I bought a used iaito this week. An iaito is an edgeless practice sword for Iaido, which is a very formalized way of studying the Japanese sword. I've been taking Aikido for a few years, and we're adopting Iaido as an additional art to study.

We have a seminar coming up, and I knew that my $20 bargain-basement knockoff sword wasn't going to cut it for any real use. So I hit Craigslist and, luckily, found one for sale nearby. It was pretty much what I needed and a lot cheaper than it would have cost to order one from Japan. Plus, it was from Tozando, a company with a good reputation for iaitos.

I met the seller in a McDonald's parking lot. Super nice guy and we had a nice talk about Aikido, Iaido, etc. But when we got there, we both agreed that it probably wouldn't look right for me to draw a sword in the midst of minivans. So we both got in my car, and I drew and examined the iaito in my Accord. If you thought Kill Bill, Vol 2's fight in a mobile home was cramped, you should have seen me drawing and re-sheathing a three-foot piece of metal in the middle of a car.

In the long run, I'll save up and get one that's just right for my height, but I'm good for now. But I can definitely see how some people get addicted to collecting swords. This one's nice and solid, weighted so that it feels like it's practically swinging itself.

I'm attending an Iaido seminar on Saturday, and I had to buy kneepads for that, too. Sitting in seiza (a seated position on the floor that puts a lot of strain on your knees) on-and-off for eight hours will take its toll otherwise. As for the tops of my feet, I'm curious how well they'll hold up with my body weight pressing them into the floor of a basketball court. Should be interesting and a lot of fun.

The seminar's on my birthday, and to tell you the truth, if I didn't keep remembering the seminar, I'd never remember my b'day. Even with people asking what I want and taking me out to lunch and so forth, I just don't think about my age anymore. In my head, I'm 25 anyway. You'd think my various aches and pains, my growing inability to function without sleep, and my increasing distrust of the young would be a constant reminder. But alas, no.

In these times when I can't remember my birthday, I just go into geek mode and tell myself that this must be what it's like to be immortal. But then I wrench my neck while brushing my teeth, so badly that I can barely turn my head for over a week, and I remember all too well that I'm on the downward slope. Ah, good times.

03/25/06

Been a while since an update. Some tech problems with the laptop that had me limping along for about a week, and then a complete reinstall of everything that took about two days to finish.

Spring is here, and it's time to plant a few things in the garden -- broccoli, onions, cabbage, and lettuce so far. In a few weeks, after we're sure we've had the last frost, we'll get everything else in the ground.

I consider this year to be a big test of the garden. Last year was my first attempt at gardening, and everything turned out very well. The broccoli did great, we had plenty of bell peppers, and we're still enjoying the corn out of the freezer. The tomatoes suffered from a wet summer, and the beans suffered from both torrential rains that washed many of my seeds away, and my not upping my watering schedule to meet the summer heat.

So this year will be a test, as I go at fertilizing and watering a little differently.

My inlaws brought up a large tiller/plow for us to use, with lots of attachments and plow blades, and I'll probably give that a try tomorrow, loosening up the dirt one last time before I cut the last rows. It's a massive, antique piece of work, and while I'm sure hardier folks than I have accomplished it, I can't imagine swapping out attachments without someone to help. As I was learning how to use the thing last weekend, I was laying on my side in the dirt, making sure a pin was properly in place, holding up about twenty-five pounds of metal while I was doing so, and thinking, "Lord, no wonder people had to rest on Sunday back in the old days. It was because they were flat-out exhausted."

This was after about twenty minutes of playing with a motorized plow. I'll be in for a rude surprise after all the world's oil runs out and I'm reduced to attaching one of those plow blades to a thick tree branch and running it through the dirt...

03/10/06 -- 12:39 p.m.

Ye gods, the age is starting to show. I've been battling a chest and head cold that's put me on my back twice in the last month, and which has made me a miserable coughing, sneezing, phlegmy wreck the rest of the time. No exaggeration, I actually had a coughing fit in the car the other night during which I'm certain time slowed down and I thought I was going to pass out. No fun. I just don't heal like I used to.

Naturally, being the optimist that I am, I've taken this new inability to shake colds, and flash-forwarded to the future. I'm sixty, in the hospital recovering from a head wound from my wife who, after decades of my leaving my clothes and wet towels on the bed, finally couldn't take anymore. I catch pneumonia, kick the bucket, and then find out that the afterlife is actually like Albert Brooks' Defending Your Life, and you have to justify all of your life choices.

Of course, with my memory, seeing a lot of my life again would be just like seeing it for the first time. I can see myself on the edge of my seat, sipping some tea, wondering how each scene is going to play out. And with my luck, the whole thing would have a period soundtrack, so I'd have to rewatch certain high school years to the sounds of Bon Jovi.

So anyway, posting's been nearly nonexistent, which is really for the best. Nothing's been going on. Plus, I'm a fall-off-the-edge-of-the-earth type of person anyone, so those who haven't heard from me probably didn't think anything strange was going on.

(c) 2004-2006 Sweet Tea Prohibition