Next Running Thought

First, a big "HIYA" to Katy who rejoins us here at T&S - Yay! I'd say Woot but I never really got the trick of doing that without feeling like an idiot down. When I do it it's a self-conscious "Woot" - kind of like a 50 year old talking about something being "da bomb" if you know what I mean.

Next, on to the running report! Brought to you by Linux, the best tasting operating system out there!

Yesterday was a 13.1 mile run, mostly because I just got back from vacation the day before and didn't feel like getting up at 4am for an earlier and longer run. It was warm, but it was MUGGY, which sucks. If you haven't run in lots of humidity, well, you're a very lucky person. I, in particular, do poorly in hot, humid conditions. Nobody does well in them, but some of us suffer more than others. I suffer most. I mean if everyone else loses half an hour on their time because it's just that hot and muggy, I'll lost an hour. If everyone else loses an hour, I'm probably lying dead in a ditch somewhere along the course. It's probably because I have the sweat glands of four normal men, and the body hair of five. And if that makes you think you don't want to give me a hug after a long run, you're right on track! But that's not what I was going to tell you about.

As I was running, I had another Deep Thought. And here it is! I was doing some self analysis, cause what else are you going to do when you're running for 2 hours by yourself, and I was thinking about how I tend to tell everyone how poorly I adhere to running wisdom. For example, my refusal to eat rutabagas and acorns, my preference for double flame thrower burgers, the fact that I stretch only after runs, and not for very long, and on and on and on. And I was trying to figure out why it is I do this. And my first thought was that it's kind of a safety net for my ego. It goes like this - let's say that I run a race and I do terribly, and 80 year old grandmothers are passing me and laughing all the way. I can always say "yeah, well if I was eating the acorns like you I could do that too!" So instead of just deciding that I suck I can say no, no, it's just that I'm not trying all the way. Another very real reason is that I'm lazy - some of the stuff you're supposed to do in training is hard and I just don't want to add 40 miles of biking to my weekly running routine. But as I ran, and sweated, and ran, another thought occurred to me. The real reason I don't do these things.

Rebellion.

As an adolescent I always wanted to be an iconoclast, someone who did not go with the flow. Most of us did that, I'm sure. I had the pseudo-long hair, the heavy metal t shirts, and so on. I dabbled in this experience and that thing and even got "arrested" once, which was cool at the time. Long story.

Well, you would think that over time that streak would kind of die out. As I get older, you might expect that the heavy metal t shirts would be put in the closet, then a box, then the trash, and the hair would first be cut short and then fall out. And indeed, these things have happened. But, there's still some streak of wild and crazy guyness left in me. And here it is! I don't eat acorns! I won't touch a rutabaga, and I don't do ice baths! Woot! I'm sticking it to the man! I never bought a heart rate monitor and maybe I never will! I rock! Some days, in the summer, I run indoors even if it's not raining! Carpe Diem, baby. When I tell people I don't do these things, what I'm really saying is, "I have something to say! It's better to burn out than fade away!" You can just hear the Def Leppard riff int he background.

So if you see me on the way to the school parent's night with my 2 children in our minivan driving from our house in the suburbs after I get off work at my 9 to 5 job in my tie, just remember, I'm a loner, a rebel, and anywhere I roam, where I lay my head is home (yea yea).

Of Heroes and Duds

I first became aware of A. O. Scott when Roger Ebert went into the hospital again for his cancer, and Roeper started shopping around for a new co-host. No offense to Roeper, but I think the best show would feature Scott and Kevin Smith. (I'm sorry. There's nothing wrong with Roeper, but I just never warmed to him. I miss Gene too much.) I loved Scott even though he seemed far too well-spoken to be a natural in front of a camera--as on-camera failings go, it's a hell of a lot better than any of mine--and I found him easy to listen to. I subscribe to his Tivocasts and read his reviews, and I really enjoy them.

This weekend finds a quick little ditty by Scott on the state of superheroes in film, and his assertion is that The Dark Knight represents a peak, to be followed by a decline, mostly because the genre has rules (that whole Good and Evil thang) that make the films a little samey.

I'm no comic book expert, but it seems to me that this represents an opening to look at some heroes who aren't household names. What of it, people? Are there no Dark Horse-type comics (or heroes even more off the beaten path) who could really give the genre a good shake-up? Don't you think the time is right for a "hero" who makes Batman look a little unambiguous and sunny? Someone who makes Hancock look like Annie doing her final chorus of "Tomorrow?"

Attack of the Dinglefrapps*

I know you're probably not a freelancer, but even if you're not, this is pretty sound (and extremely funny) advice for anyone trying to get their spending under control. Plus anyone who can write about budgeting and incorporate the sentence, "The future is here, and it has a Huge Unrealistic Goal squatting in the middle of it" deserves to be read.

*The word "budget" makes people uncomfortable, so in the great tradition of English speakers everywhere, Rogue Ink has decided that a budget shall be a dinglefrapp and that budgeting will be dinglefrapping. Dude, how could you not click that link immediately?

Why are you still here? You must click the link.

Is it still 1960?

On the advice of TV junkies I admire, I decided to Tivo the Season 1 marathon of Mad Men on AMC. It's definitely sharply written, and the art direction, like that on Friday Night Lights, is probably raising the bar--not only for television, but for film as well.

Traveling back to 1960 is disturbing, but I think the toughest thing for me was the shift in my perspective that happened around episode 5. For the first few episodes I was thinking 1960 was alien--it was like watching the moon landing or a travel program about somewhere else I've never been. "Look at that apron. Look at that alarm clock. Look at the women doing their hair so they can make dinner for their husbands."

But after a few episodes 1960 started to seem familiar in a very unsettling way. The more things change, the more they stay the same. These women live in a world of unrelenting chauvinism. There's not a single married couple that doesn't seem to feel like strangers at least part of the time. There are catty women who are twice as dangerous as the men who swagger around feeling entitled to whatever they want. Here and there a character struggles feebly to escape, but often the struggle fails before the third act. At first these things were as quaint as the kitchen curtains, but the more I watch, I can't help but wonder whether we've just driven these things a little further underground.

As Coward said, "Rocks are infinitely more dangerous when they are submerged, and the sluggish waves of false sentiment and hypocrisy have been washing over reality far too long already in the art of this country." Maybe our art is finally learning its lesson, even if our reality is changing less than we'd like to admit.

I'm back!

I'm really, really tired and really not all that coherent, but I have a computer that will access the internet and that isn't supervised by the Almighty Layoff Gods who wander, snarling, around my office. Not that I'm planning to avail myself of that much tonight, but I just thought I'd say that I've missed the blog, and thanks to Shifter for keeping the light on for me while I had my prolonged luddite phase. I will post, soon. But first, sleep, for it has been a long and arduous day of fighting with Dell and the Worst Delivery Service Ever, Which Should Be Banned Forever From Residential Brooklyn (I speak, of course, of DHL). (I know DHL was only protecting me, but not for nothing, I'm a little tired of people and organizations deciding what's best for me. Thank God my upstairs neighbor is a hot little 30-something charmer, that's all I have to say.)