between the rock and the cold, cold sea

I remember what I hate about typing in my bedroom in winter weather. The draft is cold and damp and makes the joint at the very bottom of my thumb hurt. And my knuckles.

Gods, the weather is freaking nasty, since Tuesday. And very little light on the horizon.

So, writing. It's... not easy - when is it ever? - but right now I'm avoiding bookhate by the skin of my thumbs. I've got too much distance between me and at least one of my protagonists: too much trouble getting into his skin and understanding how he thinks - how he ought to think.

I'm aware that the only way to get past this is to write to the end. And really, there are times when I'm able to get deeper under his skin, which makes me wonder if I'm putting this scene in for the right reasons.

Anway. We advance, by inches, towards 29K. What's that, nearly one-third of a book? One-third of a book. I swear, the more I write, the longer it gets.

It feels like a third of a book, anyway. So, you know. Here's hoping to get it done by this time next year.

Yeah, I'm really that slow.

Achievements:

Running: My first continuous 12 minute run in... a long damn time. 1.3 miles in 12 minutes, 3.0 miles in 32 minutes, and a grand total of 3.9 miles in 47 minutes.

Miles treadmilled since 10-09-08: 18.75.

Climbing: As if to make up for the most excellent showing in running, my climbing sucked. I spent two hours at the wall, mostly just holding my elbows and saying 'ow'. Did a bit of fiddling around with traverses; attempted a green 6a+: miserable fail. Attempted the black 6b: still stuck two-thirds of the way up. Attempted the white 4+, and only got the last move by cheating (although, as an aside, I'm not so sure that that is a 4+: there are three routes at the wall I can do fairly consistently, and it, although allegedly the easiest, is not one of them). Attempted the orange 5 on the slab, and although I now know I can do the last move, my arms gave out, and I had to cheat.

Although, point: I've climbed four days out of the last five, did weights the day I didn't climb, and ran five days out of the last five. So some amount of suckage is probably to be expected at this stage.

Tomorrow gets to be a day off from exercise, I think. Sunday, if I can manage it, I go to a karate class. Because I wouldn't want the aches I have now to have time to get bored and lonely, that's why.

Study: verb tenses in Latin, some Mattingly.

Writing: Maybe 200 or 300 words.

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Ow. My fingers. My elbows. My shoulders. Just, ow.

But you know the crazy thing? I feel better this week than I have done for a long time. Clearheaded, generally good, and my recovery time after exercise has gone down, provided I remember to eat.

Achievements:

Running: 1 mile in 9:20 minutes, 1.5 miles in 15 minutes, something over 2.0 miles in 25 minutes.

Miles treadmilled since 10-09-08: 14.85.

Climbing:

Proving that last night's success was not a fluke, I sent the grey 5+ again, although with rather more struggling this time around. Still. Not a fluke.

Saw some improvement on the black 5+, although not enough to get completely up and over the overhung part. I can put my hand on the hold on the vertical: the problem is moving up from there. Had a good run at the orange 5, except that everything went pearshaped for the last three moves and I ended up playing chicken and coming down, and gave the white 6a a flaily attempt. Still stuck about three-four metres up. Attempted the red 6b: I can get it started, but getting more than two metres up requires crimping, and rather better strength and technique than I can muster.

And because the one thing I remember from karate training is in order to improve, pratice technique when tired, I tried Old Reliable yellow 5 on the slab. Sent it quite a bit more cleanly than I have yet. Alas, when I moved on down to the white 4+, my arm strength completely disappeared and I ended up not finishing, but hey. Practice and progress.

(And how amazed am I that I can spend the better part of two and a half hours at the wall and come home not wanting to die? Even if my fingers feel rather abused right now.)

One thing I have learned from my first climbing session in shorts: I need longer shorts. Short ones, they causeth the chafing. Unfun.

Study:

45 minutes of Latin, which works out to the poor translation of six or seven sentences. I need to memorise the verb paradigms soon.

30 more pages of the Mattingly book. Mattingly? Is a good historian.

Writing: Maybe 400 words. And an idea for a story told in the second person singular present tense.

( Cut to spare first-paragraph-first-draftiness )

Drafty like a drafty thing. But it's reassuring that all my writing isn't stuck on the endless duellist b&^k.

So, the wall closed over the last few days to do maintenance and completely reset the routes. Today was the first day it was open again, and I hied me there after a half an hour in the gym, to see what was what.

The good news: I finally have definitive confirmation over what grade system the wall uses: it's French. The bad news: there is nothing, now, easier than a French 5.

Now, the fives aren't alphabetised, yet, so I don't know whether they're at the easy end or the hard end. (The sixes and sevens are alphabetised, but not the fives.) There're two on the slab wall, which I sent: one with a little bit of cheating at the very last move and one clean, with no dogging on the rope. I'm pretty proud of that: both of them required a good bit of thinky.

There're two other fives, both on overhangs, which I tried. One's a grey, and I think the only straightforward way up is to smear, dyno, and jump, which'll get you to the top of the overhang. I can get my fingers on the hold after the jump, but I don't have the strength to pull it off.

The second one's a black. I can see two ways of getting to the top of the overhang, and over it: one's a dyno, and I tried that several times on my first attempt. Again, I can get my fingers up, but I don't have the strength to capitalise on that. The other way involves clever footwork, and balance, and smearing: I tried that on my second attempt, and I can see how it should work, but I just couldn't make it go right.

Two more fives, a white and a blue, share a slightly overhung corner: really the most minor of overhangs. Now, the white, that one's almost easy until you get to the top. I got stuck on the third move from the finish, where the holds stop being even slightly juggy and there's a move - two moves - that require much fingertip grippy and balance while smearing. No can do.

The blue - I'm quite proud of my attempt at the blue: I got up over the crux of the overhang, and then you have to smear up and reach sideways, and I couldn't quite get my arms to do the right amount of heaving.

There's also a red five, but I think that's closer to a 5c than a 5a: I could barely get it started, certainly couldn't string together the first three moves.

I'm going to be made of ouch tomorrow, but I'm going to try and get in another attempt tomorrow evening, before the open mic poetry. Last chance to conquer before two weeks of slack: I'll probably have to spend a week or two playing catch-up before I can send anything after I get back.

Wow. Did I get lengthy, much, over climbing? Well, I love it, and there were a great bunch of lads down there this evening to trade belays with (and even a girl or four, after half seven), so it was really great craic. (I spent two and a half hours there. Definitely going to be ouch tomorrow.)

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Achievements:

Some of the Ehrman book, some of Goodman's Rome and Jerusalem (much more enjoyable than the Ehrman). .5 hours Latin, .5 hours Greek.

Running: 29 minutes, for 2.3 miles. Intervals of 7.5mph, and man did my bad ankle complain. It'll complain even more when we do it again tomorrow.

Rowing: 5 minutes, for 1.1km.

Climbing: See above, re: 2.5 hours.

Writing: .2K, some cleaning-up work.

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I got deep-fried chicken and chips on the way up the road, the supermarkets being closed and no fast, greasy carbohydrates in the house. Mmm, grease.

My hands, where I've ripped through callouses, hate me, I think. I've taken a paracetamol to make my shoulders stop screaming, and now, I need to make with the packing and throw some more shit into the case for the day after tomorrow.

All I really want to do is fall over. But necessity calls.

Today, for a miracle, there has been no rain.

On the contrary, it's been fabulously clear, and the sea as viewed from the train just at sunset was still and blue-white as a milky mirror, the same shade as the horizon. Unreal. Something very beautiful in that.

---

Achievements:

Reading, Goodman, The Roman World. Not far to go now. .5 hours Latin, .5 hours Greek.

Writing: .3K

Running: separated by four-minute rest intervals at 3mph: 7(6.5mph), 5(6.5mph), 6(6.5mph), 5(6.5mph), and a ten-minute cooldown period, for something over 3.5 miles in a total of 45 minutes.

This is definite improvement, but I have to recommend the Olympic gymnastic competition for distraction: it was on in the gym when I started on the treadmill, and I easily ran 7 minutes rather than 5 to start, because the pretty, graceful boys were so amazing I forgot to pay attention to the fact that I might be getting a little out of breath.

Rowing: 15 minutes for 3km.

Climbing: ~1.5 hours. Sent two routes, a 3 and a 4a, and got roughly twice as high (5 metres as opposed to 3) on my white 4c project wall than I've ever got before. Alas, O project walls, soon you will be gone.

The rest of the time was taken up with minor traverses and bouldering on the low overhang: I'm definitely improving upper body strength, although some of that is no doubt also down to paying attention to technique.

Having not-chalk helps, too. I got some yesterday, a non-marking chalk substitute called an EcoBall. It definitely works, although I suspect the nosebleed I had in the middle of the night might've been down to getting some of it up my nose. (I never get nosebleeds. At least it was only a minor annoying trickle, not a flood, but still, more than I'm used to.)

I now have two (2) broken blisters from climbing, and two (2) intact ones from rowing. And I'm stiff like whoa: I think tomorrow gets to be a day off from exercise. Maybe put in a little more time at the languages and try to get a more substantial wordcount, instead.

---

Hmm.

I seem to have a boring life, don't I?

Coming and going to and from town this afternoon, I missed delays due to flooding on the train line by about fifteen minutes each way. I guess today is a lucky day.

...Now, where do I go to get me some sandbags?

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Achievements:

Reading, Breeze and Dobson. (Done.) About 80 pages of Martin Goodman, The Roman World 44BC-AD180. Greek. Latin.

Today I started translating some actual Latin sentences, albeit with one finger on the vocabulary guide and another finger on the grammatical paradigms. As an undertaking, it appears to be going reasonably well.

Climbing: Sent with much struggle a route that I could do with fair competence at the end of May. Project wall #1 (grey ~4b): fail x2. Project wall #2 (yellow ~4c): fail, but due to good advice, I can now see how it should be done, even if I can't quite do it. Project wall #3 (white ~4c): fail, but some small progress was made.

The wall's closing Fri-Wed for maintenance and to change the routes, so I guess that's the last time I see those particular routes. Alas.

Writing: .25K

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Books 2008: 101, non-fiction

101. David J. Breeze and Brian Dobson, Hadrian's Wall (London, 2000, 4th edition).

I feel justified in stating that this is not a book for the general reader. This is the book you read if you want an introduction to Wall scholarship.

To quote from the Preface: This book... is not a guide to the Wall nor is it a description in detail of the actual physical remains. It is an attempt to review the evidence for the best-known and best-preserved of all Rome's artificial frontiers in an attempt to explain why it was built at a particular time on a particular line across Britain, and to follow its history till the end of Roman control in Britain.

That's pretty much what it does. It's divided into seven chapters, each dealing in substantial detail with topics such as the concept of a frontier in the Roman world and Roman thought, the building of the Wall, the Antonine Wall, the function of the two walls in the period where both were in use, the army of the wall and its life, and the changes which took place over the third and fourth centuries. The appendices detail the governors of Britain, the 'regiments' of the wall, an overview of the gods worshipped in the region of the Wall, the Roman names of the Wall forts, and the archaeological evidence.

It's fortunate that I'd read Wells and Cameron immediately prior to this, or references to the various emperors and the context of the wider empire would have been very confusing. I do feel in need of a general work on Roman Britain to clarify my picture of the wider context of Britain-as-a-whole, not just Britain-of-the-Wall, but you can't expect a book to deliver more than it promises, and this one certainly delivers a wealth of Wall information.

Now all I have to do is finish the Goodman, and I get to take a change of book!diet, with selected readings from Bart D. Ehrman's The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Which will be a change, at least.

( Schedule of books )

That's enough for going on with, especially with a two-week holiday scheduled for the end of next week. If I can find a decent (cheap) copy of a general intro to Roman Britain, that'll make the list, too, but for now, that'll have to do.

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*You were hoping for the friendship of the girls, O sailors, but you do not obtain [it] [by request]. Yes, that's one of the sentences I translated today, and yes, I'm inordinantly proud of the fact that I'm on actual! sentences! after only a bit under two weeks. :P

I think I like Josh Ritter. His music's hit and miss, but when it hits, like 'Harrisburg', 'Leaves and Kings', and 'Monster Ballad' (which I don't have, sadly), it does a damn good job.

Also, anyone who puts at least eight free mp3 downloads on his website is a good sort by me.

---

Achievements:

~30 pages Breeze and Dobson. 0.5 hours Latin. 0.5 hours Greek. Being a social person.

Writing: .7K.

---

I have a severe case of the donwannas when it comes to the prospect of heading in to college tomorrow. I suspect in this case that means I'm going to have at least half of a Day Off.

(Though the attractions of climbing? May outweigh several other considerations.)

Somewhere outside, someone is a)mistreating a very squeaky puppy, or b)pissing off a very squeaky bird.

Achievements:

1.5 hours of Latin, ~30 pages of Breeze and Dobson's Hadrian's Wall, two chapters of Martin Goodman's The Roman World: 44BC - AD180.

Writing: .9K

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Decent walk today, when the sun made an appearance between the rain. There's definitely a strongly autumnal feel to the air the last couple of days, but that could merely be an artefact of the amount of water around.

Yesterday evening's thunder-and-lightning extravaganza was pretty impressive, too.

---

Between walking and running, I've covered at least ten miles this week. Maybe 3.5K on duellist. Two college books, three chapters of Greek vocabulary, and a chunk of groundwork on Latin.

What do you think? Am I sufficiently justifying my continued existence? :P

Accomplished:

Greek, revision of one chapter, new vocabulary; Latin, future active indicative, past perfect, some vocabulary. Four chapters of Averil Cameron's The Later Roman Empire (done now!), started Breeze and Dobson's Hadrian's Wall.

Writing: .8K

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Books 2008: 100, non-fiction

100. Averil Cameron, The Later Roman Empire (London, 1993)

Like the Wells book, this is another entry in the Fontana History of the Ancient World series, aimed as much at the general reader as at the student with a background in the period.

Essentially, this book provides a general introduction to the Roman empire of the fourth and fifth centuries CE: i.e., from Diocletian (284-305) to Theodosius II (408-450). It gives a solid introduction to the literary sources available, although it's somewhat less useful as a guide to the archaeological evidence, and also a solid introduction and preliminary discussion to the various trends and topics of interest within this period: the stability/instability of the empire, economic and social development, the place of the military in politics and society, the 'Christianisation' of the empire, the interaction between Christian and pagan 'culture', the decline of central authority in the west.

It's a very sound introduction, and Cameron has fewer annoying quirks than Wells. Her appendices on the sources and on further reading are also clear and useful. Pretty good and nicely compact book.

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So, today was mostly a day off from exercise, mainly due to the moan factor when I tried to get up this morning. Yeah. Felt as though I had put staples in my shoulders to hold them to the bed. Ouch.

So I spent a little longer on Latin than I would have otherwise - no, I'm not going to bore you by enthusing about how much fun it is to start learning a dead language: but wait until I start translating Actual Sentences! - and after I did my quota of writing, went with the parent for a swim.

God, it was freezing. Well, not freezing as such, but not as warm as it was the last time I went. The water was green and dark and just after high tide, with a little breezy chop, and chill enough to take your breath away until you got used to it. Only stayed in for about fifteen minutes. Not warm.

Tomorrow, I crawl out of bed at an early hour to go see the pretty horsies.

The Dark Knight may not be a film made wholly of win - apparently Gotham city has a distinct aversion to women in starring roles - but it's at least halfway to excellent.

I went to the preview in the local cinema last night. It was hot - damn was it hot - and crowded; full, I suspect. But the audience was silent: I confess myself entirely surprised.

It has explosions, some decent-to-good performances, fisticuffs, and possibly some attempt at social commentary. But don't quote me on that: I was too much distracted by Christian Bale's muscles to pay it much attention (and I ignored it as probably being the sort of social commentary with which I tend to argue, anyway).

So, yeah. Not too bad.

Books 2008: 96

96. Ariana Franklin, The Death Maze.

I believe the US title is different. However, this is the sequel to the award-winning Mistress of the Art of Death, and as a historical murder mystery with attached intrigue and character development, not to mention excellence of historical verisimilitude, it is yet another book of the highest water.

Seriously. If you are going to read any murder mystery, or historical novel, read this one and its predecessor. They are very, very good.

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Running: 3 intervals of 5 minutes and one interval of 3 minutes, separated by 4 minutes each, pushing.

Situps: 5 sets of 10 reps, 20 second rest period between sets.

Pushups: 3 sets of 10 reps, 30 second rest period between sets.

Writing: 2 notebook pages.