RIP MICHAEL

Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico 'Sunday Morning' from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

It's the Neighbors This Time

Girl: I want you to wash the dishes while I wipe down the counter [cars passing by below] You know last year when I told you I didn't want to be with you anymore I [cars passing by] I'm so sick and tired of you not realizing what an . . . asshole you really are [cars passing by] I'm so fucking tired of you acting like everything is one big fucking joke.

MapMyRun.com - Regular Run: Regular Run on 06/15/2009

6-10-09

[there is something that goes here but I can't quite tell what it is yet]


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Logan to 19th Ave
19th Ave to Glenarm (briefly)
Glenarm to 18th St.
18th St. to Arapahoe
Arapahoe to 14th St.
14th St. to Bancock
Bancock to 9th St.
9th St. to Logan
Logan to 12th Ave.
12th Ave to Pearl
Pearl to 13th
13th to Logan and home

"Friday I went with a coworker of mine and her son and we parked our cars at the bottom of the incline in front of this house. She told me to leave my keys behind the planter near the garage and I jokingly asked if she knew who owned the home. 'Yeah. We're gonna have a beer there when we're done,' she said and smiled and plodded ahead of me. Her son had disappeared by this point.

So we walk up this paved road to the incline and it's just these old trestles from an incline track that doesn't operate anymore and this 52 year old woman I'm with just goes bounding up them. I'm following her and she's like, 'Don't try to keep up with me, just go your own pace' and I'm going my own pace and keeping up with her still until about 1/2 way up when I have to stop and rest. She didn't stop and rest the whole time. I stopped maybe 3 or 4 times the whole way up and finally I see her standing by the side of the track only about 20 feet ahead. I get moving and make it up to her and she's standing at a trail head and I stop, huffing and puffing and feeling like my head is going to explode.

'You ready?' she asks and I tell her to give me just one minute to catch my breath. She says, 'C'mon' and starts walking down the trail and I sorta reluctantly follow her. It's raining where we are but you can look out over the flat expanse down below and out there is a break in the clouds where the sun is coming through and a very short part of a rainbow. 'You usually run this part?' I ask and she says yes and I tell her let's go and she takes off ahead of me. My legs are like rubber bands but I manage to get them moving and suddenly I'm alone running down this mountain. I hear someone coming up behind me and I stop and wait and these two guys are just tearing down the trail and running with a form I hadn't thought to try; more like rock-hopping, and so I try to mimic it and I begin to pick up speed. Eventually I catch up to my coworker and we both make it back down to the paved road below. She's all, 'We'll do it again next week! It'll get easier!'

We got back to the house that we parked our cars in front of and she yells up to the guy standing on the deck across the front and he welcomes us up. She introduces me to him and then to a married couple who had had a baby 6 months ago. The couple reminded me of some of my friends back in Baltimore. And so more people show up, people I haven't met before, people I've only recently met; there were like 25 people there, couples, kids. . .literally some Judge. And they were really welcoming and had me help them prepare the food and fed me and, you know, I just had a beer. I talked to a couple of people but mostly stayed quiet and listened. That's one thing I learned back in Baltimore was when to talk and when to keep quiet. My coworkers there would get together and sometimes I'd go out but it was totally different here on Friday. Just more welcoming or something, I don't know. But, you know, that's a situation that I didn't used to feel comfortable in, with new people, you know, and here I am, I know virtually nobody and I'm ok.

I left late, like around 10, and was given directions on how to get back to the highway and just before I got on the highway I stopped to get gas. I pumped the gas and got back into the car and fished around for some music for the long drive back home. And for a couple of minutes I just sat there and thought, 'Where am I? And how did I get here?' You know? It was crazy. I'd realized again that after the last 4 years, all my hard work was finally paying off. I have me and that's not bad at all. I'm happy with myself, happy with where I'm at in life, happy to be sitting in the parking lot of a gas station at night, 70 miles from this home, many miles from anything I used to call home, finding that, yes, I can do this, and actually I like it. That's crazy."

My Friday afternoons for now, 2/3 up to run down the Barr trail:


Yesterday, instead of buying a road bike I bought a pot to brew my beer in. And some beer to brew, with more hops than I've ever brewed with. 6 oz of hops. Nice.

Started and finished a 10k the other day. Glad to have both started and finished; I didn't think I could.
I had the day off yesterday and so for a good bit of the day I went out and priced road bikes. I'll be buying one soon, likely.

Basil is coming in nice, though I over-watered last night.


I'm finally winning the war against the gnats. Instead of yellow leaves falling from the ficus there are new leaves growing.

I started this post last night, took it down this morning, changed a few things today and re-posted it. I think it remains a work in progress.