(Not) Walking the Camino: Day 29
With the ladies landing triumphantly at the end of their Camino, you may recall I set my own meager goals to accomplish across the same 30 days.
How’d I do? Not nearly as good as the ladies with the big smiles and proud hearts. (Pro Tip: Never publicly declare your goals, or you’ll have to account for them.)
Finish a WIP or start something new. I had “Time Enough at Last” but accomplished neither of these things. I did get some very good advice from the acclaimed screenwriter of a biopic on a subject very similar to my own (*both were SCOTUS justices), and I noodled around with that — and a long-dormant WIP about a murder solved by dogs — but neither is new nor finished, so all I have is noodles. On the plus side, I didn’t break my last pair of glasses.
Clean and reorg my home office and closet. I did accomplish this reorg of both disaster areas that are now slightly less disastrous, like the Hindenburg after the fire went out. But I feel much better organizized. I’m not posting any before-and-after photos because only the trained eye will be able to tell the difference, but Amanda’s eye is well trained. She’ll also likely notice the spaces she can walk through in our office for the first time in many months, and hopefully without her sticks.
Get some goddamn culture! Another one I can safely check off the list. LA Opera, LACMA, Kirby at the Skirball. Even a baseball game in San Francisco. I almost saw a concert, but Seat Geek prices never dropped to where I had hoped before the band took the stage. (Although I was pleased to see that $5,000 front row seat plummet to $500 at curtain — still too rich for me.) Does a visit to Buca di Beppo count? Goddamn right it does!
Fitness program. Not really “fitness” at all but yet another declaration to lose some weight. “I could stand to drop a couple-few-dozen excess pounds from my mid-section, currently my most dominant section,” I wrote. I also wrote that Amanda’s exercise bike would come in handy and, if dragging it away from the walk-in closet I cleaned counts as a workout, another box I can check. At the final tally here, I lost about four pounds. (In fairness, some of this might be hair.) But I could just as easily have gained 10, so I’m calling that a differential of minus-14 pounds. It’s just math.
Have that thing looked at. I did and it’s nothing and there’s ointment. Read all about it here.
Help someone with something. I was much less successful here than I’d like to admit. Yes, I delivered ice to hot doggies at the shelter, and even helped someone on NextDoor look for a lost dog, while others said the dog should get a job or go back where it came from. And I helped a colleague with some writing, and promised another. I could do better. I will do better. Call me on it when I don’t.
Stay out all night. The dumbest thing on my list and the one I never came close to. If you recall, I had a brief flirtation with switching my schedule completely, to stay up all night and sleep in all day on the couch so I wouldn’t miss Amanda next to me in bed. The wife-effigy pillow solved that, and while I considered spending one night like this, the utter absence of all-night activities here in LA made it seem not worth the bother. I could have checked that box with a single visit to CVS at 3 in the morning to pick up my ointment, but I’m better than that.
Cook something in David’s pot. A lovely gift from his daughter, I kept putting off what seemed a daunting effort — until tonight! It did not explode, but beyond that, I have little to recommend my sad attempt to replicate David’s kitchen prowess even a little. I made a beef and rice thing, with asparagus topped by an egg, and seem to have over-cooked the hell out of it. I think I’ll try a stew next time Amanda decides to walk across another country.
Haircuts and pants for Dad and me. I threatened to shave my head — a little extreme for me, but at least it’s not a neck tattoo. It’s only the sage advice of Berta, the stylist, who saved me from that tragic-for-others-to-look-at mistake. “I can do anything but put it back,” she said, talking me into my first buzz cut. On the down side, you still have to look at it. As for pants, I did buy my first pair of shorts in about two decades, but I still owe Dad a haircut and pants.
So if I were to assess myself honestly on these goals, the buzz-cut epitomizes my efforts: instead of shaving my head, I went for the half measure of the buzz cut; bought shorts instead of pants. Even if those were better ideas, I half-assed it, like I half-assed most of these goals.
I half-ass a lot of stuff that I should really go into with all of my ass.
If Amanda had approached her walk on the Camino this way, she’d have petered out somewhere around Monforte de Lemos (literal translation, my fort of lemons*) and ate pie.
(*Not at all the literal translation; just one more thing I half-assed.)
Instead she did this goddamn AMAZING thing, and I can’t wait for her to be home and see the new me that sort of lost 14 pounds and so much hair.
DAY 30 will find me at the airport. Or maybe there won’t be a Day 30 blog. I don’t recall a lot of clamoring for this to continue.
May all your journeys be like a pilgrimage, filled with wonder and nature and the open-faced joy of other pilgrims, the awe of discovery and pushing of boundaries, but less sweaty and hopefully you won’t need those sticks everywhere.