"I really have a secret satisfaction in being considered rather mad."
- W. Heath Robinson
Some months ago I participated in a cognitive ability psychological study: partly for fun, partly because it paid me $25 for each of the three sessions, but mostly to get what you see before you - MRI scans of my brain.
That's right: this is Lonita's brain on you.
Two weeks ago a 16 year-old boy summited Mt. Everest and became the youngest person to complete the Seven Summits challenge, and good on 'im! Looking at those photographs of him made me feel very lazy, but in a good way.
It inspired me.
No, I am not going to climb Mt. Everest. Spending 70 days camping in the snow I do not consider to be a good use of my time.
However, I've set myself a five to ten year plan, to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.
I'm not a mountaineer, nor enthralled by mountains (I'm a desert and desolate places fan, really), but I feel this urge to conquer something. Possibly I will change my mind, and for a great many reasons this plan is not likely to come to fruition - money not being the least of them. While it's not expensive, per se, to do this climb, it's still not cheap, and definitely a hardship when you get paid the sort of shit money I get for my labours.
Kili is not a technical climb, making it the easiest of the Seven Summits to ascend. You do not require any mountaineering or rock climbing experience in order to do it, as it is a walk. It's not an easy walk, requiring that you be reasonably fit, as about half the people who attempt it don't make it. Part of that is due to them attempting the faster and more steep climbs, which are much harder on the body and more likely to cause the things that are most likely to kill you on Kili - like altitude sickness and the effects thereof. There is a gentler, if less scenic climb, that takes about two more days to complete, but it allows for far more acclimation to the altitudes. It's got an extremely high success rate. That's the route I'd go. So what if it's less scenic? I've got rotten eyesight and will be almost six thousand metres above sea level - what am I going to see from up there, really? Rocks, snow, rocks, snow, crater, rocks, snow.
All drawbacks aside, including my impaired vision, I figure that if they can get a blind man and an amputee up Everest, they can get me up an African hillside.
I'm embarrassed to admit it, but this made me spit pudding all over! He's so into it, it's great!
Oh dear. I admit it, I snickered. Thanks to Douglas for the link.
Ooh, and it's only part 1!
I'm looking at this photograph of George Atkinson who has just become the youngest person (at age 16) to complete the Seven Summits challenge by scaling the highest mountain on each of the seven continents. This is George on top of Mt. Everest. That's right, 8,848m above the rest of us, the world at his feet.
Two things cross my mind: How is it that, at the age of 11 years, you convince your parents to let you climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. And, after this, most everything else in life is going to seem like a cakewalk, I'm guessing.
Good for you, George. You make me feel lazy, but that's okay. I'm comfortable in this, and think you're an amazing young man.
A license to be mad, you say? Sign me up!
I don't like the title "Miss". It's so... extraneous (especially at my age), and even remotely demeaning, as if my name were not a sufficient thing.
Yet my bank insists it's necessary for the name field of my cheques. I've had to call and ask they remove it - again. What's more, I can't use the check-out on Yves Rocher's website, because it requires that I choose a title. You're just mailing me something (in this case, shampoo and lipstick) - why on earth would you need to know any aspect of my lifestyle choice, marital status, or what I do for a living?
As a 42 year-old single female, I find it a wholly and completely unnecessary linguistic and cultural affectation - unless you're a 12 year-old girl and it makes you feel important. I've got better ways to define myself than such a title as this, Miss.
Customer: I'd like a taxi to (I really want to add the address, but I won't).
Me: Okay. Thank you.
Customer: (snotty tone) You're very welcome. (as she is hanging up the phone) Fucking bitch.
Did I miss something? Possibly there is some other meaning of "thank you" to which I have not previously been privy? Have I been left out of the "thank you" loop?
