Mt. Everest

Tonight I was considering my various obsessions.

Unfortunately, I dug up an old one I had forgotten about for the last year or so, my obsession with Mt. Everest. It began with the Jon Krakauer's book "Into Thin Air" which is his first hand account of the 1996 Everest Disaster. A few months after reading the book I somehow became acquainted with a woman who had traveled to the base camp at Everest on the Tibetan side.

She told me about how she trained to hike just to the base camp, and about the altitude sickness she suffered, how it was a difficult trip that she was glad she had made, but would never do it again.

The impossibility of even her journey seemed intriguing. So, I start reading books about Everest and Sir Edger Hillary, I went to see the IMAX movie made DURING the 1996 disaster. Krakaurer's book was made into a terrible TV movie that I watched of course.

So, I really didn't want to go to see Mt. Everest, I didn't really even have that much interest in Mt. Everest, yet I was compelled to think about it and read about what I could find. I thought about traveling to Mt. Everest, and trying to make it to base camp. I thought a lot about the sense of accomplishment one must feel at the summit of the highest point on earth.

A sense accomplishment I have no desire to try to obtain, but I am compelled to consider the possibility -- the possibility of doing something I would utterly detest. This is what makes it an obsession.

And it was really bad until around 1999, and then it just went away for a while until I met Natalie Winnas.

Natalie Winnas is this terrific facialist in Long Beach that I began to go to around 2000. It turns about Natalie Winnas has a sister who works as an assistant to Sandy Hill Pittman. Sandy Hill Pittman is a millionairess who was one of the survivors of the 1996 disaster and was highly criticized in Krakauer's book.

So what is the fucking chance of that....Every time I see Natalie I innocently slip Sandy Hill Pittman into the conversation so I can see if she can give me any information on her. I'm certain she knew what I was doing and she was a good sport about it.

"So does Sandy Hill Pittman have all her toes?" I asked.

"I think she does, but I have never seen her in sandals, but she does have all her fingers and both thumbs," Natalie replied.

Once after I told her I was a bit depressed she told me about a party at Sandy Hill Pittman's in which a little rodeo was presented as entertainment with a fireworks show for the finale. It did lift my mood a bit.

These little glimpse into the life of Sandy Hill Pittman kept the obsession going until a year after I moved from Long Beach, and i didn't see Natalie as often.

I had basically forgotten about it, until tonight when I began counting my obsessions, and this one came up.

Since Gioconda is not as forthright about her neurosis I asked her if she had anything she was obsessed with.

"No," she replied without hesitation.

" How many strollers do we have?" I asked.

"I may have an issue with strollers," she conceeded.

"An issue? We have six double strollers. That is a total of six stroller purchases, we have more money sunk into strollers than one of our cars," I replied.

"Yes, but at least I don't have to think about climbing Mt. Everst, and getting a sherpa and maybe even dying while trying to do something sort of stupid," she said.

She's right. I would be so much better served by having a more simplistic obsession.

At some point we will run out of double strollers to buy.