Awesome to see everyone I saw at FC! I'm going to try and create more art this year.

The journal that I update and use is here:
http://summer-jackel.livejournal.com/

I know, I don't use this journal much! But I like  mulefoot's version of this meme going round:

I've seen this handy "Ask me questions!" meme and thought to myself...who needs some other website when you can just ask me a question here. So...pretend I can't see who's asking and ask me whatever you want. I'll answer...in spoken word.

The machine I'm using to scan my stuff is an Epson Scanner/Copier/Printer threeway I got, I think, in 2002. It is, I believe, on its little electronic deathbed. The copy and print functions have long since failed, no matter how often I clean or attempt to troubleshoot it by the manual directions, but until just now the scanner still worked. The thing is, unless it has ink, it won't run the scanner, and it will automatically determine that the ink is out at a set time no matter how little ink in the cartridge has actually been used. (which is none, in this case, since the print/copy functions died more than a year ago. Does the stuff go bad?) The ink for it is both expensive and no longer carried in local stores.

I loathe the quick obsolescence of computer technology and cringe at the prospect of having to responsibly dispose of this hated boat-anchor of a once shiny and exciting device. But I'm not buying really expensive (like, $40+ a cartridge) ink for a broken machine that can no longer use it, but is just designed such that its tertiary function won't run without the stuff.

Perforce, I require a new scanner. Quickly, because I need to scan a commission with a Feb. 14th deadline, and since I am about to be really busy, I was hoping to get the finished art scanned tonight (inks) and tomorrow (finished painting). Thankfully, scanners are cheaper than I thought they were, for instance one on the best buy site for $150, which is about what I can afford for this acquisition. I plan to cruise for one tomorrow.

I am encouraging all of you to share your opinions on what to get, what to look for and what to avoid. Scanners: we all love to bitch, complain and hate on 'em, but it would be nice if I could actually get something that would kill my artwork somewhat less than the old clunker. Please help.

from  kaemantis :
If you ask a question about me I'll try and answer it!

OK, after no small time spent editing these things, I've fixed the code on all of the Danielle/Shard stories so that they can be easily read, after the fashion of most webcomics. Because, y'know, if I'm going to do this, I feel a certain level of obligation to make it as reader-friendly as I can.

So, in chronological order rather than that in which I drew them, we have:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1727876 The Bone Shard, WIP. It is the earliest in my chronology with these characters.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1707017/, First Bite, 2 pages. This event takes place some time in 'Bone Shard' and was more a style test/just needed to get it out of my system thing than exactly how I may or may not portray this moment in the bigger story.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1472025, Visitations, 11 pages, NSFW. The first comic I did with these two. It's just lesbian vampire smut. You see what I get for going there.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1489541 The Seance, 48 pages. My longest story until 'Bone Shard.' It directly follows 'Visitations.' In retrospect, I really wish I hadn't followed up blatant porn with a story that is about as tame as anything I write. Mistake/learning curve.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1563281/, Every Day, 1 page, NSFW.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1290579, Gentle Things, 11 pages, NSFW. Penny-dreadful gratuitous Victorian lesbian vampire foxes in bondage.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1215769, Murderer's Blood, 7 pages. Danielle is ill, and Shard has a night on the town with dinner.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1077094 And then there's this silly little one-shot.

Just as an FYI for the curious, I have another full story scripted and another outlined, with at least one other planned after that. (Bone Shard needs to come first, though). Augh, plot bunnies.

You know, there was a point in my life that I swore I'd never do a vampire story, because I had nothing to add to an overdone genre. Pass the crow, kthx.

I picked this up from  three-point-one-four and find it nifty and thought provoiking, so I am spreading it.

For those of you who have not met me and only know me through the internet/art community; what do you perceive me to be like in the 'real world?' Do you have any assumptions about my physical appearance or demeanor?

Those of you who have met me or seen me, what attributes do you see in my art/characters/style that are apparent in me the person as well? What characters/drawings ideas, if any, are most 'like me?"

OK, one of the people I'm watching, and I'm terribly embarrassed that I forget who, but she's someone I haven't been watching so long, is doing a comic. She has this awesome little thing in the description area where there's a front and back arrow that takes you to the previous/next page of the comic. I am about to start posting 'The Bone Shard' and I would loooooooove to have this feature available. Also, it would make things so much easier on you, my beloved readers.

Does anyone have any idea at all how to do this?

 lilifox made a meme. I think it's fun so I'm spreadin'.

1. The character is one of my oldest; I've been drawing her since I was about 13. I didn't think of her as my fursona back then, exactly, and I called her the teenaged were-leopard, That was less interesting when I was no longer a teenager.

2. Jackel is a mutt. She is 1/2 side striped jackal, 1/4 black backed jackal and 1/4 snow leopard. I have no backstory to how she got there, other than that I have a thing for feline/canine relationships so it makes a kind of karmic sense that I'd come up with some hybrid characters. This has nothing to do with my actual family.

3. She turns lighter colored in the winter and more vividly yellowish with darker spots in the summer. I'm just usually too lazy to draw her that way...or I just draw her in the warmer months a lot.

4. She was named, amusingly enough, by my law school. I'd tried to name her unsuccessfully for years (nothing ever stuck). Due to USF's login conventions, I was given 'Jackel' as my username on the system. A little voice in my head went, "Eureka! You found it! THAT'S your character's name!" Immediately thereafter another voice went, "aw MAN. You can't come up with anything more creative than THAT?" Ah well. Can't please 'em all.

5. There's still more about my name, though. I told my mom casually one day that the character was named Jackel. Boy was she ever startled! So, Jackson is my maternal surname and the one I carry. (2nd most common surname in the US, go me!) Mickel is my paternal. Seems that at one point when they were deciding what to name me, 'Jackel' as a combination surname was seriously discussed. I wish they'd done it. If it wouldn't be such a PITA factor, I'd consider having it legally changed.

6. She's changed over the years a bit. As a young teen she had a big ruff around her neck, almost a sheltie fluff looking thing. That was long-gone by the time she hit 20...I guess she shed out her puppy/kitten coat.
Her back markings became more pronounced around 2000, after which her spotting began to fade.

7. She came by her first ear notch in 1997. Two more in 2006, the next in 2007. They all represent difficult periods of my life that I feel changed me significantly. Marking Jackel has been a way to acknowledge/examine these and learn to live gracefully with them.

8. Um...more about Jackel. Let's see. Well, she's mostly me; I gave her glasses when I got them, though it often annoys me to draw them just as it annoys me that I have to wear the darn things now. Grr hiss age. Anyhow, she's not always me, or not just me...I use her as a character in various contexts that isn't me, just a character I'm really comfortable with. Besides, she's so much cooler than I am.

So, over the next couple of days, I will be uploading 'Visitations', the first comic I did with Danielle and Shard. I wasn't going to upoload it here, but changed my mind about that. There is a lot more storyline with these two on the way, so here it is for my own sense of completion and for the satisfaction of any readers who care to follow their story. After 'Visitations' comes 'The Seance,' which is longer and more plot-heavy, and is about 80% complete. After THAT, I'm going to start dealing with the story of how they met, which I've known for some time but haven't done much with.

Chronologically, 'Gentle Things' happens before 'Visitations' and 'Murderer's Blood' happens afterward. This is the first story I did with them, however, and it dates from last year. Actually, I think the first half of the pencils are two years old; I stalled on this big time as Big LIfe Things hit me over the head. My style has changed somewhat (I hope I've gotten better) as well as how I want to handle the characters' designs and the look and pacing of the comic. There's so much I'd change now if I could, erf.

But anyway. Enjoy.

This silliness came from  kaemantis a while ago...I did it, and since I've already drawn several of them (heh) I figured I'd post...

a general airborne species: Osprey
a general aquatic species: Pacific Giant Octopus.
a general invertebrate: Banana Slug!!!!!!!
an amphibian: Pacific Giant Salamander
a bird: (other than the osprey?) hawk-headed parrot
a canine: Coyote
a caniform carnivore (excluding canines): Wolverine
a dinosaur: Archaeopteryx or parasoralophus
a feliform carnivore (excluding felines): genet
a feline: asiatic leopard
an insect/arachnid: Rose-haired tarantula
a marsupial: Sugar Glider
a microoganism: amoeba
a mythical species: Jackalope
a primate: Ring-tailed lemur
a reptile: Crocodile
a rodent or lagomorph: cottontail rabbit (awwwww)
an ungulate: horse; Arabian X Appaloosa
an animal in a group not listed above: Opabinia!!!!!!!!

...so a friend of mine has a new FA account. She can't figure out how to look at the adult pics on FA (heh). Do any of you know a quick way to rectify this horrible problem?

Thanks guys. <3 <3

Dear Noodler's Ink:

Your product is awesome and your truly endearing labels even more so. However, we have to talk about your 'Legal Lapis' shade of ink. Now, I'm an attorney. We always sign original documents in blue. A very typical, middle of the road, conservative, uninteresting blue. I mean, it can be a pretty blue, don't get me wrong, but it shouldn't make the reader go "woah, that's a weird color.' I of course did not make up this tradition, and they didn't exactly teach it to me in law school, but it is an undisputed fact nonetheless.

Now, Legal Lapis is this really keen shade of dark turquoise. Don't get me wrong; I like it a lot, and playing around with it am inspired me to sketch out a short pornographic furry comic about a couple of girls having sex in front of a fish tank. My mind works like this, you see. However, the color in no way suggests the shade of lapis lazuli, nor is it at all appropriate for the signing of legal documents. Just thought you might like to know.

On a similar vein, to Private Reserve Inks, could you be so kind as to tell me what drug whichever relevant employee of your company was on when she named your 'Blue Suede'? It's a very pretty shade of light aqua green, though unfortunately I've found little use for it in my art so far. It is definitely green, though.

While we are on the subject, your bottles are very art-decoish and pretty, and also easy to fill the pen with, always a plus. However, I have noticed that they are nearly impossible to use without getting ink all over one's fingers. Perhaps this is entirely a shortcoming on my part.

Sincerely, and admittedly very geekishly yours,

Jackel

Does anyone have a convenient link to a simple introduction to coloring lineart in photoshop?

Much prrrs and thanks to any that do.
[img]http://tinyurl.com/2uzxc9[/img]
[img]http://tinyurl.com/2sx432[/img]
[img]http://tinyurl.com/3e2965[/img]
[img]http://tinyurl.com/2klj54[/img]

Click on the above links to make my dragon eggs hatch...'tis a silly but fun virtual-pet thing. They have a neat little graphic but the FA journal does not, alas, support it.

Yip! Happy '08!

Again, I don't update this journal. If ya want to track me,
http://summer-jackel.livejournal.com/

Some more writing which I'm not posting on my LJ, so I am posting it here because some of you might like it:

***********************************************


And I find myself here, in dialog with the three of you I call beloved, somewhat surprised. I feel a little as if I have come to a small and fertile alpine valley, the mountains tall and sharp and high around us: and here I am exhausted, hurt, exhilarated, bleeding a bit.
Sitting with you, looking into your eyes. Hello.

So you, you, the first one: what do I say to you? I find it difficult even to start. We have walked alongside one another for so very many years. When I look back to our beginnings, we both seem so much younger…although I don't know that youth is the correct term, not really. We both seem so young now. It is just that, looking back,
there is such a range of peaks and valleys now, so very many miles of trails between where we were then and where we are now and where we seem to be going that I marvel at it, astounded. When did we walk so
far?

You are fierce, the hurt of your alienation and the fear of your anger as powerful as the mystery, the awe of your love, drawing me surely as a compass. The mystery that the intensity and passion of your eyes, the clarity of your perception and your neat and beautiful mind,
is...what? Real? Human? That you're a guy, daka, dear one, you:
that you're here. Actually exist. That these things we experience really happen. And we keep walking these paths as they wind into ever more rarefied air, more remote and exquisite little valleys. We keep
saying that surely this is it, that it can't be better or more
beautiful, that this is summit and pinnacle, but then it happens again. I think that we had better just keep breathing.

And you, my second. Dear lady, graceful, silly. Raiding organic carrots from a garden by moonlight, so overflowing with joy and excitement, the taste of you affixed in my mind with the taste of those carrots, sweet crunchy fresh goodness still with the tang of moist earth clinging lightly to the skin. The beauty of you, my complex and often hidden love, is that this sweet aspect is not false,
not superficial; it is more accurate to say it is like the first few meters of seawater, delightful and real and full of life. Not hiding the depths below, no: but still far from all of it.

Dark lady. Visionary. Frightening, almost. Your eyes that shift to wolf-silver sometimes, in those moments the least human eyes I have ever seen in a woman's face. So serious. I am becoming comfortable with the fact that I may never completely know you, may never really
understand. But I may actually love you. That's the frightening thing. Been your lover three years, took you to me far too quickly, only now realize that I'm barely beginning to know you, and barely coming to the place in myself where I can truly open to you. There's
been too much hurt, but still we seem to be trying. I may not trust you, not yet. Certainly not to trust your wanting me. Still.

And you, third one I permitted myself to love, though actually you held me in my entirety long before. Maybe you were even the first, I don't know. I name you: woman of the new oaks, Seabright. Lovely,
wary and skeptical as any feral thing. As I hold the scraps of cloth you gave me, the cool silk against my cheek echoing at least in my associations to the texture of your skin, I shiver with desire and quiet acceptance of what is, and I consider the aptness of that metaphor. I hold scraps for you, barely, maybe, elusive as a trout skittering out of my hands, a tiny songbird that watches me quickly
and carefully and then, so lightly, is gone. These things are enough for love, apparently, even if I don't understand it.

It bemuses me, how dear these scraps are that lie soft for my careless touch, that I have this collection of symbols that resonate between us that you do not know about...or if you do, then they are secrets, like the rest, that you keep well. The mystery of what you are and want
and what motivates you and how you do or do not feel is as rich and frustrating and confusing and difficult as making a cohesive thing from scraps and oddments of silken cloth. There is no explaining how precious they are.

My pain seems almost beside the point now. It's there, it's enough. Sorrow, I think, adds richness. Path and garden, the flash of a bright feather caught on branches as I climb to places yet unseen and ever more remote. Here I dwell, and it is all of it fluid as the blood right now pouring out of the torn skin below my elbow, still leaking
where a few hours ago it pulsed from me gently with the beating of my heart. What a beautiful wound. I'm appalled. Delighted. Is this, then, what it is to love? This...movement? Really?

We came together in the spring, my love and I.

I will remember her always now entwined with the young oak leaves, yellow-green and brushed by pollen, unbearably tender. The morning of the day we came together, and the morning after, were marked for me by the oaks in their brief season of growth and flower, and I noticed them, gloried in them. It was a fine spring we had this year, and how do you not love an oak in its brief riotous season?

Oaks are lasting trees, gnarled, dark and heavy of thick trunk and curving branches, obdurate and old. The California valley oak, counterpoint to our redwood, is a stately, noble thing. Its leaves are tough and waxy, dark, serrated. They do not invite touch even from their own kind, each its careful island in golden pasture. They are shade and benediction and also the character of the places they grow. A patient and elegant old tree, and so its brief season of silliness and youth is a rare treasure.

The two of us never had a morning outside and alone. I never witnessed the glory of her bare shoulders in the dappled shade, knee-high in soft and whispering grass, though I can see, in my mind's eye, her expression dubious and full of the wry and half-admitted, understated excitement I have seen in it so many times in other contexts. I never lay my cheek against her shoulder and then against earth and bark.

It is summer now, and in my heart and on my skin I can feel the coming of autumn. The same oak trees that so inspired my opened and vulnerable heart that singular morning are solid and careful in the identity of their prime, their thick, hard leaves expansive and aloof. Pillars of the world, these trees, seemingly unchanging, year to year. What would we do without them?

She and I have known one another a long time, and if you could cut me open and saw me into pieces, I think, you would find my growth rings inexorably marked by the presence of her. As clear as the patterns effected by sun and rain and earth and predation, storm and loss and bounty, are a few singular people, and she is one. But I would not be oak wood; I am a softer thing and less unmoving. I occupy a different habitat. And I am not yet felled.

Our spring was brief; little needs to be said, beyond that. The trees will mast and the leaves curl and fall soon, baring the unmoving structure for its season of minimalist beauty. Then the spring will come again, and I will think of her in fondness and sorrow and love. Another ring will begin to embrace that singular marking.

The world gives us apt metaphors. Or perhaps it is that one can see the metaphors by living in the world, and it is enough that we live, keep living in the turning of seasons.

k, so warnings that the below links are adult in nature...

I wants this:
http://www.zoofur.com/slip.html

and this:
http://www.zoofur.com/seal.html

and this (oooohhhh!!!!!! want!):
http://www.goodvibes.com/Item--i-1-3-BF-0507--m-77

and I really really really REALLY want this:
http://www.zoofur.com/tent.html

If any of you lovely furs out there were inclined to, oh, obtain any of these for little 'ol me, there is significant art in it for you. Yep, get such into my hot little paws and I will even draw the character(s) of your choice using them! (or whatever else you might want). We can talk terms, but of course the more expensive items will get you a greater number of pics/more characters/talk to me.

The caveat is that I have a pile of commissions right now and won't start this until they are done. BUT they are all pencilled and well on their way, so I can start sketching on new stuff in a couple weeks.

Besides. Do this and you know that you will make a little jackal very happy. And you know that's a good thing.

I'm reposting this from my LJ (Summer_Jackel) just because.

So I'm 31 today. On May 31. A bit of numerical niftiness that even I have to enjoy.

Should be fun; I have plans for tonight and the weekend that ought to be great. Right now, I'm going to walk my dogs into the foggy morning, which really is what I do and what I enjoy, a daily ritual that sustains me as much as any holiday.

Still, processing. Getting older is interesting. In some ways I feel far closer to my essential self, as it were, than I ever did in my 20's. In others, I don't even recognize myself any more. So much has changed, and is changing, and will, I'm sure, continue to do so. It's like a river, I guess...stay above water, enjoy the beauty of it, avoid drowning. It eventually all becomes sea.


*****
EDIT:
Oh, and you guys all know what I like. Neat links to photos/etc of jackals, cephalopods, wild canids and felids, a favorite song, SKETCHES, tasty ficbits, shiny things, porn, a virtual skritch behind the ears...all sortsa things. Sweet Net carrion!!! I will be at work today, feel free to entertain me if you so desire. ;D *wags and yips and is dorky*.

If you can, please come to Morphicon in Columbus, Ohio this weekend. i am a GoH.

http://www.morphicon.org/2007/

It will be a blast. :D :D :D

This is just a placeholder to let you know that I do in fact keep an online journal, and that this isn't it.

http://summer-jackel.livejournal.com/

Let me know if you want on the adult filter if you watch me.

Boy, am I sore right now.

There's a good reason for that. Sunday, I successfully rode my bicycle to the top of Mount Diablo....10.8 miles with an elevation gain of 3,249 feet. http://www.savemountdiablo.org/moun.....lo%20Challenge
We'll get into why, later. Or at least try to.



For those of you who may not be aware, my partner is a hot-shot road bike racer, and he is very, very good at it. He's had a great season this year, and this is the kind of course he loves the best; really fast up an insanely steep hill. Chris in fact did really well; the only guy in his age category who beat him was literally a professional rider. So this seemed like a good way to end his season.

I, on the other hand, am neither a hot-shot nor a bicycle racer...I'm what the race types gently refer to as a 'recreational rider.' I take it that this is something like recreational drug use, but I'm not certain. I'm not 100% new to racing; C and I have raced our tandem, but my single bike scares me and is mostly an avenue to keep myself reasonably svelte. It is most typically used in the living room on a trainer in front of the stereo while I read novels and comic books. Hills scare me. Steep mountains and bikes and this jackal are not generally referred to in the same sentence.

But it turns out that 2 days before the race, one of C's teammates had to scratch and gave C his more favorable starting time (starting was done in 3 waves since this is an event of 1,000+ people. Naturally, He of the Quickness wants a spot in front). So we had an extra registration. Registration for this thing is $50, all for a very good cause, but I hate to waste money. I offer it to Lucy: no way. So, do I want to go or not?

You can do it, he says; you're fitter than you think. There will be kids and mountain bikes on this thing. Just go. A little later, the decision made (and I am far too proud to go back on such a decision), it's 'oh, you'll only need one water bottle. What, STOP? No you can't stop to rest, it's a race! Oh, and you won't need that easy gear...

The surreality of the thing began at the start, which was at the Athenian School, still one of the prettiest high school campuses I've ever seen and the place where I went to 7-8th grade. I've not been there since high school. So here I am signing in for this event in the midst of this huge throng of people in the field where I used to hang out reading and avoiding all of the people who actually wanted to do sports when I was in junior high. Trippy.

And speaking of kids, the few I see look plenty serious. There are mountain bikes: the kind that look like they were designed by NASA, and their riders have leg muscles like clydesdales. A vast majority of the machines I'm observing are of the razor-tired, worth-more-than-my-car road racing variety. Ok, so my bike is also a road racing sorta job if you want to look at it technically, and I am on the spare race wheels, but still. You can register a shetland pony in the Kentucky Derby...

1,000 people on bikes is a lot of people on bikes. C pins my number to my lucky neon-yellow, leopard spotted-jersey, gives me an encouraging smile and a pat on the back and is gone. I can't believe I'm doing this. I am suddenly at a race start, without a tandem bike, without Chris. There is definitely some heavy 'see no mountain, hear no mountain, climb no mountain' denial going on in my head as I try to relax by chatting with a rather pretty boy in spandex about his recent traverse up Mt. Shasta. (Jackel, socializing, even with someone cute of like interests, to relieve stress? You know something is wrong when...) There is enough caffene in me that I probably wouldn't pass a drug test and the guy probably thinks I'm nuts, but hey, I'm not actually racing.

I'm just trying to get up this thing in one piece.

So, I am perfectly happy in wave 3. I am fully expecting to take the red lantern (a term borrowed from sled dog racing...they keep the red lantern burning in Nome 'til the last team comes in...) and given my horrid fear of running into other people, dead last suits me fine, though as it happens I just leave nearish the end. I watch the mass leave with a mixture of horror and, well, horror. Lucy shows up in time to see me off with the parting words "you look terrified!" and a big grin. Why am I not standing next to her, admiring all of the prettiness so conveniently displayed in spandex and safely not myself wearing spandex anything, which is what we usually do at these things?

I step carefully onto my shiny, glittery-green steed, clip into the pedals, wobble a bit and am off.

The fact that I am in my easiest gear before we've even crossed the 'welcome to Mt. Diablo' sign does not comfort me, even a little. But a surprising thing starts to happen. I feel kinda good. Must be the caffene, or maybe the denial.

I begin to pass people. Ok, so the guy with a kid in a trailer, he's out. And the fat guy in the 'dizzy donuts' jersey? It would be an affront to the gods to let that guy cross the finish line before myself. We're good with that. I ascend.

The mountain goes up...it is in the nature of its kind to do so, after all...but not that badly. Maybe I can do this. I'm actually shifting OUT of my easiest gear, and riding with a couple of neat-looking female cyclists with matching team jerseys and legs maybe not all that more cut than my own. I like riding with them; there is a sense of accomplishment and cameraderie.

It is a beautiful, moody autumn day, the first of October. This is my favorite month, and I love its character, its anticipation, its edge. The sky is high and gray, turbulent with moving cloud. It is blessedly cool, but this mountain speaks warm things: rolling oak, seared chapparal, dry grass old and golden. He is relentless and hot, this mountain. I'm comfortable enough on the bike to say hello to him, to notice these things, these turns of beauty, these little markers of identity. Hello, sweet mountain, hard mountain. Let me get up you, just this once.

I've passed the two women without really thinking about it, and I'm targeting someone else now. I've taken too much caffene (either the 200 mg pill or the Rockstar drink the next time, not both please) and I am uncomfortably jittery. I keep telling myself to calm, not to go too fast: I will pace myself or not make it.

The jitters calm out. There are moments of absolutely glorious beauty, a purity of place and image that will, I think, always be with me. A line of cyclists on a switchback above me, rising from a blanket of fog into a brief moment of dazzling sun that for a moment seem to be riding on cloud. The vista below, a flowing ocean of golden waves, of oaks and twisted volcanic rock, marred only in the far distance with the scab of human habitation. An ancient oak twisting above the road, its trunk gnarled and heavy. There is beauty here, and I am moving within it. It is a clean thing, this effort, a whole suffering.

There are new rules. Mountain bikers must be passed. They are; I go by dozens of 'em. If their chain is squeaking, they must be passed ruthlessly because, after all, squeaking chains are an affront to the mountain, the effort, competence. Until I can get past them all, there are far too many slow people in my way and they are cramping my style. I size up my prey and take what I can. I'm very pragmatic about it, but if I didn't have at least a little competitive streak in me I'd never have made it through law school, to say nothing of living with Chris.

I don't pass everyone I'd like to, but I am not being passed much. I have found a rhythm, and this seems indeed to be something that I can do. There are people who I'm pretty much staying with, and we get to know each other: "the cheetah has her wind back!" one woman says as I pass her again.

With a thousand people and, as always, alone. Grinning with pain, I make peace with the suffering of it. I can sense the presence of what we'll call my spirit guide for want of a better term; she's loping easily beside me and in a good mood. She always has enjoyed my sweat and pain, anyway.

It gets hard after about an hour. My legs are hurting, I'm breathing, the mountain is getting steeper, and though I'm not really slowing down yet I start to get a bit hard on myself. I'm so out of my league here it isn't even funny. I am not, don't really aspire to be, a bike racer. There is no way I belong on this mountain. What kind of an idiot am I?

Perhaps it is because I am half-tranced, and thus very clearheaded albiet in a strange way, but I come down on these thoughts with unexpected ferocity. There is no room for negative self-talk on the side of a mountain. Do I not love myself enough at least to let myself do this thing?

And something interesting happens: it's ok. I don't need to be a racer, and I've already proven my ability to be here, to try this. There's no reason why I should measure myself by the standard of Chris. I am good enough, and here, and suffering well. The scruffy and antisocial child who last was on this mountain would have recognised something she liked and wanted in me, would have seen something she recognized and been proud. It is becoming clear that I will make it up Diablo. I'm happy, almost in tears I'm so happy. It is enough.

Someone cheers at the rest stop, as I pedal past it, that it is great to see that I can still smile so close to the end.

You glance ahead with an eye to the top in these things, or at least I do. Progression is evident. We are in the cloudline, cold and foggy, and then above it. The very peak is tantalizingly close now, though far enough away that the pain of gaining it is made obvious. Still, we are riding a long, sloping saddle above the clouds, and it is a fine thing to feel, and see, and live.

It gets steeper. Ouch. My thigh muscles have gone beyond straining to more-than-just-annoying cramps. I stop for a drink before a particularly nasty pitch and realize, as they begin to cramp up badly, that stopping is indeed a Very Bad Idea. Thankfully quenched, I get back on the bike and keep pedaling. I am moving slowly, not passing or being passed now, in a little bubble of space between those before and behind, timeless, an isolate.

The top comes. Chris is there, yelling "Jackel!!!" as I force myself up the last bit of mountain. I am snarling and in serious pain. It's gotta be the end now, right?

It isn't. One of the things I wasn't thinking about, ever, was the last 200 yards, a wicked pitch that would have hurt even if ol' Devil-mountain hadn't already softened you up the last several thousand feet of climb. For what it's worth, Chris hurt too. Plenty of people are walking their bikes up it.

I get about 100 yards, crawling, my legs spasming hard. I crawl to a stop. I can't do it. I get off the bike without crashing...that's an accomplishment...and start walking.

I can't do it. My legs are shaking badly, my legs in full rebellion. I'm using the bike to prop myself up. I can see the line through blurred vision. People are walking and riding past me, slowly. And I realize that I can't do it. Can't walk across the line. So I force myself back on the damned bike, somehow, and pedal across. Just barely.

I stand there shaking. Someone takes off the ankle strap with the computer chip that recorded my time. I hobble to the railing and stare out in cold and golden sunlight over a sea of clouds. I can barely move. With great difficulty I seat myself on a bench, stare out, utterly still, empty, timeless. Someone asks if I am Ok. I nod.

Eventually I realize that I need to find Chris and figure out how to get down. I coast down to where I saw him before and finally meet up with him (he's been looking) just as I stumble off my bike and, with difficulty, make it to the ground. My legs are in full rebellion and a whole lot of pain. I can barely move them, and at this point realize that 1.) I am experiencing actual medical difficulty and 2.) that I am apparently more stubborn than my body. Cool. The rangers wrap me in mylar blankets before I start to need to worry about hypothermia as well as the muscle spasms, stick me in a warm truck, and deliver me to my safe, warm car and my desperately-missed Chris and Lucy.

OK, maybe not the most dignified end to the event, but at least I didn't have to deal with the freezing, tricky, dangerous decent down the mountain. And we weren't going for dignity here, we were going for truth, and because life is short and easy to miss if you don't actually go out and live it.

I don't know why I volunteered to do this, save perhaps that I needed to know that it was possible. There was need to restore a measure of faith in myself, to learn a little something about the creature I have become, to test her a bit, to see what she will do. Because a certain level of suffering is good for you, because there are kinds of beauty that can't be seen if they are had easily. Because, and I'll say it again, I want to live a little bit before I die, and that is not always an easy thing to accomplish. Death is after all an inevitable suffering, but it can also be a necessary and beautiful one, and it is not a bad thing to practice doing with a certain amount of grace.

For what it's worth, my time was 1:51:17 (under 2 hours! woohoo!) and my place was 789. What I took from the mountain, what we take from any mountain, is rather more difficult to quantify.

So I thank Diablo's steep flanks, the body that can do this kind of thing now but won't always be able to, and the fact that I am given this brief, hurtful, beautiful life. It is a fine and sacred thing to be alive, and I am humble in it, in shining moments happy. Thank you. It is enough.