More Mountains

Snapshots from four days in New York's Adirondack Park and Lake Placid: Six and a half hours behind the wheel, listening to "Left Hand Rise Above" and learning about the rise and fall of the Third Reich. $20 sunglasses, quickly broken. The worst nachos ever made ... and, regrettably, consumed. Peaks in the distance. Almost too many. Somehow not enough. Parting ways with e-mail for the first time in months. Numbness.

Rising early. Eying a half-empty wine bottle. Sunrise over the High Peaks. Parking permits. Fellow hikers starting out early, ready to get dirty. Stretching. Signing up, signing away my life, letting others know where I'm going in case I don't make it back. Being OK with it. Closeups of deer ... almost too close. A four-mile hike to the trailhead, the preamble to the climb ahead. Bridge crossings over rock-strewn streams. Going up. Up. Up. Up. Up, accidentally, then down, down, down. The confidence to go the right way. Scaling the ladders I remember. Not falling.

Gothics, within sight, reminding me of Everest or at least Mount Krumpet. The final push to the summit, a half mile's climb up anchored steel cables. An easier climb than I recall -- I'm better now. Turning around at the top, surveying the Adirondacks, not a sign of humanity. Breathing in. Winds trying to send me over the edge, nearly 5,000 feet to the bottom. Closing my eyes among the clouds. Sleep overtaking me. "Hey there." New friends from Manchester, N.H., and Glens Falls, N.Y. Them, only six peaks shy of completing all 46. Me, just starting out, not even a dozen under my belt. I'm not counting. I have no list. I'm just there. Smiling. Well wishing. New Hampshire's White Mountains ... someday ... soon. No more putting things off. Time to move.

Down Gothics. Up Armstrong. Down Armstrong. Up Upper Wolf Jaw. Down Upper Wolf Jaw into Wolf Jaws Notch. Down, down, down, into the morass, back toward the Garden. Hours later. Twenty miles later. The sun setting. A brutal hike out -- four plodding miles threatening to break my kneecaps. Back at the Garden. Feet tingle, sans boots. The half-empty wine bottle awaits, soon to be fully empty. Back to Lake Placid. Wanting to live here. Among the trees. In the mountains. Knee deep in pebbled streambeds. Happy. On to Lake Champlain. Skipping stones. Clear water. Clean water. Backtracking: How did I end up somewhere else? Why not here? Why indeed. Heading south.

Aerial Assault

I consider myself something of an outdoorsman, capable of living in harmony with nature's many "things." Snakes don't bother me at all; in fact, I'm quite fond of them. Spiders are OK. Bats thrill me. And although I would prefer not to come face to face with a bear on a mountain trail, their presence won't keep me from hiking through their back yard. Come to think of it, there's not too much in the animal kingdom that truly frightens me.

Except geese. Just look at that picture. It looks like the goddamn Loch Ness Monster!

Recently I was biking a 15-mile stretch of towpath in Point Pleasant, Pa., which runs parallel to a murky canal rife with painted turtles, bullfrogs and wood ducks. Then there are the Canada geese. It seems it's that time of year when the geese have hatched their goslings and are teaching them to survive in the big, bad world. Part of that survival training, apparently, is to leave slick loaves of goose shit all over the trail to crud up your bike tires and, in turn, spray your face with turd remnants. How pleasant. Another part: chasing off minding-their-own-business trail bikers who want nothing more than to sweat and stay out of the damn way.

True story: Around mile ten of my ride one of these geese actually took flight and hectored me for a good fifty to a hundred feet. Imagine: You pass a cluster of these hissing, crapping, honking birds and one takes a particular dislike to you, so you start pedaling your ass off and turn only to see this beast just a foot or two from your unprotected skull, its mouth agape and wings flapping, so you pedal harder but this petulant SOB keeps gaining. You think, This is the end. Like Steve Irwin, my death will come at the hands of an unlikely killer. They will find my corpse, eyes strangely absent, with goslings feasting on my lifeless innards.

To end the suspense: I survived the encounter. The goose eventually peeled away, with me wishing like hell someone else had been there with me to see it all happen.

Geese. Bastards. You've got to appreciate their spunk. It wasn't the first time a wild animal has tried to injure me. And I'm sure it won't be the last. I won't even mention a particular crabbing expedition when my sister tried to push me into shark-infested waters. Bitch.

Vile Weed!

I've always said that everyone needs an enemy. It appears I have found my white whale, my Pazuzu. I, Ahab. I, Merrin. The name of this archenemy, scientifically speaking, is Rhus radicans, otherwise known as poison ivy.

Three times in the past two years have I suffered the curse of this demon plant, and each encounter is more exhausting, more maddening, each affliction exacting a greater toll on my patience in an ongoing quest for serenity and blister-free living. I consider the battle between us somewhat ironic because the three-leafed bastard belongs to a phylum I have long considered a friend. Then again, I routinely forsake animal flesh to feast exclusively on its leafy brethren, so I suppose a reckoning of some sort is overdue.

But hear this, vile weed: I shall not submit. I shall not relent. I shall not go quietly. I may scratch, and the amber ooze dormant in the crusty pustules plaguing both legs may flow into my socks, thereby worsening my dilemma, but I will persevere. I will win this fight.

I know where you live. And I own a lawn mower.

Back in the Woods

Snapshots from two days in the woods: Missing the Flyers "make history" and not really caring. Heavy boots. Thick socks. Greenery. Mountain children with juice-stained faces and camouflage pants. Sweating on the incline. Sweating on the decline. High humidity on a Friday afternoon. The threat of blisters. Mountaintop vistas. Blue songbirds. Flowerless rhododendron. Resting in the tall grass by the lake, beneath an azure sky streaked with cotton. Washing my face in a virgin stream.

Heaping piles of kindling. Waterproof matches. Flames. The trials and roundabout normalcy of Coverly Wapshot. Emotional comforts tied to a self-made campfire. Boiling water. The small joys of oatmeal and blueberries. Caffeine addiction, made clear by my ravenous consumption of truly terrible but no less wonderful instant coffee. The horror of running out of wood even though it's not even dark yet. Stars. Memories of well-spent nights under starry skies in California, Arizona, Illinois.

Spotty cell-phone reception. Heavy raindrops keeping rhythm on the tent's vinyl. Bloodsuckers. Spiders. Buzzards. Millipedes. Sleepless nights on the hard ground. Things I lost in the fire -- namely, an overcooked veggie dog. An ashy taste in my mouth. Looking for dry things to burn. Finding the car and heading back east. Mirrors. Deer ticks. Thirty days of doxycycline.

Egg Shen's Revenge

More snapshots from 2010, told in Leander form as seen in John Cheever's "The Wapshot Chronicle": Missing pocket knife. Roving housecats that deserve to be put down. Baby opossums. Raccoons climbing my leg. Camping in the middle of nowhere. Atop the mountain, screaming bloody hell. Broken fingers. Healing fingers. Stiff little fingers. The end of hockey season.

Unexpected phone calls from British chaps. Too many margaritas on Cinco de Mayo. "Cinco de Minco." Hangovers. Death setting in. Resurrection. Winning a 5K. Little fanfare. Circled days. New short-story collections soon to be published. Brain contusions. Expired packaged foods. Axes. Tent stakes. Honors and privileges at such a young age. Jambalaya with meatless sausage, sans shrimp. Oil spills. Arlen Specter's fall from grace. Regina Spektor's "Far" album. Folding chairs. Somehow stopping this train. Turning sixty-eight.

"Moby-Dick." Half Dome. The Adirondacks. Bears. Timber rattlesnakes. Snapping turtles. Newts. Genetically engineered monsters vs. Nazi clones. Bikini-model photo shoots in San Francisco's McCovey Cove. "Astro Zombies." Lyrics: "Prime directive / Exterminate / The whole human race / And your face / Drops in a pile of flesh / And your heart, heart pounds till it pumps in death."

Unexpected phone calls from editors in Chicago. The Ramones. Sepultura. "Wheels" from Jamie Cullum. Threatening e-mails. Warnings. Fallout. FBI agents. Cars with tinted windows and government plates. Knocks on the front door. Computers rebelling. Finished books of New York Times crossword puzzles. Carlin from India, calling and asking me to run away. "Big Trouble in Little China." Jack Burton saying, "What the hell?" Hunter S. Thompson saying, "Buy the ticket, take the ride."

Empty bottles, empty hands, empty hearts. Playoff beards. The Montreal Canadiens' improbable run to the Eastern Conference Finals. Cigars and brandy on the second floor. Skunks. Snowfall and gunshots. My damned computer. Spotlights. Scabs. Crawling through the mud. Texts. The irony/sadness of poring through a road atlas after so many years spent in one place.

Far Flung

Songwriting chameleon Josh Rouse played an hour-long set at World Cafe Live in Philly's University City this week, and I somehow found myself in a seat 20 feet from the stage. It's tough to watch him and not smile and clap along and be happy about your place in the world, even as he croons morose lyrics such as "We're going through the changes / Hopin' for replacement / Until we find a way out of this hole."

I first saw Rouse play out in 2007, at a storied club called the Tin Angel on Second Street. The Tin Angel show was in support of a then-forthcoming album "Country Mouse, City House," a marginal collection of songs compared with previous masterpieces "Subtitulo" and "Nashville." He's mellow. He's soulful. His lyrics tell textured stories about people who have screwed themselves into the dirt. "A Man Who ..." is one example: "He used to walk in Central Park where / At least a dozen women broke his heart / And there he'd sit and think about his past." He also writes about lost chances, lost battles and lost memories, among other things both found and misplaced.

Furthermore, his diverse catalog of work proves he has no trouble finding ways to outshine and reinvent himself. Rouse, who was born and raised in Nebraska, made his mark in Nashville and even farther-flung points before meeting the woman who eventually became his wife. The couple has since moved to Spain, and the experience appears to have heavily influenced his latest gem of an album called "El Turista"; he sings nearly half of the album's tracks in Spanish with, near as I can tell, perfect delivery.

On the whole, "El Turista" seems sunnier than his previous albums, and his World Cafe Live performance was comparatively upbeat next to his 2007 show. It makes one wonder if escaping the Midwest and living abroad -- settling in with a family -- has brightened his outlook. I've never been to Spain, but it's a close second to France in terms of European countries I hope to visit: lush flower-dotted hillsides, ancient architecture, tapas, wine-induced siestas, etc. As the title of Rouse's new album suggests, maybe he's comfortable being a full-time tourist and enjoying the treasures of a foreign land ... that is, when he's not playing small stages in the States.

More Words

I joined a library. How's that for riveting prose? Action, suspense and word economy, all in one simple sentence that even has an active verb! At any rate, it's not quite four months into the year and I've read 15 novels -- five more since the previous post about my meager 2010 literacy-related accomplishments. Once could say I've fallen into something of an Updike-Chabon-Roth rut, so I've added some new spice to the precarious pile atop the nightstand. On deck: works from Cheever, Fahy, Harrison, et al.

"The Maples Stories" by John Updike: A collection of short stories told as a running narrative about the co-mingled lives of a husband and wife -- the Maples -- at points both significant and mundane. Originally published piecemeal in prominent literary magazines, "The Maples Stories" details the airy ceilings and heart-rending bottoms of a marriage that eventually fails through no fault of the two people trapped within it. Grade: 5 out of 5 dangling participles.

"Of the Farm" by John Updike: Another story about -- you guessed it -- marriage and the innate pain of relationships. The main character returns to his family's rural Pennsylvania farm, this time with his second wife and a newly acquired pre-teen stepson. Uninspiring episodes of grass-cutting and other extended passages of blandness ensue. Grade: 3 out of 5 dangling participles.

"Everyman" by Philip Roth: A rumination on dying and the years that lead a man to the doorstep of death. Roth's main character lives a full yet somehow incomplete life as a jeweler, serial husband, philanderer and overall good guy but ultimately finds himself broken and quite literally dissected by a surgeon's scalpel as a result of randomness and imperfect DNA. Grade: 4 out of 5 dangling participles.

"The Final Solution" by Michael Chabon: A short novel that felt unnecessarily long. Chabon is a master wordsmith, and he delivers again in that regard because most of the book is rife with almost too many beautiful sentences. However, the story itself seemed to lack his trademark neck-snapping wit. Grade: 3 out of 5 dangling participles.

"East of the Mountains" by David Guterson: Man gets terminal cancer. Man decides he doesn't want to rot to death in a long-term care facility. Man plots his own suicide by making it look like a hunting accident. Man leaves for final trip with his two hunting dogs. Things don't go quite as planned. The end. A wonderful read, other than some World War II back story that plods along but is nonetheless necessary in establishing the main character's principal motivation. Grade: 4.5 out of 5 dangling participles.