Fall fall fall.

A couple of days ago when I woke up it was suddenly Fall. That morning the temperature was 50 degrees instead of the 60 to 65 it had been. When I looked outside I was faced with trees in shades of fire. The ground was now littered with the departed brethren of the remaining leaves. Only the squirrel’s tails showed above the leaves, and they twitched back and forth as they hid their treasures.
The wood floor was too cold for bare feet. I dug deep in my sock bin and found my grey pair of wool socks; my winter workhorse of socks. I skated into the kitchen to make breakfast and coffee. I’d lucked out and put steel cut oats to soak in the fridge the night before, so it would be a hot breakfast instead of a cold one.
I started writing that previous bit several weeks ago. I think I’ve said it every time, but it’s getting harder and harder to sit down and write. I’ve also been writing letters to my friends here, so I have to balance blogging time with letter-writing time. And my letter recipients are getting greedy and are bugging me as to when they’ll get their second letters. A certain Chinese girl with a heavy British accent is the worst of them.
They started out as actual letters, that have nothing real to do with whom they are addressed to, just silly gibberish about spies, communists and fake encounters with bitter ex-lovers. But the letters grown more into short stories and letters from one fictional character to another that happens to have the same name as the actual recipient. This has been a bit of a curse, because now they’re harder to write, take longer to finish, and they increase expectations. I don’t want to give the next person a letter that they might think wasn’t as well thought out as the one I gave to their friend for fear that they may feel let down. So, don’t any of you start harping me about when you’re going to get your letter, or I’m liable to abandon the whole thing.
Other than writing, I’ve been climbing a lot more these days. With the turn in the weather my bmx bike and I are able to spend less and less quality time together. When I need to get my mind away from school the rock wall has been my usual destination. My forearm stamina is getting better and I’m starting to tackle some tougher routes, but it’s slow going. I’ve learned that when they bolt up a route on the wall they have very specific moves (how you move your body to get from one hold to the next) in mind, and your job is to figure out those moves. Of course if you can find another move that they didn’t intend, that’s fair game as long as you stick to the holds on the route. I thought it was going to be a lot easier to look at a route from the deck and figure out the moves you need to do. I’ve yet to be able to read a route on the ground and actually translate that into successful moves on the wall.
A little more than a month ago I traveled with the UIUC Climbing Club down to Jackson Falls, in the Shawnee National Forest, down in the southern tip of the state. There is a falls, but Jackson is basically a big canyon with woods in the middle and a rock face most of the way around where locals have established more than a hundred different sport climbing routes. I was able to get in two climbs before a huge storm came roaring into the canyon. The wind suddenly sounded like a train as it tore through the trees. Leaves that had been falling gently were now shooting sideways. The rain wasn’t immediate, but my friend Lodo was on top of the route when it came. He went up to get all the gear that had been placed, and now he was repelling in a downpour. We’d picked a good spot and had an over-hang to sit under where we waited for a break and ate walnuts with honey. Our break came but it didn’t last long. On the trek back to camp we all got soaked through and the trail was a bog. One member of out party, Gabby, only had flip-flops, which she quickly abandoned for bare feet. She reminded me of a hobbit slogging through the mud. She was at the back and every time we turned around to check on her she had adjusted her clothing so that it looked like she was wearing a different outfit. We joked that the next time we turned around she’d be wearing a sombrero and poncho, or a Michael Jackson costume. Thankfully it only rained for five hours or so and we were able to come out of our tents and party around the campfire during the night.
The climbing community was a great find as there no bike community in town. People have bikes they use to commute, but there’s no bike culture. I’ve discovered that rock climbers and bikers are very similar people; the only real difference being that one group plays on rocks and the other on bikes. And the lingo is different. But their priorities and sensibilities are almost the same. For me, it has meant a group of fast friends. And after hanging out with international students that do nothing but study, it’s a welcome change. I love the international kids, but I don’t know what they are “studying” all the time. I’m starting to wonder if they say they are studying, only to spend most of their time talking on Skype or MSN Messenger. That or they don’t like me and they’re really having crazy coke parties, orgies and games of Russian Roulette in the basements of their student housing buildings. I doubt that though. When I told Cathryn, the Chinese girl with the British accent, that I had been hanging out with the climbing club, her response was, “Aw, you have a life. No fair.” It’s not much of a life but it’s working out just fine for now.
I’m getting very anxious to come home and visit everyone. I miss home quite a bit. I miss Charly Bear, Rusty, Maddie and Dexter. I miss drinking beers on the Dixon’s front lawn with Lewis. I miss not needing to drive to Chicago to get film developed! And I miss my family. I wish I could have teased Maddie about her close encounter with a cow. Poor thing just wants to herd. Two more months. I’m going to New York to see family for Thanksgiving, so we’ll all have to wait until Christmas time. I think we can all make it. My friend Joyce keeps telling me to invent a teleporting device, and it’s times like these that I think I picked the wrong field; I should have been an engineer.