I was brought up a Baptist, which meant I got to choose when I was ready to receive my baptism. I remember that moment well, and apparently I enjoyed it so much that I continue to find new ways to clean away my “sins” and begin anew.

Being possessed of a certain curmudgeonly, uptight demeanor (a good friend and college roommate of mine summed me up this way: “Drew is the most pessimistic optimist I know.” Thanks Tim.), while I do ultimately believe that everything will work out for the best (yay!) I do it while complaining or generally being not-particularly-fun to be around (boo!).

It’s been a problem, and something I have had to fight to change for years. I’m not clinical, you won’t see me taking meds for being a grump (though if you hear of any, you know who to call). Still, I needed to figure out how to hit the reset button once stress built up and had nowhere to go but at friends and family. I created The Attitude Adjustment.

The Attitude Adjustment entailed first, taking a long, hot bath. Once I decided I was well and cooked, I turned on a very cold shower and let the water in the bath drain, making sure I am submerged in the hot water when it starts. As the hot water lowers, I become more exposed to the cold water until I decide to stand up and embrace the cold shower. It was fantastico.

Ten gallon head, two gallon hat.

As I’ve grown older, my coping mechanisms have developed more, which is great, because the places that we have been traveling to these last few years now, they don’t really have bathtubs. Still, raising a kid has upped the stress considerably, especially when you consider he just started walking and effing loves going up and down stairs, man. SHEEEIT.

We came to Rishikesh over a week ago, and were supposed to have left by now, but we are fairly smitten with the place, so we have extended our trip here a bit. Even though this is an incredibly spiritual town, full of western hippies coming to get their yoga and ayurvedic massage-on, we’ve used this time to work our asses off. Those first several days, I did not do a good job at all handling the stress of getting used to a new place, having a child who’s fifth tooth was on it’s way out, and working until 1:30 in the morning.

Something needed to be done. I knew I was being a pain in the ass. Which is to say, I am pretty sure I would have known I was a pain in the ass even if Christine hadn’t pointed it out to me. A few times… Thankfully, Rishikesh comes equipped with it’s own reset button, it’s own baptism, a place millions, if not billions have washed away a lifetime of sin throughout history:

The Ganges.

When I envisioned getting to see Mother Ganga, I figured it would be in Varanasi, a place where the Ganges is known for it’s filth as much as for it’s beauty, and where I would never dare bathe. I am already full-on equipped with major paranoia about India’s water, so I wasn’t expecting what I found in Rishikesh – that the water coming down from the Himalayas seemed relatively clean and bracingly cold. I knew I had to do it, but even then, it took watching the wife go through it that I finally mustered the nerve.

c-c-c-C-C-C-C-COLLD-D-d!

The day after Christine went in, I excused myself during one of Cole’s naps and made my way for the beach. I could have walked ten meters to go in where the ghats allowed people to step in gingerly, but felt that since this wasn’t a “spiritual” sort of experience for me, I should leave the ghats for those who find them more holy than I do.

Fully clothed in shorts and t-shirt, I walked in. I did not stop until I was neck deep in, and I immediately flashed back to the Tough Guy race, the main difference being I knew when I stepped out of the water, the weather would be warm. IT WAS SO EFFING COLD. I was distantly aware of laughter coming from an Indian swimming a little further out from where I was. I looked over, trying desperately to stop gasping for air and looking foolish, at this kid who was swimming freestyle around me. Taunting me I immediately thought.

“It’s cold!” He says. Genius.

“Yea-ah-yeah!” I replied with the best casual smile I could muster, not being able to get a single word out smoothly.

I dunked my head under three times, as I had seen others doing. I needed to make it “official”. FFFFFFFffff crap, so cold. Then like the stubborn showoff I am, I decide to float around for a minute just to show I could keep my sh*t together. I wasn’t pulling it off. I went in a fourth time just to make sure I was good to go, and headed back up to shore.  I came out sopping from head-to-toe, my entire body tingling from the cold, now exposed to warm air.

I felt alive. I felt fantastic. I went back upstairs, took a shower, shaved my head and face and went back to work.

Happily.

When I sat down to look at what I had recorded the on Christmas Day of ‘aught nine, I was truly baffled at what I was seeing.

“This is unusable!” I thought. I was making no sense at all! Christine and I had gone to Maui, a last vacation before the baby comes (I don’t count this trip to the UK as any sort of real “vacation”, not to mention Christine will not be along with me for that trip), so I thought I would try to accomplish what I had not been able to do in the previous month: Run eight miles.

And what do you know, I finished! I did end up walking for nearly a mile, broken into two separate walk-chunks towards the end. My body essentially shut down the running against my will, the sun was too strong in the middle of the day for those last four miles, and my belly was full of that morning’s ham and pancake breakfast, served to us by our gracious bed and breakfast hosts. The run, as I say in the video, wiped me out good for a day or two, but I did not know until I sat down to edit this how truly cooked my brain had become. I hope I didn’t do permanent damage…

Click here if you are unable to view the video.

The kicker in this whole thing is that I had been using “eight miles” as a baseline bar for where I ought to be from a fitness standpoint. I now read on the Toughguy website that the bar is actually “ten miles in under two hours”.

Well… crap. Guess what I am doing this weekend?

I wanted to create some sort of mix tape/playlist to post here to share what music got me through that run. Because I haven’t figured out how to do that, I will just share the tracks and artists below. The embarassing list in no particular order is as follows:

Bad Religion – Let Them Eat War
Coheed and Cambria – Welcome Home
Dethklok – Go Into The Water
Dethklok – Go Forth & Die
Europe – Cherokee (Don’t even play like this wouldn’t help you run, liars)
Journey – Separate Ways
Kanye West – Stronger
Linkin Park – Given Up
Linkin Park – Bleed It Out
Linkin Park – No More Sorrow (Yes, I know there’s a lot of Linkin Park. Yes it is embarrassing)
MGMT – Kids
Muse – Assassin
Muse – Exo-Politics
Muse – Sunburn (fitting?)
Paramore – For a Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic
Paramore – Let The Flames Begin
Paramore – Hallelujah (Yeah yeah, Paramore. Also embarrassing.)
Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now
Radiohead – Reckoner (Not an obvious choice, but surprisingly effective.)
Savage – Swing
Shinedown – Second Chance (Cheezy as hell, but I dig it.)
The Ting Tings – That’s Not My Name

Now I feel more exposed than even those videos make me.

I am still taking donations, and I am still doing portraits for anyone who contributes more than $35. Anything will really help though, and you guys would absolutely be my heroes at the end of the day with virtually any donation you make. The formal pitch I make for getting a portrait reads as it has in the past:

$35 will get you a head and shoulders portrait, $50 will get you a full body shot, or two head and shoulders pieces. All come with a simple background included.

Because I make these in vector format, they can be resized to any size you could possibly need. I recently sent one person a 22×33 inch piece they can now have printed as a poster.

I can also work in other styles, and have worked with people who have requests for things that fall outside the standard head and shoulders to find a price that is fair – If you have any questions at all about anything at all regarding my work and how I might help you, please feel free to drop me a line at drew.gilbert@gmail.com.

- 35$ or more gets you one head and shoulders portrait, with a simple background.

- 50$ or more gets you two head and shoulder portraits, OR one full body portrait, again, with a simple background.

This is how tough I need to be in (gulp) 16 days!

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