TC trail 1/2M: 1st win of '07

since the TC half-marathon traces trails i run all the time, i have a terribly unfair advantage because i know how exactly long and steep the hills are, and i’m intimate with the fast stretches where you can make up serious time. fortunately for my competitors coming from jersey, PA and georgia (rilly), i still get lost on the very-same course i help mark, and i’m not above running an extra mile or two if a clewless bluehaired volunteer directs me the wrong way.

last year, i didn’t get lost or misdirected and no super-fast women showed, so i won. this year was the same deal: i rolled in 1st F, with a time 20sec slower than last year largely due, i believe, to the mental wobbler i had in the middle of the 2nd creek crossing. i’d just come off a crazy downhill –- and if you know me you know i can’t run downhill if crazed, starving bears are chasing me. you skiers out there, YOU can run downhills well, but i, bereft of any sense of line, fast-twitch muscle or eye-foot coordination, am absolutely shit at them.

so i’d just come off this downhill, and a dude who was nowhere near me at the top of the hill was now chewing at my heels.
- i wish i could have seen you do that – i said, referring to his incredible descent.
- oh it’s nothing, really. i just go straight. unspoken is the observation that i bounce around like a pinball seeking the best foothold and have probably run an extra 800m just in the time we ran down to the creek.
- do you like those shoes? - he inquires - because i’m thinking about buying some off the net. that is the problem with Inov-8; few bricks & mortar retailers carry them.
- i LOVE them. they’re so comfortable, and you feel the trail so well.

at this point we plunged into the icy creek, brown and swollen with friday’s rains and though the first time through i was okay now i cannot see for shit and am slipping all over the place. dude is definitely not going to buy these shoes, i think as i slip on a slimy rock and topple ass over tits into the cold water.

but what the fuck are you going to do, really. you can’t get mad; you’re in the middle of a creek for fuck’s sake, and some motherfucker is taking pix to preserve this for posterity so you might as well accept this experience as just another humbling example of how small you are in the universe.

by the time i clamber out on the opposite bank, i suspect it may be 2008.

- i do this race EVERY YEAR – i lament to the chick accompanying the shutter bug – and this creek crossing never gets any easier.

then i run the wrong way down the trail and have to be redirected. Descender Boy is 100yds down the trail already, and my legs are verrrrrryyyyyy heavvvvvvyyyy, and that’s not just because my shoes are sopping wet. i am tired and wishing i didn’t have that 4th jameson last night.

what saves me is Black Light Burns’ the mark which has been spinning in my head since the first jameson, and the earwormy line “sometimes you’re gonna have to get lost if you’re ever gonna find your way back to where you came from” seems very appropriate right now. the beat of the mark settles me back into a semblance of flow.

- i don’t want to be sexist or anything – assays one of the road marshals at the Chambers Rock crossing – but you’re the first female.

this is no great unveiling to me, because the last chick i saw was back at mile 0.5, but it’s still really nice to hear.

when i catch the Descender we have a lovely conversation: he is a soccer player (o bestillmyheart) taken to running for cross-training (mrrrroooow) who ran with his brother (awwwww) until mile 7 when slowbro sent him on ahead, to catch me, on the MF downhill (asshole fuck shit cunt). now he’s paying for his mile-7 hubris however and there are no more hairy downhills to save him. we run together until the shoe-sucking mudpools drain down his health meter and i’m left alone again, stuck in the no-mans-land between the mercurys and the mortals.

i am headily grateful for the finish line. i am shamelessly gobbling orange slices and hamburger patties with slabs of fake cheese when AJ finds me. he finished 5th overall and is now preparing for the 10K because he’s so manly he’s doing the full Triple Crown (1/2marathon + 10K + 5K).

- dude, i totally mistook someone else for you out there - i tell him through a mouthful of burger.
- yeah?
- yeah. i was convinced it was you: white hat, red race belt and toight little ass and everything. it took me a while to catch up to him but when i was right on his shoulder i said "so did you poo"? (AJ is notorious for submitting to the Call of Poo during a race.)
- you didn’t.
- i did. and he said "what" and i said "did you poo" but it occurred to me it didn’t sound like you, because it WASN’T you. "no," he said to me, "but now you’ve put the idea in my head."
- poor guy.
- yeah. he dropped way off pace then and i didn’t see him after that.

then Descender Boy caught me before the creek and i dropped into my own Poo world yadda yadda.

aisling i wonder if your ultras are like this??

outlook

pouring outside today
+
trail half-marathon tomorrow
=
sloppy mess w/great potential for muddy mishap

sooooooooo
bring out the jameson cos it ain't gonna matter newayz.

OGL's Malaria Dance

Our Glorious Leader, looking even more chimp-like than usual:

stealing, and leaving

fisch's kids are now home, released on bail. while Leader Kid showed up at practise this week, wearing his letter jacket and willing to speak candidly about how he and Follower had fucked up over the weekend, Follower Kid doesn't leave his parents' house, doesn't speak, doesn't accept visitors. fisch is worried, wonders whether he should be on suicide watch.

that kid better do no such thing. it's one thing if you've been in pain for most of your life and you've tried and tried and nothing offers any long-term succor. when bob dropped off the DE Mem Bridge, and when mack's wife left, we mourned but none of us were surprised. and in betsey's case we were relieved because her suicide was like the sword of damocles: you knew it was going to drop sometime; you just didn't know when.

but these were people who struggled over a lifetime, not 21-year-old kids who stole a fucking bike. FK better keep his shit together because fisch doesn't need any more grief in his life.

APC's The Outsider is one of the best songs about suicide, IMO. although maynard has stated it's written from the perspective of someone who doesn't understand and therefore can't empathise, i like its unflinching stance. it's refreshing.
listen

and here's DLo's even more remorseless interpretation:
listen

tragedy is relative

last night before track fisch was unusually talkative, first inveighing against a nameless seasoned runner who told another she was running too many miles (50/week) for marathon-training, when in reality recovery (lack thereof) was the issue. he also displayed the cover of the latest Running Times which shows 5K-specialist Meseret Defar in mid-stride. - never mind the fact that she weighs about 35 pounds. this is perfect form. you want to look just like this.

then he paused and with great gravity intoned - i have some bad news to share with you all. oh no - i thought - coach has cancer. or one of his kids was at virginia tech. instead, he told us that two members of his outdoor track team were apprehended stealing bikes in lancaster this weekend, that the act was obviously premeditated because they were using forged documents, and they might end up in jail because they're no longer minors.

- i just wanted you to hear it from me, if you haven't already - fisch said. i've thought about it a lot. i've done my grieving. here i cracked a smile. i thought fisch was making light of the fact that he's upset over a couple kids stealing bikes when there's so much bad shit in the world. but he wasn't joking. he's really cut up about this and when i talked to him after the workout, i realised that in fisch's mind the dumb-ass actions of these two kids reflect on him personally, on his squad, and UD's track program in general.

it's so convenient to believe you live in a vacuum and that whatever shitty decisions you make punish only yourself. i like to think i'm the only one responsible for myself, and therefore i and only i shoulder any burdens that precipitate from the stupid stuff i do; but that's Fantasy World. maybe fisch is at fault too for assuming so much responsibility for his runners' actions, and maybe he's taking all this a little personally, but the fact remains that these kids caused The Kindest Man on the Planet a load of pain & suffering. i wonder if they understand this.

-they're just skinny kids, too - he mourned - they will NOT do well in jail.

- well, they'll be even better runners when they come out - i said. faster. quicker. he grinned wryly. he can still find humor in the situation, so all's not lost.

fantastic workout, btw. 800m-1200m-1200-800-1200-1200-800, with 800s @ 5K pace and 1200s @ 10K, with half the interval distance as recovery. i love running.

a message from steve jobs

generally i try to stay away from nattering on about the fucked-up dreams that i have, but today is an exception. i need to get this off my chest. if i share it, i control it, right?

last night i dreamed that my windoze updater upgraded me from XP to Vista. pretty disturbing, eh? and wait that's not the worst of it!! my updater's leashed -- i.e., it's supposed to alert me to available updates and politely await my approval before installing -- so the fact that it went ahead and Vista'd me without my knowledge is all the more nightmarish, you know?

i call that a motherfucking sign to get a Mac Pro so i do.

gonzales' testimony

a picture says a thousand words, especially if they're i.don't.recall.

here's a tag cloud representation of alberto gonzales' senate testimony last week:

[from a little project at IBM called Many Eyes.]

yesterday was earth day

i did my best to extend my black mood through the weekend, but being an asshole makes you feel like such a heel when you're confronted by something like grocery bags hand-decorated by elementary school kids. i fucking love zingos. how awesome is this:


clene graas + clen wotrr --> hape pepol indeed.

i celebrated Earth Day by going on a 3-hour solo ride. i was feeling pretty hard-core coming back through landenberg on my bad-ass machine with 46 miles under my belt, when i cleanly fishtailed the turn at the bottom of flint hill, and began to hump it along the creek in an aero tuck. ahead of me were 3 kids taking up the road with their skateboards, doing tricks & flips.

they saw me approaching but didn't make a move to give me space. i got a derisive shrug instead, and all 3 seemed to bleed attitude. whatever.

but then we heard the sound of a motorcycle, and the boys' heads swivelled around to watch a dude bullet toward us on a crotchrocket. they moved aside with surprising alacrity and the kid who'd shrugged at me raised his hand and waved shyly as the dude busted by without even registering our presence. they watched him take a hard corner, mouths agape.

moral: in the bike version of rock-paper-scissors, the Ducati always takes the Fuji.

teh good...

... and i REALLY had to struggle for these cos i am in the blackest of moods:

-- thank god for trent notes how reznor "has broken and reinvented the rules of engagement on every level, from recording to touring to interacting with his fans." guess those 26 years on the way to hell finally paid off. if you want to see vid of reznor's latest hijinx go to Open Source Resistance and check out the "rescued footage" link at the top of the page.

-- from the sublime to the ridiculous, here's Hotdoll, the "love doll for dogs." on the odd days he's feeling particularly amorous, my dog seems content with humping one of the cats, which is fine by me.

-- i like fruit, and i like booze. now i learn they're even more efficacious combined: Alcohol 'makes fruit healthier'.

-- trent, sex, food and booze. what remains in the maslow pyramid? ah yes, music. today i'm stuck on DLo's airy remix of A Perfect Circle's 3 Libras. listen

it don't mean nothin'

33 dead at VA Tech on monday --> today a national day of mourning, one minute silence @ noon, americans asked to wear maroon & orange in honor of & solidarity with those fallen.

one car bomb kills 140 people in baghdad on wednesday --> business as usual.

today we are all hokies

chili, a clemson blogger, weighs in on the commoditisation of tragedy:

To the majority of people, the Virginia Tech killings have been reduced to a bumper sticker. I’ve seen more internet posts mostly consisting of “Hokies in our hearts” with little real commentary or insight about the tragedy. This has become a “Support Our Troops” sort of thing.

couldn't have said it better myself. read the whole post.

could be worse...

could be Carrot Top.

temptation

apparently there is $$$ in the IT coffers, for Inscrutable Chinese Man approached me with a deal.

- we can get you a new computer sooner than i thought. start looking and let me know what you want. i think you have two options: either a very nice laptop or a mediocre laptop plus an okay desktop.

right now i have a mediocre e-machine, so either option's an improvement. but a nice laptop might roll me into the twentieth century by convincing me to get wireless net access at home so i could surf porn all day long instead of just at work. wouldn't that be balls. a nice laptop with a **17** inch screen, FMC.

- cool. i'll start looking at laptops. oh, and i can get a mac, right?

Chinese Man is no longer inscrutable. he is chewing on a lemon and someone's jammed a hot poker up his ass. he even reddens slightly, like he's just done a jaeger shot.

- you want a mac, you have a 200-dollar budget. 200 dollars. you understand?

chastened, i nod. ICM is the one reason we're no longer a mac shop.

so i'm torn between accepting a free, "nice" POS PC and basically paying out-of-pocket for a sweet Mac Pro. WWJD in this sitch? and would He shave His Head to join APC?

blast email from Nike

i think this was supposed to be edgy and strong, but it just pissed me off.

stamina physical & mental

the small-talk prefacing our Girls on the Run board meeting last night was dominated by two hot topics. first was the shitty nor’easter conditions at boston on monday, and how the gusting 40mph winds and snow squalls added roughly 10min to the average marathon time. several of MM’s runners targeted boston to run qualifying times for Olympic trials and boy did they get punkd. only one made his cut-off, and boston took so much out of him that he’s out of running for a while.

reporting from the realm of the mortals, queen T and kell ran just under 3:20, when they’re usually 3-flat. kell said she could have run faster if she’d destroyed herself but decided to slow down & savor the experience; while QT spent 3 hours promising herself she’d never run another marathon ever ever ever.

the other item offered for consideration was the steeplechaser’s lack-luster performance at an invitational meet where he was hoping to notch a qualifying time for track & field Olympic trials.

- i just don’t understand – fisch said – he ran totally passive; he wasn’t even a factor. it wasn’t a case of sitting in, either. he was in the back, in lane 4 the whole time. and there was one time before a water jump where it looked like he didn’t even know what to do.

coach fischer is one of the kindest people on the whole planet, so if he’s clucking disparagingly at or about you, you’ve fucked up big-time.

- i was hard on him afterward too. i mean, i called in favors to get him on that line and so did you – fisch nodded at MM – and he goes and does this. people aren’t going to let him into meets anymore.

this isn’t the first time the steeplechaser’s folded under pressure – he did it before Athens too, running way off his normal times and not even making it to the qualifying quarter-finals.

just goes to show it’s not enough to have the physical ability to run 40x200m at 4min mile pace. you’ve gotta have the junk upstairs too.

dude needs some Tool i think.

personal shout-outs

happy birthday, mayra!

FMC, if RATM, DM and lars carried you through BUPA, check out 10,000 Days. the whole album is perfect to run/ride to -- that signature Tool meaty, rolling bassline just carries you down the road, and this album's more hook-y than earlier ones. you might hate maynard's voice, though. D claims he sounds like the dude from Stryper which begs the question why he's listening to Stryper in the first place but that's neither here nor there.

listen to the title track, which despite the quintillion times i've heard it still gives me goosebumps.

finally, subhangi i tracked down this little gem for you. enjoy, or be annoyed.

<ol>bullets</ol>

1. to test myself
   
2. to see if it's real
   
3. for practice
4. because it’s easier than I thought
   
5. because I can
   
6. because I’m ocean-size
   
7. for the asshole who cut me off on I-81 this weekend
   
8. for the bitch who laughed when I spilled my coffee this morning
   
9. for American Idol
   
10. for Mel Gibson
    
11. for Don Imus
    
12. fuck it, because you want me to say it, for fucking Hitler and
    
13. for Edward Norton
    
14. for Johnny Truant
    
15. for Esther
    
16. because she looks like Rachel Bilson
    
17. and he looks like Chris fucking Daughtry
18. for her dumbass MySpace page
19. because he's wearing a Google t-shirt
    
20. because I’m on a roll
    
21. because of the way they scramble
    
22. for their weakness
    
23. for mine
    
24. for the smell of copper, of action
    
25. to speak
    
26. to be heard
    
27. to prove you were wrong about me
    
28. because it will always be this way
    
29. because I can’t go back
    
30. because I can’t go back
    
31. because I can’t go back
    
32. because I can’t go back
    because I’m sorry
    
33. to leave

a nod to adam's countryman

yesterday, stuart o'grady became the first australian to win paris-roubaix, the Hell of the North. finally a day in the sun, with no wee mcewen stealing the aussie thunder.

little known fact: stewie's got an artificial iliac artery too.

BVD duathlon

i kicked off the multi-sport season with the underwear duathlon this weekend. as far as racing goes, i haven’t done anything more complicated than running since worlds last july, so i’m a little out of practise. some people are good enough to bring their A game to the first race of the year; not me.

so i’m flying by the seat of my pants. i didn’t check out the registrants list, so i don’t know my competition. while i know the runs are 5Ks, i have to confirm the bike distance with the woman racking her bike next to mine, and when she informs me it’s 30K, i immediately assume that’s 24 miles. 2 minutes before my wave takes off, i’m still waiting patiently in the porta-john line. it is what it is.

when the race starts, i’m feeling warped, wonky and clunky, like half of me’s in another place. i don’t look at my mile splits when we pass the markers because i’m happy in space and don’t want to come back to earth. details like this i don’t need to know. i don’t need to know my time coming into T1. i know i’m 3rd female, but that’s because a number of people have told me so. i wish they would tell me where i racked my bike, because i need it now and i cannot find it. i dart like a sparrow among the bright toys, narrowly avoiding multiple collisions with more focused racers, and finally spot and alight upon my fuji. off we fly into the wild blue yonder, urged on by gunfire thanks to the National Guard doing practise rounds at Fort Delaware.

we toil up a long gradual climb over the C&D canal and drop down the other side with Tool’s 10,000 Days. it’s time now, my time now, give me my, give me my wings…. my new bike is so swish; my zipps are so fast on the downhill; i feel so melloyello pedaling so softly going so fast…. and then some dude with a tri-spoke and rear disk shoots by me at like 50mph. he’s not even pedaling.

i feel faintly affronted, but rejoin the tool army and zone out for the next 5 miles, until i am passed by -- of all all things -- another chick!! i don’t mind being skooled by dudes on a bike, but i am not at all okay about being passed by a girl, and this one looks scary: super-aero position with a pointy aero helmet, riding a Lightspeed Blade with seatpost cages with straps that swing in the breeze, hypnotically, swing swing wings wings, you’re going home…. she blasts ahead and triggers my one lucid thought of the race: if it took this scary monster 7miles to catch me, then her run must really suck, so if i can maintain contact with her, i might catch her on the second run.

i work all this out in my head, then tackle the question of how many miles remain to be eked out on the bike. roughly, it is 30K minus 7 miles, or 4412042 apples minus 3636366 oranges. i know a K is 6/10 of a mile; i know 10K is 6.4 miles; and i know 5K is 3.1 miles; but matching any of these ratios to 30K requires too much complex dimensional analysis for my disembodied state. i’m completely at a loss until i recall that my trail race last weekend was 15K, which is happily (play along with me here) half of 30K, and i know i ran 9.3 miles last weekend, so THANK GOD i’m riding something like 18 miles, not 24. by the time i work all this out, there are only 2 miles left to ride and Scary Monster is still on the horizon (as a speck, sure, but there nonetheless), so i suck down a gel to celebrate and mentally gird my loins for the run.

when i roll into T2, i am informed Scary Monster is 2 ½ minutes in front of me. that is a big deficit to overcome in 5K. plus, i am lost in the transition zone again. where the fuck are my shoes?? this is getting really old. thankfully we’re racked by number so i’m reduced to counting back from 119 to 131, and there are my shoes. fast Wing-ed shoes.

i take an extra lap around a tree trying to find my way out of the transition zone and giggle because an unsuspecting dude has followed me thinking i know WTF i’m doing, and then we’re on the course again. i pass a bunch of guys and even for a time use one as a shield against the battering headwind on the way out to the turnaround. i see kerri and then sue coming back the other way; kerri flashes me the peace sign and sue grimaces. they aren’t MILES ahead, anyway, and look there’s Scary Monster just rounding the turn as i’m approaching it.

now my skin is prickling because the prey is in sight, and weak. i survey her from behind as i gain ground. she doesn’t look nearly as scary running as she did on the bike. she looks human, like she’s running an 8-min mile, whereas i feel like i’m spinning out a sub-6. [let it be known that i’m barely sub-7, but with my bronchitis-strapped chest it feels like 5:45ish]. when i pass her, she encourages me, “you’re third place. go get ‘em.” i chirp appreciatively, but i haven’t any such noble intentions. when i cross the line i am 100% happy with 3rd place.

does this make me a weak competitor, someone happy with settling? perhaps, but for fuck’s sake people it’s the first race of the season, both kerri and sue finished on the podium at worlds and this day i straddled the line between here and judith-marie and still walked away with 3rd place.

that night i celebrate with a rack of ribs, french fries and i-don’t-remember how many pints of guinness. after 8 months it is good to be racing again.

now, for some anti-biotics.

absurdist friday

animal-flavoured fun in honor of the vonnegut:

[was 50, now a shitload of] animals in casts. the embiggened pic shows this little guy to be in a doctor's office or something. i figure the receptionists who have to deal with shitty insurance companies all day took their frustrations out on him and jury-rigged this preposterous tube made of paper towels, snow fencing and zip-ties. after all the patients leave they probably dangle him over the trashcan and make him shred old records.


moving on, we've got some Pony Play action. alas, the "My Sexy Pony" vid link is broke, but there are some inspiring photos to fire your crafty imaginations.

did you know there are companies purely devoted to serving your Pony Play needs?? look at all these things you can buy! what a fun basement and workshop. these people may live right next door to you! neat!


huzzah, it's the hamster-Powered Paper Shredder! at first i thought there might be a good possibility for a spin-off Hamster-Powered Cat Shredder until i realised the point of this is sustainable living: the hamster works the shredder which provides the bedding for the hamster that works the shredder... ingenious!

oh, and the 2nd comment is the best. evar.



finally, danny lohner and a rabbit.

just because.


play safe this weekend, kids.

N - 1

yesterday afternoon i was enjoying a soul-smoothing ride when my bike began making noises i'd never heard before. there was creaking and grinding, and my pedal strokes began to get rough; and -- here's where i start to get technical and get adam excited -- i thought my bottom bracket might be seizing up, and that's like someone shoving a broomstick in your spokes. you simply can't pedal anymore.

i had a bottom bracket freeze like this before and i got stranded in eastern butt-fuck MD, where the Grand Dragons hang and immolate reliquaries on their front lawns. i ended up taking off my shoes and walking barefoot to a makeshift produce stand where an elderly gent with more generosity than teeth closed his stand to drive me back home in his pickup, where heads of cabbage rolled in the bed.

but although the grinding sound's growing more ominous i can still pedal, so it's not a BB issue. i notice, instead, that my chainstay looks more wobbly than it should, and the reason's pretty apparent: i've ripped it completely away from the seatstay:


i am that much of a beast, you see. so, i need a new road bike. e posits the ideal number of bikes is N+1, where N = the number of bikes you currently have. i'm down with this, but right now i'd settle for N, as long as all my N's function.

oh, and then? - after i crept home at 5mph, blowing out my knees on the watson mill climb because i was afraid to get out of the saddle cos i thought my rear end might explode, the dog and i bricked a run and got hailed and sleeted on for 3 miles.

sometimes i think it'd be easier to be sedentary.

by request:

killing 2 burds with 1 st0n. (hurrr)

fa-fa-fa-fa-fashion

hopefully this will rub carrot-top out of your eyeballs.

i could go for same cake right now.

i love nappy-headed ho's

unless you live under a rock or outside the U.S., you've been exposed to the uproar triggered by don imus's comment about the rutger's women's basketball team.

D and i got in a heated debate about this last night. D thinks imus is a whacked, racist, misogynist nutjob who deserves the drubbing he's receiving in the vox pop.

- that's just stupid - i spat. i'm cranky, sleep-deprived and on the cusp of sick. chills rack my body every so often and i took the afternoon off so i haven't had my PM endorphin fix... and i had a crappy AM swim because i have no lung power right now. i am just ITCHING for a fight, i mean debate. - that's dumb. oh wait, my Tolerance Training says i should phrase that as a question. how could people be so fucking dumb?

- he called the whole team a bunch of nappy-headed ho's. you think that's okay?

- he's don fucking imus. that's his PERSONA. he says shit like that because people listen to him because they expect him to say shit like that.

- he basically called the team a bunch of whores. that's what a ho is. a whore.

- are you that literal? you think the only person you can call "bro" is your brother? ho is just slang -- pejorative slang, sure -- for a woman.

- a ho is a whore. he called the whole team whores.

i throw up my hands.

at the root of this communication chasm is the fact that D works with a bunch of little old ladies who ply him with baked goods, while the group of degenerates i work with includes
-- a boss who answers to fuckchop
-- the GAD who calls himself a faggot
-- an afgangsta who posed with a box-cutter for the end-of-the-year slideshow
-- the earth mother who doesn't mind being called an opium whore
and last of all,
-- loucypher, who yesterday laughed at a moaning man in burger king, then realised the dude had down's syndrome. but what, you think it's not funny anymore then? - he argued - it's still fucking funny.

so i acknowledge that my perspective may be too lax, that i'm encouraging intolerance -- or at least not discouraging it.

i still believe, though, that the uproar triggered is hugely disproportionate to the comment itself. i do have sympathy for the rutgers women, but i also think that in their lives they've endured and persevered over more adversity than a generic, off-hand remark such as imus's.

am i just being naive here?

bleeeeeee!

because imitation (or stealing verbatim) is the sincerest form of flattery...

carrot-top... i'm against him!
[and don't fuck with what i mean by against.]

someone to watch over me

i put another notch on the racing resume this weekend when i traveled to reading, PA for a 15K trail race. i did this race last year and was 1st F; this year i was second. i walked away with a pig trophy and a 2-lb bag of Godiva chocolate. that is the good bling, champs.

oh, and i bled a lot too. i was running a flat, fast section of the trail to the toon of NIN's the good soldier, when without warning i was suddenly airborne. it was pretty cool - said the guy right behind when we were telling tall tales after crossing the line - and so graceful. i thought you hit a tripwire or something because your heels actually kicked up and for a second or two you looked just like Superman.

superman never landed so hard though. i drilled my right knee pretty good and scraped up my left shin, but it wasn’t ‘til i crossed the line that i noticed my right lower leg was commendably bloody. medics are that-a-way - pointed the promoter as he ripped off my number stub.

when i presented at the ambulance, the guys waved me right in. i’m on anticoagulants, so it’s worse than it looks. i mean, it looks worse than it is. was that right? i meant the good one - i explained feebly. Mr. Take-Charge medic didn’t look as relieved by my statement as i’d intended, and he had Junior clean me up while he asked me questions which i addressed rather distractedly after noticing that Junior had a really fine ass, and the day i’m not lucid enough to appreciate a fine ass is the day you should put me down like Old Dixie.

- is that your typical bony structure? - i looked where he pointed and appreciated a lump the size of a large gumdrop at the top of my shin. it was purply-black, too, just like the licorice ones (which are my favorite, by chance).

- no that is not my typical bony structure – i asserted, racking my brain to figure out how Junior might be persuaded to fetch something from the cabinet overhead in front of me.

- i say that because with you being on anti-coagulants, we need to be cognizant of the possibility of a clot escaping from this area – he indicated my gumdrop – and traveling to your lungs. are there gauze pads up there, i wondered, or maybe IV drips. maybe i could ask Junior how big those storage areas are and he would open them one-by-one to show me.

- i had a buddy who died from an embolism caused by something just like this. a paramedic, 34 years old, 2 kids. how far are you from home? are you here alone? - erp?? my attention shifts.

- yes, and an hour and a half away.

- okay, if you feel ANY shortness of breath, don’t play around. you call an ambulance right away, understand?

you know what's really nice? here are these two people taking care of me, me whom they don't know from adam and they're not asking me for a single thing except to take care of myself. for the most part, i work off a Myself Alone MO, so when caring swoops in from left field i feel ambushed and a bit moony.

- i understand.

Junior fashioned a make-shift ice-pack out of a blue latex glove and bound me up so that i could make a relatively unimpeded bee-line to the food table where i stuffed clutches of pink and blue peeps in my mouth until i nearly fainted from a sugar rush.

on the way home i crafted this haiku:
oh peeps i love your
sticky sweetness you make my
vi-lent heart beat fast.

friday, 6:22pm

jesus i need a beer.
or 12.

not-so-good friday

- will you be here tomorrow? - the mayor asked emma yesterday. she shot him down quickly.

- um, no? it's good friday.

- a good day to WORK! - the mayor chortled.

a good day to be grumpy as fuck, is my take on it. the only thing worse than going to work on a holiday is
-- going because you have to be a performing monkey
-- performing for high-profile, uber-duly-diligent prospective client
-- swallowing your suspicion said prospect is just toying with you, as they've done for the past 6 years
-- summoning the enthusiasm to begin performing at 3pm, 'til ...?

who the fuck schedules a meeting at 3pm on good friday?? a company you don't want as a client, that's for sure. penisfuckcuntsuckgash.

i hope you're all at home hiding easter eggs. save me the black jelly beans please.

year zero: listen

it has begun.

love: staying

last july 4th, a local runner fell in the stairwell of her townhouse, suffered a C2 spinal injury and has been in a coma since she was found, hours later, by a friend.

that much is true.

@ kim’s bed

Heya, mom. Yeah, so I’m sorry I didn’t come last week. Alex was sick, he had some kind of stomach flu where shit, sorry I mean stuff, was coming out both ends and Dad wasn’t around and I didn’t want to leave him alone. He’s better now, though. Dad took us to see 300 last night, and it was freakin’ awesome – it’s supposed to be about an ancient battle between the Spartans & Persians, but really it’s like an Ultimate Fighting match with some CGI creatures thrown in. You would have dug it. Dad hated it, of course, and when we got back in the car he yelled at me for tracking mud on the passenger side and Alex didn’t say a thing even though it’s his fault and even Dad could have figured that out if he weren’t so wrapped up in his own… stuff. Anyway, it was cool for him to take us out. And he said we might go to Aspen for Christmas this year. And, um, well it’s spring now, getting warmer, and your daffodils look really nice: the tall yellow ones and the shorter white ones. I know it sounds weird, but they remind me of a picture I have of you – you probably don’t remember cos it was a long time ago, like 10 years when we were all together, camping in Yosemite. We did this long day hike that seemed to go straight up the freakin’ mountain, and you hiked so fast that sometimes I had to run to catch up with you. My pack bounced up on and down on my back and that Nalgene bottle beat the crap out of my kidneys it felt like and I don’t remember anything about the trail, or what we passed, because all I could see was your legs in front of me and the way your calf muscles moved when your foot landed and took off. That was back when I thought you were an X-Man, remember? Like Storm. We finally got to the top, which was all wind-swept rock and a couple scruffy, short trees and you stopped at the last cairn – which was a good thing, cos I was about to freakin’ pass OUT – and when you turned around and saw me, you looked startled, as if you didn’t even know I was there. You looked down at me and there was something in your eyes I had never seen before. It was hard and wild and… oh, something. Do you remember that, Mom? Do you? You were breathing heavy (for an X-man) and you looked at me with those weird, startled eyes. “Wings,” you whispered, or least I think that’s what you said because it was hard to hear you. “Wings.”

We stood there listening to the wind, waiting for Dad and Alex, but the next people up the trail were a couple of Europeans, German maybe? – and you asked if they would take a picture of you and your son, and that’s the picture I’ve got in my desk drawer, under a bunch of back-up CDs nobody will ever need. In it you’re tall and straight, and I’m the knock-kneed, platinum-haired kid with one arm wrapped around your legs. The wind’s blowing your hair back and I can see that your eyes are back to normal, and your smile is your typical picture smile but it’s funny – if I squint my eyes and hold the picture really close, there’s a faint cluster of clouds that almost billows out from your shoulders.

Okay Ma, I gotta go. Alex has soccer practice and Dad says I can drive even more now that the weather’s getting better, so that’s really cool. Maybe I’ll drop Alex off at Ursuline instead, since he plays like a girl anyway. Heh, just jokin’.

Be back next week. I love you, Mom.

assorted whimsy

some random picks from the week:

-- pix from the LCD Soundsystem show in NYC. they sure don't resemble their sound.

-- all our clients are hopped up on the idea of Web 2.0. whatever. this is the best implementation of social networking i've seen so far: the Stick Figures in Peril flickr group.

-- also flickr'd: adam's new 365 days project, which reminds me of christa wolf's just-published One Day a Year: 1960-2000, a diary of 40 years of september 27ths, a project that wolf says was "a preventive measure against forgetting," which i can grok totally.

-- and lest we forget about the whole chocolate jesus thing, here's westolowski's take on art, religion and genitals. he maketh the coca-cola to exiteth my nose and appeareth on my monitors. if you head over there, ask him how he voted in the last presidential election cos i want to know but am afraid to ask.

-- finally, an inside look at the offices of some NYC notables: martha stewart, michael bloomberg, paul rudnick & others. do you see yourself in here?

and, for the more cerebral...

a morality tale:

hard-on 4 hard-core

it's spring. time to ditch the gloomy Radiohead and A Perfect Circle and get back to a little old-skool hardcore punk. get those vesicles pumpin.

from the east coast Agnostic Front's gotta go. to the west coast Black Flag's seminal rise above, from Damaged, their first full-length album and first with rollins. henry rollins, you might know, was just a fan 'til he jumped on stage with them in NYC in '81 and did such a rockup-sockup job that they took him on as their front-man. see, it could happen. i could set fire to the third bar. gotta go to delawhere yeah, delaware. some post-hardcore from boysetsfire: rookie n to DLo post-post-hardcore from Black Light Burns: mesopotamia. earworm fer shur, and how can you resist lyrics like mesopotamia, mesopotamia you fucking give me the creeps you fucking give me the creeps hey, it's wes borland and danny lohner, okay? not the exactly the philosopher kings of rock & roll, but sometimes you need a break from the thoms and maynards.

[mothers dont let your sons grow up to join bands like Skrew, or Angkor Wat, or NIN.]

april fools

- so, were you the butt of any april fools jokes yesterday? - i asked the mayor.

- no, i totally forgot about it 'til last night. google's was pretty good, though.

- how 'bout you, loucypher?

- i woke my wife up and told her the kids were dead. then i did the same thing to ash. "gamgam sarah is dead. so's your mom. here's a tissue. clean yourself up and go back to sleep."

- i love you, you know that don't you.

- you just love my doggy style.

- that too.

not going to du Worlds this year...

… not in short-course anyway. plans/hopes/pipedreams to rock the qualifier down in virginia beach this weekend passed away like so much diarrhea down the crapper when i came down with a stomach flu. i might have been okay to run 5k, ride 30k and run another 5, but there was no way the 5-hour trip down to VA was happening saturday morning.

so i spent the weekend curled on the sofa reading, switching off between sean o’casey’s autobiographical Drums under the Window and dan brown’s Deception Point. in my muddled state, a pretty interesting story emerged: something about the irish republican brotherhood planting a meteorite in the arctic ice shelf, and the head of NASA causing massive protests and rioting when he used the word “shift” in a public address. it made a lot of sense yesterday, anyway.

having done absolutely nothing but inhabit the couch since friday afternoon, i finally roused my lazy bones to attempt a trail run with the dog yesterday afternoon. people are beginning to emerge from their winter lairs and when we popped onto the park lot it was jammed with cars. i stopped to chat with teej, who’d just finished his run; and while we talked, i saw in my peripheral a child beginning to gravitate toward jack. any dog exerts some measure of gravitational pull over a child, and jack’s particularly cute, so i’m on constant alert for children and soft-hearted people in general.

and sure enough, now we’ve got an incoming. here we go.

child toddles closer; father strides forward protectively and establishes his ground, softly.

- what a cute dog. what do you think of the nice dog, jemmy?

jemmy better get the fuck away, is what the nice dog thinks.

both jemmy and his dad are still advancing. i pull jack closer to me, a movement registered by the dad, who for the first time looks at me.

- what a cute dog – he reiterates, then utters my favorite line: he doesn’t bite, does he?

- sometimes - i say cheerfully - and he’s not very good around small children. right on cue jack emits a guttural growl and curls his lips, freezing jemmy and his dad in their tracks. jemmy starts to cry and his dad glares as me, like i’ve just garroted the easter bunny in front of his kid. he grabs jemmy’s hand and jerks him toward the trail, looking back with one withering glance.

- i don’t get it – i said to teej – would they rather i lied, and let their kid get bitten? he shrugged and petted jack, who’d transformed back into dr. jekyll and was looking up with adoring eyes.

- he’s good protection – he said.

i like that reasoning. i feel tons more secure knowing that any would-be attackers under 3-feet will have a divil of a time getting past my dog.