the same time. 





Stop freaking out, really.