East Southeast of Normal

Saturday, May 22, 2010

The Final Result 2010-05-22

I've got this thing on my mind. It seemed the best thing to do was to express it. And since no one really reads this blog anyway, I'm just gonna use this thing. I am exercising this summer. Actually, there's a diet/exercise thing going on. So, this is me working through that...

Blog, blog, blog...
Distance: 6.2 miles
Time: Somewhere between 60:45 and 63:40
Weight: Don't know. Don't care right now.
MP3 Highlights: None. Didn't think it was allowed, then didn't want to worry about it after I found out. There was sporadic music along the route. Three live bands. The highlight of them was the bag-pipers in full-on outfits on Broadway.

I went the distance. I did it in the time I wanted. I accomplished the goal. I don't care who you are or what the goal, accomplishing a significant goal feels great!

It was a little stressful. I had all the "bib" numbers for the whole team, their gift-bags, all of that stuff-- because that is how they do the registration process: one packet for the whole team. And that is fine, except all four of us were coming separately and somehow I had to get everyone ready to run before I took off on leg number one. In the end, everything worked out. I even found out later that our leg 2 guy missed the bus and had to catch a ride to make the exchange. At the time I lined up to run, I had handed out only 1 bib and left the other two with the husband of our #3 runner. At least the one I handed out was the 2nd leg and I knew I could run around and make phone calls after that first exchange. The only real bummer about that was that I spent the whole time waiting and watching for my team (which was almost futile) instead of mingling and meeting all these great people (including friends I knew who would be running.)

My knee did hurt, but I was not crippled. I was really not held back, according to the results. I also was not completely exhausted. Did I mention that we started in cold, windy, rain? Yeah. Never trained in anything like that. The wind was not really an issue as wind. It did make the wetness cold, though. I ran with a warmup jacket and cap and never felt compelled to take it off. I did take it off right before the exchange to make it easier for my teammate to find me. Runners dodged puddles from time to time. That was interesting.

Marathon runners are a friendly and outgoing people. They chat as they run. They come from all over and talk like people that know each other, but just have never met yet. That's pretty cool.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

The Daily Blog 2010-05-20

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The Daily Blog 2010-05-19

Monday, May 17, 2010

The Daily Blog 2010-05-17

The Daily Blog 2010-05-16

Friday, May 14, 2010

The Daily Blog 2010-05-14

Seussian

Nothing came to inspire me when writing at my desk last eve.
I could not see, I could not write with Nothing on my desk all night.
I thought Something, surely, could lend a hand, but then Something brought in a band.
With Something playing catchy songs, I could not move my work along.
Anything might have been better than Everything seizing my letter.
I tried to resist the small invasion in my room on this occasion,
But Nothing was going to make it stop until Something got my feet to hop.
Then Everything joined in the dance along with feet and shoes and pants.
Anything was fine with me moving so outrageously
Something told me, “That’s the spirit!” loud enough that I could hear it
Everything encouraged, too, distracting from my work to do.
Anything was permissive: no inhibitions, nothing dismissive.
Then my nose began to quiver! Something had started making liver!
I smelled onions and some fava beans, the air a smelly yellow sheen.
I rushed to open up a window, but Everything suggested dojo.
Ninjas sent their weapons flying, Anything in-full complying.
As Something tumbled ‘round my head, wounded Ninjas dropped like lead.
As I lost grasp of all cognition, Something started demolition.
With hard hat and a wrecking ball, my house was just about to fall.
The last I heard was a rumbling growl as Nothing made a chainsaw howl.
With a snort I bolted upright! Everything gone from the fire light.
My loud snoring dashed my dreams and all the nonsense, so it seems.
But all was not a wasted night, since now I have something to write.

Monday, May 10, 2010

The Daily Blog 2010-05-09

Friday, May 7, 2010

The Daily Blog 2010-05-07

Thursday, May 6, 2010

The Daily Blog 2010-05-06

I've got this thing on my mind. It seemed the best thing to do was to express it. And since no one really reads this blog anyway, I'm just gonna use this thing. I am exercising this summer. Actually, there's a diet/exercise thing going on. So, this is me working through that...

Blog, blog, blog...
Distance: 3.105 miles
Time: 31:00 minutes
Weight: 186.5 lbs
MP3 Highlights: Whip It!, 99 Luft Balloons, Yer So Bad, 2 songs by Blink 182

I felt like crap pretty much the whole distance. That's actually a good thing, because I ran anyway. If I allow myself to only run when I feel like it (or any exercise at all) eventually, I'll be back to sitting around all day. That reminds me of an element that seems rather important right now: There was a period after the surgery when I was in the most pain/discomfort when I DID NOT walk. So, as much as I did not want to do it, I knew that I would feel worse if I did not than I would doing it.

Motivation is tricky, but I think it's really important. Many of my friends use their Facebook status to make note of their training, especially milestones. I ran my first mile without stopping in early January 2010. I ran my first 5k in February. Now, I run 5k every day. I haven't mentioned a word of this on Facebook.

Not that it's a secret or anything. I'm posting here, after all. When I committed to the team relay at work, it appeared on the bulletin board. But, I don't talk about my running unless somebody asks. After I ran the 5k in February, I was all set to announce it. Then, I decided not to. The thought that went through my head was, if it's about the recognition or the "attaboys" from friends, then that will become an excuse at some point. Sure, we can all encourage each other, but what also happens is we get tired or bored with encouraging others and it trails off. So, if I am motivated by something that will fade, or that is in the control of others, then I will eventually fade, too.

But, just blogging this is motivating, even though I'm not expecting anyone to read it. I don't expect anyone to read anything I write. I'm glad when they do. I enjoy their feedback. But, I do it for my own reasons in the end. Otherwise, I wouldn't do it.

As I was running today, one thing that helped keep my mind off the negative was the anticipation of getting to post about it later (which is now, technically). So, writing is a motivation for me. That's good to know.

The Yer So Bad song was a pleasant surprise because I got turned on to that song when Brad Jones played it on his guitar out on the deck on a beautiful summer evening at a party with some cherished friends-- a little less than half my age ago. The stream of memories that conjured is just the kind of thing that makes it so much easier to put one foot in front of the other long enough to get where you need to go.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

The Daily Blog 2010-05-05

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Daily Blog 2010-05-04

I've got this thing on my mind. It seemed the best thing to do was to express it. And since no one really reads this blog anyway, I'm just gonna use this thing. I am exercising this summer. Actually, there's a diet/exercise thing going on. So, this is me working through that...

First of all, I meant to start this yesterday. That does not surprise me, but it disappoints me. I never was very good at journalizing because I am not a consistent writer. I like to write when I have something to say, but that is not everyday. When I force myself to write, I am more disappointed by the results than I am disappointed by not writing at all. So, there is that. We'll see what happens. This, incidentally, is why I do not pursue any professional writing/career. If someone is going to pay me, sooner or later they are going to start pushing their expectations, and I...just... don't... care... about their expectations. I'll make money some other way and preserve the writing for all things good.

Second, I have been exercising for a while now. In the summer of 2007, I had back surgery for a ruptured disc. For the 10 years prior to that, give or take, I had white-collar jobs. That felt good at the time in the I'm-using-my-expensive-education way. It was horrible for me physically. The food was good, though. I like food. I'm about 6'1" and peaked somewhere around 230lbs. No one ever told me I was overweight. I could see it, though, especially in pictures of myself. In 2004, I started what I thought was the absolute best job I had ever had. It used my education, used what I thought were my strengths, paid what I thought was pretty well, and some other good stuff. Three years later, I needed back surgery. Sad. I have done plenty of physical work in my life. I grew up on a farm and even did some after graduating. I worked in a shipping/receiving position that involved a whole bunch of loading and unloading stuff by hand. But, it was the desk job that did me in. Interesting.

Anyway, after the surgery, the best thing I could do for my back and myself was to walk alot. For weeks after the surgery, I was supposed to avoid sitting altogether. Standing still drove me crazy. Thus, walking... After a while, I started wondering about running. Part of that was the high school reunion. At the same time as that event there was a running event in town (it's an annual thing) and some of us joked about it. Some of my non-classmate friends were also participating in marathon events local to them. So, I started wondering just what I was capable of accomplishing. But, that event came and went. I exercised off and on. Another inspiring event was the end of a Biggest Loser series where the remaining contestants ran a marathon. Keep in mind, even after losing almost 200lbs, these people were still obese. And they all finished. It only took them around 5.5 hours. That really got me thinking.

I'm not going to run a marathon, though. What I am going to do is run a marathon relay with 3 other people from work. The distance is either 5.5, 6.2, or 8.5 miles. I don't know which I have to do yet.

So, this is day two of running 3.105 miles (5k) per day. I have run 6.2 miles at one time twice, now. The plan is to run the 3.105 each day and on Saturday 7+ miles and then maybe have to run as far as 8.5 miles at the 5/22/2010 Fargo marathon.

Friday, April 30, 2010

Simplicity

I used to see a therapist. I know, you’re shocked. And when I say, “see a therapist” I mean actual psychological therapy, by the way. It seemed like a good idea at the time. What I was trying to do was find someone to bounce my ideas on, to share my thoughts with someone who was supposed to be making a professional effort to understand me. At the time, I was not entirely sure that my thoughts were sane, for one thing. But, more importantly, what would such a person respond after their professional analysis? At least, I knew they would listen and give some sort of reply, which was not happening with my other acquaintances.

It turns out, that is a pretty expensive way to get someone to listen to you. And, they were not as helpful as I hoped. Actually, at one point, I was helping them out. My therapist heard something I said and noted a comparison with another client. The therapy was making little, if any, progress. Without breeching confidentiality, my therapist shared that this client was, essentially, a bigot. At least, that was why they were there. The expression of bigotry got them into trouble and part of the solution was to see a therapist. My therapist was fixed on the idea that bigotry was an expression of fear, at its core.

I had a different idea. But, then, I am not the professional.

Maybe it is a shade-of-gray manifestation of fear, but I think people are xenophobic and bigoted out of a need to oversimplify their lives. Let’s face facts: our world is complicated. Our universe is complicated. On one hand, we have impressive capacity to learn and understand and grow. On the other hand, we can never understand it all, and “it” grows much much faster than our capacity to learn it all. We have no choice but to choose what we will and will not seek to understand. How we do that, when we do that, and how it looks to other people when we do, is all very complicated, too. For some reason, I am very interested in this realm of psychology. (Although, to even call it psychology is a simplification of its own.)

Some people take the hermit approach. I would, for example, put the Amish in this category. Not because I claim to know that much about them. They are just well known. They are reported to have deliberately excluded so much of the world from their lives. At least that is the outsider’s perception. I understand that they live without electricity, their livelihood comes from farming and other “natural provision” (as in renewable, from-the-earth resources like woodwork and domesticated animals) and that they avoid outsiders and are remarkably pacifistic. In my opinion, the whole thing works only because of the pacifism. If they were like other people and were easily compelled to react and defend, on the offensive, then they would either have been annihilated or corrupted by now. It’s their willingness to live and let live (as long as there is enough room to do it separately) that allows them to simplify to their level of comfort and let the rest of the world go its own way and pace.

Some people take the label-maker approach. They carry in their minds categories and definitions. How many categories depends on the openness of the specific mind. Likewise, the breadth and scope of the definitions is restricted by their own mind. So, as they go through the day, they find comfort when what they see and hear fits into their pre-determined categories and understanding. Trouble arises when the categories and definitions are challenged. This forces the person to either create a new category or plane away the edges of the “square peg” so that it fits into one of their nice, neat “round holes.” Being reshaped offends the square peg, and stretching the mind offends the label-maker. The skirmish that results in the process is something seen all over the world every day.

Other people find resolution in faith. I understand, however, anyone that finds that ironic. The world is full of religions. The label-makers are in their finest form trying to sort out religions. Even Christianity, being one such religion, has seemingly innumerable factions. But, nevertheless, people find peace in accepting their specific place in the world of their deity, their growth and pace of it, and leaving the rest in the control of that higher power, outside of themselves. Again, the success of this is directly tied to the level of pacifism that a person can practice in resigning themselves to their position of faith. Christianity, specifically, relies on forgiveness to compliment the pacifism. We have all seen what happens when these practices fail—and how often they do.

Which brings us back to the therapist and the bigot. My sessions ended before the case was resolved, if that says anything about the technique. I was never convinced that my therapist agreed with my perspective. As far as I know, they were still working on fear mitigation. If that is such a fantastic answer, why was the progress so slow?

I still think I’m right. When I see people expressing their intolerance or their exasperation, I am not struck by any notion that says, “this person is afraid of…” What I see is either that this person is ignorant and a little too lazy to learn or they are mischaracterizing the person or people. Often, just a little more information helps the situation. The only times it has not, for me, is when they just don’t want to hear anything else at all. They’re grumpy or crabby, but they are not afraid. On the contrary, they are usually empowered and boisterous in their position.

Unless it’s true that all resistance to learning is, actually, fear. That seems like an unqualified stretch of the word fear. If I don’t want to put in the effort to open a dictionary or research something online, is that a fear of the effort? If I don’t want to exercise 30 minutes a day, is that a fear of exercise? If I don’t want to eat my fruits and vegetables, is that a fear of them? Or is it all a fear of change? If I wedge 30 minutes of exercise into my schedule, that changes my routine. But am afraid of that change? No, I don’t agree with that. That is giving fear too much power. Is it any more correct to say, then, that it is not a fear of change, but a fear of discomfort? Is my preference for comfort over discomfort really a fear of discomfort? Would my willingness to tolerate increasingly long periods of discomfort, by itself, be an improvement?

Of course, the therapist directive against fear is to “face it.” A person is to expose themselves to the fear in small ways, realize they can tolerate it, and grow that tolerance to a point that the person no longer seems “afraid.” So, I still end up having to exercise a little more each day, or research, or eat brussel sprouts.

I just don’t accept that my objection to these things is equal to a fear of them. I make far more progress in my exercise, or in any change of habit, by embracing the positive results much more than developing a numbness to the objection. I am not encouraged by numbness. I am encouraged by results. Is that the same thing?

At the end of the day, people are still required to simplify. The world—the universe—is still too complicated to comprehend all of it, even if we can make a little progress every day on some portion of it. The only difference is what we simplify, how we simplify, and whether we are “better” for it.

To a Nazi, the world was “better” by simply eradicating their world of Jews. Hitler wrote a whole manifesto about it. Others agreed, for some reason. Great effort and resources were committed to the idea. I don’t think that is better at all.

I don’t think “better” ever includes intolerance or un-acceptance—or hate. I don’t think we all need to be Amish, but I do think we need to be more pacifistic—and forgiving, which are concepts the Amish are practicing to their benefit. Non-Amish Christians that practice these concepts also experience their benefits.

Why not, then, embrace the benefits, rather than confront the fear?

I have often wondered how I would react to a prison cell. I don’t know why. For the sake of discussion, I’m not talking about the prison “culture,” which is a genuine fear of mine—I am afraid of prolonged, sporadic pain. Think solitary confinement, not community showers. I have no doubt that it would be uncomfortable. It would, however, be definitively simplified. I would have no choice whether I would practice incremental tolerance for this new reality. The only other option is to go insane. What role would fear play? I fear it as I consider it, and that impacts my daily actions, so that I might avoid it. But, if I had no choice but to live it, fear is irrelevant. Tolerating it, or thriving in it, would come from a different place.

For one, I would have to be grateful for what little I had. I could not cling to any hope that I had the power to be better off by acquiring new luxuries. Whatever I had would have to be good enough. Those who have lived through it profess that this is entirely possible—even liberating, abounding!

For another, I would have to find peace with my own mind and thoughts. I could no longer rely on distractions or chemicals to subdue them. This, too, is possible. I suspect that I would do what I am doing now (writing), except not in any tangible form. I could speak out-loud, but whether those words ever remained for posterity would be entirely up to other people recording them.
Likely, my words would remain forever on my own ears, in my own head, or in the hearing of some entity that could be there with me. This would have to be an entity that could not be separated from me, could not be restrained from doing so, would be willing to listen, and had the power to preserve these thoughts or words.

So, I guess I would be praying, then… and happier than I can ever imagine… or insane… Who would know the difference?

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Who Are You?

I decided to run outside today. You know how I feel about running. But, the weather today (3/28/2010) was simply inspiring. Running outside is wayyyy better than running on a machine-- provided the weather is not a deterent.

Running outside, however, means running in public. So, I ask you, "What do you think when you see someone out for a run?" Only you can answer for you. But, here's one answer: it's a little like driving a hybrid. Driving a hybrid means you paid extra for a vehicle that gets better fuel economy CITY MPG than a typical gas vehicle. Lots better. In fact, better than many average vehicles get on the highway. But, if you do the math, you'll never likely own the vehicle long enough for that improved gas mileage to pay for the premium price. So, you do it for the benefit of... something else. The environment, for example.

And that is the conundrum, my friend. See, in making the decision for the benefit of something besides yourself, you (knowingly or not) inform everyone that sees your decision that you made such a decision. Those who are concerned about the environment applaud that. Yay! Those who have NOT reached such a decision, however, are somewhat offended. Boo!

And that can happen with public displays of exercise, too. Simply by doing it, you send the message that you have put into action something that, statistically, most people have not. Many of those who have not, kinda think they should, but haven't yet. Then, there are those who are so far away from taking that step themselves that they are offended. The fact that you even exercise at all offends them. The fact that you are exercising in front of them really ticks them off.

But, what are you going to do about it?

I said all of that to tell you this story: So, I was out for a run on this beautiful day and I was about 80% done when I ran past this house. In front of the house was a pile of old boards. Carrying an armful of those boards was a dude who yells to me as I ran by, "If you're feeling so ambitious, why don't you help me out here?"

Now, I told you all of that so that when I say that I knew what he was thinking, you know that I knew what he was thinking. So, I just smiled, and non-chalantly replied, "Well, I could... You should have caught me before I started." And just kept running.

But, I couldn't NOT think about that as I finished my run. And when I run, I end up where I started, which is home. So, I went inside, drank some water, grabbed my cap and some gloves, and casually jogged back over to his house. A) it wasn't that far, and B) it was a productive way to cool down.

Freaked him out. He was still working on his pile of wood when I got there. I just walked up and asked where he was hauling it. "Uh... just around to the back..." and then, "...So, why are you helping me?"

Big grin on my face. "Why not?"

It only took a few minutes. We talked a little. He has a wood burning stove. He'll burn the wood for heat. Actually, it is a really cool antique. 1906. He showed it to me. He explained how he had the fire department check it out and how all he had to do was change the venting a little. When the pile was moved, I just wished him well and ran back home.

Because, you see, he had a point: Running does take some ambition. But, I am the primary beneficiary of that ambition. I could be the ONLY beneficiary of that ambition. And what good is it for me to be healthy if it only benefits me? What good does it do for me to live longer if I am only living for myself?

He may have been joking, but he asked for help. I was more than capable of helping, so why should I not help him? I was publicly displaying my capacity to help, so why should he not ask? Or why should he not expect a positive response?

Because it just doesn't happen very often.

Because I did, now I have this little story to tell. Cool. But I didn't go for a run so that I could find something to write about. Who benefits from my running? Why be healthy? Why live longer? Children? Spouse? Friends?

Children don't need another relative. They need a Dad. A wife doesn't need another relative, she needs a husband. My employer doesn't need another clock-puncher, they need efficient, profitable, productivity.

And complete strangers? Well, if they need a helping hand...

Friday, February 19, 2010

Ranting

I’m kind of a whiner. You may have noticed. My friend Stacie says, “Cool people don’t whine, they express themselves in an alternate tonality.” So, allow me to correct myself: I do not whine, I rant!

I first started ranting, I think, when I was in grade school. When I got sick and had to stay home from school, I had to stay in bed all day. It was a rule—part of the deal. When my older brother came home, he would stop in to see how I was doing. So, I told him—in my sarcastic and thorough manner. The more he’d laugh, the more I kept going. He used to say he liked me better when I was sick. You gotta love siblings.

I enjoy comedians that rant, too. George Carlin was a genius ranter. Sam Kinison was good. Dennis Miller has his moments. I especially like Dennis Leary. Of course, all of these guys swear up a storm when they rant. I would not classify Richard Pryor as a ranter. But, I laughed my fool head off listening to him. I can barely remember any of his routines, but I do remember his extensive (and might I say pioneering) use of a word that rhymes with mother duck. He is a comedic legend, but it’s the swearing that sticks with you.

It takes more than swearing or cursing to be funny. But, it can take you pretty far on its own, apparently. It seems to be a prerequisite, now. If you expect an audience to pay good money to sit and listen to you for any considerable length of time, you better swear at them. They want you to. Apparently, they just don’t hear enough of that in their everyday life. Strange, says I, since so many people can’t form a complete sentence without every other word rhyming with duck, ducking, ducker, or ducked. I haven’t yet determined if they can’t relate to a comedian that doesn’t talk like them or if they feel repressed in their own expression and want to hear someone say the things they cannot. Either way, it has become a crutch for both the entertainers and the entertained… unless you’re in to that kind of thing. It seems to be working, either way.

For the record, I would hope that those who know me would describe me as someone who does not swear all the time. But, I can’t say I never do. I have a short temper and general impatience that do get the better of me. Those same people would probably admit that they have heard me curse—even “the queen mother of dirty words” as Ralphie defined it in A Christmas Story. And, for the record, I’m not the guy who is going to jump down your throat if I hear you get your duck on. I will even laugh along with you—which is often why you are saying it—or commiserate, as the case may be. I visited New York City when I was 21 and picked up an accent within an hour. I couldn’t help it. It was a strange phenomenon for me, and I now realize that I do that wherever I go without trying to. So, there ya go.

There was a time when the only Dennis Leary I knew was this guy that did MTV commercials. There he was with his cigarette unleashing more words in 15 seconds than most of the audience watching had ever written in their longest school papers. Brilliantly funny. And, of course, since this was not premium cable, he could not swear. But, you got the impression that the repression was about to cause him to explode. He paced and he sucked on that cigarette the way most of us would have to inhale throughout such a monologue. And he just RANTED. I don’t remember any of it, specifically. I just remember the style. I DO, however, remember when he reprised the shtick for the movie Demolition Man. He had the ultra-cool role as the “leader” of the underground (literally). Which, is to say, that he was enemy #1 to the powers that be, but was actually the person you really wanted in charge. I had that monologue recorded and memorized at one point in my life. I also owned his “Lock n Load” cd at one time. These days, he has a major role in a critically acclaimed drama on cable that I haven’t seen, but he also does voice-over work for Ford Trucks that remind me of why I like him.

Dennis Miller actually had an “album” called “Ranting Again” which I owned. What I really liked, though, was the one episode of his talk show that I remember where he ranted about the f-word itself. Genius. I can’t repeat any of it. Did you ever see the movie, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles? Steve Martin has that classic scene born out of extreme frustration… “You can start by wiping that f’ing dumbass smile off your rosy f’ing cheeks. Then you can give me a f’ing automobile! I don’t care what f’ing color…” LMFAO.

Mark Twain is quoted as saying: “Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” I completely understand. On the other hand, I happen to know that prayer is way more effective. Actually, it’s almost a stretch that we even call it “cursing” and “swearing.” A curse is something, say, a voodoo witch would do. They "put a curse on you." They call down the powers of evil to cause negative things to happen to you. And that is the problem, right there. Evil powers do actually exist and if you are calling on them… well, God has a problem with that. I don’t do that. I don’t want that for anybody. At least, not that literally or with such malice. Yet, for some reason, I tend to curse THINGS. Like, when tools don’t work or stuff breaks at work or at home, I think or say stuff that might give onlookers the impression that I believed the thing was alive and deliberately mocking me. The most pathetic part of all of this is that it suggests that I must believe all that cursing will make the thing “behave” more properly. What does a hunk of steel care what I think about it? Actual swearing is like taking an oath you could never really deliver on. People “swear on their mother’s grave” or “swear on the Bible” which is supposed to convince listeners that what they are saying is not a lie. For the record, I’m almost never convinced. How do you know if someone is lying? Their lips are moving. But the Bible calls this practice “swearing” and advises to simply not do it. Let your yes be yes and your no be no and stop trying to give more weight to your words than they deserve (to paraphrase James 5:12.)

I have said before that since stress is so unhealthy and physiologically damaging, I use sarcasm strictly for medicinal purposes. I happen to think sarcasm is funny. Some people don’t. Usually, I see a correlation that they are not particularly funny or even fun people. It could just be a personal preference, I don’t know. I DO know that not everyone “gets” a joke all the time. I pretty much think people that don’t like sarcasm just lack the proper sense of humor. Pttthhbbbb!

What I’m saying is that I don’t swear to give my words more weight. If anything, I “swear” to lace my words with more humor. I’m not trying to make you sick like me, I’m trying to make you laugh about me being sick. Hey, whatever makes you laugh…

Friday, February 5, 2010

The Joy of Running

I hate running.

It’s SO boring. Entire industries have been created because running is actually boring. How many IPods have been sold to compete with the boredom of running? Before the IPod, millions of CD players were sold for the same reason, and people bought several of them, each time buying into a new promise that it would skip less than the last one as it jogged along. Nike + exists because running is boring. Talking shoes--they don’t just talk (which would make it even worse) but they “encourage” runners. They inform you how far you’ve gone and how far you have to go… stuff like that. How much would you pay someone to run with you and say the same things? But, THAT would be ridiculous, right?

People buy all kinds of different “running apparel” to cope with the fact that they would go insane if they didn’t do SOMETHING about their issues with running. The jogging suit has changed considerably over the years. There was a time when Hip Hop fans wore fancy expensive jogging suits as everyday apparel. They didn’t run at all. They are not THAT stupid. The suits were comfortable, stylish, distinguished… it was like the suits evolved faster than the running itself. Clothes designed to make the whole experience more bearable actually made buyers realize that the best way to do that was to forgo doing it in the first place. Genius.

Running and evolution have an interconnected DNA. People have been running as long as they have existed. There was a time when people ran for two reasons: to catch food or to avoid being food. Running has historically been absolutely necessary for both reasons. The corollary of that is that people have been finding was to avoid doing it just as long. People domesticated animals to avoid having to chase them. We also domesticated them so we could ride on them when it was necessary to chase other animals. I don’t think many people, historically, actually ran to get from one place to another. At least, not for long distances. We walked. Or, we rode our domesticated animals. Or, we found other ways to accomplish stuff that did not involve travel at all—like sending a domesticated pigeon. Or a postman. I prefer a text, myself. I’ve never seen a postman run his route.

So, why do people run marathons? It’s pretty stupid, if you think about it. The only reason we call it a marathon or set it at 26.2 miles is that the first person, on record, to do it died when he finished. He was a messenger (aka a domesticated human animal) sent to inform the recipient that they won the war. I’m not sure whether it was his idea or his job description, but he ran the distance rather than, say, walking it or riding a horse. Whatever his logic, it killed him. So, naturally, it has occurred to millions of people since then that they just HAD to try THAT! Woo hoo!

So, is that like a death wish? But, then, people will jump out of a perfectly good airplane for the thrill of it. To them, it’s not a death wish so much as thrill seeking. Because, you know, it might be awesome to go through it and actually survive. “Mere mortals have died doing this. Clearly, I am the epitome of awesome.” Some people walk barefoot on burning coals, others run… over normal-temperature surfaces, in high-tech shoes for extended distances. It’s the same.

That’s why I do it, of course: because it makes me awesome. Are you impressed? Clearly, millions of people are. Marathons are not just events for highly competitive, highly trained athletes to race each other and the clock simultaneously. The percentage of them in the crowd is extremely miniscule. No, millions of people run marathons each year and could not really care less what their time is or who finishes ahead of them. They run for “personal” reasons. Many do it as part of a larger exercise program or goal. The race itself is a motivation for slogging through the boredom for some metaphysical benefit. Some run to support a cause or another runner. If you’re going to run, it also helps to have crowds along the way cheering you on, particularly if they also don’t care about your position or time. Or, people run for a physiological benefit. And this is what we (humans) have become. We have avoided running for so long—because we COULD! HELLO?!!—that we have actually had to force it back on to ourselves or face “death” for some other reason than lack of food or becoming food ourselves. We even say stuff like, “You are what you eat” because we have made food acquisition so easy that we “are” fat, sugary, crème puffs… if you will. Thus, we run AWAY from our food… in a way. You may have to think about that one. Evolution is not as logical as you have been told.

I will say this about running: it’s hard to fake it. You can “bike” for 26.2 miles, or even double that, but in the process you can coast from time to time, especially downhill. Sure, physics suggest that you can only coast because you first provided the energy to sustain that motion in the first place. Sorta the same applies to rollerblading, if less so. When you stop moving your running legs, you stop. You cover zero distance until you start running again. You can slow down to the point of walking, even walking very slowly. But, you can’t coast. Some people “run” marathons at speeds that could easily be achieved by simply walking. Not that walking that far is very easy to do without practice, either. But, it’s easier to do than running at 6mph or faster.

6mph is arbitrary, granted. I chose 6mph for pragmatic reasons. 6mph means you are running one mile every ten minutes. You can easily understand how you are doing even if your odometer is measuring tenths of a mile (1 minute each). Also, I am forced to move my legs faster than I can “walk” when I keep that pace. More importantly, whether running for a specific distance or calorie count, the faster I run, the sooner I get it all over-with. If I could run at 10mph for a long enough time, believe me, I would.

But, I am miserable the whole time. In order to do it, I have to find some inner strength and motivation. That sounds way more impressive than the reality. For one thing, as all runners learn, there is a physiological phenomenon known as “second wind.” What that means is, if you think you could never start running because you would die trying, you’re half right. For the first mile or so, you will feel certain, slow death overtaking you. But, that feeling reaches a plateau, and after that your only real obstacle is the boredom. Well, your knees could buckle or your shins could ache or your side might feel ready to rupture—but ASIDE from all that, you won’t really get more winded. Somehow, the lungs are whipped into some form of submission and they continue to function at that necessary level rather than cause you to pass out and regain your sanity unconsciously. You may have to work up to it over several sessions, but it’s there. In a way, it’s a betrayal rather than a motivation, but I digress.

My real motivation, evidently, is anger. Hatred is more specific, I think. I hate running so much I refuse to submit to it. So, I fight against it. It tells me to stop. I run past it. It tells me I’m wasting my time. I waste more time. It tells me I have more interesting things I could do. I start yelling profanities at it. Oh, did I mention that I run in the privacy of my basement? My wife joined a gym. Many people join gyms. My wife thinks that men at the gym are funny (in an annoying way) when they grunt while lifting weights. Well, it’s better than listening to my steady tirade of profanities. But, I’ll spare everyone that one. So, yeah, I get the job done… in a miserable, grumpy, horrific haze of unpleasantries.

I’ll bet you love running, don’t you? Then, I hate you, too. BAH! Ok, not really.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Don’t You Know That You Are A Shooting Star?

On a dark and clear night, I can look up and see a sky full of stars. I actually grew up on a farm, so I could see many more than most for two reasons. For one, there was virtually no other man-made light to compete with the starlight. Second, I can literally see for miles around where I grew up. I liked to take it to another level, literally, by climbing up on a roof, lying back, and looking around. They don’t call it “the milky way” for no reason. It really looks like a streak of milk in very black coffee—on a dark and clear night.

A scientist actually sees more than I do. They see planets and moons and all of that. I know which one is Venus, but that is it. So, I call them “stars.” But, I know there is more to it than that. I also know that a shooting star is not really a star at all. A shooting star is an object that is burning up as it passes through the earth’s atmosphere, leaving a brief visible trail. That’s just the kind of cold, factual analysis that you would expect from a scientist. But seeing a shooting star is awesome! It’s a flash of brilliance! Then, it’s over so quickly that it leaves you both wishing you could see more and almost wondering if you really even saw it the first time.

Let me tell you about a shooting star that flashed through my own life.

Lynn was the new kid in our class in fourth grade. Her last name and my last name are alphabetically close, so she sat in the desk in front of me. She was very quiet. Well, in a way… She wasn’t really shy. She had moments when her convictions would overtake her and she would speak up or act out passionately and/or loudly as the case may be. But, she was not a loud kid, or a bossy kid, or a joker, or anything most of the time. She would just sit there and not say anything, but there seemed to be a whole lot going on inside. Kids don’t really know what to do with that. They can “sense” it, though, and it caused most of us to keep our distance for the most part, but I don’t know why. So, Lynn was a loner, I guess you could say.

By the time we reached junior high, Lynn had a reputation as a bookworm. Schools these days have programs to encourage students to read. They have elaborate point systems for different books, online tests they take, and grand awards ceremonies for their achievements. Many kids get recognized in those ceremonies. We had nothing like that. Almost no one else was reading anything. Lynn, however, was extremely impressive. The teachers and librarians not only noticed but were so impressed that they created awards to recognize her achievements each year. No one else got any such award or were interested in trying, as far as I know. When we would hear the statistics of the tens or hundreds of thousands of pages she had read and the hundreds of books, it just boggled our mushy brains. We knew she was always reading something, but it was just so un-fathomable. We were not in her league by any measure.

Our little school only went through junior high. The town only had one high school, too. So, everyone merged into the “big” school at that time. That meant more and different friends to go along with more and different opportunities. Lynn, like the rest of us, was mostly the same, just more grown up—more emboldened. Her locker was still near mine. One day, she surprised me by moving in—into whisper mode—and asking what she should do if she thought someone was taking drugs. Not your average every-day conversation, y’know? Of course, I did not know what to say at first. Lynn was good for that kind of thing. She said nothing so much and then when she did it was monumental. Also, she was good for asking my advice on her monumental ordeals. I felt privileged to be her councilist. I thought about it a second and decided I needed more information. She said she thought she saw a dude (classmate, locker a few doors down) sneaking some pills a minute ago. He was looking around suspiciously and trying to hide it—that sort of thing. I thought some more. I knew who he was. So did she. It’s not like we were really friends, but we had classes together, we had talked before and were likely to talk again. For both of us, part of the issue was doing the right thing—for us and him—without “ratting” on him. I finally advised her to tell someone with authority. I think my specific advice was the School Counselor. He would take a softer approach than the principal and give us the best chances for anonymity. I know she told someone. I know the question was asked. But, I don’t think he got “busted” in any way involving cops or courts. He was miffed, but it worked out well, all things considered.

Not everyone would have done that. Not me, either. I only got involved because she brought me into it. I don’t have a great track record for that kind of thing. I was at a dance that same year. It was a big deal for me because it was a high school dance, not a junior high dance. It was also a public dance, not a school dance. The lights were darker. The security was more lenient. The crowd was older and rougher than I was used to. One kid was obviously drunk. Well, he wasn’t the only one, but he got my attention when he backed his girlfriend up against a pillar in the room in an argument. As it got worse, he had both of his hands around her shoulders, too. I remember just staring at the whole thing wondering when or how to do something. He was not necessarily hurting her yet. But, obviously this could escalate. (No, I did not use CSI terms like escalate back then, I just knew that this was likely to get worse before it got better.) So, there I was, frozen and useless, waiting for him to hit her, I guess. I don’t know what I would have done, because he was much older and would easily have kicked my ass. Plus, I was pretty sure he really wanted someone to give him a reason to become his personal punching bag. I knew I was in big trouble when she turned her head and looked around in a silent plea for someone to help her. I’ll never forget the look on her face—the fear. And that is when a pack of girls stepped between them so quickly and effortlessly that it left me wondering what happened. Before I knew it, there were several of them, Lynn among them, in his face verbally affronting him. How they got in there so deftly, I still don’t understand, but they didn’t do it physically. They just started hurtling questions at him, “What are you doing? You’re hurting her! Can’t you see how scared she is? What are you thinking? What’s wrong with you?...” and he was drunk, so he had no mental capacity to respond to any of it. So, he just sort of stood there all slumpy like a kid getting a lecture from his mom. Then they turned to her and enveloped her like only a group of girls can do and whisked her off to safety. I was amazed. I’ll never forget that whole scene. I’ll never forget feeling so helpless and then being so awestruck by the shear brilliance of how it was resolved. I learned a lot from that which I still carry with me to this day. For not unrelated reasons, I almost never went to dances after that.

That’s not to say I don’t like dancing. I really do. I just don’t like drama. But, my favorite Lynn story happened our junior year. Ever the advocate, Lynn came up to me in whisper mode again and bluntly asked, “If a girl wanted to ask a guy to a dance, how should she do it?” Again, why me? Who does she think I am? But I didn’t say anything like that. She was asking for some help that she thought I could provide, so I owed it to her to give it my best shot. That is how I thought about it. Of course, I was also thinking that I was giving HER advice on how SHE should go about asking some dude. I was pretty sure that she was not going to be asking me. The thought went through my head, but I quickly dismissed it as being too weird and direct, even for Lynn. So, I thought for a second about all of this and advised her to just go right up to him, make sure she got his full attention, eye contact, that sort of thing and ask politely but in very direct and unmistakable words so he would have no easy way to avoid giving the direct answer she deserves. She seemed to think that was pretty good wisdom. She thanked me and walked away into the crowd of students in the hall making their way from and to the next class. Then, somewhere out of that crowd came Suzi. And in a polite but direct language she proceeded to look me straight in the eye and ask me the Snowball Dance. What a dope I am. How did I not see that coming? Here’s the thing about Suzi. There’s nothing wrong with Suzi. One of the many activities our school had in Physical Education (aka Phy. Ed., gym, you know the one) was dance. Social dance—like training for a wedding dance of the day. So, we learned to waltz and square dance and two-step and even jitterbug (which you might call swing.) And over the course of that, Suzi and I were dance partners. And over the course of that, it was a mutual decision to be dance partners. I really enjoyed dancing with her, and I got the same impression from her. But we were not a couple, in high school terms. Neither of us really dated anyone. Give me the same situation and 10 times out of 10 I take Suzi up on her offer. And, I did, technically. I was so surprised by the whole thing that I was less than smooth about it. I think I probably sent several discouraging signals to her in my fumbling. I did have some stupid high-school-boy “reasons” for not wanting to go out with Suzi, but this was just one dance. As it turned out, the whole thing got canceled by weather and that was the end of all of it. Now, it’s just one of those awkward high school memories that hangs on as if to demand a better closure, as irrational and unlikely as that may be.

I lost track of Lynn after high school. I never went to our 10 year reunion. Somewhere in there, I did get a brief call from Lynn. It was out of the blue. I had not spoken to her in all that time. She was very excited about getting to see all of these old friends. I was not. And that was essentially the awkward end to the call. But, that was how I felt at the time.

And then, one day I got a different phone call. It was a reporter. She wrote for a Chicago news paper. She was calling me because I (unknown to me) was the only classmate who appeared in Lynn’s class on Classmates.com—a relatively new tool at the time. She was trying to get background information about Lynn from those who had known her. Wait a minute! “What do you mean HAD known her?”
“Oh… I thought you would have heard by now… I’m so sorry to have to tell you like this…but…umm… Lynn was murdered on St. Patrick’s day.”

Stunned does not begin to describe how I felt. Why? No, that’s not the question. How? Well, it turns out that Lynn had decided to give a woman hitch-hiker a ride. That did not surprise me. It also did not surprise me that Lynn had chatted her up in the process. Evidently, as they drove Lynn cordially pointed out the apartment where she lived as they passed nearby on the Interstate. Later this woman went back, found her, stabbed her many times to death, robbed her, and tried to burn the place down. Actually it was worse than that. I’ll spare both of us more details.

So, Lynn had managed to whisper-mode me one more time. I answered the reporter as best as I could. The problem was that my whole perspective was from 4th grade to high school. So, I said stuff like how it made sense to me that she would be trying to do what she felt was the right thing and trying to help someone out and how that was the kind of person I knew her to be. And all of that sounds fine, except for what it leaves out.

I had to do my own interviews with friends who were closer to Lynn and had kept in touch to learn who she had become over the years that I missed. I was very convicted to do so. I felt like I had deprived her of the chance to show and tell me herself. If I had been through so much and changed so much, certainly she had her own stories to tell and I never even gave her the chance—for my own selfish and self-centered reasons. And it was really cool to hear some of those stories. She had become much more socially out-going. She enjoyed clubs and going out with friends. She had been looking forward to St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. But, also, she has a mutual friend with me that became a pastor. She had also had those questions and conversations. She had recently been inspired to work at a soup kitchen. And, well, who knows what else?

The 1975 Bad Company song “Shooting Star” is about a different kind of death, and life, than Lynn’s. But what is the same is the brevity. What is the same is the brilliance. What is the same is the feeling after a shooting star flashes through a dark, clear night sky.
“Wow! “
“Did you see that?” “
“That was awesome!”
“Did you see what I saw?”
“Is it over already?”

But, mostly, how lucky am I to have been in the just the right place at just the right time to have seen it.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Dragons Live Forever, But Not So Little Boys

It’s been a long time since I was a little boy. In many ways, my mind is stuck in those days. In others, I have to really think hard to bring it all back. Some ideas are forged together strangely—from the heat and pressure, I guess. I saw the movie Pete’s Dragon in a theatre as a young little boy. For some reason, whenever I hear the song “Puff the Magic Dragon” I think of Pete’s Dragon. Part of me wants to see the movie again, so I would actually know what it was about, but a bigger part wants to just leave those scattered images right where they are, as they are. But, there’s much, much more behind that thought.

See, I had a friend named Pete, too.

I first remember Pete from first grade. My desk was right behind his. We both had the same color of red hair, which is that un-mistakeable color of red. Not a redish hue of blond, or a lightish brown. Red. Leprechaun red. Other people in our families had the red hair, too, but no one else in the school did. Granted, it was a small school, but the impact was the same. Evidently, red heads look funny to other kids. Although, anything that is not like everything else is “funny” to kids and subject to ridicule. Maybe everything is subject to ridicule. I don’t know. Either way, we did not enjoy being red heads. Adults seem to enjoy us little red headed kids, but that mostly just made it worse.

Our houses were nowhere near each other, so Pete and I only spent time together in school and with the other kids around. But, again, it was a small school, so the whole class playing together was still a pretty close-knit group. We had the most fun a recess. For many years, of those early years, the fad of the day was marbles. Now, I can say marbles and everyone knows what I’m talking about, but the way we played marbles and what it all meant was probably different than the rest of the world. For one, we played one at a time, and we always played for keeps. In other words, I would challenge one of my marbles against one of yours. And much negotiation took place in this process. We were always trying to win better marbles, so I was negotiating to try and get you to wager a marble that impressed me. And you would be doing the same thing. Some of the prized possessions were what we called “boulders” which were particularly large (about 1 inch diameter or slightly larger-- bigger was better) and among the most elite of these were “steelies” (actually large ball bearings, but they were large!... and shiny!... and didn’t scratch… and they had that great heft to them! ) or “clearies” which were the translucent, one color type. They looked like rounded gem stones. Beautiful. Of course, envy played a gigantic role in all of this. Without knowing anything else about a person, we sized them up by their marble bag. Pete and I (and many of my other elementary school friends) played and traded many marbles.

We played football a lot! For one thing, this is North Dakota we’re talking about. We have snow 6 months out of the year some years. Also, football season begins when school does and lasts just over half the school year. We loved to watch it, but mostly we loved to play it in the snow. Snow on the ground, even a mere few inches somehow makes landing softer. The sliding also leaves fewer stains on clothes and scratches on skin. We played all our rough and tackle games in the long snowy winters of ND. It was awesome! If you know how to enjoy it, winter is really fun.

Back in those days it seemed like the Pittsburg Steelers and/or the Dallas Cowboys were in the Superbowl every year. I grew up a Steelers fan. We had a conveniently even split in our class. So, we almost always played Steelers vs. Cowboys football at recess. Back then, we had as many as 3 recesses a day. The morning and afternoon recess was only 15 minutes. Lunch was half an hour. That seems paltry as an adult, but was plenty of time for a game as kids. Some of those years, I spent time as the QB of our team. It was an informal process as to who was QB. We pretty much based it on success. As long as we were winning or moving the ball, we stuck with what worked. When things went downhill, we’d unceremoniously fire that guy and quickly decide who we thought had the mojo to win. Call it a pecking order. Call it a “team captains picking order” or whatever. Young boys know what’s what.

We had no pass rush. The QB had to stay behind the line of scrimmage at all times. Everyone else was a receiver. That’s how we played. Everyone on defense was covering a receiver. Pete was an excellent receiver. Some guys just know how to get open. One way to do that is to “go long.” Pete was good for that. It’s actually pretty hard to cover someone that is just running as fast as they can. If you run ahead of them, all they have to do is stop and turn around to catch the ball. If you run behind them, they QB just has to lead them. Pete was good for both. But, mostly he was just plain committed to catching the thing. If he had to jump on your head to do it, he would. If he had to dive for the ground and load his sleeves and collar with snow, he would. Receivers like that make QBs look good. Any time you can consistently go long and make a successful catch, that’s going to be a fun game. Ah, the glory days! They’ll pass you by…

We played basketball some. For the longest time, we did not have the proper equipment on the playground. When we reached junior high, we got a new principal and he made some great changes from our perspective. Early fall and late spring provided some decent basketball weather. Basketball is hard to play in mittens, boots, and coats. The great thing about playing basketball with Pete was that he was fearless. We called him Pistol. Yeah, as in Pistol Pete, but not really. We called him Pistol because we could get him to shoot from anywhere. It didn’t matter where he was on the court or if he was well defended. All we had to do was yell, “Shoot it!” and he would. It was more fun than a real game. We were not that good, and we were often congested on the court. This is where a trained player or coach would go into the supreme aspects of basketball as a team game which creates opportunities to get open and find the open player. Whatever. We only had 15 minutes. We wanted to watch Pete launch it from half court with a hand in his face. That was fun! He actually made several of them, too.

Another improvement that principal made was computers. At first, we only had two. They were set up in the science room and we had to sign up to use them. It was a huge issue, logistically, for anyone in our family to not have to ride the bus home, which left right after school let out, basically. Same thing for “before school.” That was the only access time (because science classes were going on at recess). But, it did happen. I use to get so excited that the first thing I had to do was go to the bathroom. It was a big deal. Some of us used to take babysitting jobs just because the parents had a computer that we could use once we got the kids to bed. That was our payment. And we actually thought it was a pretty good deal. A few years later, my two brothers and I pooled our money together and bought that computer. It was an Apple IIe. Over the next few years, I learned and did much programming on that thing. My greatest accomplishment was a program I called Draw. I figured out how to make a glorified Etch a Sketch. The graphics were a poor definition in those days—about as good as an Etch a Sketch. So, holding down the “m” key to draw a line from any desired point on the screen down, made sense. I was old enough to get the formulas right to make a circle when I hit “c” and entered my desired diameter. It’s not much of stretch from there to make an arch or an oval. You get the idea. The biggest problem was that the world has never been sold on Apple computers. All of my programming skill was mostly useless by high school.

Pete was smarter than that. Pete used the computer to play games. One of his favorites was this game where he was a gun that arched 180 degrees left to right. Out of the sky would descend little paratroopers. The objective was to shoot the plane and the paratroopers. You could succeed either by shooting the trooper himself or dissevering him from his parachute and watching him splat to the ground. It was pretty fun. But, all video games are inherently fun. It goes without saying. Pete took a perverse pleasure in that gun, though. He made his own sound effects for good hits and the various deaths of his enemies. It was just as fun to watch and listen to him play as to play myself. He once joked that the game represented his ideal life: just him on his own island and a great big gun!

Pete and I and our small class of mates mostly lost track of each other around high school. Our small school only had nine grades. Today, it is only an elementary school. So, we all went to the one big high school with everyone else in town. We had more people to meet and know. We had more opportunities and interests. And we had the greater freedom that high school provided, including the ability to drive out of town from time to time. We started running in different circles. But, we still knew each other. We still bumped into each other and generally knew what each other was doing. We just were not doing it together for the most part.

After high school, Pete went into the military. I went to college. I saw him a handful of times when we both happened to be “home.” Eventually, we both ended up living in our home town again. But, we were almost strangers by that time. Our circles had grown further and further apart. Young men have other things on their agendas, if you know what I mean.

And then one day, the whole town heard the tragic news. You see, Pete had been murdered. By his own brother, who was living with him at the time. It was a murder/suicide, actually. Gunned down, through the apartment window, in fact. In a small town, any killing is a big, tragic story. This one was even bigger than that.

Their apartment is very near the high school. I see that house very often to this day. That and many other things often remind me of Pete. People like me write about stuff like that. It’s just what we do.

Pete was killed about 7 years ago, as of this moment. At our class reunion, we planted a tree to his memory, with his family. To anyone other than us, it’s just another tree in the park. To anyone other than us, we are just more faces in the crowd, small heads in old pictures, names in old books, and memories in old heads. But, memories are timeless. Memories live forever.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Bigfoot

Bigfoot

If you see a Bigfoot, shoot it! And not with a camera, either. Haul out your AK47 (the one you got as an expression of your 2nd amendment rights) and just unload it. All of these Bigfoot “sightings” without ever finding a body or a skeleton is way too suspicious. Don’t get too hung up on the AK47 thing. Personally, I’m trying to get my hands on a Patriot Missile launcher (just for personal use.) So far, all I’ve gotten is a van permanently parked outside my house and a Crown Victoria that follows me everywhere I go. Not that any of that should concern someone who happens to read my manifesto… I mean “blog.”

What happens to all the Bigfoot bodies? Maybe they are like elephants, who dispose of their bones when they discover them. Or maybe they are necro-canibalistic! If they routinely eat their dead, that would explain everything. They probably really appreciate a good meal like that. Sounds like way too much work to hunt and gather enough food for a body that size without leaving traces and tracks about where and how it is done, not too mention all the other wild animals competing for the same grub.

Then again, maybe Bigfoot does not die like other animals. Essentially, they are a mythical beast considering how little evidence we have of them compared with how much lore we have. Maybe they are way more mythical than we thought. Maybe they die like Obi Wan in the first “Star Wars” movie (which is actually episode IV, first being an indicator of chronoligical release, not chronoligical sequence, of course.) You remember Obi Wan, right? You know, Obi Wan Kobe Bryant. He lead the planet Lakers to victory over the Death Star of the evil Galactic Empire in the NBA All-Star Wars. In the middle of a battle with Darth Vader, he notices Luke Skywalker across the way and lifts his weapon in a suicide surrender, but when Darth goes to cut him in two, all that is left is a small pile of laundry. Mom said that happened in her house all the time. She thought she had us cornered, but we never did laundry until we moved out of the house.

As Natalie Portman’s character said in “Beautiful Girls,” “…Leave no literary stone unturned…” Maybe the Bigfoot die like the turtle in “Kung Fu Panda.” He just turns into a bunch of flower petals that float away in the breeze. Maybe the Bigfoot turn into dandelion seeds. Those damn things are everywhere! Not that it is much of a leap from “Star Wars” to “Beautiful Girls.” Natalie was in that, and some of the later “Star Wars” movies (which were actually the early episodes 1 through 3, which were realeased later than 4 through 6, of course.) I’m going to go out on a limb and say “Beautiful Girls” was actually the best Natalie Portman movie. Sure, there’s also “V for Vendetta” and “Garden State,” but “Beautiful Girls” made Uma Thurman seem like the girl next door, “Sweet Caroline” seem cool, and ice fishing seem lame. Well, that is just cinemagic!

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

A Children's Story

A Spider of Great Renown

Once there was a spider named Leonidas. As far back as she could remember, she remembered being different from the other spiders she knew. Leonidas had 7 legs. All of the other 8-leg spiders would often stare at her wherever she went. This always made her feel uncomfortable. But, what really bothered Leonidas was the times that the younger spiders would tease and laugh at her. The young spiders did this very often, and each time Leonidas wanted to get as far away from them as she could.

Leonidas lived where it was almost always dark. Sometimes, her world would suddenly become very bright. The brightness would last for a moment, sometimes longer than others, but then, just as suddenly, the brightness would leave and her world was dark again. All of the other spiders she knew lived in this same world, so none of them thought this was strange in any way. No one understood where the brightness came from or where it went. No one ever knew when it would come again, either.

One day, Leonidas went for a walk. She walked as far away from home as she had ever been which was not really very far. Other spiders were near there. When they saw Leonidas, they started to point and stare.
“Hey, look at that spider!” one of them said, “She only has 7 legs!”
“Whoa! That is weird!” said another. “How can she even walk?” said a third.
“She must have been born that way,” they continued. “I’ll bet her whole family is weird just like her.”
“They must be the Freak Family” said one of them, and they all laughed. Then they all started yelling and calling Leonidas a freak, and laughing at her.

Leonidas was very sad. She did not know what to do. She was used to them picking on her, but no one had ever talked about her family that way before. So, Leonidas started to walk away. Then she began running. She ran and ran until she could not hear them anymore. Only Leonidas forgot what direction she was running. When she stopped and looked around, she realized that she had run further away from home, not back to home. She was now farther away than she had ever been and did not recognize anything she saw. Leonidas was lost!

Everything around Leonidas was still dark. The darkness did not bother her. Spiders can see very well in the dark, but not very far. Spiders are not afraid of the dark. But Leonidas was still scared. She was scared because she was lost. She did not know which way to walk, but she decided she should keep walking no matter what. Maybe she would eventually see something she knew.

As she was walking, the world became bright suddenly. This was normal to Leonidas, but nothing she saw was normal. In the light, she could see a table behind her. Only it did not look like she expected it to look. The table was side-ways to her. Actually, as she looked up at, she could see across the top of the table. The legs of the table seemed to come out of the side of the table, rather than down from it as they normally do. She could also see things on the top of the table. They were sideways, too! Leonidas had never seen the top of a table before. On the table lay a hammer, a small saw, a screwdriver, and many containers. Some of the containers were big and some were small. Leonidas did not recognize anything inside the containers. It seemed like whatever they were, there was many of them. She did recognize the dust that was on the table, and the tools, and the containers. She also recognized the many small pieces of wood around everything. Leonidas had seen all of those things in her world before.

As Leonidas kept walking, she noticed that her world was going from dark to light more often than it usually did. She could still see the strange sideways table and everything on it as she looked around. Suddenly, the world was bright again and Leonidas looked for the table. It was not there! What she saw instead was a very blank area. In fact, it looked the same as the ground she had been walking on. Then, Leonidas looked up! There was the table! There were the tools! There were the containers, and the dust, and the wood pieces, too. Now they were above her. Leonidas had never seen that before!
“How did they get up there?” she wondered.

Leonidas kept walking. In front of her was something she had never seen before. It was a strange round shape, but not a circle. It rose up out of the ground and was bigger on the top than the bottom. It was very smooth all the way around. At the bottom was a round circle. The circle was bigger around than the smooth standing thing. Suddenly, the world got very bright! It was so bright and so sudden, that it took Leonidas a little while to realize that the smooth standing thing was the brightest thing around. It seemed to Leonidas that the brightness was coming from this smooth standing thing! She was amazed at such a wonderful sight. Then, suddenly, everything was black again. When she looked around, she could still see the smooth standing thing in front of her and the table above her. Leonidas very much wanted to tell other spiders what she had seen! Then she remembered that she was still alone, and still lost.

Leonidas walked around the smooth standing thing and kept walking. The world would sometimes get bright and sometimes dark, but never as bright as the smooth standing thing! This brightness seemed to come from in front of here, so she kept walking towards the brightness. As she looked ahead of her, she started to see something new. The shape was very different. It went up, then over, then up, then over… It kept doing this many times. As she walked closer, Leonidas could see the brightness make this shape light up and go dark, but she still did not know what it was.

Suddenly, Leonidas came to a great cliff. At least that is what it looked like to her. The shape she had been looking at seemed to come out of the cliff, still going up then over, up then over. Leonidas knew she could walk right down a cliff, and even back up the other side. All spiders can do that, she knew. She walked down the cliff and then over and on to the thing that went up and over, up and over. But, now she was standing on that thing. Now, it went over and down, over and down, over and down.
“How did that happen?” she wondered to herself. Now, she really wanted to tell other spiders what she had seen! She just had to find someone else! So, Leonidas kept walking.

As she walked across the thing that went over and down, the world got bright again. But, this time it was very different! All of the brightness seemed to come from a tall rectangle beside her! It was like a tall box of light! This was a very very bright light! As she looked through the box, out into the light, Leonidas could see far, far away. Everything in the box of light was very new and different than anything Leonidas had ever seen before. Also, she could see many more colors than she had ever seen. In front of her was a great big area that was the brightest and most wonderful green that Leonidas had ever seen. She quickly raced out towards it!

As she got near the green, Leonidas realized that the green was taller than she was, but not as tall as the table, and not as tall as the smooth standing thing, either. As she got closer, she realized that the green was actually many things that were standing up. They were all green from the bottom to the top. She also noticed that she could walk between them and around them. As she looked around, the light was no longer a box shape. It was no longer any shape! The brightness was all around her.

As she walked into and around the green standing things, the brightness went from being all around, to being behind her and above her. Leonidas kept walking further and further into the green standing things. When she turned and looked behind her, it became harder and harder to see the brightness behind her. But she could always see the brightness above her.

Then, out of the green standing things, came something Leonidas had never seen. It was not a spider, she knew that for sure! It was about the same size as she was, though. This thing walked and moved, much like a spider. Leonidas just stood still and watched it walk to her. She could see that it was mostly red, with black dots all over its back. Its back was a lovely round shape, and much shinier than a spider’s back.

When the red thing with black dots got closer, it noticed Leonidas. Leonidas just stood still and stared at it. She was more frightened now than ever before. But the red thing with black dots smiled at her and began to speak.

“Well, hello there!” it said. It sounded like a girl to Leonidas. More important, it sounded friendly.
“H..hh..hello,” Leonidas finally managed to say.
“My! You must be a spider of great renown!” The red thing with black dots said.
“What… what are YOU?” Leonidas asked.
“Why, I am a ladybug,” she explained, “My name is Hope. And I have never seen a spider like you. It is my great honor to meet you.” Then Hope bowed most gracefully to Leonidas. This made her feel like a queen!
“Why are you doing that?” Leonidas asked the ladybug.
“Because I am a mere insect,” she explained. “See? I have 6 legs, like all the other insects: flies, beetles, bees… But spiders are Arachnids!” Hope said the word “Arachnid” in a very special way. Leonidas knew that she meant that Hope admired them and had great respect for Arachnids.
“Arachnids have 8 legs! And you are a very special Arachnid… You have 7 legs. No other insect or arachnid has 7 legs!”
Leonidas' heart just swelled up inside her. She felt like beams of brightness came out from all over her. She never felt so wonderful in all her life. No one had ever said that having 7 legs was special!
“Oh, thank you!” “Thank you, thank you.” It was all Leonidas could think to say. She felt so radiant and beautiful.
“It was my great honor to meet you,” said Hope, and she bowed again.

Leonidas wanted to tell everyone all the great things she had seen today! She raced back out of the green standing things towards the light that shown faintly behind them. The light grew brighter and brighter as she ran through and around the green standing things.

When she reached the edge, she stopped dead in her tracks. In front of her, in the brightness that shows all around, Leonidas saw a person! She had seen a person before! Many times, a person had come into her world and taken other spiders away or chased them off. Leonidas had never seen a person be nice to a spider in all her life. If she thought she was scared before, this was even worse!

But, this person was different. For one thing, this person was small.
“Oh! Hello spider!” Leonidas heard the person say. She knew right away from the voice that this little person was a girl, too. The girl, reached out to Leonidas. Leonidas was so scared, she could not move. Many times she had seen a person reach for a spider and the spider disappeared forever. The little girl picked up Leonidas. Leonidas just closed her eyes and was all stiff over her whole body.

But, nothing happened. Leonidas slowly opened her eyes. She was looking right into the eyes of the little girl. And the little girl was smiling! Leonidas looked around and realized that she was standing on the little girl’s hand. The brightness was all around her.

“What a pretty spider!” The little girl spoke so sweetly and seemed to admire her just as much as Hope did.
“And you only have 7 legs! You are a really special spider!” Leonidas felt herself beaming again as if light was coming out all over her.
“And you are a very special person!” she said to the girl. But the girl did not say or do anything! She just kept looking at Leonidas and smiling.
“You are a very special person! Thank you for being nice to me!” Leonidas spoke more loudly this time. But the girl did not seem to hear. Leonidas decided that a person cannot hear a spider speak.

The little girl carried Leonidas through a box shape behind her. It was the same size and shape as the box she ran through, but this box shape was dark. When they went through it, it changed to a bright box again behind them. Leonidas could see the great green area behind them, also. The girl walked down the things that went over and down and over and down and Leonidas could see the cliff she saw before. The world got bright suddenly and Leonidas recognized the brightness was coming again from the smooth standing thing. Only, now the smooth standing thing was not standing, it was hanging. In front of them was the table. Leonidas could see across it again, but now she was beside it, rather than above it and the legs went down to the dust and wood pieces she knew.

The little girl walked a little further and lowered Leonidas to the ground. The world was a little bit darker than before, but still bright. Far in front of her, Leonidas could see the place she knew was home. She was just inside the farthest place she had ever been before today. Quickly, she ran off the girl’s hand towards home. As she ran, the world once again grew dark behind her. But, she was not really paying attention to anything behind her. Now she was close enough to home that she saw other spiders! She ran as fast as she could all the way home!

Later that night, safe at home, Leonidas tried to tell everyone of all the things she saw. But, they did not understand her. Some of the older spiders just smiled and would turn and look at each other and wink or nod. But no one said anything more. But, from that day forward Leonidas knew she was special! She never let it bother her again when young spiders would stare or laugh. She would just smile and think of Hope and the little girl and she would fill up like she was bursting with light all over again. It seemed like the more she smiled, the less the other spiders would stare and tease.

Leonidas spent the rest of her life feeling special. She was an Arachnid of Great Renown!

Friday, May 1, 2009

The Department of Redundancy Dept. Meeting Event

The Department of Redundancy Department

RE: The reason for meeting.

The Department of Redundancy Department will be having its secondary contingency meeting to be held at the beginning of the week on Monday at 8:00AM in the morning at which time the meeting will take place and begin.

The agenda includes the items that will be under discussion for further review upon consideration of the assembled in the case of a quorum or for a simple vote providing enough members attend to properly conduct the business at hand.

We ask that those planning to attend RSVP ASAP to ID any VIP who may otherwise be MIA. We would not want anyone of preeminence to go unnoticed and not be accounted for, as this would diminish their eminence.

Please review, peruse, and double-check the material to be discussed beforehand so that everyone is fully prepared and ready to discuss and dialogue the entire spectrum of the plethora of myriad items of interest. This must be done before the meeting. Please plan ahead.

The meeting will be held in the great grand ballroom of the Courtyard Hotel. Please note and take notice that this represents a change of previous location and venue in that this is no longer outdoors to accommodate those in opposition to allergic conditions of the general air quality of the previous location which was the great grand courtyard of the Ballroom Hotel.

The meeting will be catered and food served a la carte for the menu of the meeting. The main dish entrée will be roast beef with au jus.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Horndog

Horndog

I have a friend named Mark. Mark has a dog named Gus. Gus is a big ‘ol huntin’ dog. He’s probably 200 pounds. Yes, the dog weighs 200 pounds. Mark is probably 15 bucks shy of that, but that is another story.

The thing about Gus is that he is horny. Now, we have terms like horndog for a reason. Dogs, as a species, are generally a horny bunch. We have all experienced a dog humping our leg, right? We use the label “dog” to describe promiscuous men. It’s not like I am making this up.

But Gus is exceptionally horny. He is always humping something. Anything. Gus has been know to hump a rubber ball left in the backyard. Gus used to hump the lawn ornaments. He ruined several. Think about that for a minute! He wore them out! My personal favorite: Gus humped the fence post on a regular basis.

In a way, I’d really like to know why. Professionals spend all kinds of time-- after spending all kinds of money on elaborate educations and degrees—analyzing that kind of behavior in people. The answers are entertaining if nothing else. Sometimes it is about a childhood trauma or some other reason for arrested development. There are theories about power. Some of it gets attributed to emotional need, but some is more external. Is it any different for dogs? Is it true or fair to conclude that animals are less complex and so are their motivations? My opinion is a juvenile addiction to the physiological satisfaction of it all—for both. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have food to eat and stuff to clean before I call Mom again today.

Gus is a pretty good hunting dog, though. By that, I mean he gets the job done that we use dogs to do. He can sniff out prey, scare it up, and go retrieve it. In the process, we also want them to pay attention and obey basic commands. Gus is not so hot at that. If dogs can have A.D.D. Gus has it. If he has to work too long or too hard to be successful he starts to fade. The worse it gets, the worse he gets. If left un-checked he will wander off in search of a mate—or anything close enough. That is just too long of a list for Gus.

One time Mark and Gus went hunting with a small group of guys. They were after turkeys, I think. What is known is that they were in a wooded area and relatively close to each other and the dogs. The brush got pretty thick at one point and that slowed everyone down. Joe was one of the guys. Joe was making his way down a bit of a slope and had to get over and through some fallen trees. Gus was hanging in his general area. That’s when Joe slipped. Poor Joe fell to his knees, then forward catching himself with his hands. Well, that was all the window Gus needed. He was on ol’ Joe before anyone knew it. Big Gus had his front paws around him like a bear hug, and was pounding away with his full weight and strength with his trademark wild abandon! Joe was stuck! He was already in a compromised position, and the brush and all prevented any leverage, but mostly Gus just had him where he wanted him. All Joe could do was plead, “Call him off! Call him off!” This, of course, was useless because there was no way Mark could blow a whistle while laughing his fool head off! Not that Gus would have listened anyway.

All that yellin’ just made sure that everyone got a good look and laugh at the sight… and a story to tell they’ll never forget.