I'm gonna start a blog about sleeping bags.

Why? Because apparently I have a lot to say about them.

Exhibit A - the last blog.

Exhibit B - this blog: I was at Aryeye last night shopping for a tent for my trip that I leave for in a few hours (did I buy a $300+ tent? No. Did I come away with a greater knowledge of tents/appreciation for friends who have lent me tents in the past? Yes.) and whilst admiring the different color schemes on the tent field guide poster, I overheard some customers exchanging some words about sleeping bags with a cashier mid transaction. I, without taking my eyes off the tent diagrams, perked up my ears and took a step closer lest I miss a single word. The conversation went something like this:

cashier: . . .men's sleeping bags zip on (one side), women's on the (other).

young man: why is that?

cashier: so you can zip them together.

woman presumably mother of young man: oh I didn't know that.

young man: you thinking of getting some action on the mountain?

ok maybe it's not his mom: (no words, just a bevy of looks directed back at the young man, at the cashier)

I ceased listening after that. I was in shock! Gendered sleeping bags?! Yes, I understand that people have different body types and a gross generalization can be made for those of female biology vs those of male biology, but to limit the union of two sleep bags to those of opposing body types - this is a barefaced outrage! What if I want to be warm in the woods with my Lady Friend? Is this faceless Aryeye to be our remote chaperone/cockblock? And what if two dudes who share a love of nature but not each other's bits, hike up in the mountain together, sharing snacks, stories, platonic shoulder massages, only to find themselves underprepared for unexpected cold weather and need each other to stay warm through the night, to survive? Are we to let them die, together in the tent yet so far apart in their individually zipped up sleeping bags?

I.

think.

not.

So. This to you I propose: gay - I mean Unisex- sleeping bags. One shape. Zipper down both sides so you can keep your side of the futon. Comes in pink with a black dot or black with a pink dot. Galaxy print interior either way*. Can also be zipped head to toe, head to toe, (ahem, not for what you are probably thinking) so that the dots on the bags make a kind of perfect yin/yang symbol when in union. Each one comes with a glow stick, some sage, chapstick. Oh and they're super light and can pack down into a small pouch that doubles as a fanny pack.

People, it's time we all get on the same page: the revolution will be egalitarian, stylish and toasty, toasty warm.

*warm gays in Space!

july 12, 2011

on this day

some people were born,

other people died,

important pieces of paper were signed.

somethings were lost,

other things were found,

it was probably hot.

I sleep in socks.

nearly a month has gone by and my blog has suffered inversely to how much i have been sleeping in sleeping bags. were it truth that too my suffering were inversely proportional to this alterna-bedding i have been subjected to. alas, it is not so.

my sleeping bag. i purchased it approx 7 summers ago for purposes of surviving 3 weeks turned into 3 months of lovely living in the woods of northern california. just prior to my shopping expedition, i watched the movie 'alive' with some buddies. for those not in the know, 'alive' is a dramatization of a true and dangerous and super unintentional expedition taken by a team of, uh. . .soccer players from. . . somewhere not in north america when their plane crashed into some south of the equator snowy mountains. or, to be more suscinct/contain more than just an inkling of fact: In October 1972 a plane carrying a Rugby team of 45 from Uraguay to Chile crashes in the Andes.

basically i walked into the camping gear store and bee lined to the negative below zero bags. my survival in the woods would not be a question. as it turns out, zero degree doesn't really factor in in northern california summers, the nice sales person assured me. so instead i went with light and compact, a stylish number with a higher up in the double digits range of comfort. perfect, i thought. and it was. for the first 2.5 months. and then it wasn't. summer was slowly whittled away by the approaching darkness of fall/winter and took with it my sleeping bag's ability to produce any iota of warmth. i survived with an extra blanket, a wool jacket, long johns, and a few nips of the old whisky. i made it through the last bit of my stay, packed up my bag and thought of it not really in the months/years that followed.

fast forward to two weeks ago. me and buddy marisa and her gluten free girlfriend wound our sweet way to the washington coast ala shi shi beach. it. was. awesom.e. except for one small detail: the hours between 10:30pm and 7:00am*. i, not having a gf gf, nor anyone else with which to intimately share my dehydrated beans with, bunked solo in a two person borrowed tent on a too short thermarest and aforementioned summer fun sleeping bag. but let us closely examine the nomenclature here.

'summer'- ok, yes, it was one day past solstice.

'fun'- yes nad (ack! why can't it just auto correct that!?) - AND no, yes AND no. while carrying a few pound bag in a bag full of other things that did not weigh a mere few pounds was grand, cursing the ocean windy weather whilst maintaining a lonely full body fetal crunch position for approx 8+ hours was not. the root of this problem? the seemingly arbitrary 'range of comfort' designation. it's printed on the case of the bag as follows:

48degree – comfort

41degree – tolerable

30degree – extreme

ya right! a friend later explained that the general degree ranking is the lower limit of how cold it can be outside before you experience hypothermia. based purely on empirical evidence, i am wont to side with her wholeheartedly. i wont, too, to purchase a new warm sleeping bag. one that is not akin to sleeping in a glorified wind sock.

but what is this?! all this blathering on a singular minor albeit really uncomfortable stretch of time in what was a perfectly amazing camping trip experience! what has gotten into me? well, first let me attempt to account for this negative nelly business by claiming it a fair warning to those about to leave their urban affairs warmed with nothing more than a little cheapy nylon body bag. peoples, the extra pound or 3 is totally worth the full night of sleep. also, to my credit, the ocean beach herself is beyond explanation. i mean, what words have i for this?

or this.

or this?

i rest my case.

*this only on the first night. the second night, i wised up and wore all the clothes i brought with me to bed. i wasn't exactly warm, but, blessed be the sea, i did not freeze. also, the chilly first bites of both nights were filed down slightly by me taking the advice of an unnamed (read: can't remember who told me this) person who, with the wisdom of a thousand wise persons, to take some rocks that had been heating by the fire into the sleeping bag with me. i felt like kinda like a lizard sunning a rock for heat. except it was dark, we were not in the desert and the rock was the size of my heart, warming my ribs from the outside.