this was not how they said it would be...

a smile is a poor umbrella. can i get a towel here?

when you're inside and comfy, weather is a ho-hum subject.

when you're outside running in it, however, it's less pedestrian. or, you know, more.

"training specificity is key," according to somebody at runner's world. "tailor your training to your event. if you're traveling to an event, there's not a lot you can do to control elevation and climate changes. but you can study the surface, average weather, and elevation of your event, and plan your training accordingly."

which means my training should've taken place on a treadmill. in the shower.

the forecast for the lake chelan shore-to-shore marathon called for a high of 74, with a 30% chance of showers. the forecast was wrong. so very wrong.

at the start: rain

mile 1: rain
mile 6: rain
mile 14: rain
mile 20: rain
at the finish: rain

every mile in between: rain

i'm not complaining. last year, i've learned, race day was sunny and 90° by 10 a.m. between those extremes, i'll take the rain, every time. it makes "staying hydrated" so much easier.

still, the sloshing was epic.

from what i've heard, the chelan course is very scenic. during the race, however, there was little to see: wet pavement. wet runners. wet volunteers. driving out of town after, the skies lifted a bit, and yes...beautiful. water surrounded by a diorama of high, rolling hills, wrapped dramatically in low clouds. it'd be worth running this event next year on that basis alone (and to test the local claim of "three hundred days of sunshine a year!").

speaking of the volunteers, those out manning the aid stations during this race were spectacular. instead of staying in their cars (or bailing altogether), they geared up and showed up and kept everybody going. they smiled and laughed and cheered, and i would like to high-five all of them.

random rain-related observation: when they're really sopping wet, compression shorts chafe in some unfortunate areas.

random gender-related stat: according to race organizers, 70% of this year's runners were women. make of that what you will ~ but according to the surgeon general, it's because more men are watching more football on the couch these days, and women are just generally smarter than men.*
(* i don't have actual statistics to back this up, but really, would you be a bit surprised?)

song stuck in my head the entire race: long road out of eden. could have been worse. could've been "the night the lights went out in georgia."

my race pace: not fast, but considerably quicker than my long-run training pace. my longest training run was 20 miles, so the last 6.2 miles at chelan were run as if uphill. underwater. still, not so bad.


goal one: finish. check.
goal two: finish in 3:56 or better. check.

waiter, we're done here. check.



on my feet and moving.

first fest

"don't overthink it."

"for everything, there is a first time."

~ shakespeare (or was it spock? i don't know. let's go with "shakespock" and call it good)

************
i'm not a list person, but i have a marathon coming up. and since it's my first marathon, i have a list.

it's got some weird-sounding stuff on it: injinjis and altras and zoots. oh, my. it also has some normal-sounding stuff: shirt, shorts, hat, sunglasses, chia seeds, lime...what?

i'm guessing many of the items on "the list" are completely superfluous, and will be left in the hotel room. but, you know, better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. i'll make a different list next time.

at the top of "the list," in red ink, is the minutes-per-mile pace i'll have to run to finish under four hours. it looks kinda like this: *9-minute miles = 3:56

also up there is the time i'd have to beat to qualify for the boston marathon. it looks kinda like this: *BQ = 3:30:00 ha ha

i left off *marathon world record = 2:03:02 because, you know, there's only so much room on a post-it note.

according to another list, of sorts ("16-week training schedule" @ marathon rookie.com), today was my last pre-event training run. three miles was prescribed, but that seemed short. so i ran 3.5. not sure what impact this transgression will have...if i fall down a half mile short of the finish line, unable to continue, i'll know.

************
existential dilemma: headphones or no headphones?

there was a time when i wouldn't go for a run, any run, without some kind of sound being pumped into my head. for months it was the music in my itunes library, which eventually evolved to a random pandora mix. after a few months of that i switched to pandora stand-up comedy. i would literally lol while i ran, which may have scared people as i passed by.

that was a long time ago. with a couple rare exceptions, i haven't run with headphones in over a year. then again, i haven't run a marathon before. come mile 18 will i curse myself for deciding not to bring them along? will they distract me so much that i forget to stay hydrated and fall down a half mile from the finish line?

f*ck it, no headphones.

************
the race-day forecast for lake chelan and vicinity...

Day Sep 7

Few Showers

Chance of Rain:

30%

Wind:

N at 5 mph

Humidity:

73%

UV Index:

6 - High

Sunrise:

6:27 am

Moonrise:

9:01 am

Moonphase:

Waxing Crescent

74^°F












High

this is fantastic news. daytime highs in chelan can range into the 90s this time of year. so, assuming there's no hair-igniting lightning associated with these showers, we can stay focused on important topics, such as why there was no rain gear on "the list."

(note to self: add "rain gear" to "the list." then figure out what "rain gear" means in this context.)

************
packet pick-up and pre-race dinner will be at the vin du lac winery in chelan. they'll be pouring $5 glasses of wine for the occasion. woo hoo, cheap-but-good wine! which i will totally be foregoing. mutter*mumble*murmur...

************
my first marathon put up a fight. i was all trained up in april ahead of a may 5 target event (vancouver, BC!)...but life happened, that window closed, and months went by. come to find out there aren't that many (road) marathons scheduled during summer, and fewer still that synchronized with our family schedule.

but an obsessive scouring of the internet turned up a race that fit the calendar, was not too far from home, and was not insanely expensive. when i signed up it seemed far in the future. now, in the blink of an eye, it's upon us. so it goes.

************
as someone said (i don't know who), "you run the first ten miles of a marathon with your head. you run the second ten with your legs. and you run the last 6.2 with your heart."

standing here, t-minus three days and counting, i have a good bit of confidence in my legs. in my head, not as much. it's time to find out about the heart.

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

"when I run, the world grows quiet. demons are forgotten, krakens are slain, and blerches are silenced."

~ matthew inman




on my feet and moving.

sept. 7, part III

more than one way to dance...

as i may have mentioned once or twice, i'm preparing for this "marathon" thing.

which means i've been running extra miles here and there, in hopes my body won't get halfway into the event and decide, "no."

in the handful of months leading up to race day (sept. 7), i averaged about 110 miles per. in the final few weeks pre-taper i averaged about 39 miles per. in august, according to my handy-dandy mileage log web site, i ran 155 miles.

that's 20+ miles farther than any calendar page in my brief running history.

i don't want to make a big deal of this, because lots of runners i know put in lots more miles than that every month. on the other hand, i do want to dance a quick little dance celebrating the difference between august and all the months that came before it.

there. done. i'm not much of a dancer.

continuing on this path, it turns out that i want to continue on this path. which is to say, i want this to be the first of many such events. after this, i have an october trail half marathon on oahu...after that i'm eyeballing a trail marathon in november. 

after that...who knows.

but, i get ahead of myself. one goal at a time.

one step at a time.



on my feet and moving.

epiphany in an in-box

when news breaks,
the ASPS fixes it.

now THIS is junk mail.

today i got an email from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. in it was this stunning headline:

UK homeland security unearths breast-implant bomb threat

i kid you not.

note: the ASPS is the professional society of practitioners of the, uh, plastic arts in the US. they put on the group's annual conference, which i have attended. seriously! i saw some work there that...wait. i digress.

the link led to this lede:

"Al-Qaida’s chief bomb-maker is rumored to have developed explosives that can be concealed in implants or body cavities, and are undetectable by airport scanners.

"Staff at London's Heathrow Airport have reportedly been warned to be on the lookout for explosive breast implants, with one staff member saying "there are genuine fears over this."

"We have been told to pay particular attention to females who may have concealed hidden explosives in their breasts," the airport worker said.

in other words, we have met the enemy, and they are boobs.

no wonder there's been such an uproar recently over breast feeding in public (really, google "public breastfeeding uproar." it's a become a thing). turns out the self-appointed mammary police aren't being overly sensitive ~ they're worried about the safety of the children. that's nice of them, don't you think?

"you never know what might be hiding in those bosoms," said no one ever. "we're advocating a concealed-carry law, because the best way to stop a bad girl with breasts is a good girl with breasts."

it's a wonder that this story hasn't blown up worldwide. or at least in the traumatized states of america. it's got everything: explosives! terrorism! boobies! it's the kind of news that fuels the national obsession with titillation ("side boob!" "nip slip!" "wardrobe malfunction!") and keeps the NSA in business ("america wants us to find those boobs!").

how long before the TSA adopts a whole new pat-down protocol for female passengers? and what will that look like ~ i can't imagine, and i have a vivid imagination. 

while we're at it, why doesn't this alert apply to anyone who looks like they've had some work done? face lifts, butt lifts, calf implants. these are not the exclusive domain of women, you know. men get them, too!

which makes me think this whole "story" could be the perfect diversionary tactic: people get all crazy ogling women's chests ("those could be fake, those could be real, those could explode"), while men with false pecs strut right on by.

there was a time when this scenario would have been too absurd to be true. but the idea of "too absurd to be true" pretty much ended with the bush administration, and this is the logical conclusion of the idiocracy those guys set in motion.

casting the human female breast as a weapon of mass destruction?

sigh. the terrorists (and fox news) have won.

it's a completion thing

this far, no further. also, no less.

today was a 20-mile day.

when i got back to the house, the garmin said 19.5 miles.

i thought, "f*ck it, close enough. we're done here."

then i thought, "uh, no. you didn't come this far to come up a half mile short."

i kept going another half mile.

today was a 20-mile day.

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

on a related note...this was my first-ever 40+ mile week.

42.5 total.

i'm feeling some carpolepsy in my future.



on my feet and moving.

make it up as we go

sets the bar high, decides bars are boring,
throws bar away, invents new bar that
can't be defined with actual words.

"An athletic achievement like winning a race, setting an FKT, or even simply running your first marathon are all moments suspended in time that came about because you focused your great energy and creativity on them.  Believe in yourself, practice, enjoy the process." 
~ candice burt

i'd like to be candice burt when i grow up.

in her world of trail running she makes up her own events, runs beyond their finish lines, then discovers she doesn't really need events or finish lines any more.

in other words, she does what she wants, when she wants to ~ and does it very well. where does one apply for a job like that?

a little reading about trail running reveals a couple consistent themes: one, practitioners say they feel most human, most alive, most at peace when running along an unpaved path through the woods or astride a remote mountain ridge or on the edge of some nameless canyon. two, these folks also describe jaw-dropping physical punishment that sometimes goes along with running in places like these.

"after a while i couldn't feel my feet any more, but i kept going."
"i was hallucinating pretty bad at about mile 60, but i kept going."
"at one point my heart stopped, but i hit myself in the chest really hard and it started up again, so i decided to keep going."

oh, yes, three: more often than not, trail runners keep going. seriously. the last thing any of them will countenance is failing to finish. when they don't, usually it's because they've lost consciousness. or a limb.

i came late to this party, and i've yet to experience anything really extreme. so far i haven't attempted anything far enough or steep enough or treacherous enough. this, i know, is both to my benefit and detriment. what i can confirm, however, is that trail running is life-affirming, soul-soothing, and good for my little brain. it requires you to keep your head in the game 100% of the time while simultaneously enabling you to forget there's a game going on at all.

and you have to appreciate any endeavor where you make up your own events, run beyond the finish line, and get to decide when finish lines are arbitrary and silly. 

"Believe in yourself, practice, enjoy the process."

this way, i think, lies freedom.

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

(FKT = fastest known time)

on my feet and moving.

sept. 7. 2013 part deux

"You're not puking and nothing's broken, so get going." ~ Vivian McQueeney to her husband, Scott, during the Badwater ultra marathon (2000)

we're t-minus 31 days to september 7. which explains the queasy feeling in my stomach.

it turns out training for 26.2 miles is hard. after back-to-back 37-mile weeks, my body is looking at me sideways, saying, "you, sir, are a jerk."

i'm used to the shorter runs ~ six, 8, 10 miles, up to a half marathon. on the trails, on the roads, at lunch, after work. i've been doing those for a couple years. the long runs? 14.7 miles, 16, 18, up to 20 next week. these are different. and they're taking a toll. 

so far the aches and pains are tolerable. the fatigue and recovery, however, are a work in progress. as noted elsewhere, i've contracted a good case of carpolepsy ~ "a chronic, inexorable need for a lunch-hour nap in one's car. symptoms include apathy toward remaining upright, inability to do anything requiring open eyes, and system-wide dullness, languor, and torpor."

i think it's the dullness, languor and torpor that troubles me the most. maybe. i don't know. whatever.

what i do know is, where i used to routinely go get some lunch, go shopping for shoes, or  head out for a run, now i whatever i can't finish this who cares where are my keys

***********

finding a shady spot to park is important. away from other cars and foot traffic is preferable. windows down far enough to let in a breeze, not so far as to let in random birds. seat back as far as possible. rolled up yoga mat for neck support. turn off the phone. deep breath...

bam, it's an hour later. where am i? what day is it? where'd these feathers come from? i may have eaten a bird.

***********

bird or no, at this point i'm always starving. and i never bring enough food. this happens every day! why don't i bring more food?? f*ck! i keep a jar of peanut butter in my cabinet for just these occasions. i'm eating peanut butter. i don't particularly care for peanut butter, but, you know, where's my spoon?

aloha, turtle! knife and fork? oh, these. these are just,
you know, ceremonial. come closer, see for yourself.

***********

i have one of these 36 oz. bottles at my desk, and it gets refilled about three times a day. with water. because i'm drinking a lot of water. 

i also have a water bottle in my car. there are too many variables in a long commute to be without it. even in seattle, where it rains a lot. i don't want to find myself broken down on the side of the road, dehydrated, hoping someone will drive by and splash water in my mouth. 

do you know the word "desiccation"? it's not a pretty word, and i don't want to be associated with it. ever.

***********

at some point in the past few months i went from, "i have no interest in running a marathon," to "i might want to run one at some point," to "i've signed up to run a  marathon on september 7." i don't know when the tipping point happened, but it's set off a little cascade of epiphanies that i'm still processing and will write about at some point if i can keep from losing consciousness. that was a long, awkward sentence. i don't care.

it's not like several people haven't run marathons before me. they have. and it's statistically probable that some of them did so without contracting carpolepsy. so, in the interest of salvaging whatever dignity i may have left, i believe i'll just shut up and run.

current status: not puking. nothing broken. getting going.

on my feet and moving.

here's good...

attributed to arthur ashe, who may have
cribbed it from teddy roosevelt, but whatever. 
it definitely didn't originate with a parent,
because it's way too calm and zen-like.

so, the missus started a new, office-based job this week.

which means she's no longer working from home and simultaneously keeping an eye on things there. like kids. and dogs. and other random acts of senselessness.

now we both work on the other side of town, which for the last seven years i've referred to as "the other side of the planet." because not only is it far from home, but it feels disconnected from home. in a way that phone calls and texts and emails can't bridge.

"the dog threw up? tsk, bummer, babe."
"the girl threw up? tsk, sorry to hear it, babe."
"there's a pack of rabid zombies roaming the neighborhood? tsk, drive away fast, babe."

see? no matter what was happening, i was completely unable to contribute anything helpful. i didn't like that feeling. still don't.

and now the missus understands. today, four days into the new gig, she called to tell me she feels like she's lost touch with what's going on at the house. i empathized. and added unnecessarily, "welcome to my world for the last seven years." i don't think she found that helpful, either.

we realize this is a first-world problem. there are lots of people who, for various reasons, would love to trade places with us. people who want to get away from their kids, for one. people who don't like fleeing from zombies, for another. and, of course, people who don't have jobs.

we get that. and, let's face it, we've made our choices. a house in seattle? check. food for a menagerie of semi-sentient beings? done. wine? uh, yeah and lots of it, please.

these things come at a cost ~ emotional, physical, spiritual ~ that we've been willing to pay for a long time. and will continue to pay, apparently. will we look at each other one day and say, "it was all worth it" or "i'd do it all again"? no, seriously, i'm asking...will we? because, standing here today i think it could go either way.

ha ha.

just for fun, let's entertain the prospect that one day we will look back and say, "what were we thinking?" wait, we're already asking that! ha ha again! twenty years to retirement (assuming we ever get to retire) and we're doubting the fundamental decisions of our life! what does this mean? how did we get here? what have we done?

no, seriously asking. again.

never mind. doesn't matter. what's done is done. the fact that we're posing the question is a sign of a healthy appreciation of what's important and what we want going forward. it's not a sign of an actual analysis of those things, mind you, because, uh, still no idea. but at least we're asking!

truthfully, we are now more than ever listening to the inner voices ~ emotional, physical, spiritual ~ that we've shushed for so long. it won't be easy, appeasing all the constituencies ~ especially from the other side of the planet. but we're telling each other we're going to try.

"start where you are. use what you have. do what you can."

so simple. how hard can it possibly be?

(note: i know the answer to this one, thanks.)

sept. 7, 2013

26.2

i'm in.

miles to go

coast to coast to coast to coast.

out with the old, in with the new car smell.

it's just the smell that's new (maybe spritzed in at the dealership), because the car is a 2011 with 21K miles on it.

but as someone said, if you haven't seen it, it's new to you. us. whatever.

and it was long overdue. the previous car was purchased in 1999. it was with us a long time, and served well. right up to the point where it fell apart like the blues mobile at daley plaza.

fourteen is old for a car. older still for an american-made suv with multiple cross-country trips carrying kids and dogs and irritable adults.

and while it was time to move on, there was a moment at the dealership when the missus paused and said, "it feels weird to just leave it here. we've been through a lot together." her eyes welled up, just a little, and at that moment, it got me, too.

i thought, briefly, about the big dogs riding in the back, and much younger children in car seats. trips to the beach on the outer banks. countless bags of groceries, and the smell of shredded bark mulch. 

the time zipped by like a blur of trees on the side of the road.

it was just a car. but as i'm just now discovering, right this second...turns out the space inside it was filled up with life.

damn, it got me again.

there be bears, there...

yes, i've actually been to montana. once.

there are days that i think, "montana sounds good. a house on few acres near the mountains...lots of trails to run, lots of room for the dogs to roam. how much could that possibly cost?" 

this is one of those days...

doma no mo

when you're on the right side of history, it's easy to shake your head at the folks who don't get it.

what's tough is to see things from the other side ~ the side that just saw its sad little aluminum can of churl crushed by the gentle caress of progress.

after much reading, the argument against marriage equality seems to be this: "i don't like it."

good news for anti-gay bigots: you still don't have to like it! dislike it all you like! simmer in that thin bland pasty porridge for the rest of your days, if that's what fills your soul with righteous insensate pique.

but know this: your feelings are irrelevant. i know...that sucks, right? especially after years of being in a privileged class used to getting its way, and feeling pretty smug about it. also, know that your feelings are unamerican.

many of you are law-and-order types who will cite any document with words on it if it suits your purpose. you were shocked, then, to learn that same-sex couples were denied hundreds of benefits, rights and protections provided on the basis of marital status under federal law. your respect for the law demanded a solution for your fellow americans being discriminated against so unfairly and egregiously. right? 

see, you're feeling better about this already, aren't you?

you knew all along, deep down, that "i don't like it" is no basis for a fair and just legal system. if it were, if america were made up of petty personal preferences and "the way things have always been," then you know, slaves. and i think we can agree we can't have a great country and slavery. or a great country and corporate personhood. or a great country full of faux congressional christians. such things just don't go together.

and you...well, you can't drive around with your "proud american" bumper sticker if you think it's defensible to legally discriminate against people just because you don't like them.

well, you can, but it's really nothing to be proud of.

racin' jason...

do you ever get a song stuck on "loop" in your head? and it just stays with you for hours, no matter what else you're doing?

of course you do. silly question.

this was mine on saturday as i ran a half marathon at taylor mountain...

you could do worse over the span of a couple hours, i suppose...it just kinda played on background while the rest of me was on autopilot over 13.1 miles of ridiculous trail ranging all over the mountain.

the prerace briefing warned everybody about technical single-track trail and stream crossings and mud and loose rocks and heat and dehydration...all of which was spot-on. what it didn't mention was how much fun all that could be if you're feeling good and moving easily and have a breezy little tune playing in your head.

which would've been a pretty weird prerace meeting message, admittedly.

i don't have a coherent narrative for this event, just a bunch of free-floating impressions that are popping up as i write this.

there was mud. lots of it. more than once i saw someone plant a foot in the middle of the quagmire and come up without a shoe. they were obliged to go in elbow-deep to retrieve a shoe-shaped mud-thing. one guy reportedly schlurped through the muck for half an hour and came up empty, causing him to lurch the last few miles on one bare foot. which could not have been fun on the...

...long downhill strewn with loose rocks. you would think in a litigious america that race directors would never take a chance with this kind of liability exposure. thankfully, that wasn't the case at taylor mountain. i don't know how long it went on, this ankle-rolling knee-buckling teeth-jarring scree, but it wasn't long enough. getting through it unscathed was terrific, actual fun.

taylor mountain foliage.

narrow corridors of lush green foliage. there were places on the course where the growth of brush and ferns and wildflowers was so thick and unruly that it nearly closed off the path. the trail itself was pretty obscured, which meant you had to take many (many) steps on faith and hope for the best. some of the brush was composed of nettles and blackberry brambles, but still ~ beautiful.

horses (several). horse poop (lots).

streams...too wide to jump. the first one came early on, and my thought was, "i don't want to run the whole race with wet feet." so, all clever-like i daintily tiptoed my way across wet rocks and a mossy fallen tree trunk. dumb. wet rocks and mossy logs are a bone-fracture hazard, and dry feet were never an option this day. future reference: jump in, get through, get on with it.

roots. downed trees. low overhangs. steep, slippery switchbacks. thisclose to several full-on face-plants, complete with pupil-dilating adrenaline surge. awesome.

first race wearing my altra superiors. they hung in there on the sketchy terrain, and kept me upright where i might've deserved otherwise. the zero drop profile in these (and my altra torin road shoes) takes some getting used to, but now that i've made the adjustment ~ love 'em.

a great event put on by the folks at evergreen trail runs, who do a first-class job every time. now thinking about doing something slightly crazier toward the end of july, say the chuckanut mountain 30k.

"It has a little of everything and will test runners' skill on narrow and technical single track trails, long climbs and descents, a shorter steep climb, with some beautiful views from the Chuckanut Ridge, Fragrance Lake, and Lost Lake Trail. Course has about 5,000 feet of elevation gain."

hmm...

s'ok. i couldn't catch anybody...

on my feet and moving.

if the shirt fits...

according to thesaurus.com i'm "rangy."

apparently some people think i look skinny...

i prefer "lean."

"rangy" works, too.

running note that won't mean a thing to anyone but me

so, i've run a bunch of trail events this year, and done fairly well amongst the old guys (50-59).

but i noticed one guy in particular was always finishing a spot or two ahead of me, usually by just a couple minutes.

jay grubb is his name, and i've never met him. not even sure what he looks like, really. all i know is he's 52, and runs a lot of trail events (great, now it sounds like i'm stalking him).

we both ran the taylor mountain half marathon this weekend (june 29), and a look at the results reveals that i finished first in my category (16/125 overall) ...and 9 minutes ahead of jay grubb.

so, there's that.

60-second nonfiction

gotta love these guys...

that was close.

it's been busy around here. too busy. i've been traveling, mrs. spaceneedl has been traveling. we're about to go traveling together.

schedules being what they are, it looked like my streak of 13 consecutive months participating in at least one running event would come to an end.

my last hope was the june 29 taylor mountain half marathon. i went to register...and it was closed. i tried the 5K. closed.

so i got on the wait list for the half...and, you know, waited. 

today "a few more spots became available" and i got registered. boom.

the streak continues.


on my feet and moving.

60-second fiction

dude, don't sneak up on me like that...

it was a big damn bear, and it was moving toward me. which made it easy to forget the conventional wisdom that black bears are sort of overgrown raccoons, not particularly dangerous, unless you startle one or stumble across one in a bad mood.

this one was definitely startled, and closing the distance between us.

i ran.

50 word fiction

give or take a few words...

she squinted into the midday desert sun. heat waves on the horizon nearly hid the approaching truck, but she saw it. 

standing there sweating, she wished the driver would hurry the hell up. at this rate, he was still several minutes away, minutes she didn't have. 

"put the gun down, put the gun down," she sang under her breath. "imma set fire to the whole damn house..." 

defying brevity

"it's more important to look mahvelous than to feel mahvelous." 
~ billy crystal

"if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it's just possible you haven't grasped the situation." ~ jean kerr

***********

i'm a pretty good faker of the calm. 

but probably not as good as this guy, who assiduously worked on a rubik's cube as the plane he was on plummeted toward earth...

"I was surprised when the guy sitting next to me said, 'Man, I was freaking out. I was about to lose it, but then I looked over and saw you were so calm that it helped me calm down too.'  Soon other passengers sitting around us started chiming in, sharing the same experience. It seems a wave of collective calm slowly rolled over the back of the plane helping to ease some of the tension. Without being aware of it, I projected calmness to the people around me. They in turn became calmer. And ultimately my internal fear started to fade away as well. It was a surreal experience but it became clear to me that calmness was contagious, even if I was only faking it."

there have been times ~ earthquakes, hurricanes, hydroplaning off the highway at 70mph ~ when panic was clearly called for, and yet i've stayed strangely calm. i have no explanation for this, but i'm grateful. in tense situations, a grown man running around shrieking like a five-year-old is rarely helpful.

sadly, it's the little things that tend to send me into an undignified tizzy. things like...

the seattle mariners: (see, i told you it was the little things.) in a world filled with inconsequentialities, the mariners are smaller still. they don't mean to be. they just can't seem to help it. and me, inexplicably, i can't help but watch them and care about how they do. season after hopeless season. i sit in front of games, at home and less frequently in person, and i care. i don't know why. i watch them fail, and i get angry at their failure, and i swear spontaneously at the television (i swear silently when watching in person). then i chide myself for caring about something so insignificant, when there are far more important failures worth caring about. (shakes head) the seattle fucking mariners.

politics: history will little note nor long remember the intensity of my love/hate relationship with politics and other people who love and hate politics. want to distract me from any subject, pursuit, or baseball game? make an innocent, offhand comment about something political. important note: i will immediately judge you and base further interaction with you on the outcome of the conversation that follows. forever. this is not a healthy or appropriate behavior on my part, and i apologize for it preemptively and unreservedly. still, i now believe you're a very smart person. or an idiot. let's talk some more about this. let's never talk about anything, ever again.

first world problems: my parents don't have wifi. i can't decide which pair of running shoes to wear. do i want beer or wine, or both? i think we have way too much food for this many people. we're down to our last pound of coffee. i have to take off my polarized sunglasses to see my iphone screen. i let people merge in front of me all the time and hardly ever get a "thank you" wave. comcast sent us a standard-def box instead of the hi-def box we're paying for. it's national donut day but i don't like donuts. i haven't started packing yet for our trip to france.

sleep deprivation: i've been compelled to nap in my car at lunch three times this week. it's entirely possible i may have carpolepsy. (autocorrect tried to change carpolepsy to "carpool rosy." which makes me wonder what the autocorrect people do in their carpools.)

BREAKING: i've just received an email from agent mark a. morgan, field director, FBI, washington, d.c.  according to agent morgan, the feds have intercepted two shipments at JFK airport, addressed to me. shipments containing $4.1 million! yay!!

here's where sh*t gets real, though:

"You are therefore required to contact me within 72 hours on this email {emailhere} at that point I will walk you through the process of clearing and claiming the money. Failure to comply may lead to your arrested, interrogation and/or you being prosecuted in the Court of Law for tax evasion and or money laundering. You are also advised not to contact any bank in Africa, Europe or banking institution."

as you can imagine, i'll be contacting agent morgan post-hastily. fortunately i'm a verizon wireless customer, so he had no trouble tracking me down. thank goodness for NSA surveillance!

***********

in recounting all this, i've projected an outward appearance of calm. as a result, i believe, others around me have remained calm as well. there may be other explanations for their bizarre placidity (drugs) but why shouldn't i take credit for it?

i think we're done here.

stay calm, everyone.