bit of a sticky wicket, eh wot

Thought-Taco Thursday

--I'm boutta get into cricket, gods help me. Mr. Gleemonex got me started on this GD documentary series called Cricket Fever, which (at least the season we've watched) follows one team -- the Mumbai Indians* -- through a season in the IPL. I had, at first, no fucking clue what the goddamn hell was going on during the games (although I immediately got swept up in how exciting they are); by the end, I had like a tiny, asthmatic, wobbly-but-tryin-real-hard clue what was going on, although you could still tell me literally any cricket fact and I'd believe you, even if it was "Traditionally, every fourth guy who bowls has to do it ass-out, no pants on at all." I definitely wish they'd do it Pop-Up Video style, with context clues and further explanations, e.g. "Hardik Pandya is the Tim Lincecum of this team" or "The Mumbai Indians traveled 1,800 miles to this match, hopefully by air?" or whatever. And BOY do I have questions: How come all the players except the overlarge Aussie beast Mitchell McClenaghan are so THIN? and Where are all the women fans? and What in the White Cultural Hegemonic Nonsense made the team owner do that to her skin? and Oh so he's TRYING to throw it at the batsman's feet? and I'm sorry, what is an "over," again? and Ohhhhh my god YIKES this is a literal auction (to draft/build teams), English history of slave-trading WHAAAT??? holy shit, and (etc. etc. etc.). I fucking love it.

--I'm reading Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and y'all, it's really good, but wow, did she have a hard life. Harder than the Ingallses had it in the Little House books, by an order of magnitude. Yikes. (BTW, lemme also wholeheartedly recommend Caroline, A Little House Story -- basically a book-length fanfic of LHOTP from Ma's perspective, and I mean that in the very best possible way.)

--Mike Holmes is back! I went randomly looking at old posts -- I'm tryna get this thing going again, even if I'm the only one reading it -- and found one from 2010 that is all about my strange love for the man, the myth, the legend, just days after Mr. Gleemonex found the guy's new show (Holmes & Holmes, where he does projects with his now-grown son). Recurrence Phenomenon FTW!

--Just in case you wondered if my politics has changed since my last active years on here: Fuck yes, I'm way farther left now. And in the national arena: I'm for Elizabeth Warren, big-time, but I will vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is, because JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WOULD YOU LOOK AROUND OH MY GOD.

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*That cracks me up -- it'd be like, what, the New York Americans. 

I'm only happy when it rains

New Year's Potpourri

Girl in a Band, by Kim Gordon
This book, an xmas gift from the marvelous Mr. Gleemonex, is making me feel a whole bunch of feelings -- mostly in a good way, but not always. Nostalgia for old New York mixes with annoyance at all the talk about art shit (I have less tolerance for art talk than I do for podcasts, which if you'll recall, is really saying something), and I'm kind of skimming the deep dives into Sonic Youth's songs (I was never really a fan of theirs, musically -- I just kind of admired their whole deal in general, and the person Kim Gordon in specific). But then Kim will hit me with something like this, and it's devastating:

Writing about New York is hard. Not because memories intersect and overlap, because of course they do. Not because incidents and times mix with others, because that happens too. Not because I didn't fall in love with New York, because even though I was lonely and poor, no place had ever made me feel more at home. It is because knowing what I know now, it's hard to write about a love story with a broken heart. 

Fur Elise
So we were watching the excellent, troubling, tense and strange show The Man in the High Castle, and Fur Elise was playing in the background of this one scene, and I could. not. stop myself. from singing the lyrics, to Mr. Gleemonex's mild annoyance. It has lyrics, and you know them: "Oh I wish I were already there / instead of here / playing this song / oh I would have a big chocolate shake / a cheeseburger / and also  -- whoops -- and also fries / and I would eat / my fries myself / and not give any / to my dumb brother / hands off, they're mine all mine" (etc.). Come on now.

Rain
My SHATNER, how wonderful this rain is! Four blaring sun-baked years entirely without it, and it's all we Californians can talk about -- my brain is a jumble of rain lyrics, which sometimes get released out loud (e.g. I'm bopping across the blacktop to pick up the kid, muttering "and this rain it will continue / through the morning as I'm listening / to the bells of the cathedral ... I am thinking of your voice") and I'm pissed whenever the sun manages to break through -- FUCK OFF, SUN! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, YOU BIG SHINY ASSHOLE!

Although the red-jacketed still-black Michael Jackson put in a good effort, the kid in the homemade dinosaur/dragon thing -- ON STILTS -- won Halloween.

Overheard this morning as the school Halloween parade dispersed:

Second-grade girl to second-grade boy, who was wearing the most perfect Luke Skywalker getup I've ever seen: "There were so many Darth Vaders, I don't know which one was your father!"

Bonus good times: Shout out to the Indian kid going as Tupac, complete with fake Thug Life tats. Extremely well done, young sir.

Mad, Mad, Mad Respek for the Mouse

In Which the Blogger Gets Over a Not-Small Amount of Snobbery and Learns to Love -- I Mean, Fucking LOVE -- Disneyland

You guys, the Mouse has got it DIALED.

There is a reason people go there, and then go again and again and again. Every detail -- holy shit, they have every detail covered. Everything from ambient music to shop fronts to the way the queues work -- every perfectly-groomed trash-and-gum-free border planting -- every attendant's themed uniform -- every vista -- every bathroom, for chrissake!  The rides are fun as hell (OMFG, Radiator Springs Racers! Worth the park admission all by itself!), the FastPass system is genius, the workers' commitment to upbeat hospitality is awesome, the experiences of each area and attraction ... holy crap, you guys. I cannot praise this family vacation highly enough -- we barely looked at our phones, except to coordinate our movements and meetups, and we watched precisely zero TV or iPad for five straight days, which is miraculous for us. We walked as much as 13.2 miles in a single day, we blazed from six a.m. to 10 p.m. three days in a row ... we are all fucking exhausted but had such an awesome time! I'm over being a snob about the kind of people who go to Disneyland -- cause now I'm one of them, and I love the Mouse.

Herewith, some thoughts:

• I would under no circumstances attempt Disneyland & California Adventure:
• at anything less than 90% of my optimal health and mobility (CHRIST there's a lot of walking, stairs, walking, getting in and out of small spaces, onto boats, etc., and walking), 
• with any child under 40" tall (the threshold for virtually all the best rides), 
• without the Extra Magic Hour/Magic Morning (obtained either by staying in an on-property hotel or via buying the whole package through Costco Travel -- a whole hour before the park opens to the public. It's worth every penny)
• or with less than a 3-day park-hopper pass (there's no way to see/do everything you want to do in less time without dying of exhaustion). 
• I was under the impression that the FastPass system was pay-to-play -- but it isn't. I won't explain it here, but all it is is, with a little planning, you can skip lines and just ride rides. DO IT. 
• Cars Land -- Radiator Springs -- is the greatest theme park "land" I've ever seen in my life.
• The animation academy -- learn to draw a Disney character in about 15 minutes -- was fun, and not something I'd've thought to do, but Kid Gleemonex wanted to, so we did, and now I want to do more of them.
• The spaces allowed by the queue fencing on all the older rides (basically all of Disneyland, and anything built before, say, the mid 90s) are hilariously narrow -- not built to accommodate today's XXL American Physique, lordamercy. 
• World of Color was kind of meh -- it's supposed to be fountains and fireworks, and it is, but it's also -- primarily -- this weird worship service for The Genius And Wonder of The Most Beloved Dreamster Of All Time, Walt -- WONDERFUL Walt -- Disney. 

It's almost medical, what goes on under here ...

Jesus Hopscotching Christ do I love Tina Fey and also David Letterman.

This is beautiful -- and you should also check out the first part of her appearance, because that was the fucking awesomest.

Timothy Simons is as wonderful as Jonah (aka Jonad) is awful. Please to discuss.

You know how lots of times, you'll read more about a writer or actor or musician whose work you really like, and find out they are a total d-bag or serial cheater or anti-vaxxer or a Libertarian or something, and then you're just like, ugh, I wish I hadn't gone looking and found that out. Right?

Well here is the total opposite of that situation: Timothy Simons, who plays Jonah on Veep.

Jonah, the character, is a loathsome, grasping, legend-in-his-own-mind type who both takes and dishes out the worst insults on the regular. He's strange, he's awful -- and in his own way, a true marvel.

Timothy, the actor, is awesome! He's funny, charming, thoughtful, feminist, organically weird -- ever since I stumbled across this blog post of his, I have been reading every interview he's given and fantasy-casting him in all of my favorite books (I see him as Wyatt in Monday, Monday; as Bunny -- who I know is written blond but who cares -- in The Secret History, etc.).

Refreshing, is what it is, to find out more about a public figure and it's all good. Yay, humans!

"And I HATE SQUASH!"

Ethan Hawke is a known Turbo-Quattro Dickcheese, yes? Like, in every possible real-life way, right? So it's easy to forget how goddamn good an actor he is. But: He is.

We just saw Boyhood last weekend, 100% because of Richard Linklater, and oh you guys, it was so so so good. Nearly a week later and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. So many scenes are stuck in my head, so many feelings still being felt -- GOSH it was something. And but so all of the actors were completely ace, but special mention for Hawke because of what Roger Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary called the "Pentimento Paradigm." TQD Hawke is so good that you actually forget how awful a person he is, and that's talent (grudgingly acknowledged), y'all.

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Pentimento Paradigm: Pentimento is when images from an old painting seep through and become visible in a newer picture that has been painted over the old. Thus the relation is when what we know about a filmmaker or actor seeps into our perception of his film work. Example: Any old Rock Hudson movie now that his private life is no longer private. Being aware of the reality behind the fiction may add to the complexity of the drama (Taylor and Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) or distract from its intentions (Woody and Mia in Husbands and Wives).

At the beach, at the beach, it's a great day under the sun

So there was this pair of gal pals on the beach, ladies in their ... probably mid-60s, and not the yoga-at-sunrise, charity-board-meeting-at-one, cocktails-at-Muffy-and-Biff's type of mid-60s; regular ladies, like your mom or mine, with all the original physical equipment and whatnot. They were both out and about in fun swimsuits -- I particularly liked Madge's screamin-orange one-piece with the creative cutouts, but Debbie's blue swirly thing was great too. Neither one wore those apologetic, don't-look-at-me old-lady dark suits. And these gals were having FUN, man -- Debbie flat-out lied to Madge to get her into the water to snorkel ("Oh, it's warmer than bathwater -- just come ON!") and Madge yelled at Debbie ("Debbie! You liar! You know I can't stand it when it's cold!" "I know, that's why I said that!" [ancient-pals laughter]) and they both enjoyed some cocktails in plastic cups from the beach club, soaked up the sun, went into the water whenever they felt like it (it WAS warm and lovely, I must say; Madge is even more of a wuss than I am, w/r/t water temp, and that's saying something), just generally had a blast. THAT is the kind of older lady I want to be.

The jerk store called. They're running out of you!

37/40

I might actually die of wanting one of these "Can't Stand Ya" dresses. For real and for serious.

Fun fact: The person who makes them is Erin Pearce, aka the voice of Toodee on Yo Gabba Gabba.

Funner fact: She's 24. So ... like, I guess Old Lady Gleemonex and a youngster of the Millennial stripe could actually get along. All we gotta do is get going on Seinfeld quotes and we're likethis!

Another way you can tell someone's from Texas

24/40

Francine got it 100% right over there at Me At 13. This is my family's version: the Epic Hair-Off of Xmas 1994. I think my sister (at left) wins it, but I'm pretty proud of my own entry. That shit took FOREVER to blow-dry.

By the way, the man-hand looped over my left arm is, I think, my uncle's. It's not as bad as that one photo from the Internets a couple of years ago where that girl in a group shot from a party looks naked because of the way her friend's arm is kind of in front of her, but it took me quite awhile to figure out what was going on here anyway. 

I went on my first diet when I was eight. You?

17/40

Back from holiday-related hiatus, with a quickness. I am a little afraid to post this on Facebook, but I suspect I might anyway because goddamn if it doesn't take up my entire brain right now. FUCK to the yes.

Tried to take a hand-selfie, but couldn't hold the iPhone steadily enough, ha!

14/40

I have my grandmother E's hands -- knobby knuckles, long fingers, a certain amount of vein action starting to become apparent on the back -- with the breadth of the palm of the other side of the fan (more like my mom's). I've notice this fairly recently, and it's one of the things I am most OK with about my aging-ass body, because it's a tie to the past: My Grammy, to whom I was very close, lives on -- not just in my thoughts, but physically, in a way I see every day.

I'm pretty sure that out of all of these, Grohl is the only one who would think it was funny.

7/40

What Happens When You Leave Me Alone With the Blank Shrinky-Dink Pages, a Computer, a Sharpie and Some Colored Pencils When I Am Feeling Far Too Clever and Pleased With Myself

This is my homemade ornament set for the tree this year. Variations on a theme:

The Luckiest Girl

5/40

My great-grandmother, whom we always called by her name ("Jenny Mae" for purposes of this blog), was a big part of my life. I'm writing about her now because I just realized she was a grandmother by the time she was my age -- 40 is different now than it was in her day. 
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Jenny Mae was a vivacious, willful, eternally youthful and romantic soul with a grudge-holding streak almost as wide as her stubborn-mule one. Standing about 5'2" in very tall heels, she had a ton of costume jewelry and wore wigs as a matter of course; there was a famous tale in the family of me being shocked to see her "without her hair on!" when I was about four. In her late 70s, she apparently decided to hell with the wigs, and grew her own hair out long; it was gorgeous, salt-and-pepper, and it emphasized her Native American genes -- amazing cheekbones, dark deep-set eyes, a nose and forehead that in profile you'd recognize from a mile away.

When I was little, before she retired, she had a beauty shop up on the town square; she did what she thought best for all of her customers' hair, and too damn bad if they thought otherwise. I'd hang out there sometimes, and she'd buy me Dr. Peppers in those little 8-ounce glass bottles from the giant old-fashioned cooler in the front of the shop. They cost a dime, and she insisted on payment before she'd let me take one by the pressed metal top, slide it along the tracks and lift it to freedom at the little gate.

I spent a lot of time at her house, too, which was just a few blocks from ours; my great-grandfather, about whom she had concocted many romantical and adventurous tales, mostly sat in his recliner smoking menthols and wheezing out a few words every five years or so. Jenny Mae talked enough for any ten people, so although according to older cousins he was a real cuss back in the day, I guess he'd quit fighting the verbal tide a long time ago, especially with his emphysema. Anyway, Jenny Mae would make us crustless sandwiches, cut to custom sizes; she'd freeze homemade ice-cream in ice trays (for custom serving amounts); she thriftily got "government cheese" and other no-frills sundries; when we slept over, which we did a lot, she'd make bacon and pancakes in a cast-iron skillet for breakfast; a Felix the Cat clock -- the kind with the switching tail and the eyes that ticked back and forth -- would watch us as we sat at the kitchen island of her little 1930s bungalow to eat.

Jenny Mae always believed the best in us kids, her only child's only grandkids; she just knew we were all destined for fame, fortune and wildly successful love. She thought my husband (when he was still only the boyfriend) was the absolute bee's knees and wanted us to get married immediately (we were 19 at the time). She herself had "run off" with my great-grandfather at 15 -- although the details of this have still never been explained to me, because my family does not talk of things, and had my grandmother at some murky indeterminate age no one will pin down for me. And but so that meant, among other things, that I had the benefit of growing up with her, a third grandmother basically, who was still young and spry enough to take me out to lunch on my 21st birthday and buy me my first legal margarita.

She died when I was in grad school, a hurricane of energy and excitement till the very end, and I miss her still.

You can always tell who was in an HBO early-adopter household as a kid.

Sniglets from Not Necessarily the News That Have Stuck With Me for Lo, These Thirty Bygone Years: A Partial List

furbling: the act of shuffling through the maze of all the line dividers in an airport or wherever, when you are the only one there

backsplatch: the mud/water/whatever that splashes up your back when you ride your bike through a puddle

meganegabar: the big line you write all the way to the end of the written dollar amount area on a check, to keep someone from writing "and one million dollars" to the end of it

cinemuck: the crud that covers the floor of a movie theater (combination of spilled soda, popcorn, candy, etc.)

I'm going to kiss you now, Gerald.

Friends, the image on this magazine cover is everything I wanted to be, look like, and do with my life at the age of 16 (almost 17), which I was when it arrived in my mailbox in December 1990. EVERYTHING. I didn't even care all that much about Johnny Depp -- it's not about Johnny Depp. It's about wanting to look like her. This version of her -- I'd've taken any version, honestly, but this is The One. It's why I made the tragic decision to wear a hat in one of my senior portrait poses. It's why I wore blazers and pearly things, and experimented with weird lipsticks and haircuts to try to get this way -- it's why I stopped using Sun-In, for Shatner's sake! Fuhgaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh I still want to look like this.

For the record, I did *not* run for chocolate.

Interrupting the series that has you all on tenterhooks, I reappear from the schedule-blowing tilt-a-whirl that is Kid Gleemonex's summer vacation to bring you: 

Whatnot in re: the Half-Marathon I Just Done Gone and Ran!

--My finish time: 2:22. That's about forty minutes slower than BlabberMouse can do it, but damn hell am I proud of it! Yeahh boyeeeeeee! I felt great when we started out, kept pace easily with the 10:13/mile group for the first eight miles, and then faded a bit in the heat and headwind. I can't even tell you all what a lift it was to see my little family about a quarter-mile from the end, too, with their GO MOMMY GO! sign -- so much awesome. :-) I finished strong and happy, dead-legged and sweaty, and made straight for the champagne tent. Satisfaction.

--Lesson learned: It's not the running per se, it's the time-suck of the training that makes this type of thing hard to do. It's easy at first -- three miles, two miles, three miles, then a weekend "long run" of 4 miles. I can, and did, usually knock those out in the a.m. and get back before even Kid Gleemonex was awake. But later on, it's five-four-five-tenpointfive, and you're talking nearly two hours on the hoof on Sunday morning, which is just a beatdown.

--Which brings me to another point: "Support" is not a vague thing for the family of a person embarking upon a damn fool half- or full marathon. It's very specific; the partner has to solo with the kids while you're out running, the kids have to deal with Ma or Pa being gone on the reg, the partner has to listen to your run-talk for four months and then take a day off work so you can travel to the event and then bring the kids to the finish line to cheer you on (blowing another beautiful Saturday in the process), plus participate in the purchase of good running shoes, hydration gear, race entry fees, etc. All of which is to say: Thank you, Mr. Gleemonex -- you're a good man and a fabulous husband and I appreciate the hell out of you supporting me in this.

--This particular event was very girly rah-rah empowermentcakes, to the point where my finisher medal proclaims "I RAN FOR CHOCOLATE!" I, Gleemonex, love chocolate like the vagina-owner that I am, but goddamn it, that's not why I did this, and I resent the implication. I know the sponsor was See's Candies, but come ON. I'm a grown woman; I can BUY chocolate. But more to the point, and this is what really chaps my muscular thighs: I don't feel I "have to" run to burn the calories to "earn" the right to eat any fucking chocolate, either. I hate that attitude. I will eat whatever I want whenever I want it for whatever reason I want to, without regard to working out or calories or any of that good/bad food dynamic that fucks up everybody's -- well, every woman's -- life and relationship to food, and so the goddamn hell should all of you. Fuck that noise.

--Wow am I tired of running, as a thing. I want to do some Pilates, play some tennis, swim, lift -- anything but running right now ehhhrrmerrrgaaaaaaaahhhrrd.

--And finally: Ohhhh, you guys. This was something. I trained for four months to get to this point. I put in the time, did the miles, and fucking DID IT. And if  you've ever wondered whether you could or should, I say: yes.

There's a time and a place for everything, and it's called college.

The second in a four-part series. 

Things About and Around My College Transcript: 1993 - 1994

--Keep in mind: I was working at least 12 hours at a campus job this whole time, from my fourth day there in 1992 to the week of graduation in 1996; I didn't get a dime from my parents beyond the couple grand they (reluctantly and painfully) paid toward tuition. My grandmother sent me the occasional $20 bill in the mail, for which I was deeply grateful, but every other penny I spent (textbooks, food, beer, clothes, fees, etc.) was out of my own pocket. I added unpaid internships starting in summer '94, too. Tuff times in NYC, y'all!

--This is where I started taking classes for my eventual major, Film Studies. It started off pretty easy in the fall of 1993, with Masterpieces in American Film History (basically the "101" class), taught by the department chair (I got a B+), and World Cinema: The 1970s (which was an eye-opener in terms of 70s-style sexism, and was the first of three courses I took in which The Godfather was on the syllabus; grade: A-). Spring's Contemporary Italian Arts: Film class was fun and interesting too (and to it I owe the fact that I've seen such fun, bubbly flicks as The Bicycle Thief, Bitter Rice, and Open City, all in Italian with subtitles; grade: A).

--But oh holy Shatner was I out of my depth in Film Theory and Aesthetics, taught by James Schamus. He is a fantastic teacher, and hilarious, and it was great to take this with Mr. Gleemonex and with the guy who eventually wrote a book about alcohol and named us in its credits, and to have had the mandatory group TA sections with the TA who loved us all so much that he invited us to a party at the end of the semester and got all 10 of us shitcanned on the most awesome sangria in the history of ever. I could feel my brain expanding in this class. But all the good was nearly undone by the physical dread I felt each week, knowing how far below the bar I really was, and how hard the whole thing was going to be for me. Ugh. Miraculously, this ended up a B+. I think I wrote a couple kickass papers? Maybe the one about Rebecca?

--Hola, Espanol! Gracias para las notas de "A" en los dos semestres! I tested out of a year, so these were the third and fourth of four required semesters. I didn't realize I could test out of any of it, but the professor of the Beginning Spanish class I attended on the first day told me -- after I busted out a complete paragraph that included the word "guantes" in the "Hola, me llamo" portion of the meeting -- that I really really should. Heh.

--Contemporary Civilization (aka CC), with the densest reading list of any class I took, netted me an A- for both semesters -- which is weird because the classes were taught by two of the most different profs I  encountered in my entire four years. Fall '93 was a young, hip bisexual gal, shaven-headed and given to pre-class recountings of her motorcycle travelings of the weekend/night previous. She wouldn't put up with either dismissal of the "old dead white guy" authors or slavish devotion to same; she really wanted us to engage with the material, look at it critically (this is where I pretty much shed my lifelong Christianity ... oops), take different angles, see where the themes and works wove into other times, disciplines, theories -- and she was good at nudging us to go that extra step. But she bailed at the half to take a full professorship somewhere else, so Spring semester was with a nearly-dead old white guy who just kind of didn't fucking care at all. He had no idea who any of us were, so it was incredibly easy to skip out ... particularly on these lovely warm spring afternoons, when my friend Rich Hilary was in the habit of lying in wait on the lawn bordering the walkway between my dorm and this building, with a six-pack of Hamm's and an extremely persuasive argument about how "that guy doesn't even know your name, you said so yourself, and I have all this beer to drink, bitch! I'll give you my notes from last year, you'll be fine. Sit the fuck down! You're in college! People are supposed to do this, CHRIST."

--Raaawwwwrrrrrr! Dinosaurs and the History of Life! Sounds like an easy, ridonculous gut, right? No -- it was science, for real, taught by a semi-famous researcher and enthusiast. And it was FUCKING AWESOME -- one of my top three, easily. Chicxulub, Archaeopteryx, Glen Rose, cladograms, birds are tiny dinosaurs, Jurassic Park, etc. etc. etc.  Took this with Mr. Gleemonex as well. Grade: A-

--Once again: Dean's List! BOOOOOOSHHHH!

By this time we were both half-crazy from too much whiskey, sun fatigue, culture shock, lack of sleep and general dissolution.

Wowie wowie wow, if you wanna see a post that totally nails it, go to here -- inspired by the upcoming release of Before Midnight, Joanna looks up some of her favorite screen couples to find out what they're up to now. It is awesome. I want more. (Hat tip to Sarah Brown for finding it!)

a few months after moving in together in houston, lelaina was hired by bunim/murray. she moved out to LA, and troy came with her.

And if you want to read the piece that was the very genesis of Hunter S. Thompson's gonzo streak, not to mention his first collaboration with the great Ralph Steadman, go to here -- there are some great footnotes that you won't want to miss. Hat tip to Mr. Gleemonex, because he sent it to me, and this man knows what I like, y'all.

"I was sure it was the last article I was ever going to do for anybody," Thompson said in a 1974 interview with Playboy. "Then when it came out, there were massive numbers of letters, phone calls, congratulations, people calling it a 'great breakthrough in journalism.' And I thought, 'Holy shit, if I can write like this and get away with it, why should I keep trying to write like the New York Times?' It was like falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids."

I can barely see the road, with all the heat comin' off

Now that I've cooled off a bit from the whole Boston thing ... 

A Selection of Things Around and About the 5K Race I Ran Two Weeks Ago

Among the racers who blew my doors off:

--A lady pushing a TRIPLE stroller (filled with three 2.5-year-olds eating granola bars)

--A group of high school girls

--A guy pushing a stroller

--An eight-year-old girl (BRIEFLY!)

--Several women significantly older than me

Racers whose doors I, in turn, blew off: 

--A fair number of high school/college aged kids

--The "Runnin' for the Wine at the Finish Line!" glitter-T-shirt gals

--Several senior citizen ladies and gentlemen

--Most of the stroller-pushers

--That goddamned eight-year-old. SMAAAASH!!!

My results: 

--10th place in the 30-39 division

Where that time would've put me in the 40-49 division I'll be in next year: 

--14th

What I felt like, as I was running: 

--Linda Hamilton in T2 (looks), the entire Polyphonic Spree (joy)

What I actually looked like in the two official race photos I was in, taken along the course: 

--A manatee wearing a hilarious "human" costume for manatee Halloween

Likelihood of me participating in this or any other run-racing event, if you had asked me at any time in the previous 39.25 years of my life: 

--0%

Likelihood of me doing this and many other run-racing events again and again until my hip flexors spontaneously combust or my entire family stages an intervention: 

--100%