Simple Things

Someone posted to Facebook about her husband tossing a sandwich out the car window at her while she was on a long run. And I can't think of the word "toss" without picturing this:

And then this:

And then remembering one fantastic therapy session where I talked about running the Tough Mudder and figured that big people could just toss littler people over the walls. Which was a very fun distraction from whatever personal misery and self-pity I was experiencing that day.

Just don't tell the elf.

An Open Letter...

Dear Future College Roommate of My Infant Son,

Hello. You haven't met me yet. I'm your roommate's mom. I hope you're enjoying his friendly demeanor and ability to find humor in all bodily functions. He is quite cute, and has a wonderful smile, which I'm sure you're aware of. I'm sorry he's probably charming the pants off of your girlfriend.

I'm also sorry he wakes up every four hours to eat. You should probably lock up your snack foods. He's been doing that since birth, and we never did figure out how to cure him of it. I'm sure the two of you get along great, since he loves boobs and you're in college now and you probably do too. Maybe you also share a love of stand-up comedy and classical music played on pretend xylophones. It is an uncommon fascination, but less annoying than living with someone who can only study when John Williams soundtracks are playing (true story!).

Good luck with him. I'm sad to have him out of the house, but it will definitely be fun to watch someone else try to sleep in the same room with his piggie-snorting sleep-breathing.

Sincerely,
Adam's Mom

Flowers for Anna-non

In school, "Flowers for Algernon" was one of my favorite short stories. I have always been a sucker for using text and punctuation to relay information beyond words.

Having this second baby is a lot like living through that story, physically. I started out slow and fat, got really lean, really fast, ran a marathon at the peak of my training and coasted along for a while. But now I'm at the part where I'm watching everything start to fall apart. My body is pooching out in different places (totally healthy, I know). One by one my pants are getting put in a box... along with old race shirts in the Small and Medium range. My splits have gone from 10's to 12:30's to lucky-if-I-finish-a-5k-in-less-than-45-minutes.

And today I went for a walk. I never intended to break into a run- I dressed for, and prepared for, a walk. Sigh. Super-sigh. Luckily, I keep remembering that this isn't permanent. But it's just such a weird feeling to be getting slower, and bigger, and to be running shorter distances. The backwards feeling is undeniable.

I know "Flowers for Algernon" is more about mentally disabled people than the glib problems of being a slower runner. But each time I look at a positive split (for you non-runners, that's a bad thing) or see the walk-breaks getting more frequent, I can see what's coming up, and it's not easy for me to be ok with it.

Please don't read this as me not being insanely happy for everything else that's going on in my life right now- the world is doing amazing things for us- I really couldn't be asking for anything else. I've prayed and hoped and waited for this exact time of my life for SO LONG that it's weird that I'm even registering this as a disappointment.

"Remember Me?"

"Hello there. It's been 5 weeks since I've seen you. You've been so busy with that interval-training program that I was starting to think you forgot about me. But we had that big snowfall last night, you spent more than an hour shoveling, and you woke up with a bad head cold. I knew you weren't going to try those sprints today. I was worried you were going to leave those pink Sauc's in the living room, but when I saw you put them on I knew it was my day to shine.

"And boy, did I deliver: steady pace, just the perfect amount of sweat, a wonderful mind-clearing, thought-emptying, space-out, no aches-or-pains, chill-out...

Love,
Your Easy Run"

Wax On

Poetically

Walk.
Breathe
Tall
In
Out
THIS moment
Now
Start





Run.
Pump
Extend
Push
Fly
Soar




Walk.
Breathe
Rest
Renew
In
Out




Run.
Work
Push
Foot
Leg
Arms
Go

Walk.
Exhale
Again
Absorb
Draw in
Fortify
Build
Prepare





Run.
More
Endure
Focus
Continue
Work
Strength

Walk.
Pace
Inhale
Recover
Stamina
Replace
Check-in




Run.
Still
Again
More
Go
Push
Burn







Walk.
Proud
Tall
Accomplished
Smile
Succede
Awesome

Pronunciation Key

About 15 years ago I pledged a fraternity (yes, a fraternity) as a freshman. There were six of us in our pledge class. 2 men, 4 women. For the purposes of this story I have to name them MS, MG, A, P, S and then me.

We decided to declare our individuality by spray painting our letters on a giant bedsheet and hanging it from the front of the fine arts building. Three things to note: the fine arts building faces one of the busiest streets on campus. The front of that building houses a professional art gallery. The night we chose to hang the sheet was one of the windiest that year. 

Six of us gained access to the roof of the fine arts building about 11pm. We roped the sheet to the roof, and watched it blow right back at us. We needed ballast. We sent MS and S to the ground to tie the bottom to some bushes. Only a few minutes after they arrived the red and blue lights made their appearance. MS and S were sitting ducks. The 4 of us on the roof took off running. 

[Security guards from the school were "watching rabbits" on a boring night when they saw a group of people they assumed to be attempting to break into the school's art gallery. They called the police.]

P and A escaped quickly to the men's dormitory adjacent to the fine arts building. MG and I couldn't access that building so we started running. Not surprisingly, I was the ringleader of this operation and I was wearing a backpack full of our supplies (mainly rattling spray cans). We ran across the roof to a ladder toward the back of the building. I jumped down the ladder and watched MG start to slowly climb toward me. There was a searchlight scanning the roof. It waved above her head like a menacing T-Rex in a Spielburg movie. At the last second she jumped down and we were both hidden by an open door. 

The door led to a staircase inside the building that dropped us right inside the green room of the theater. "Huh, didn't know that door led here!" 

We snuck out a side door and tried to run-for-it toward the back parking lot. Cue another sweeping searchlight. I was running in front. I turned toward the light and began to put my hands up in the classic "don't shoot" posture. MG shoved me hard in the back and we both crashed down behind a berm on our hands and knees and crawled quickly the rest of the way to the parking lot. We hid under a car. 

The parking lot was a terrible hiding place. We crawled through it until we reached the next street. 

Did you guys know I had a problem with running? Well, we had to run. And we ran. We ran the long and far way around campus. We circled the entire school and arrived in our own women's dorm at about 12:30am. We rushed up to the room of MS and knocked on the door to find out where she was. Her roommate answered that she was not home. 

"Uh, she might be in jail," we dejectedly admitted. 

"That would be good for her," was the reply. 

MG and I went to the bathroom to attend to our wounds (cuts, scrapes and a LOT of road rash). Hours later S and MS arrived in their respective rooms after having been questioned by police. 

The next day we were hauled into the office of the Fine Arts Director. Our names had been handed from the police to the school. Since we had no intention of stealing any artwork or defacing school property they never filed a formal report. We were reprimanded, but not disciplined. 

In the end I found out that the list of names was drawn out of the memories of the pledges, who, as a part of initiation, had been instructed to learn the spelling (but not the pronunciation) of each of their fellow members. 

Fourth Date

This other time, after meeting Stephan, he took me on a date downtown Chicago. I bought new shoes- cork and suede wedges. They looked a little bit like these but with brown instead of the blue.............

Anyway- they were new. I hadn't broken them in yet. I started getting blisters as we walked to the sushi restaurant. I secretly slipped them off under the table to give my feet a little break. I don't remember anything about the food because there was a DJ spinning techo music much too loud during the meal.

As we walked back to the car I took the shoes off and asked Stephan to hold them for a minute while I fished in my purse for something (possibly band-aids for the broken blisters that I was dealing with due to the shoes). I was walking and digging as I heard him exclaim, "BEGONE DEMON SHOES!!!" I looked up just in time to see the shoes sailing through the warm summer air, and landing about 20 feet below us in the Chicago River.

I had no words. I just stared at him. He grinned like he'd just caught a hail-Mary pass. And I just stared. Finally, the only words I could think of slipped past my clenched teeth, "I don't think I'm ok with that."

We walked in silence to the car.

Always Get in the Limo

In 2002 I was working as a lighting designer with Lightswitch at the Concert for World Children's Day sponsored by the Ronald McDonald House Charity. I was 23, engaged (to not-Stephan), and working my way steadily up the design food chain. During production it was my job to adjust the lighting for backstage interviews. I got to stand shoulder to shoulder with Celine Dion, Enrique Iglesias, Nick Carter, and Michael Bublé. It was a cool job. I wore glasses at the time.

I watched all of the interviews with the artists with an artistic eye toward the lighting. And then Michael sat in my chair. This is what I remember of the interview (which never made it on-air or onto the DVD):

Interviewer: Michael, why did you agree to do this concert for charity?

Michael (totally paraphrased): Hey. I'm just a guy who likes to sing. I'd be singing no matter what job I was doing. But God gave me the skill to sing well, and if I didn't use my gifts to give back, then why have them?

There might have been more to the interview. But I didn't hear it. It was the most honest, humble thing I'd heard all day. I was brought to tears. Later that day I saw him walking down the hallway by himself.  It was totally against the rules, but here is what happened:

Me: Um, Michael? I know I'm not supposed to talk to the talent...

Michael: Hey, no problem. What's up?

Me: I, uh, I heard that interview you just did backstage. I was the lighting person. And I just wanted to tell you that what you said was really touching. I heard a lot of interviews, but none of them were as personal and honest as yours. 

Michael: Well, I meant it. I'm so lucky that this is my job. I LOVE my job!

Me: Me to! Doesn't it make it so much fun to go to work when you love what you do?

Michael: Yeah. [Shakes my hand] It's nice to meet you. 

Me: ......

Michael: Wow. You have beautiful eyes. 

Me: .....

Michael: And your hands are freezing. My limo is right outside. I can warm them up for you out there. 

Me: .....

Me: .....

Me: ..... I'm working. I mean, I'm on the clock. I'm... I'm at work. I can't. But, um, thanks?

Michael: No problem [walks away].

Wicked Which

I went for two runs on Monday morning.

For the first run I threw on my windbreaker pants, fleece sweater, baseball cap, gloves, and scarf. The wind was almost unbearable. It threw itself right into my eyes, pricking tears instantly. Every lunge forward gave the wind an opportunity to steal precious inches from my stride. My quads froze almost immediately, and numbed to an ice-bath-like temperature for the remainder of the run. My nose ran. I've never mastered the snot-rocket, but the wind was wipping so harshly that it evaporated almost immediately. My lips chapped and cracked within minutes. My throat dried out. The clear sunlight taunted me from far above my head. I ran for 3 miles. They were slow, painful miles. It was like something out of a Russian novel in it's sadness and torturous nature.

The second run had me dressed exactly the same way. But the gloves were too much. They came off. The fleece got unzipped, and I debated losing the scarf and hat. The sun was warm on my skin. I debated the intelligence of not wearing sunblock. The sweat dripped down my temples and dried in salty riverbeds along my chin. I could feel the humidity of my breath bouncing back and forth across my face. My strides were long and confident, and I ripped off the 3 miles like a jigsaw through a pumpkin.

Punch-line? This was an out-and-back run. I started on Monday heading into a 30+mph wind, and ended it with the wind at my back.

Dude. Wind. Not my friend in the winter.

Copyright Infringement

So... I guess my Zombie-iPhone-game-is-a-government-training-program idea has already been done.

And it's been done well, my friends. Very well indeed.....

Chapter 1

While I was on a Zombie run this morning I passed an unmarked police car. The man inside was on a phone watching out the window. He was in plainclothes. He stared at me while he spoke into the phone.

Which leads me to this:


Zombies, Run! How an iPhone App Saved the World.

Chapter 1

We thought it was just a fun way to run. We thought it was helping our interval training. We thought it was just a game. We were wrong.... It was actually a sophisticated recruitment program for an apocalypse the government knew was coming. They had the Zombies, now all they needed was the antidote. With thousands of trained runners already up to date on the lingo, the missions, and the goals, all they needed to do was to activate a world of Runner 5's to connect the desolate outposts that had survived the initial outbreak.