Thanksgiving seemed like the perfect time to resume the blog. I had a few days off to write, and you had a few days off to read. I could write another post about what I was thankful for, it would be a feel-good story, and we'd all go away smiling. Especially me, because I wouldn't have to think of a new idea.
It all sounded great, except for the fact that I don't have much to add to the Thanksgiving blog I wrote two years ago. My life has changed a lot in the last two years, but it still boils down to what I wrote back then:
I keep waiting for the day when life gets easier--when money is rampant, sickness isn't an issue and my relationships are free from interpersonal conflict. I'm not holding my breath that such a day will ever come, and if it does, I know it probably won't stay for long.
In the meantime, though, I'm going to live in the present. And now that I think of everything I have that I might not, it looks even better than I had imagined. I'm blessed with things that bring me comfort, causes in which I believe and people who I treasure. All in all, that's not so bad.
The full column is here:
http://andrewsmithsthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/11/why-im-particularly-thankful-this-year.html
Usually I think my old stuff is garbage, but I smiled when I read this today. I hope you will too.
I'll be back with an original column soon.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Sunday, October 26, 2014
November
The blog will be back soon, with lots of news to say about following your dreams, moving across the country with cats, and almost getting stuck in Mexico, when the timing is right.
Probably next month, when you least expect it.
So hang tight, and I'll see you then.
Probably next month, when you least expect it.
So hang tight, and I'll see you then.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Running Diary: My Half Marathon of Joy, Agony and Funny Signs
It's 4:00 a.m. on race day. I’m wide awake, and the alarm is set to go off in 45
minutes anyway. I decide I might as well just get up. A runner's emotions on race-day morning are like a mixture between those of kids on Christmas morning and those of kids waiting for their parents to decide on their punishment. It's a unique blend of excitement and dread. That's what I felt as I started my day, which went like this:
4:30: I've eaten breakfast, I’m in my race gear, and am ready to go. The only problem is that I still
have an hour before I need to leave. The waiting is the hardest part. Except maybe the running.
The world isn't brimming with entertainment options at 4:30 a.m., so I decide to make some coffee to pass the time. I hope I don’t regret this when the race is starting and I have sudden desperate urge to use the bathroom.
5:00: As the local
news begins to air pre-race reports, I'm thankful
that the weather looks great, and growing concern that I have 30 minutes to
departure and still haven’t been able to go to bathroom. A pre-race stomach
explosion combined with a pre-race port-a-potty is every runner’s worst nightmare.
Especially considering how long those lines tend to be.
5:08: As pre-race jitters start to set in, I’m getting
restless. I quadruple check my to make sure shoes are tied (with car key laced therein), gear is comfortable, and that I have my energy gel packets and my colon-cancer awareness wristband that my brother and I wore for the triathlon we did during his chemotherapy.
I finally get the bathroom out of the way.
5:15: Or not.
5:23: The coffee, combined with pre-race jitters,
are setting in. There can’t be anything left inside of me. I tell
myself that at least I won’t have the pre-race port-a-potty issue.
5:30: It’s time to leave, but I really sort of feel like I
need to go back to the bathroom. I’d
rather be a minute or two late than risk a port-a-potty incident. This should
only take a second…
5:35: Repeat entry for “5:30.”
5:39: So, I’m finally off, almost ten minutes late and stomach still queasy. The coffee was a bad idea.
The roads are supposed to close at 6, an hour before the start of the race and
the start-line parking lot is only a ten-minute drive, so I tell myself I should be
ok.
5:47: For some reason, the main road into the parking lot is
already closed, as is the most obvious alternative I know. The
authorities are routing every single one of the 40,000 race participants
through the exact same parking lot entrance on the other side of the stadium, a decision that has turned the surrounding streets into a virtual parking lot as well.
This seems poorly planned.
6:35: Finally parked and my stomach is now ok, my racing jitters
overcome by the aggravation of parking.
6:45: At the start line, feeling great, and ready to go.
6:46: But I could sort of use a quick rest stop, if there
was one nearby.
6:47: A quick walk reveals that there are exactly 12
port-a-potties in the start line area, all with lines that are still 30-minutes deep. The organizers moved the start line downtown this year, but none of the local businesses are open to, err, relieve the
pressure of the pre-race bathroom rush. As I walk around downtown to look for an open business, I see three
or four guys peeing in the alleys. Gross.
6:53: As I scavenge for open businesses or toilets without
ridiculous lines, suddenly the alley idea is starting to seem more feasible.
What do women do in these situations?
6:55: Oh, wait, I now see that they pee near dumpsters in the alleys too.
7:00: I’m at the start line and ready to go. Let’s just say
I solved my problem.
7:03: My running watch is set to beep at me if I deviate
from my desired 8:35 per-mile pace. My goals have gotten progressively less
ambitious as a neck injury derailed my training. I had once hoped for 1:45,
then 1:50, and now just to beat my personal record of 1:52, (set on a much easier course).
I won’t be disappointed as long as I beat my 1:57 time from this same race
last year.
7:04: As the final countdown to the start begins, I think
back to running this race last year with my brothers, Paul and Scott, as a symbol of Scott's fight
against cancer, through a torrential downpour. This year, the weather is
beautiful and there’s no great symbolic victory on the
other side of the finish line. But I still need to do this for reasons I can't easily define. It's been a hard year, and sometimes when life has hands you struggles that you can't defeat, you need to artificially create one that you can.
I can't wait to trounce this one.
And we’re off…
7:08: My first half mile is perfectly on pace, and unlike
last year, I’m not bunched too badly in the crowd. My friend’s band is playing
up ahead, I want to waive at him, but not waste too much energy catching his
attention, as I did last year. Lesson learned.
7:13: First mile down, but somewhere near the band I got
caught up in traffic and lost my pace. Maybe I didn't learn my lesson after all. My watch tells me I’ve barely gone a
mile and I’m already at almost ten minutes. Why didn’t my watch beep at me?
This is not a good start.
7:21: As my watch continues to flash messages that my second
mile is on my desired pace, I cross the mile two mark in 8:00 flat. The good
news is that I’m now back on pace, but I’ve just used way too much energy to do
it all at once. And my watch has apparently gone insane.
7:22: One of the highlights of the race experience is
viewing 13 miles of creative signs. My favorite two so far, “Worst Parade Ever”
and another next to it that simply says “Inspirational Sign.”
7:26: My new favorite sign: “Smile if you pooped today.” I veer over to the holder and say, “Five
times!” That probably just cost me ten
seconds of race time, but it was well worth it.
7:29: Someone has a stereo in their front yard playing the
Rocky song on a continuous loop. It's a nice touch, but the three-mile mark is a
little early for that kind of inspiration. A few houses later, someone else is playing the Indiana
Jones soundtrack. I begin to wonder: “does this mean the natives will be shooting
arrows at me down the road?”
7:40: Somewhere around the 4.5 mile mark, my legs start to hurt
for the first time. I had tried to squeeze in one last training run three days
ago to try to compensate for the time I had missed with an injury. That is
starting to look like a mistake. Meanwhile, a clothing-company has set up a
giant pair of inflatable legs on the course that all runners must go under.
This is a first.
8:01: I’m seven miles in—the point at which I began to fade
last year—and feeling great. My leg soreness has gone away, and I’m running
ahead of schedule. It occurs to me that I
might just beat the 1:50 mark after all. As I pass a table handing out beer to
weary runners, I appreciate the lighthearted sentiment but don’t want to mess
with success. Meanwhile signs in the crowd include, “If Miley can survive 2007,
you can survive this” and “May the Course be with you.”
8:09: Still feeling good at 8 miles. “This is about where I
saw the cross-dresser in the crowd last year,” I think. But not this time. On the bright side, I see a sign that reads: "Your mom is sitting on the couch right now."
8:17: Sign: “Run for Pizza.”
That sounds good.
8:25: Around the 10 mile mark, I see a runner with a sign on
his back reading, “I’m a 55-year-old cancer survivor, and I’m in front of
you.” “Not anymore,” I think, as I run
past. I can set a personal record if I run the last 3 miles in 26 minutes. I
can break 1:50 if I can do it under 24. It’s time to turn on the jets.
8:33: The jets are out of fuel. I spent a lot more energy trying to run fast on
mile 11, but my time wasn't any faster. To break 1:50, I'll have to run 2.1 miles in 15 minutes
and 40 seconds, which isn’t going to happen. But if I can keep
it up, I can still set a personal record and finish with a number that starts
with 1:50.
8:42: At the twelve mile mark, I start to wonder if this
uphill climb will ever finish. I’ve been running uphill for a solid mile and
there’s no end in sight. To make matters worse, I've hit a barren stretch with no spectators in sight to cheer me on. It's just as well, because I don't have the energy to read signs at this point anyway. Just when I think I'm at rock bottom, I hit the 12.1 mile distance on my watch, it
suddenly jumps to 12.7, leaving me no idea of where the finish line actually is.
In the midst of my suffering, I look down at my blue wristband: it provides the same reminder it did about this point last year: if my brother can beat 12 rounds of chemotherapy, I can beat another mile.
8:49: My watch says I’ve already run 13.5 miles, which might be the cruelest joke the running gods have ever played. As the
course finally starts to turn downhill, I hear someone in crowd yell that only
500 yards remain. I can’t see the finish line, but I raise my pace for the home
stretch in the hope that I can attain a 1:50 finishing time.
8:53: I turn a corner and see the finish line. I decide not
to check my watch in favor of a camera-friendly victory sign as the crowd cheers when I cross the
finish line. A few seconds later, my watch says 1:50:42, a personal best and
better than I thought possible a few hours ago. It means absolutely nothing in
the greater scheme of things, but I’m overjoyed.
9:02: I load up on post-race snacks, collect my finisher’s
medal and meet my cheering wife in the parking lot. I’m going to take a shower,
and in a few hours I’ll be eating pizza at our favorite Italian restaurant, just like the sign had instructed.
3:00: My wife went to a baby shower, so I’m sitting in the
sun on my front porch thinking about the race, life, the universe and
everything. I’m not sure if I’ll ever run a race like this again, but I know that I trained really hard for something, overcame some serious pain, and met my
definition for success.
And I even had a lot of people cheering me on along the way.
As I sipped my drink and closed my eyes in the sun, a thought occurred: “If only all of life could work like this." And then I kicked up my feet and thought nothing at all, for a very long time.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Blogging Through Bermuda
"The life boat drill begins in 15 minutes. All passengers must attend. Repeat: the life boat drill begins at 3:15. All passengers must attend. This is a mandatory event. If you even think about skipping it, we will throw you overboard and blame it on pirates. And then we will throw a set of pirates overboard, just to ensure you don't survive."
An announcement to that effect has blared every half hour since we boarded a few hours ago. That stupid drill--and a couple hundred miles of ocean--are all that separate me from Bermuda, so I just want to get it over with. But the boat won't move until all the passengers are loaded and their presence is accounted for at the Mandatory Life Boat Drill of Non-Negotiability.
I can't wait. (For the cruise. I could do without the Life Boat Drill.). It's been a long few months, but my biggest current worry is whether the fedora I wore to celebrate British formality will fly off during the sail away party. That, and finishing my beverage in time for the life boat drill, which apparently I'm not supposed to skip, as The PA system just reminded me.
I wonder if I really have to go?
My wife and I shuffle off to our required Muster Station, which, delightfully, one of my travel companions would consistently refer to as the "Muenster Station," through the cruise, as if they were handing out free cheese there. To the naked eye, our "Muster Station" looked a lot like the ship's casino, but perhaps that was just a coincidence. As I gaze at the image of children sitting on stools in front of slot machines, a crew member verifies our attendance while a voice is heard on the loudspeaker:
In the case of an emergency, don't actually come to the casino, err, this Muster Station. Go wherever our crew members, who will be yelling at the top of their lungs, tell you that you are least likely to drown. But honestly, if it comes to that, you're pretty much dead.
There are some life jackets in your cabin, and some more on the life boats, but they will probably be underwater by the time you get to them, especially if you are on a roll at the casino, which looks remarkably like this Muster Station. Thank you, and Bon Voyage. Don't forget to grab some cheese on your way out the door.
I felt negative 15 percent safer at the end of the "drill" than I did before it. It was 15 minutes well spent.
But once it ends, the cruise really starts:
Days 1-2: The first few days of cruising at sea are always the same. A bad band plays poolside while passengers relax and sip refreshing beverages. A daily itinerary offers promising entertainment options--game shows, cooking demonstrations, cultural happenings, Hairy Chest Contests (only on Carnival)--with mixed results.
If you look hard enough you can find one overlooked-but-pleasant public space on the boat that feels like Heaven, at least until the geriatric set takes it over for bingo. Everyone eats too much at dinner, and then feels awful the rest of the night. At least one over-eager 30-something can't hold their liquor, thoroughly embarrasses themselves, develops a reputation for the remainder of the cruise. Ours was named Katrina, from Jersey.
The next day repeats.
It was wonderful. At least I thought so. I have the feeling Katrina didn't really enjoy the morning of day two.
Day 3: The old British fortress outside my stateroom window means that we've arrived in Bermuda. After two days of too much stimulaiton, I'm content to hang back while the boat empties. We don't have plans until we meet our friends at Glass Beach at noon.
Unlike our casino disguised as a Muster (or Muenster) Station, Glass Beach is actually what it claims to be. When British soldiers were stationed at the fort that now doubles as a cruise dock, they buried their non-flammable waste, including glass, at sea. The tides return the glass--rough edges smoothed by the pounding of the waves--to one specific beach. The result is a mosaic in the sand. You can walk in it, even sit on it, but, for reasons that will later be explained, the signs request that you not take any home.
On this beach, what was meant to be litter was transformed it into something more beautiful than anyone could have planned. There's an awesome symbolic message in that somewhere, but I'm more concerned about my impending sunburn and returning a relic I took from the island three years ago. That quest would become the subject of:
Day 4: So, outside of Glass Beach, almost all the sand in Bermuda is pink. Enough local red coral is mixed in with it that it changes the color, especially near dusk. My wife was so enamored with it when we were last here that she bottled it and took it home. As I wrote about here, every electronic device in our house broke when we returned from Bermuda three years ago. Our coffee maker, refrigerator, air conditioner, computer and modem all broke within the first two weeks home, as did both of our cars. I have no idea if the sand carried some weird electromagnetism, or if it was just cursed, but there was no way we coming back without giving the island back its due.
It just turned out to be harder than we thought.
After we unpacked our luggage, neither of us had any memory of seeing our bottle of sand inside. We concluded that boat security must have seen it on the X-ray machine and tossed it as an unknown substance, and wondered if this would suffice to end our suffering. On the night of Day 2, the bottle turned up under our sink. We planned to return it the next morning. We forgot.
It was almost as though the sand didn't want to go back home, but today, we vowed, the sand wasn't going to have a say in the matter. But we were so busy vowing that, that we forgot to carry it off the boat with us that morning.
Somewhere around lunch time, as the thrill of counting the different shades of blue in the water began to lose out to the threat of overcast skies, we decided to return to the boat for lunch and grab our sand before coming back to a different beach. We came back to a beach even more beautiful, a 15-foot isolated crescent of sand tucked between rock formations, and plopped down on our private hideaway to enjoy the good life. Then we realized we'd once again forgotten the sand.
Somehow, my sandcastle managed to win a battle with an invading Portuguese Man-of-War regardless.
Day 5: Bermuda looks beautifully different than anything else. The 21-mile island (actually an archipelago) is a giant botanical garden, with blooming plant life in vivid colors on every turn. A bright pink flower that's apparently poisonous appears every few feet, intermingled with a blooming something -or-other of every other shade of color known to humanity. The sand is peacefully pink and the water that alternates between crystal and turquoise. As we bused and ferried around the island the final day, I became convinced that the people who get lost in the Bermuda Triangle do so voluntarily.
I finally remembered the sand, which was never really mine, and sought a place to dump it back where it belongs. There was no beach on the itinerary, but I hoped the harbour (note the British spelling) would be good enough.
I guess we'll see.
After a day of sightseeing, scone-eating, and conversing with astoundingly polite British people, we had just enough time to stop by and see one more beach, with reefs and snorkeling and giant climbable rock formations sticking out of the water. It might have been the prettiest beach yet.
It was a mixed feeling as I sat on the deck of the sunset bar as the boat pulled away: sad to leave the island, but relieved to see that our friends, who had rented motor scooters and driven around the island of-left-side-driving adrenaline junkies, had survived. Still, reality was starting to hit. The vacation wasn't over, but the proverbial vultures were starting to hover.
Midway across the Atlantic, reality awaited. As the guitar player in the sunset bar offered his condolences through song, the island slowly slipped away, almost taunting me with its refusal to leave the horizon.
Day 6: It was dark and stormy outside, and either I drank too much last night or the boat is swaying like mad. (In case my boss is reading, it was DEFINITELY the boat). I'm tempted to make my way down to my muster station just in case, but I'm out of quarters. In the absence of sunshine, my wife and I decide to watch the feature film in the main auditorium and fight our way down through the rocking boat. The ship is playing Gravity, which about a vessel losing power and getting lost in nothingness while the elements batter it around. I wasn't a big fan of the movie, but given the conditions at sea, it was perfect. The sun finally comes out mid-afternoon, but there's a short window before it's too cold to enjoy, another confirmation that the vacation is ending.
The cruise experience comes to a striking halt on the last night. Restaurant service is bad and the food quality suffers. Checked luggage is due by 11, the public spaces shut down early, and there's no itinerary of the next day's events greeting you after dinner. We wander to the sole remaining open lounge to watch the finals of the karaoke competition and soak in the last moments of our vacation. "How did it go by so quickly,?" we wonder.
Day 7: At 8, we must leave our room. At 10, we disembark and haggle with a taxi company for a ride to the airport. We arrive by 10:30, wade through security and wait until 1:15 for our flight. Three hours later, we're back in Nashville, waiting for our luggage, and our shuttle to the parking lot. Finally, at least nine hours after we left our stateroom, we are home.
Somewhere along the way, I think of all that's changed in life over the past three years since I was last in Bermuda. I think of the new friendships I've made, the new places I've seen, the unexpected challenges overcome and the answered prayers, along with the heartbreaks, along the way. As I wonder what life will look like whenever I make it back to this enchanted isle, one inescapable thought rushes through my head.
"Another set of passengers are going through that life boat drill right about now. Maybe if someone skips it, I can take their place onboard."
An announcement to that effect has blared every half hour since we boarded a few hours ago. That stupid drill--and a couple hundred miles of ocean--are all that separate me from Bermuda, so I just want to get it over with. But the boat won't move until all the passengers are loaded and their presence is accounted for at the Mandatory Life Boat Drill of Non-Negotiability.
I can't wait. (For the cruise. I could do without the Life Boat Drill.). It's been a long few months, but my biggest current worry is whether the fedora I wore to celebrate British formality will fly off during the sail away party. That, and finishing my beverage in time for the life boat drill, which apparently I'm not supposed to skip, as The PA system just reminded me.
I wonder if I really have to go?
My wife and I shuffle off to our required Muster Station, which, delightfully, one of my travel companions would consistently refer to as the "Muenster Station," through the cruise, as if they were handing out free cheese there. To the naked eye, our "Muster Station" looked a lot like the ship's casino, but perhaps that was just a coincidence. As I gaze at the image of children sitting on stools in front of slot machines, a crew member verifies our attendance while a voice is heard on the loudspeaker:
In the case of an emergency, don't actually come to the casino, err, this Muster Station. Go wherever our crew members, who will be yelling at the top of their lungs, tell you that you are least likely to drown. But honestly, if it comes to that, you're pretty much dead.
There are some life jackets in your cabin, and some more on the life boats, but they will probably be underwater by the time you get to them, especially if you are on a roll at the casino, which looks remarkably like this Muster Station. Thank you, and Bon Voyage. Don't forget to grab some cheese on your way out the door.
I felt negative 15 percent safer at the end of the "drill" than I did before it. It was 15 minutes well spent.
But once it ends, the cruise really starts:
Days 1-2: The first few days of cruising at sea are always the same. A bad band plays poolside while passengers relax and sip refreshing beverages. A daily itinerary offers promising entertainment options--game shows, cooking demonstrations, cultural happenings, Hairy Chest Contests (only on Carnival)--with mixed results.
If you look hard enough you can find one overlooked-but-pleasant public space on the boat that feels like Heaven, at least until the geriatric set takes it over for bingo. Everyone eats too much at dinner, and then feels awful the rest of the night. At least one over-eager 30-something can't hold their liquor, thoroughly embarrasses themselves, develops a reputation for the remainder of the cruise. Ours was named Katrina, from Jersey.
The next day repeats.
It was wonderful. At least I thought so. I have the feeling Katrina didn't really enjoy the morning of day two.
Day 3: The old British fortress outside my stateroom window means that we've arrived in Bermuda. After two days of too much stimulaiton, I'm content to hang back while the boat empties. We don't have plans until we meet our friends at Glass Beach at noon.
Unlike our casino disguised as a Muster (or Muenster) Station, Glass Beach is actually what it claims to be. When British soldiers were stationed at the fort that now doubles as a cruise dock, they buried their non-flammable waste, including glass, at sea. The tides return the glass--rough edges smoothed by the pounding of the waves--to one specific beach. The result is a mosaic in the sand. You can walk in it, even sit on it, but, for reasons that will later be explained, the signs request that you not take any home.
On this beach, what was meant to be litter was transformed it into something more beautiful than anyone could have planned. There's an awesome symbolic message in that somewhere, but I'm more concerned about my impending sunburn and returning a relic I took from the island three years ago. That quest would become the subject of:
Day 4: So, outside of Glass Beach, almost all the sand in Bermuda is pink. Enough local red coral is mixed in with it that it changes the color, especially near dusk. My wife was so enamored with it when we were last here that she bottled it and took it home. As I wrote about here, every electronic device in our house broke when we returned from Bermuda three years ago. Our coffee maker, refrigerator, air conditioner, computer and modem all broke within the first two weeks home, as did both of our cars. I have no idea if the sand carried some weird electromagnetism, or if it was just cursed, but there was no way we coming back without giving the island back its due.
It just turned out to be harder than we thought.
After we unpacked our luggage, neither of us had any memory of seeing our bottle of sand inside. We concluded that boat security must have seen it on the X-ray machine and tossed it as an unknown substance, and wondered if this would suffice to end our suffering. On the night of Day 2, the bottle turned up under our sink. We planned to return it the next morning. We forgot.
It was almost as though the sand didn't want to go back home, but today, we vowed, the sand wasn't going to have a say in the matter. But we were so busy vowing that, that we forgot to carry it off the boat with us that morning.
Somewhere around lunch time, as the thrill of counting the different shades of blue in the water began to lose out to the threat of overcast skies, we decided to return to the boat for lunch and grab our sand before coming back to a different beach. We came back to a beach even more beautiful, a 15-foot isolated crescent of sand tucked between rock formations, and plopped down on our private hideaway to enjoy the good life. Then we realized we'd once again forgotten the sand.
Somehow, my sandcastle managed to win a battle with an invading Portuguese Man-of-War regardless.
Day 5: Bermuda looks beautifully different than anything else. The 21-mile island (actually an archipelago) is a giant botanical garden, with blooming plant life in vivid colors on every turn. A bright pink flower that's apparently poisonous appears every few feet, intermingled with a blooming something -or-other of every other shade of color known to humanity. The sand is peacefully pink and the water that alternates between crystal and turquoise. As we bused and ferried around the island the final day, I became convinced that the people who get lost in the Bermuda Triangle do so voluntarily.
I finally remembered the sand, which was never really mine, and sought a place to dump it back where it belongs. There was no beach on the itinerary, but I hoped the harbour (note the British spelling) would be good enough.
I guess we'll see.
After a day of sightseeing, scone-eating, and conversing with astoundingly polite British people, we had just enough time to stop by and see one more beach, with reefs and snorkeling and giant climbable rock formations sticking out of the water. It might have been the prettiest beach yet.
It was a mixed feeling as I sat on the deck of the sunset bar as the boat pulled away: sad to leave the island, but relieved to see that our friends, who had rented motor scooters and driven around the island of-left-side-driving adrenaline junkies, had survived. Still, reality was starting to hit. The vacation wasn't over, but the proverbial vultures were starting to hover.
Midway across the Atlantic, reality awaited. As the guitar player in the sunset bar offered his condolences through song, the island slowly slipped away, almost taunting me with its refusal to leave the horizon.
Day 6: It was dark and stormy outside, and either I drank too much last night or the boat is swaying like mad. (In case my boss is reading, it was DEFINITELY the boat). I'm tempted to make my way down to my muster station just in case, but I'm out of quarters. In the absence of sunshine, my wife and I decide to watch the feature film in the main auditorium and fight our way down through the rocking boat. The ship is playing Gravity, which about a vessel losing power and getting lost in nothingness while the elements batter it around. I wasn't a big fan of the movie, but given the conditions at sea, it was perfect. The sun finally comes out mid-afternoon, but there's a short window before it's too cold to enjoy, another confirmation that the vacation is ending.
The cruise experience comes to a striking halt on the last night. Restaurant service is bad and the food quality suffers. Checked luggage is due by 11, the public spaces shut down early, and there's no itinerary of the next day's events greeting you after dinner. We wander to the sole remaining open lounge to watch the finals of the karaoke competition and soak in the last moments of our vacation. "How did it go by so quickly,?" we wonder.
Day 7: At 8, we must leave our room. At 10, we disembark and haggle with a taxi company for a ride to the airport. We arrive by 10:30, wade through security and wait until 1:15 for our flight. Three hours later, we're back in Nashville, waiting for our luggage, and our shuttle to the parking lot. Finally, at least nine hours after we left our stateroom, we are home.
Somewhere along the way, I think of all that's changed in life over the past three years since I was last in Bermuda. I think of the new friendships I've made, the new places I've seen, the unexpected challenges overcome and the answered prayers, along with the heartbreaks, along the way. As I wonder what life will look like whenever I make it back to this enchanted isle, one inescapable thought rushes through my head.
"Another set of passengers are going through that life boat drill right about now. Maybe if someone skips it, I can take their place onboard."
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Half Crazy
Last year's Nashville half marathon was the most painful experience of my life. So why am I doing it again?
Somewhere around the 10-mile mark of my last long training run, as I gave in to exhaustion, I reminded myself that I didn't have to do this.
That was a lie. I was still two miles away from my house, and given how much I was sweating at that moment, no stranger was going to have the courage to offer me a lift. So if I wanted to ever get home, it was up to my feet.
That's a snapshot of how my training has gone this year for my half marathon on Saturday. A monster sinus infection and a pinched nerve combined to wipe out a month of my training, so I'll be lucky to be coherent at the finish line. Or to make it there at all.
A few people have asked if I'm still going to run Nashville's big race this year given those setbacks and that no one else I know is running with me.
I realize I don't have to do it. But in a way, that's exactly why I do.
I'll come back to that thought, but let's remember: I really didn't have a choice about running last year's half. That's how it goes with inspirational quests--they are inspirational precisely because the one undertaking it doesn't really have a choice to quit.
For my brothers--one of whom had gotten cancer the year before--and me, overcoming a half marathon through one of the most arduous courses in America was the perfect symbol for overcoming the daunting obstacles in life. The allegory worked out perfectly, with the thirteen miles of the course representing his twelve chemotherapy sessions and the operation to remove his tumor.
At mile 11, when I wanted someone to shoot me, I looked down at my copy of our blue colon-cancer-awareness wristbands. "Hope. Faith. Courage," it says. "If my brother can beat cancer," I thought, "I can run two more miles, and I can beat all the other challenges in my life."
And for that day, at least, we all did.
Notwithstanding the pouring rain through which we ran (and my devoted wife and niece--two separate people, let's be clear--waited), it was a triumphant day. My brothers and I all met our time goals, and after we dried out and warmed up, we went away with sore calves and broad smiles.
But that was last year.
This year, assuming I survive, there will be no similarly big emotional payoff at the end of the race. My (hopefully) finishing the race doesn't obviously symbolize anything more than a guy in his mid-30s fighting an unwinnable battle against middle age. What's more, I'm running this one on my own, and I already even have one of those pretentious "13.1" stickers, a one-time reward proclaiming my fitness street cred to a world that isn't actually all that impressed.
Still, I'm just as excited about this race as I was for last year's. And given what I've just written, you might appropriately think I'm at least half crazy. (A full marathon is another level of crazy I'm not delusional enough to try. Yet.)
But here's the thing: no one signs up for inspirational quests. They come from the refusal to let the world's negativity get the best of you, so by definition, they only come after being exposed to some form of involuntary suffering.
Life isn't made of inspirational quests, though. Inspirational quests are joyous and empowering, but they don't comprise a large percentage of our existence. Most of us only have occasion and emotional energy to tackle one or two per decade, if that.
It's easy to get motivated to run to fight to cancer, to sacrifice greatly for those you love, or to soldier on for your life's passion. But most of life isn't spent directly engaged in some grand pursuit, it's spent fighting with the alarm clock on Monday morning, organizing files and responding to dumb emails, or forcing yourself to get to the gym on a Thursday night when your favorite TV show is on.
For me, last year's race was so symbolic, failing was never an option. This year, I need to succeed when it is.
It's easy to do great things when you're inspired; it's harder to do great things when you aren't. But if you only put forth total effort when inspiration hits, you end up with a life that doesn't reach your dreams. (On a totally unrelated note, my book is still nowhere near complete.)
If last year's race was about overcoming the impossible, this year's is about pressing through the ordinary, boring, sometimes unpleasant stuff that makes up daily life in the hopes that the sum of my effort accomplishes something. The only difference is that Saturday, unlike every other day, a bunch of strangers will be cheering me on.
I barely finished last year's, and deep down I believe that despite the speed bumps in my training this year, past experience will help me not only survive but conquer--that I'll prove that the course that seemed so insurmountable a year ago can become routine with a long period of disciplined practice, even when it feels hard.
That story might not be a compellingly inspirational one. But when I see the thousands of people line up to cheer all of us who are running to defeat something, I have the feeling I will look down at my blue wristband and smile.
Hope, faith, and courage, after all, never go out of season.
Somewhere around the 10-mile mark of my last long training run, as I gave in to exhaustion, I reminded myself that I didn't have to do this.
That was a lie. I was still two miles away from my house, and given how much I was sweating at that moment, no stranger was going to have the courage to offer me a lift. So if I wanted to ever get home, it was up to my feet.
That's a snapshot of how my training has gone this year for my half marathon on Saturday. A monster sinus infection and a pinched nerve combined to wipe out a month of my training, so I'll be lucky to be coherent at the finish line. Or to make it there at all.
A few people have asked if I'm still going to run Nashville's big race this year given those setbacks and that no one else I know is running with me.
I realize I don't have to do it. But in a way, that's exactly why I do.
I'll come back to that thought, but let's remember: I really didn't have a choice about running last year's half. That's how it goes with inspirational quests--they are inspirational precisely because the one undertaking it doesn't really have a choice to quit.
For my brothers--one of whom had gotten cancer the year before--and me, overcoming a half marathon through one of the most arduous courses in America was the perfect symbol for overcoming the daunting obstacles in life. The allegory worked out perfectly, with the thirteen miles of the course representing his twelve chemotherapy sessions and the operation to remove his tumor.
At mile 11, when I wanted someone to shoot me, I looked down at my copy of our blue colon-cancer-awareness wristbands. "Hope. Faith. Courage," it says. "If my brother can beat cancer," I thought, "I can run two more miles, and I can beat all the other challenges in my life."
And for that day, at least, we all did.
Notwithstanding the pouring rain through which we ran (and my devoted wife and niece--two separate people, let's be clear--waited), it was a triumphant day. My brothers and I all met our time goals, and after we dried out and warmed up, we went away with sore calves and broad smiles.
But that was last year.
This year, assuming I survive, there will be no similarly big emotional payoff at the end of the race. My (hopefully) finishing the race doesn't obviously symbolize anything more than a guy in his mid-30s fighting an unwinnable battle against middle age. What's more, I'm running this one on my own, and I already even have one of those pretentious "13.1" stickers, a one-time reward proclaiming my fitness street cred to a world that isn't actually all that impressed.
Still, I'm just as excited about this race as I was for last year's. And given what I've just written, you might appropriately think I'm at least half crazy. (A full marathon is another level of crazy I'm not delusional enough to try. Yet.)
But here's the thing: no one signs up for inspirational quests. They come from the refusal to let the world's negativity get the best of you, so by definition, they only come after being exposed to some form of involuntary suffering.
Life isn't made of inspirational quests, though. Inspirational quests are joyous and empowering, but they don't comprise a large percentage of our existence. Most of us only have occasion and emotional energy to tackle one or two per decade, if that.
It's easy to get motivated to run to fight to cancer, to sacrifice greatly for those you love, or to soldier on for your life's passion. But most of life isn't spent directly engaged in some grand pursuit, it's spent fighting with the alarm clock on Monday morning, organizing files and responding to dumb emails, or forcing yourself to get to the gym on a Thursday night when your favorite TV show is on.
For me, last year's race was so symbolic, failing was never an option. This year, I need to succeed when it is.
It's easy to do great things when you're inspired; it's harder to do great things when you aren't. But if you only put forth total effort when inspiration hits, you end up with a life that doesn't reach your dreams. (On a totally unrelated note, my book is still nowhere near complete.)
If last year's race was about overcoming the impossible, this year's is about pressing through the ordinary, boring, sometimes unpleasant stuff that makes up daily life in the hopes that the sum of my effort accomplishes something. The only difference is that Saturday, unlike every other day, a bunch of strangers will be cheering me on.
I barely finished last year's, and deep down I believe that despite the speed bumps in my training this year, past experience will help me not only survive but conquer--that I'll prove that the course that seemed so insurmountable a year ago can become routine with a long period of disciplined practice, even when it feels hard.
That story might not be a compellingly inspirational one. But when I see the thousands of people line up to cheer all of us who are running to defeat something, I have the feeling I will look down at my blue wristband and smile.
Hope, faith, and courage, after all, never go out of season.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
It's Too Cold
The calendar says it's late March. The snow falling from the sky begs to differ.
It's the Winter That Will Not End. It has been cold, it still is cold, and it will stay cold for centuries to come.
This is the winter where I can't force myself to go back outside once I come home. Even when my house is on fire. Actually, especially when my house is on fire.
It's the winter where I eat everything in sight, in hopes that the process of digestion will incrementally raise my body temperature.
This is the winter where I've yet to go more than two consecutive hours without a fresh cup of coffee, even when I'm sleeping.
It's the winter where I can't change out of my office clothes when I get home because those five seconds in my underwear put me at risk of hypothermia.
It's the winter where the highlight of my day is burning my skin in the shower.
This is the winter that still going on, even in the spring.
There's no sun in this winter. There's a vague hint of gray light from the distance, but it isn't bright enough to be more than an unusually large flashlight.
Once every two weeks or so, winter will disappear for a day, only to roar back with a vengeance the next day as part of some cruel practical joke. Winter is laughing just thinking about the idea.
If Winter is really an old man, he's the kind of cranky old geezer who likes that he's driven us all just a little bit crazy. He's like the distant uncle who stays a few extra days after the rest of the family has cleared out after the holidays: he knows you don't really want him there but he's got nothing else to do, so it's December 29th and he's still crashing on your couch. Except in this case, it's March 25th, and he's still here.
This winter has been a brutal slog where every day is more miserable than the last. I'm reasonably sure that Shakespeare proclaimed something else to be "the winter of our discontent," only because he'd never lived through anything like this.
Even my cats are cold. One sleeps on my leg each night and the other plops directly on my crotch. The resulting configuration is painful and paralyzing, but their warmth increases my body temperature half a degree, so I don't complain. At this point, I'm not even entirely sure I'd mind if they peed on me.
It's so cold that a snowman knocked on my door this morning, asking if he could come sit by the fire. I would have let him, but his snow wife was already here doing the same, and I didn't want him to get the wrong impression.
It's so cold that I don't unload my groceries when I come home from the store. I just leave them in the car in case I want some ice cream on my next drive.
It's so cold here that I saw a group of penguins at the bus station yesterday, shaking their heads in resignation while holding return tickets to the South Pole in their flippers.
It's a real life Narnia here, except for the part where winter gets to end after 100 years. Allegedly, the Disney movie "Frozen" was released this week, but I swear I've been starring in it for three months straight.
Even with the heater running full blast, I can't keep my house a reasonable temperature. In fact, my hot tea froze over last while I tarried in squirting in a bit of lemon.
In other words, it's just too cold.
Way too cold.
It's the Winter That Will Not End. It has been cold, it still is cold, and it will stay cold for centuries to come.
This is the winter where I can't force myself to go back outside once I come home. Even when my house is on fire. Actually, especially when my house is on fire.
It's the winter where I eat everything in sight, in hopes that the process of digestion will incrementally raise my body temperature.
This is the winter where I've yet to go more than two consecutive hours without a fresh cup of coffee, even when I'm sleeping.
It's the winter where I can't change out of my office clothes when I get home because those five seconds in my underwear put me at risk of hypothermia.
It's the winter where the highlight of my day is burning my skin in the shower.
This is the winter that still going on, even in the spring.
There's no sun in this winter. There's a vague hint of gray light from the distance, but it isn't bright enough to be more than an unusually large flashlight.
Once every two weeks or so, winter will disappear for a day, only to roar back with a vengeance the next day as part of some cruel practical joke. Winter is laughing just thinking about the idea.
If Winter is really an old man, he's the kind of cranky old geezer who likes that he's driven us all just a little bit crazy. He's like the distant uncle who stays a few extra days after the rest of the family has cleared out after the holidays: he knows you don't really want him there but he's got nothing else to do, so it's December 29th and he's still crashing on your couch. Except in this case, it's March 25th, and he's still here.
This winter has been a brutal slog where every day is more miserable than the last. I'm reasonably sure that Shakespeare proclaimed something else to be "the winter of our discontent," only because he'd never lived through anything like this.
Even my cats are cold. One sleeps on my leg each night and the other plops directly on my crotch. The resulting configuration is painful and paralyzing, but their warmth increases my body temperature half a degree, so I don't complain. At this point, I'm not even entirely sure I'd mind if they peed on me.
It's so cold that a snowman knocked on my door this morning, asking if he could come sit by the fire. I would have let him, but his snow wife was already here doing the same, and I didn't want him to get the wrong impression.
It's so cold that I don't unload my groceries when I come home from the store. I just leave them in the car in case I want some ice cream on my next drive.
It's so cold here that I saw a group of penguins at the bus station yesterday, shaking their heads in resignation while holding return tickets to the South Pole in their flippers.
It's a real life Narnia here, except for the part where winter gets to end after 100 years. Allegedly, the Disney movie "Frozen" was released this week, but I swear I've been starring in it for three months straight.
Even with the heater running full blast, I can't keep my house a reasonable temperature. In fact, my hot tea froze over last while I tarried in squirting in a bit of lemon.
In other words, it's just too cold.
Way too cold.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Pain and Healing
"The healing starts today," I said. "From this point on, every new step is a step toward getting better." I had meant well, when I said this to someone stuck in a hospital bed, but I had no idea how wrong I was.
The unfortunate thing about pain and suffering is that they aren't a linear phenomenon. The regular everyday hurt, like when your team loses an important ballgame or a friend says something hurtful seems to fade at a normal pace, but the physical or emotional pain that is significant enough to shake up our insides seems to play by its own rules.
Once it infects your system, one day can feel normal and the next, without warning, it finds you feeling broken and dead inside.
But feeling broken isn't always such a bad thing. It gives us the freedom to stop chasing after the things that led us to our unhappy place to begin with. By doing so, our eyes are forced to open to the possibilities that we had previously found too hard or confusing.
The disappointment of a hope that didn't turn out according to our plans can burn for a long time. But, in some ways, going through life with fewer things written in stone can be liberating. As our need for control gives way to the cold hand of reality, we give up our attempts to steer that which is beyond our capabilities. In doing so, we save a lot of energy that we can refocus in more productive ways. Pain changes what matters to us, sometimes forcing us to focus on what's most important.
Broken people are God's favorite. When Jesus blessed the poor in spirit, perhaps he meant the people who didn't get wrapped so tightly in accomplishing their own plans that they closed their eyes to the needs that crossed their paths on the way to their destination. Perhaps he meant the people who had seen disappointment, those who were no longer blinded by their own ambitions, and those who as a result were more open to helping others reach theirs.
Being broken like that wouldn't be such a bad way to live if it could come without first being hurt.
If you are reading this, you're old to enough to have been wounded by someone you trusted. Maybe someone you cared about assumed the worst without hearing your side of the story. Maybe someone you thought was on your team treated you like an inconvenient burden. Maybe you don't feel respected by someone you can't avoid, or you can't trust that the people in your orbit are both safe enough to trust with your burdens and healthy enough to lighten your load.
Maybe life has disappointed you to the point that you feel not just broken, but crushed.
If this is you, you might be wondering how to put the pieces back together.
The unfortunate truth of life is that the things you work for don't always come through, the people near you don't always understand you or share your priorities, and an awful lot of time is spent trying to make sense of the resulting conflict.
There's no way around this. All you can do, is try to walk through it.
The best way forward is to find something meaningful to grab onto as you stumble along, and to find someone safe enough to steady your path as they muddle along beside you. And don't forget to stop and ask for directions often along the way.
Of course, this won't be easy. If your life abounded with meaning and an empathetic support system, you probably wouldn't be feeling so bad in the first place. So to find it, you might have to open yourself up a little more than normal so that those things you need have an opening to find you
.
As you start your journey forward, you'll be tempted to look behind you to see what hidden obstacles caused you to fall. This is helpful at first, Eventually, though, you must grab the insight and continue forward with all your strength, as to do otherwise will only slow you down.
Sometimes, it's not as easy as moving on. You can't put pain behind you when the circumstances causing it refuse to budge. In those cases, your only options are to change to the way you deal with the circumstance.
You can treat the difficult person in your life with more grace and love. You can advocate for your ideals instead of leaving your wishes up to fate and constantly feeling like a victim when things don't work out.You can make it a point to be a positive force to those around you.
You can get creative or give up your pride, and maybe you'll discover that you have more power to escape that difficult situation than what you've wanted to admit. You can accept the difficult as temporary, and be on the lookout for the good until it passes. You can even do all the above.
But whatever you do, if you don't like your current reality, don't just abide in its comfortable misery, choose to do your part towards replacing it with something new and beautiful, even if the only thing that changes is you.
As we wander toward our dreams, the hurt and suffering of brokenness are an inevitable interruption on our journey. Sometimes we feel powerless to fight them, so they throw us for a loop and prevent us from moving forward for a little while. That's normal, and it's ok.
But while pain might cause us to stagger backwards at times, it doesn't have to be the end of our trip.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Valentine's Eve at Walgreen's: Last Refuge of the Damned
The next time someone tells me they don't believe in Hell, I'm not going to argue, I'm just going to direct them to Walgreen's on the night before Valentine's Day.
Having just returned, I can assure that Hell is real and I was lucky to make it out.
I reached my inadvertent damnation innocently enough. We were going out of town tomorrow and we needed cat food. They had just enough to last the three days we'll be gone, but I didn't want to return late Monday night empty handed to a house of chattering cats with empty stomachs.
In retrospect, no amount of meowing could have outweighed the trauma of what I experienced.
I knew I was in trouble when I walked in and saw a line of unhappy looking people running the length of the store. "Weird," I thought, hoping the logjam would clear out by the time I got my cat food and found whatever aisle it was they were keeping the deodorant these days (Answer: the one furthest from all the other toiletries.)
When I turned the corner to walk past the card aisle, the occasion behind the crowd hit me and I knew I was doomed.
A line of disgruntled men blocked the aisle, picking desperately at the few remaining card options. A few had even given up on finding a card meant for Valentine's Day, and were picking through the sympathy cards looking for something tender they could adapt without too much marking.
The candy aisle was mostly a repeat of the same, although the genders of the last-minute shoppers were equally mixed, which also served to make the aisle doubly as crowded. In fact, when I finally made it through to the cat food, there was one guy with a red card in his hand and lost look in his eyes giving the Purina just a little bit too long of a look.
But at least he was still trying, which was more than I could say for a handful of guys wandering the store aimlessly, looking bewildered. Two of them carried balloons, along with a look on their face saying, "I really need to get my wife something besides these stupid balloons."
With no other options in mind, however, they just wandered the store battering other customers with their inflatable treasures while they reached unsuccessfully into their limited imaginations. As they stopped to look at picture frames and waffle makers that made animal-shaped waffles, you could almost here them trying to talk themselves into each, before hunching their shoulders and moving on.
"This is the last step before the mid-life crisis hits," I thought.
Equally perplexing were two different set of couples who were Valentine's Day shopping as a couple, at Walgreen's, on the night before Valentine's Day. And in both cases, each partner was loaded up with armfuls of stuff. I think we can safely say that if this is what passes for romance in their household, it's a good thing they found each other.
At one point, I heard a cashier announce to a middle-aged man: "that will be $65.43." I wondered how one spends $65 for Valentines' Day at Walgreen's. A $20 dollar giant stuffed animal, $10 box of candy and $5 card seem about the only conventional options, but perhaps this guy added some Splenda packets, a can of pasta and some diabetic socks.
Or maybe he went back and bought the cat food.
Finally, after I surfed through the crowd, I climbed over a giant stuffed bear that was inexplicably sitting in the middle of the floor, and stood in line. After I got skipped by a woman with three ill-behaved toddlers of varying ages (she had been someone's Valentine quite enough already, if you ask me), I finally made my purchases and was ready to escape.
"Have a nice day and come back," the cashier said.
"Thanks," I said.
And then I gave my life to Jesus so I could go to sleep knowing I'd never have to see this place again.
Having just returned, I can assure that Hell is real and I was lucky to make it out.
I reached my inadvertent damnation innocently enough. We were going out of town tomorrow and we needed cat food. They had just enough to last the three days we'll be gone, but I didn't want to return late Monday night empty handed to a house of chattering cats with empty stomachs.
In retrospect, no amount of meowing could have outweighed the trauma of what I experienced.
I knew I was in trouble when I walked in and saw a line of unhappy looking people running the length of the store. "Weird," I thought, hoping the logjam would clear out by the time I got my cat food and found whatever aisle it was they were keeping the deodorant these days (Answer: the one furthest from all the other toiletries.)
When I turned the corner to walk past the card aisle, the occasion behind the crowd hit me and I knew I was doomed.
A line of disgruntled men blocked the aisle, picking desperately at the few remaining card options. A few had even given up on finding a card meant for Valentine's Day, and were picking through the sympathy cards looking for something tender they could adapt without too much marking.
The candy aisle was mostly a repeat of the same, although the genders of the last-minute shoppers were equally mixed, which also served to make the aisle doubly as crowded. In fact, when I finally made it through to the cat food, there was one guy with a red card in his hand and lost look in his eyes giving the Purina just a little bit too long of a look.
But at least he was still trying, which was more than I could say for a handful of guys wandering the store aimlessly, looking bewildered. Two of them carried balloons, along with a look on their face saying, "I really need to get my wife something besides these stupid balloons."
With no other options in mind, however, they just wandered the store battering other customers with their inflatable treasures while they reached unsuccessfully into their limited imaginations. As they stopped to look at picture frames and waffle makers that made animal-shaped waffles, you could almost here them trying to talk themselves into each, before hunching their shoulders and moving on.
"This is the last step before the mid-life crisis hits," I thought.
Equally perplexing were two different set of couples who were Valentine's Day shopping as a couple, at Walgreen's, on the night before Valentine's Day. And in both cases, each partner was loaded up with armfuls of stuff. I think we can safely say that if this is what passes for romance in their household, it's a good thing they found each other.
At one point, I heard a cashier announce to a middle-aged man: "that will be $65.43." I wondered how one spends $65 for Valentines' Day at Walgreen's. A $20 dollar giant stuffed animal, $10 box of candy and $5 card seem about the only conventional options, but perhaps this guy added some Splenda packets, a can of pasta and some diabetic socks.
Or maybe he went back and bought the cat food.
Finally, after I surfed through the crowd, I climbed over a giant stuffed bear that was inexplicably sitting in the middle of the floor, and stood in line. After I got skipped by a woman with three ill-behaved toddlers of varying ages (she had been someone's Valentine quite enough already, if you ask me), I finally made my purchases and was ready to escape.
"Have a nice day and come back," the cashier said.
"Thanks," I said.
And then I gave my life to Jesus so I could go to sleep knowing I'd never have to see this place again.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Let's Just Get Rid of February
I wrote about the horrors of February three years ago. It's my most-highly read column, because every winter I get hundreds of new page hits from the search phrase "I hate February." Sadly, that fact has not impressed anyone enough to fix the underlying problems with the month.
So I'm going to do keep complaining about it.
February is the worst month of year and it isn't even close.
The weather is cold, the days are short, it doesn't contain a real holiday, and nothing interesting happens in it other than the Super Bowl, which almost always disappoints with boring football and uninspired commercials. And don't even get me started about Valentine's Day.
Other months are bad too, but none quite so much as February. January is too cold, and August is too hot. But January at least has two holidays, the NFL playoffs, and the tail end of the holiday season. August, has lots of daylight in its favor, and no begrudges you a summer vacation if you just can't take the brutal heat.
In February, your boss still expects you to work extra to compensate for the lost productivity of the holiday season, and it's too cold to go anywhere anyway.
February has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. And as I type this I'm reminded that February sucks for an additional reason: it is wayyyyyyy too hard to spell. It has that unnecessary and largely unpronounced "r" as its fourth letter, inserted just to spite all of us. We can't even write about it without it causing aggravation.
Honestly, the month's only redeeming factor is that it only has 28 days. Whoever decided that the rest of the months should have 30 or 31, while February was so awful it should be limited to 28, obviously realized how horrible this month is. But they didn't do enough to stop it from coming back.
Even when it passes, we all know it will still be out there, lurking, laughing under its cold wintery breath until it returns in early 2015.
So I suggest we go a step further than making February the shortest month of the year: we should eliminate it altogether. Really, wouldn't the world be a much better place if we had 11 months with 33 or 34 days each and just got rid of February?
Or we could skip from January to March.
I'm sure some old grouch out there would argue that if we skipped February, March would suddenly just take its place as the month filled with cold weather and short days, and it would be just as bad. But that's ridiculous. March is much easier to spell.
Besides, I'm pretty sure the skeptics are wrong, but even if by some weird stretch of logic they happened to win on a technicality, we could still solve the problem another way. We could just add 28 days to January. It would make for a really long month, but at least there would be something to look forward to at the end.
As it stands, finishing a month of brutal January cold only to be rewarded with February is small consolation.
We should just get rid of February instead.
And let's get rid of that unnecessary first "R" while we're at it.
So I'm going to do keep complaining about it.
February is the worst month of year and it isn't even close.
The weather is cold, the days are short, it doesn't contain a real holiday, and nothing interesting happens in it other than the Super Bowl, which almost always disappoints with boring football and uninspired commercials. And don't even get me started about Valentine's Day.
Other months are bad too, but none quite so much as February. January is too cold, and August is too hot. But January at least has two holidays, the NFL playoffs, and the tail end of the holiday season. August, has lots of daylight in its favor, and no begrudges you a summer vacation if you just can't take the brutal heat.
In February, your boss still expects you to work extra to compensate for the lost productivity of the holiday season, and it's too cold to go anywhere anyway.
February has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. And as I type this I'm reminded that February sucks for an additional reason: it is wayyyyyyy too hard to spell. It has that unnecessary and largely unpronounced "r" as its fourth letter, inserted just to spite all of us. We can't even write about it without it causing aggravation.
Honestly, the month's only redeeming factor is that it only has 28 days. Whoever decided that the rest of the months should have 30 or 31, while February was so awful it should be limited to 28, obviously realized how horrible this month is. But they didn't do enough to stop it from coming back.
Even when it passes, we all know it will still be out there, lurking, laughing under its cold wintery breath until it returns in early 2015.
So I suggest we go a step further than making February the shortest month of the year: we should eliminate it altogether. Really, wouldn't the world be a much better place if we had 11 months with 33 or 34 days each and just got rid of February?
Or we could skip from January to March.
I'm sure some old grouch out there would argue that if we skipped February, March would suddenly just take its place as the month filled with cold weather and short days, and it would be just as bad. But that's ridiculous. March is much easier to spell.
Besides, I'm pretty sure the skeptics are wrong, but even if by some weird stretch of logic they happened to win on a technicality, we could still solve the problem another way. We could just add 28 days to January. It would make for a really long month, but at least there would be something to look forward to at the end.
As it stands, finishing a month of brutal January cold only to be rewarded with February is small consolation.
We should just get rid of February instead.
And let's get rid of that unnecessary first "R" while we're at it.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
How to Take Over the World with An Army of Penguins, in Three Easy Steps
"And that," my friend told me recently, "is my how someone could try to take down the government in three simple steps."
It was a well-thought-out plan that came from someone in counter-terrorism who'd just concluded a "think-like-the-enemy" exercise. But aside from with being limited to the US, it was inferior to my competing plan in one critical way: it lacked an army of penguins.
World domination, should you ever need it, can be reached with an army of penguins and two other steps. Here's how:
Step One: Set up Your Own Dictatorship on Antarctica
Taking over Antarctica is the first, and easiest part of the plan. It's cold, so no one lives there. Just show up with a grimace on your face sufficiently menacing to scare away the two research scientists who are stuck on the continent, and that block of ice is pretty much yours. That shouldn't be too difficult, because those scientists are probably looking for an excuse to go back home and sit by the fire anyway.
Complete this easy task, and Antarctica is yours.
Of course, you're likely to succumb to frostbite within the first half hour, but this is a small price to pay for controlling 1/7th of the world.
Congratulations! You now own the only land on earth that no one else wants.
This leads us to:
Step Two: Train an Army of Attack Penguins
This one should be self explanatory.
But as the success of the plan depends entirely on an elite army of attack penguins, I'll spell it out.
Upon your ascension to the throne of Antarctica (also known as a pile of snow), you'll need to enlist an army. Since there are no people there (those two researchers aren't much help, and they will have left by this point anyway) you'll need to use penguins.
This is ok. Penguins have several advantages over humans. They are better at marching, and more importantly, they are too cute for anyone to attack. I venture to say that this will be the case even when (inevitably) the penguins strike first.
In case you are wondering whether penguins can be trained to be an elite military unit, there is some favorable precedent. The Peabody Hotel in Memphis has a team of ducks that march ceremoniously back and forth from the elevator to the main lobby fountain twice a day. If a pack of ducks who quack with Southern accents can be trained for this, surely a pack (or whatever a group of penguins is called) of Emperor Penguins (who were bred to respect your newly created monarchy) are capable of even more. But in the worst case, you might have to hire that duck trainer from Memphis.
Maybe he'll even bring some barbecue.
The penguins should be quick studies. They won't actually know what's going on, but as long as they waddle forward and quack (or whatever ducks do) they will look intimidating enough to ensure immediate surrender.
Once the ducks are trained, you can strap weapons around them and stow them away until your next move. Although unless they are free-range penguins given luxurious accommodations, you might risk a mutiny if you arm them before the plan is ready, and they get to sit around and plot for too long.
Which leads us to:
Step Three: Threaten to Melt Antarctica
It's your continent, so it's your choice.
This act that is the central part to the plan. If you blow up Antarctica, all that melted ice would flood the rest of the world.
Actually, I'm pretty sure this is the same method God used back in Noah's Day, except that in that case, the penguins were already on the ark. Perhaps they even commandeered it.
As to how to blow up Antarctica, assuming that you do not have access to large explosives (and if are reading this blog, I certainly hope that you don't), I would suggest a large hair dryer. It might take a while, and you'll need a very large extension cord, but world domination wasn't meant to come easily. Alternatively, you could just wait until Al Gore's predictions of natural consequences come true, but no conservatives will bargain with you if you go that route.
Either way, so long as no one thinks to turn the power off from wherever your extension cord is plugged into, you'll have the world at your mercy eventually.
While you are running that cord, you can give the world a choice: surrender to your control, or you'll get all "Antarctic Blow Dryer" on their behinds. When all the world leaders inevitably surrender, you send the penguins in to clean up the last bit of guerrilla (and possibly gorilla) resistance.
The penguins can then return to their frigid rightful home, and assuming you haven't yet died of hypothermia, you can rule the world from a location of your choosing. Of course, your reign isn't likely to last long once the Resistance figures out that you are penguin-less, and that there are limits to the reach of your blow dryer. But the title of this post wasn't how to stay in control of the world, only how to take control of it to start.
Once you are overthrown, it's very possible you'll be exiled to Antarctica to live out your remaining days. But at least, from your make-shift igloo, you can start plotting your revenge. And when you do, you should have plenty of penguins at your disposal.
It was a well-thought-out plan that came from someone in counter-terrorism who'd just concluded a "think-like-the-enemy" exercise. But aside from with being limited to the US, it was inferior to my competing plan in one critical way: it lacked an army of penguins.
World domination, should you ever need it, can be reached with an army of penguins and two other steps. Here's how:
Step One: Set up Your Own Dictatorship on Antarctica
Taking over Antarctica is the first, and easiest part of the plan. It's cold, so no one lives there. Just show up with a grimace on your face sufficiently menacing to scare away the two research scientists who are stuck on the continent, and that block of ice is pretty much yours. That shouldn't be too difficult, because those scientists are probably looking for an excuse to go back home and sit by the fire anyway.
Complete this easy task, and Antarctica is yours.
Of course, you're likely to succumb to frostbite within the first half hour, but this is a small price to pay for controlling 1/7th of the world.
Congratulations! You now own the only land on earth that no one else wants.
This leads us to:
Step Two: Train an Army of Attack Penguins
This one should be self explanatory.
But as the success of the plan depends entirely on an elite army of attack penguins, I'll spell it out.
Upon your ascension to the throne of Antarctica (also known as a pile of snow), you'll need to enlist an army. Since there are no people there (those two researchers aren't much help, and they will have left by this point anyway) you'll need to use penguins.
This is ok. Penguins have several advantages over humans. They are better at marching, and more importantly, they are too cute for anyone to attack. I venture to say that this will be the case even when (inevitably) the penguins strike first.
In case you are wondering whether penguins can be trained to be an elite military unit, there is some favorable precedent. The Peabody Hotel in Memphis has a team of ducks that march ceremoniously back and forth from the elevator to the main lobby fountain twice a day. If a pack of ducks who quack with Southern accents can be trained for this, surely a pack (or whatever a group of penguins is called) of Emperor Penguins (who were bred to respect your newly created monarchy) are capable of even more. But in the worst case, you might have to hire that duck trainer from Memphis.
Maybe he'll even bring some barbecue.
The penguins should be quick studies. They won't actually know what's going on, but as long as they waddle forward and quack (or whatever ducks do) they will look intimidating enough to ensure immediate surrender.
Once the ducks are trained, you can strap weapons around them and stow them away until your next move. Although unless they are free-range penguins given luxurious accommodations, you might risk a mutiny if you arm them before the plan is ready, and they get to sit around and plot for too long.
Which leads us to:
Step Three: Threaten to Melt Antarctica
It's your continent, so it's your choice.
This act that is the central part to the plan. If you blow up Antarctica, all that melted ice would flood the rest of the world.
Actually, I'm pretty sure this is the same method God used back in Noah's Day, except that in that case, the penguins were already on the ark. Perhaps they even commandeered it.
As to how to blow up Antarctica, assuming that you do not have access to large explosives (and if are reading this blog, I certainly hope that you don't), I would suggest a large hair dryer. It might take a while, and you'll need a very large extension cord, but world domination wasn't meant to come easily. Alternatively, you could just wait until Al Gore's predictions of natural consequences come true, but no conservatives will bargain with you if you go that route.
Either way, so long as no one thinks to turn the power off from wherever your extension cord is plugged into, you'll have the world at your mercy eventually.
While you are running that cord, you can give the world a choice: surrender to your control, or you'll get all "Antarctic Blow Dryer" on their behinds. When all the world leaders inevitably surrender, you send the penguins in to clean up the last bit of guerrilla (and possibly gorilla) resistance.
The penguins can then return to their frigid rightful home, and assuming you haven't yet died of hypothermia, you can rule the world from a location of your choosing. Of course, your reign isn't likely to last long once the Resistance figures out that you are penguin-less, and that there are limits to the reach of your blow dryer. But the title of this post wasn't how to stay in control of the world, only how to take control of it to start.
Once you are overthrown, it's very possible you'll be exiled to Antarctica to live out your remaining days. But at least, from your make-shift igloo, you can start plotting your revenge. And when you do, you should have plenty of penguins at your disposal.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
This Blog is Haunted
As of this posting, my blog has 16,666 all-time views, which signifies that it's clearly the work of the devil.
I guess that street preacher's warnings as to the direction of my life were right after all.
But more importantly for you, this means that if you read this blog, the ghost that's been haunting me for the past 36 years is likely to leave my side and end up on your doorstep.
I sure hope so, because, honestly, Clarence is kind of a bore.
You might think having your very own haunted blog would be exciting. You couldn't be more wrong. The kind of ghost that could exist anywhere in time or space but chooses instead to haunt this blog is by definition pretty lame.
Or perhaps he only seems that way to me. After all, I've heard all his stories at this point, and he isn't much fun at parties.
He doesn't like to get out much, but instead spends his time telling me not to waste time with this blog, when I could be doing more important things, such as watching wrestling or the latest episode of New Girl.
"That Zooey Deschanel sure is entertainingly quirky," Clarence says.
Clarence serves a vital purpose through his haunting of this blog: he tells me not to write stuff. Every day that I haven't written something, was because the ghost that haunts this blog told me not to. Unless I was on vacation.
You see, when I try to write my weekly blog installment, Clarence tells me not to bother. He tells me that I'm tired and burnt out and that I don't have anything new to say or any good ideas.
Of course, he's often right on all counts. But he's still annoying.
On the rare occasions when I do I have an idea for a blog post, Clarence suggests that I should Google myself instead. "After all, how many other people can say that they wrote the Alabama Elevator Code," he asks? "And it's just one quick search away! Besides, they could revise that sucker any day now and your legacy will be lost, so you might as well enjoy it now."
When his helpful ideas aren't sufficiently persuasive, sometimes he causes technical glitches. For instance, the time I got locked out of this site for a couple weeks and couldn't post anything was all Clarence's doing.
Sometimes he even sneaks in after I post stuff and creates typos that I woulds have nevre let slip by me. Other times he writes stuff under my name that just isn't any good.
Clarence mostly sticks to haunting this blog, but occasionally, when he gets really bored, he tries to haunt the rest of my life too. He tells me not to work on that book because I gave myself a year, which means I have 364 days to do it later. He tells Directv to call me every week with an offer I can't refuse. He tells me to eat that Zebra cake and drink that diet coke, because it hasn't given me cancer yet, so I'm obviously immune.
He tells me not to go to the gym because I'm tired, and that I shouldn't reach out to old friends because I don't know where to start catching up; he tells me that the people close to me couldn't understand my problems, so I should just keep them to myself; he tells me to hit the snooze button again, and then to turn it off and go back to sleep, and then he tells me that I should write run-on sentences.
But alas, Clarence has been with me long enough. I'm hoping that by virtue of posting on this haunted occasion, Clarence will find someone new to haunt.
Maybe there's a go-getter out there reading this who could use his laid-back influence as a means to bring balance to her life. Maybe there's a lonely guy out there who just needs a friend, albeit one without physical form or audible means of communication.
Of course, I know what some of you are thinking: Clarence doesn't sound like a real ghost at all, only a figment of my imagination that I've made up as an excuse for my inability to think of a good idea for a column.
And if you're embedded in that kind of negative thinking, I'd say there's a very good chance that Clarence is speaking through you already.
Which means I'm finally rid of him.
Mission accomplished.
I guess that street preacher's warnings as to the direction of my life were right after all.
But more importantly for you, this means that if you read this blog, the ghost that's been haunting me for the past 36 years is likely to leave my side and end up on your doorstep.
I sure hope so, because, honestly, Clarence is kind of a bore.
You might think having your very own haunted blog would be exciting. You couldn't be more wrong. The kind of ghost that could exist anywhere in time or space but chooses instead to haunt this blog is by definition pretty lame.
Or perhaps he only seems that way to me. After all, I've heard all his stories at this point, and he isn't much fun at parties.
He doesn't like to get out much, but instead spends his time telling me not to waste time with this blog, when I could be doing more important things, such as watching wrestling or the latest episode of New Girl.
"That Zooey Deschanel sure is entertainingly quirky," Clarence says.
Clarence serves a vital purpose through his haunting of this blog: he tells me not to write stuff. Every day that I haven't written something, was because the ghost that haunts this blog told me not to. Unless I was on vacation.
You see, when I try to write my weekly blog installment, Clarence tells me not to bother. He tells me that I'm tired and burnt out and that I don't have anything new to say or any good ideas.
Of course, he's often right on all counts. But he's still annoying.
On the rare occasions when I do I have an idea for a blog post, Clarence suggests that I should Google myself instead. "After all, how many other people can say that they wrote the Alabama Elevator Code," he asks? "And it's just one quick search away! Besides, they could revise that sucker any day now and your legacy will be lost, so you might as well enjoy it now."
When his helpful ideas aren't sufficiently persuasive, sometimes he causes technical glitches. For instance, the time I got locked out of this site for a couple weeks and couldn't post anything was all Clarence's doing.
Sometimes he even sneaks in after I post stuff and creates typos that I woulds have nevre let slip by me. Other times he writes stuff under my name that just isn't any good.
Clarence mostly sticks to haunting this blog, but occasionally, when he gets really bored, he tries to haunt the rest of my life too. He tells me not to work on that book because I gave myself a year, which means I have 364 days to do it later. He tells Directv to call me every week with an offer I can't refuse. He tells me to eat that Zebra cake and drink that diet coke, because it hasn't given me cancer yet, so I'm obviously immune.
He tells me not to go to the gym because I'm tired, and that I shouldn't reach out to old friends because I don't know where to start catching up; he tells me that the people close to me couldn't understand my problems, so I should just keep them to myself; he tells me to hit the snooze button again, and then to turn it off and go back to sleep, and then he tells me that I should write run-on sentences.
But alas, Clarence has been with me long enough. I'm hoping that by virtue of posting on this haunted occasion, Clarence will find someone new to haunt.
Maybe there's a go-getter out there reading this who could use his laid-back influence as a means to bring balance to her life. Maybe there's a lonely guy out there who just needs a friend, albeit one without physical form or audible means of communication.
Of course, I know what some of you are thinking: Clarence doesn't sound like a real ghost at all, only a figment of my imagination that I've made up as an excuse for my inability to think of a good idea for a column.
And if you're embedded in that kind of negative thinking, I'd say there's a very good chance that Clarence is speaking through you already.
Which means I'm finally rid of him.
Mission accomplished.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
