Category: Chilling on the Boat

Surfing La Push Slash Why Does My Back Hurt

September 7, 2021

Friends. Lovers. Times are tough right now in Wetzlerlandia. I hurt my back last Wednesday and I still don’t know how bad it is. I was just jumping down from a route at the climbing gym, just using my legs to break my fall, and I felt something kind shift or get tweaked in my back and it’s felt gnarly ever since. Surfing a lot yesterday and the day before might not have helped. It might have helped, but it also might not have helped. That remains to be seen. Either way it feels stiff and gnarly right now and makes me sad.

But.

Anyway.

Hi.

My succulents are sitting in the cockpit. I just did some child’s pose and cat cow. Smoked SO many cigarettes (rollies) over the past two days, so now my body is detoxing. I need to axe cigs completely, but it’s kind of a ritual with the friends I smoke them with and so I’ve been hesitant to completely axe them. But, like, they’re gnarly. Not good. They don’t make my body feel good. They don’t make me feel good. The only thing they DO do is make my cognition as sharp as a tack. But I’m not ready to sacrifice my soft tissue for that.

Do you follow?

You don’t follow.

You’re not even paying attention.

How dare you.

It’s a beautiful sunny day here. Please stand by while I check the Gold Bar forecast.

….

OK the HIGH tomorrow in Gold Bar, WA is supposed to be 80. Which means I could go bouldering in the morning. Which I won’t do because my back feels gnarly. HOWEVER! The highs for like the ENTIRE week after that are only around 70 degrees. Aka perfect bouldering attempts. Aka will I ever go back to Canada? Aka I need to talk to my physical therapist today about my back. Aka I’m drinking matcha right now and it tastes disgusting. Aka I just bought four packs of sardines. Aka bee pollen. Aka turmeric pills.

OK. Time to concentrate.

Honestly that might be it for today.

I guess I could talk about the surf trip.

El Cazador and I went to the Olympic Peninsula on Sunday, surfed near PA on Sunday morning and then La Push Sunday evening. It was my first time surfing in a couple months and only my SECOND TIME SURFING since my knee injury though lately I never think about my knee my knee is great it’s my damn hip flexors now and MY MOTHEREFFING BACK GOD WHY DOES MY BACK HURT SLASH.

The waves at La Push yesterday were, in one single word, primo. Well, they were “good,” but the sun was out and they were fun and playful and it felt pretty darn good to be back in the water. I only surfed one sesh cuz I wanted to take care of the BOD, but El Cazador surfed two cuz he’s a beast. Then we slow-rolled out of there and made the late 8:10 ferry back to Seattle and I didn’t get home till like 10:10pm. I was tired. I still took the time to rinse my westuit and shower and get all the gnarliness off me. So many things went well from the expedition, namely the WEATHER. Sun in La Push?????????????? Almost never happens. Mist in La Push? Happens all the time. But so much sun that your face gets charred? Um, yeah, pretty rad.

Now I’m back on the boat as I alluded to earlier, drinking matcha and stuffing my maw with bee pollen. I want more caffeine. But I’m not going back to Whole Foods. But I want more caffeine.

Slash.

Books, Bouldering, Beverages

August 10, 2021

I’m not watching any videos today. No climbing videos, no bouldering videos, no Saturday Night Live videos, no videos about how the universe works or how the world works or how dating works or how the human body works. Most days I spend an inordinate amount of time watching videos. Probably several hours each day. And it’s not that I necessarily want to be more productive, it’s just that watching so many videos, scrolling and scrolling trying to find the next dopamine hit, makes me feel kinda bad.

Slash, I went climbing yesterday, and it was glorious.

I went with Barry and Adi, and we climbed first at Upper Walls and then made our way over to Fremont Main, where we didn’t climb. The reason we didn’t climb at Fremont Main was because it was crowded as balls and getting food/beer sounded like a better idea. I remarked as we left Fremont Main that it felt like we had just climbed there, too. The feeling was the same, exiting out into the night air, backpack full of climbing stuff on, chattering away. And I’m glad we didn’t climb at Fremont Main, because after Saturday’s sesh at SBP Poplar my body was absolutely wrecked. Today is a hard rest day. Tomorrow will either be a rest day or an outside day but the high for tomorrow in Index, where I’d like to go to work Leggo My Ego V6, my current mega-proj, is 89 degrees Fahrenheit. Which means it’s supposed to be 78 by 11am. NOT EXACTLY SEND TEMPS (aka send temps).

In other news, I had a matcha bar this morning, a green hop tea, and now I’m having a Four Sigmatic matcha latte with lion’s mane (20mg caffeine, in case you were wondering [do I wish it had more caffeine? probably. I think like 30 or 40mg would be more appropriate, in this case. but hey, beggars can’t be systems engineers]). Also in other news, I’m currently reading the books Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari, and In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. I got the Proust book the other day at Elliott Bay Books. I got Sapiens from the Bainbridge library, and I think it might be due quite soon. The annoying thing about Sapiens is it’s sort of like a graphic, glossy-page version, which means it ways (sic) about six kilos. When I’m tired af after a climbing session and I want something to put me to sleep there’s no better book than Sapiens; the only problem is it weighs a ton. Fourth world problems.

In still other news, I had collagen yesterday. And sort of cleaned the boat. And hung out with my friend Pat. And had some mate (it really annoys me when brands spell mate “maté.” like, I know why they’re doing it, they want to differentiate between the English word “mate,” as in “friend,” but it still annoys the shit out of me.) I also went for a run yesterday, at Queen Anne Bowl, and it was kind of amazing except I also think it kind of strained my left hip flexor. I’ve had problems with my hip flexor ever since I hurt it in May thrutching on the V5 dyno that is Alcove Right in Leavenworth. It’s been healing — slowly but surely — and yesterday was the first time I tried to run on it for any considerable distance.

Slash.

The seagulls are cawing outside my boat. I’ve just finished the matcha latte. I have no more caffeine on the boat. I do have some chia pudding, which I will most likely consume presently. Current plan: head north to BC on FRIDAY. Will I actually do this? Seriously, will I actually do this??? I have no idea. The only thing I do know is I want to get the hell up there before they close the border again. Because numbers are on the rise, as they say, numbers are always on the rise, and we have so many variants going around we can’t even keep track of them (aka like one variant, aka the delta variant). So who knows when I’ll actually get up to Canada. Who knows when I’ll get back to Leavenworth. I proposed to a friend that we go to Leavy on Friday and boulder in the 104 degree heat, but she mentioned something about heat stroke. I mentioned something about jumping in the Wenatchee River. She mentioned something about cryptocurrency and treasury bonds and how her mother used to wait tables in Illinois and we promptly reached an impasse. For some reason the whole interaction reminded me of the one time I went to Nashville, sharing the elevator with a guy who was on his way to a Garth Brooks concert, or on his way home from a Garth Brooks concert, or possibly just wearing cowboy boots. For some reason I found the guy tremendously wholesome because he had on cowboy boots and because of his accent and because he was in town for a Garth Brooks concert and staying at the Best Western or whatever the hell it was. But for all I know he beats his wife and emotionally abuses his children. Why should I have assumed he was a wholesome guy?

Aka chia pudding.

Yesterday I meditated twice.

I need new climbing shoes.

I wish I had more matcha.

Or mate.

Or maté.

The best book ever written is called On Man and God, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It’s 61 pages long and was published in 1961 by the Peter Pauper Press. It is currently one of my most prized possessions despite not being my possession. Why does the title Reading Lolita in Tehran make me want to punch myself? Or the title Waiting for Snow in Havana? Why can’t you just name your book something not cute? My dad just handed me a copy of the book The Intelligent Asset Allocator. Now there’s a book title, if I’ve ever seen one. The only way it could be better is if it were The Girl Who Allocated Assets, or something like that. Then  it could be sold all over town.

Waiting for Assets in Bolivia.

Now we’re talking.

 

 

To Sell or to Sail?

July 29, 2021

Friends! The Euro Trip is over. I am now back on my boat. I must say: I’m not entirely thrilled to be back on my boat. I mean, yes it’s beautiful. Yes, it’s peaceful. But I’m getting really sick of living on this 27 foot piece of fiberglass. Something needs to change, and something needs to change relatively soon. Which is why this fall I’m either going to A) Sell the boat (frowny face), B) Sail the boat south (if the boat’s in Mexico living on it suddenly seems way more attractive), or C) Leave the boat in Seattle, spend the winter OFF the boat and traveling (basically living in Latin America), and then in spring come back to the boat and finally sail it south. The moral of the story is this: Keep the boat and sail it south (now or in spring), or sell it. These are the two options.

This topic segues perfectly into shorter term plans. Regardless of what I do with the boat, what am I going to be doing for the next few months? Well, at first I thought about getting a job. But then I thought, No, that’s kind of lame. I don’t want to do that right now. The thing is, I’m much too excited about my fall and winter plans to get a job right now. When I think about living in an apartment in Seattle this winter and working some kind of “normal” job, even if it is a cool job like interpreting, I want to drown myself in Hood Canal. Seriously, I got an email from a hiring manager the other day about an interpreting job in High Point, Seattle (a neighborhood basically in West Seattle that would take 40+ minutes to commute to from where I live near the locks), and it felt like a death sentence. But then I think about the plans I had before I decided I needed to “get a job.” Sailing to the San Juans. Going to Canada to chill in Vancouver and boulder in Squamish and maybe hang out on Vancouver Island for a bit. Then possibly sailing south, and if not doing a shit ton of bouldering. Either way doing a shit ton of bouldering. In October going to Cabo for a wedding, then Mexico City, then possibly Bogota, and then definitely Chile. And that gets me excited. That I actually look forward to. And maybe it’s just me putting off “real life,” but at this point I don’t really care. I’ve put off “real life” for so long that I won’t be living “real life.” I’ll live my life. Other people can live “real life.”

I do, however, plan to take the Foreign Service Officer Test in October. Because I’m mildly interested in being a diplomat. And because last time I almost passed it.

And I also want to possibly take the legal interpreting exam, but it’s unclear whether that will be offered this year, due to the pan-de-mic.

If/when I HAVE to get a job I don’t really want, I’ll do it. I’ll do it with gusto. Every time in my life I’ve needed to work, like actually needed to, I’ve done it. But right now I don’t have to. So I’m going to do the things I actually want to. Because life is really short. And only getting shorter.

ANYWAY, it’s good to be in Seattle right now, for the most part. I’ve been climbing a ton, and my body is somehow hanging in there. I’ve been working on Leggo My Ego V6 at the Index River Boulders, but mostly I’ve been climbing in the gym. I’ve been stoked on gym climbing lately. It’s so social. It’s so easy (logistically). And it’s also so easy to work on your weaknesses. Granted, climbing outside is still cooler. There’s nothing like being alone in the middle of the forest standing before a hunk of gleaming granodiorite grandeur, puzzling out how to get to the top, but for whatever reason lately I haven’t felt like getting in my car and driving an hour and a half just to fail. I can get (basically) the same feeling of movement at the gym, which is a 10 minute drive. And at the gym I can watch other people climb, aka crushers, and I can meet people. I can still have projects. I can still get super excited about certain climbs. And it’s just so….easy.

That said, holy shit Leavenworth this fall is going to be fun.

Anyway, that’s more or less an update on what I’ve been up to since I’ve been back in Seattle and what I’m thinking for the next few months. The trip to Europe was (fairly) great. The flight back was atrocious. Twelve plus hours of ACTUAL flight time on a budget airline with a guy behind me who treated my seatback like his personal punching bag. At least I had an aisle seat. And the seat next to me was empty. When I sat in my middle seat and saw two empty seats by the window I immediately asked a flight attendent if I could move there if no one came. And no one did come. So when they said “boarding complete” I pounced on the empty row like a cobra on a naked mole rat. But the flight was still awful.

I hope you’re all having a wonderful week. It’s great to be in touch.

– Wetzler

Cruise Control || Bouldering Technique

June 18, 2021

Good morning friends, lovers. How is everyone doing this morning? If you’re like me you’re sitting on your boat, your laptop in front of you, thinking about where to get your first caffeine of the morning. I’m probably going to go to Metropolitan Market to get my latest caffeine obsession, Phocus. Seventy five miligrams of caffeine from green tea, added L-theanine, nothing else. Well, maybe some flavoring. But no sweeteners, nothing weird. So far I haven’t seen it anywhere other than Met Market, and it’s only $1.99, which makes it cheaper than just about any coffee beverage you’re going to buy, and also cheaper than most energy drinks.

Plus it doesn’t make you feel insane.

Aka it makes you feel focused and calm and ready to do stuff like clean your boat, and organize it, which was what I did the other day.

Yesterday was my SECOND LESSON AT VERTICAL WORLD. FINALLY. JESUS. The head instructor, Andy, who is amazing, (probably) has a lot on his plate, so scheduling has been a bit difficult. But yesterday I had my first class with him, and it was great. It was amazing to work with someone who not only crushes at climbing but crushes at teaching. Because, after all, it doesn’t matter how hard you can climb as a teacher if you can’t impart any of that skill and wisdom onto your students.

God I wanna go to Europe this summer.

We started WARMING UP ON AN OVERHANG, which normally I would never do. Why would I never do it? Because I don’t like overhang, because I’m “bad” at it, and because I’d always assumed you shouldn’t warm up on overhang since it’s hard on your arms. But like, you obvioulsy don’t climb hard boulders when warming up on overhanging. You climb the easy stuff. And in that way it’s kind of like just hanging, except you’re also focusing on technique, and technique when your mind and body are completely fresh.

So we did that for a bit, focusing on creating momentum and leading with my hips, not my arms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We also focused on getting my hips closer to the wall, since I’d been pretty square EVEN WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS BRINGING MY HIPS INTO THE WALL. Basically we focused on this one V1 that had one “kind of hard move,” and did it over and over leading with the hips and getting momentum and also getting the feet set up correctly and then the move felt super easy. Bomb, right? Yes.

After that we went to a V4 that was more my style, aka vert aka started with a traverse aka was more compy. The cool thing about Vertical World that I’ve noticed so far with the bouldering is…..well, I don’t know how to describe it. I feel like the boulders there are more deceptively difficult, and this V4 was no exception. I tried it and flailed on the bottom, then watched Andy do it and was able to get to the crux, and then after discussing the crux with Andy was able to DO the first move of the crux, aka bomb. I didn’t send the boulder, but I learned a lot from it, and felt like I could send it if I was a little more fresh.

The biggest thing I’ve learned since starting to focus more on technique: You’re not going to get better instantly, and it’s still going to be a shit ton of work. John Kettle has a line about “cruising your projects” in his book Rock Climbing Technique, so I basically thought once I started taking lessons and doing exercises from Kettle’s book I would instantly cruise my projects. I thought I’d be cruising V4’s and projecting V6’s and 7’s. Not the case. Not the case at all. And that’s because I haven’t put in the work yet. Once I DO put in the work, who knows. Maybe there will be some element of cruising.

So that’s basically it for now. What a gorgeous day here. I MIGHT climb tomorrow. Might. Might. Might. But we’ll see. Have to listen to the body. Have to go get my Phocus tea.

– Wetzler

Drinking Mate with Mate

April 6, 2021

Jesus. OK. Let’s drink some mate while listening to a video by Gabor Mate:

“Our attachment needs are enormous.”

“So attachment is a human need.”

“That’s just a basic human need.”

“But we have another need….”

It’s 11:15am Pacific Daylight Time and I’ve had 13g of net carbs. One matcha bar, one Yerbana Sparkling yerba mate, and two eggs. Yesterday I had exactly 100g of net carbs. I ended the evening with a pint of rasberries doused in heavy whipping cream. PRIMO HEAVY WHIPPING CREAM, MIND YOU. This shit was from PCC. It cost a shit ton. It was made by pasture-raised cows who have lived lives approximately 70 times better than yours. Happy cows. Cows who are jubilant to part with their cream, who say, “Take, then, human, and drink! Drink and thrive!”

So much fucking conjugated linoleic acid.

Also I had a burrito bowl from Chipotle yesterday. Cauliflower rice, veggies, guac, sour cream and cheese, and two kinds of salsa. A fucking watery mess. But pretty good. And only like 19g of net carbs. Chipotle is basically the only fast food place where you can eat a healthy low-carb meal, and I’M NOT JUST SAYING THIS BECAUSE I’M A FORMER SHAREHOLDER. OH NO. I’M SAYING THIS BECAUSE IT’S TRUE.

And I only speak the truth.

Excuse me while I watch the rest of yesteryear’s Badwater Bouldering video:

Alpha linolenic acid.

Champions League starts in 30 minutes.

I wish I had more mate.

I have to pee so bad but I don’t want to leave the boat because I’m not exactly sure when my next pump out is and I don’t want the waste tank to fill up cuz I don’t want to have to pee into a bottle.

Okkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

a;sdkfj;adslkfjadlk;sjfdla;jdalk;adjfdl;skfjdslk;fdjsf;lkdjdl;kfajsflk;dsjfal;dksj

a;sldkjf;ladksjf;dlksjfdlsfjdsa;lkfjds;lfjda;lkfjd;lkfjadlk;fjdkl;fdaj;fjdsa;klfdsjkl;fadsj;ldkfjdas;lfk

Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew.

Breathe out.

I’m going climbing today at SBP. Not sure when. Maybe this afternoon with my friend Anya, or maybe sooner by myself. Honestly I’d kind of like to just go sooner by myself. But. It would also be rad to crush with a friend. It’s just that I don’t like it when it’s crowded in the evening. Kinda lame. Like, I don’t like being around a bunch of people. Like, I hate people. Like, I hate myself.

JK.

Goals for today: Send the orange upstairs that has the barn door. Maybe try the black right next to it. Maybe try the blue in the corner. Maybe try the black downstairs. Maybe try the orange downstairs. Mabye just not climb at all and get a smoothie. Keep the carbs under 100g for net carbs. Don’t EAT ANY GRAINS YOU PIECE OF SHIT! NO GRAINS! No sweets. Get your body hard. Do some pushups. Gotta do those antagonist exercises. I just want to crush. I just want to be able to crush Water V6. Then go to your job interview tomorrow. Job interview. Fuck. I don’t want a job. Do I want a job? I mean, getting unemployment is pretty bomb….

Plus I just got my stimulus check yesterday…..

Plus……………..