It’s too patently obvious to remark that this blog is no ordinary runners’ journal. Suffice to say it is not a place to go (although in the beginning I had a sense it might be but it has evolved in its own way, a little of this, a little of that, and all me) for info on carbo-loading and shoe choice and sock preference, and interval training and I don’t know what all.
Which is not to say that Running for Your Life isn’t a runner’s journal. Rather it is a journal of a runner who also happens to be a writer. If suddenly I were no longer running I would probalby keep up the blog because the running I’ve done in the past thirty-six years would find a way into this space. It would be hard not running. But not writing? Hardest. Because I would most certainly be dead.
Running for Your Life: Feeling “Occupied”
So, You Want to Live in Park Slope Dept.
Trussed up with a bungee cord around a twenty-year-old street tree in Center Slope, laser-printed loose leaf sheet in a Ziploc clear-plastic envelope with a harsh message to an offending dog walker. Attached to the bungee cord slightly above the message lettering is a thin plastic sandwich bag of what looks like the hard black day-old scat of a lapdog.
*
You can’t get into a conversation in New York City today and not talk about the occupying force downtown. The protesters in Zuccotti Park. Not a single Z word that comes close. And before early October only the folks on the local community board knew that’s what that spot of green space just east of Ground Zero is called, now home to Occupy Wall Street.
OWS is a devilish venture. Before this one, the only ventures taken up in this neighborhood were real estate and financial ones. Like the spoof written by comedian Andrew Borowitz about Lloyd Blankfein’s Goldman Sachs: “As thousands have gathered in Lower Manhattan, passionately expressing their deep discontent with the status quo, we have taken note of these protests,” wrote Blankfein, in a recent letter to investors. “And we have asked ourselves this question: ‘How can we make money off them?’ The answer is the newly launched Goldman Sachs Global Rage Fund.” This will invest in firms likely to benefit from social unrest, such as window repairers and makers of police batons. As Mr Blankfein explained: “At Goldman, we recognise that the capitalist system as we know it is circling the drain — but there’s plenty of money to be made on the way down.” As of this date (Nov. 10), the venture is 54 days old, and counting.
Trussed up with a bungee cord around a twenty-year-old street tree in Center Slope, laser-printed loose leaf sheet in a Ziploc clear-plastic envelope with a harsh message to an offending dog walker. Attached to the bungee cord slightly above the message lettering is a thin plastic sandwich bag of what looks like the hard black day-old scat of a lapdog.
*
You can’t get into a conversation in New York City today and not talk about the occupying force downtown. The protesters in Zuccotti Park. Not a single Z word that comes close. And before early October only the folks on the local community board knew that’s what that spot of green space just east of Ground Zero is called, now home to Occupy Wall Street.
OWS is a devilish venture. Before this one, the only ventures taken up in this neighborhood were real estate and financial ones. Like the spoof written by comedian Andrew Borowitz about Lloyd Blankfein’s Goldman Sachs: “As thousands have gathered in Lower Manhattan, passionately expressing their deep discontent with the status quo, we have taken note of these protests,” wrote Blankfein, in a recent letter to investors. “And we have asked ourselves this question: ‘How can we make money off them?’ The answer is the newly launched Goldman Sachs Global Rage Fund.” This will invest in firms likely to benefit from social unrest, such as window repairers and makers of police batons. As Mr Blankfein explained: “At Goldman, we recognise that the capitalist system as we know it is circling the drain — but there’s plenty of money to be made on the way down.” As of this date (Nov. 10), the venture is 54 days old, and counting.
Running for Your Life: NYC Marathon
A beautiful day (Sunday, Nov. 6). Just shorts and a top is all you need, even in the morning on the Verrazano. Hockey great Mark Messier, in the crowd, the running crowd, that is. Any bold predictions, Mark? His first marathon, just finishing it is enough (Official Time: 4:14:21). And then, maybe a word with Tortorella, the coach of the New York Rangers, the kind of shape he’s in, and the gutsy determination of him, and he’d be a better bet than say, Wolski, or yeah, Avery.
Running for Your Life: Changes
So, You Want to Live in Park Slope Dept.
A sixty-ish owner-occupier of an antique shop on Fifth Avenue pokes his head out of his front door minutes before a weekday opening. He is greeting an eager shopper. Looking at his red face, I’m thinking of the spirit of a newborn, fresh out of the womb.
*
I don’t know if I’m having a midlife crisis exactly. Novelist Douglas Coupland in his predictable “Player One” writes that once a person has reached thirty-five she’s pretty much done, as in going to have the life that’s been circumscribed over those previous three and a half decades. What’s more, he says, echoing Schopenhauer (“The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary”), what in the world were you thinking. At twenty-five, that you could be a rock star, or a power forward for the Leafs? Ha! Might as well settle in to the role of consuming our limited natural resources to negative sum game and abandon the idea that you are providing the planet any quantifiable benefits.
A sixty-ish owner-occupier of an antique shop on Fifth Avenue pokes his head out of his front door minutes before a weekday opening. He is greeting an eager shopper. Looking at his red face, I’m thinking of the spirit of a newborn, fresh out of the womb.
*
I don’t know if I’m having a midlife crisis exactly. Novelist Douglas Coupland in his predictable “Player One” writes that once a person has reached thirty-five she’s pretty much done, as in going to have the life that’s been circumscribed over those previous three and a half decades. What’s more, he says, echoing Schopenhauer (“The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary”), what in the world were you thinking. At twenty-five, that you could be a rock star, or a power forward for the Leafs? Ha! Might as well settle in to the role of consuming our limited natural resources to negative sum game and abandon the idea that you are providing the planet any quantifiable benefits.
Running for Your Life: Sleeping Is Overrated
I’ve been sleeping less. I wonder if it’s jet lag. Or stress. I had been thinking that it had to do with Thurber, our new housemate. It’ll be two months next weekend that Thurb has been with us. And I can’t help but think having a 16-month-old redbone coonhound in the house, who for the first few months as a puppy had us near-tearing our hair out, might have something to do with it. But now he’s sleeping through the night, peacefully for hours on end so there’s little merit in that explanation.
No, it could be a change of life. Earlier this month, when my brother T came to visit, he said that he gets, on average, six hours sleep a night during non-vacation time. He’s a diligent one, my younger brother, who doesn’t get up to write the great Canadian novel before work; rather he’s working out, playing squash. He plays softball in summer, ice hockey in winter. He, too, has fallen to the DVT darkside and must monitor his blood circulation so he’s gotten even a bit more serious about staying fit. Curious bloodlines, ours.
No, it could be a change of life. Earlier this month, when my brother T came to visit, he said that he gets, on average, six hours sleep a night during non-vacation time. He’s a diligent one, my younger brother, who doesn’t get up to write the great Canadian novel before work; rather he’s working out, playing squash. He plays softball in summer, ice hockey in winter. He, too, has fallen to the DVT darkside and must monitor his blood circulation so he’s gotten even a bit more serious about staying fit. Curious bloodlines, ours.
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