The bright side of a Moon
My new favorite music to run to:
The Blues Brothers original soundtrack.
Elwood Blues: It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark and we’re wearing sunglasses.
Jake Blues: Hit it!
Formerly my “traditional road trip starting music”.
They use the word “disambiguation” on the front page of the English version of the Wikipedia.
The word links to an article explaining how and when to disambiguate.
If Rite-Aid advertises something as “2 for 99 cents”, you really have to buy two of them to get the sale price. They won’t let you have one for 48.5 cents.
Two interesting theme-related events in the past couple of days.
Purely in the interest of gathering information and practicing (why are you looking at me like that? It’s true) I stopped by a strip club this weekend on a slow Sunday afternoon. I wanted to find out more about this whole “eye contact” thing that sort of took me by complete surprise last week.
I figured that if I could maintain steady eye contact with naked women, I’d be really ahead of the game. Either that, or the dancers would think I was gay. At any rate, I would find out something and have some fun doing it.
And the results were pretty much spectacular. Dancers (and quite possibly women in general) understand eye contact; it’s partly a dominance thing, partly a way of communicating a comfort level that most men don’t carry with them normally (let alone around the aforementioned naked women). I even got called over to help this one girl get dressed, tying up her halter-top-type dress. I let her know that this was a first for me and that she should probably be tipping me.
I did find that it’s fun to vary my expression. I don’t have to keep a straight face. I had fun winking, smirking, popping my eyes out of my head. There was definite tension build up…
There was one girl with whom I found it difficult to maintain eye contact. Even so, she seemed to recognize my attempt and went from being distant and expressionless to warming up, laughing and joking with me, tossing her hair around and playing peek-a-boo. She turned out to be very funny and smart.
And I only spent an hour there…
Then, this afternoon, while at work, I was getting in the elevator going up to my office and I heard a voice cry out “Hold that elevator!” I did, and this blonde woman bolted in. She must have been running to catch it; she was out of breath and leaned against the opposite wall (side note: have you ever noticed that people tend to distribute themselves proportionately in an elevator? At least when they’re strangers. People who know each other will clump together but make space for strangers. Watch for it sometime. Or, if you’re feeling devilish, purposely don’t and see how people react. It’s fun) and when I looked at her, I blurted out, “I know you!”
She was a stripper that I knew from a long, long time ago, ten years or more. Um, awkward moment. I don’t know what the etiquette is for acknowledging “exotic entertainers” when they’re not in the club and not on the stage. I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t call her by her stage name if other folks are around… It’s a situation that calls for caution.
She looked at me, and smiled a bit, nodded her head… “Yeah, you look familiar to me, too.”
I was going to look for a wedding ring, but got distracted by her bus pass, hanging from her backpack about mid-chest level. It was marked with an “H” — which in Portland means it’s an “Honored Citizen” pass for the elderly or disabled. I was confuzzled.
She had hit a floor between the ground floor and mine. I looked at her again and said, “You work in the building?”
“Yes!” she said brightly.
“Me, too!” I said. “For the county?”
“Yes!” she said again.
“Me, too!” I said. And by that time the elevator had reached her floor and she scampered off.
Now I’m torn. I was a regular customer of hers, but not, in any sense of the word, intimate with her. I did know her real name, which I only vaguely recall now, but wasn’t ever what I would consider a “friend” beyond being an ATM that dispensed cash whenever she took off her clothes. And, if she does in fact work for the county she might not want her past career widely known. All reasons for me to just let it go and not try to look her up.
Still, it would be interesting to meet her for lunch and find out what happened in the intervening years. Also, what the hell is up with that “H” bus pass?
Drowning is a powerful metaphor. Humans seem to have an affinity for water even though we are not, by nature, aquatic (crackpot evolutionary theories aside). Most settlements are near running water, supposedly for practical reasons of transport or hydration, but, face it, we love to play in the water. We adore the sound of rushing water. We love the glint of sunlight on waves and ripples. We bathe, sometimes for the simple joy of feeling wet all over.
So when someone tells you that they are drowning, it stirs a strong response, doesn’t it? Even if it’s a metaphor, like they are drowning in work, or drowning in sorrow, It immediately brings a superposition of images and concepts, calls to mind feelings of sinking, of suffocation, of thrashing about, feeling resistance but unable to grab anything solid or secure. The colors that spring to mind are deceptive and therefore ironic: instead of the universal danger signal of warm firey reds or oranges, it’s cool blues and greens, peaceful, calming, encouraging relaxation and acceptance even as life escapes from the body in silver bubbles of air and the lungs fill with cold and possibly salty liquid.
Sinking, not rising. We associate rising with flying, and with heaven, and with birds and freedom. But sinking is normally connected to the earth, to both cold clay and the burning pain of hell. A sink is where we empty out containers, wash our hands of dirt and filth. A sink’s center is a drain, where the flow takes what is deposited and whisks it away. We sink money into a project, usually a bad or failed project that has become a colossal waste of time. Likewise, we sink into the sea, drowning amidst water, the stuff of life.
If someone is drowning, it requires a specific set of skills or tools to rescue them. Rescue is not something everyone can attempt. Despite our universal love of playing in water, not everyone can swim; and not everyone can swim strongly enough to support both themselves and a panicked friend. We have special jobs for those who have trained for just such a rescue, and because of their training and the specialized, romantic nature of their occupations, they seem to be among the most beautiful people around. Lifeguards, we call them, their sole purpose that of rescue, a specific kind of rescue that only someone who has overestimated their own abilities requires.
If someone is drowning but a heroic trained guardian of life is not available and our own skills are insufficient to provide rescue by ourselves, sometimes we can avail ourselves of the tools of rescue. Almost every tool associated with drowning rescue has life as its prefix. Life preserver, lifeline, life jacket. Here, often, we find the angry reds and oranges again inverted in meaning, becoming life-giving, life restoring. We toss out the tools, but the drowning victim must still reach out and take what is offered and make use of it, before it all balances again and the would-be rescuer and the would-rather-not-be-drowner can again meet in the middle, balance restored.
I woke up around 7:30 AM this morning, couldn’t get back to sleep but didn’t want to be up early on a dark rainy Saturday morning. I puttered around, answered some email, fed Smacky and gave him his medicine, put some laundry in… started feeling sleepy again, went back to bed.
Then I realized that I would need some calories for the run later, since I had planned on running at some point today, and thought I should get up and eat something. I figured I’d nap for another hour or two. I thought it was smart to do that; I’ve read in Runner’s World that having 200-300 calories before a tough run is a good thing. Of course, they’re talking about running marathons, so I’m not sure it applies, but I did it anyway. Drank a couple of glasses of water, too, to hydrate. Or something.
Best part was waking up a couple of hours later, face down and sprawled in bed, with Smacky sprawled across the back of my head and neck, keeping my ears warm. What a good kitten. It was actually his snoring that woke me; the strange wheezy purr infiltrated my dreams. I had to move carefully because I was afraid if I moved too quickly he would startle and claw me. Funny cat.
And, as a result of the eating and drinking, and maybe the extra sleep, I ran very well today. I tried not to notice how fast I was going, but it’s nearly impossible not to notice when running on the treadmill (too cold and rainy to run outside). I covered 3.1 miles in 30:14, or just a shade over a 9:45 pace. May not seem fast to other runners, but considering how lousy I’ve been doing this winter I’m pretty pleased with my pace and time. It means that whatever has afflicted me is going away, and I can get back to improving again.
Oddly enough, my legs were stiff for almost the first two miles. Didn’t seem like I could really loosen up until the final 3/4 or 1/2 mile. I warmed up and stretched beforehand.
I have 4 Gmail accounts to give away. They’re not doing me much good.
One per person to the next 4 people to reply to this post or contact me…
I’ll need your name and a valid email address.
My combined Federal and State income tax refunds will cover the cost of an iPod Shuffle and a Mac Mini. Whoo-hoo!
…and even as I type this, they’ve been ordered. I’m getting the 1 GB Shuffle, and the faster Mac Mini. I paid Apple to upgrade to the SuperDrive (DVD-burner) and double the standard memory (for a total of 512 MB of RAM). Don’t need wireless and I’ve got a Bluetooth adapter for the Mini.
Also ponied up the $79 for Apple’s new iWork suite (can you call two programs a “suite”? More like a “bundle”), mainly for Pages. From the reviews I’ve seen, Pages is more like a page-layout program like Adobe’s InDesign, than it is a word-processor. Coolio.
Sadly, the Apple Store is quoting a ship time of “3-4 weeks” for the two hardware items. I’m likely to get the actual refund (thanks to the miracle of electronic deposit) before the items that it’s paying for show up. Ain’t that a stinker?
At least I’ll have the iPod Shuffle in time for the Shamrock Run in mid-March. If there’s no delays, at any rate.
Friday* Night** Cat Blogging!
click image for larger version
…and here’s some more!
* …or “Saturday”
** …or “Morning”
Walking around downtown, I see so many people with iPods that it isn’t funny. At lunchtime, with the sidewalks crowded with lunchtime folk lunching on their lunchtime, I see at least one or two of the tell-tale white earbuds snaking out of a backpack or pocket.
Most of these people wear all black. Just sayin’. I wonder if it’s because black is cool, or because of the commercials?
Many of these people have a cool scarf of some kind. Also, just sayin’.
I did, however, see this one guy the other day (neither wearing black nor did he have a cool scarf) with the thin white cables snaking out of his hand. It’s so easy to spot people, they stand out. It’s not like I’m looking for them or anything. Really.
At any rate, as he approached, I could see that the white cables plugged into a cheap, blue-and-silver portable CD player.
Hmmm. What do you call it when someone poses as a poseur?