it's official

during U2's elevation tour (eleven years ago...) , they played five nights in my city.  five nights. in a row.

i went to all five shows.  then went to work the next day. 

for an entire week, i would go to work, leave work and drive directly to the show, get home around 1am, get up, go to work, and repeat the whole process. 

for a week i did that.  i slept maybe 3 or 4 hours a night that week.

and i was fine.  just fine.

in fact, i was actually happy.  peppy.  in a really good mood.

 and that's just one example of my work-to-concert schedule.  i've done it kind of a lot.

and i've always been fine.  just fine.  not tired or dragging or groggy or anything even remotely like that.

now, admittedly, i've gotten very lucky in the last few years in that most shows i 've wanted to see have fallen in the summer or on the weekends. 

but sometimes, like yesterday, a show that i absolutely must see falls on a worknight.

so off i went, on a worknight, to the concert venue.  like i've done so many times before.  and home i came at about 12:30.  and there was the alarm, buzzing insistently at it's normal workday time.  i'd slept for about 3 hours.  i  got up (not woke up, just got up) and did the bare minimum i had to do to get me out the door.

then i went to work.  tired.  dragging.  groggy.  snappish.  eventually slap happy.  eventually near tears.

and this is what i learned today....

i am old.

so.... will i ever do that again?

hell yes.

(i choose the "living" part)

sometimes the timing is awful.

sometimes your reasons can not be adaquately explained.



sometimes your leftover catholic guilt kicks in and you think you might be making a big mistake.



but sometimes you just ignore all of that and take a whole day and a series of trains, just to go claim a square of paper, a t-shirt, and four safety pins.



then you toss and turn all sleepless night long, and crawl out of bed before it can even really be considered "morning."

because sometimes you remember your husband's favorite quote (said in morgan freeman's voice), "you either get busy living, or you get busy dying."



and you know that is the easiest choice ever.





******
you capture

life and how to live it

last summer, there was a bunny who lived in our yard.

he was adorable.

hubby and i noticed him more and more frequently as the summer progressed, and finally realized he was living in our bushes. or at least spending a lot of time in our bushes.

so we worked to cultivate a relationship with the bunny. we would leave lettuce and fruit in the yard for him. we worked, little by little, to get him to trust us, so much so that if the bunny was in the yard and we came out of the back door, he wouldn't run away, but continue with whatever he was doing.

it was awesome.

and then the douchebag moved in next door. (that is a horrible thing to call another human being, i know. but it was truly the most apt description there was.)

from what hubby and i could tell, the d was the neighbor's daughter's boyfriend who, for whatever reason, began living with them. he was unclean and unkempt, had no discernible form of employment, was never spotted before noon, made very loud and very questionable phone calls on a cell phone while standing in the back yard (loud enough that we caught on to the content of the call, whether we wanted to or not), and smoked questionable items in the back yard (that we could smell, whether we wanted to or not).

the d also brought a dog with him. the dog's name was kilo. not suspicious. not. at. all.

kilo barked. all the time. non-stop. and the d wholeheartedly encouraged this.

eventually it became apparent that the d (and by extension, kilo) did not like rabbits.

 at least, he seemed to not like the bunny whose trust hubby and i had worked so hard to earn.

if the d noticed the bunny in our yard, he would point it out to kilo and get the dog all riled up, barking and jumping on the chain link fence that separates the yards.

he then tried to throw basketballs at the bunny.

and the d is still (unknown to him) thanking his lucky stars that i was not home the night that he actually got on a bicycle and rode it through our yard trying to "get" the bunny. (after the d had been smoking the previously mentioned questionable items the neighbor's yard.) hubby called the cops, but was told that unless they could actually catch the d in the act, there was nothing they could do.

so. the bunny found someplace else to live. he vanished. we kept leaving food out, but the bunny was gone. i certainly don't blame him. hubby and i actually spent the later part of last summer seriously considering moving.

but somewhere in the fall, the d packed up and left. or maybe he went to jail. i don't rule that out. either way, he disappeared. he left kilo, but the d has (knock on wood) not come back.

someone else, however, did make a return this week....

he stayed for about 20 minutes.  hubby and i were overjoyed to see him.  i hope he'll learn to trust us again....

******
you capture (not the best quality photo, i know. it was taken through the screen as i was crouching on the back porch trying not to scare the bunny. but it's a photo that makes me so so happy, even with the blurriness.)

lines time

there are three records from my earliest childhood that really seem to stand out in my mind. parallel lines by blondie is one of them.

i can remember playing restaurant in the basement, spending hours making the boring, cement, unfinished basement into my perfect little restaurant. i spent more time making everything look perfect than i did actually playing like i worked in the restaurant. but the soundtrack to the whole thing was parallel lines. singing along to "one way or another" over and over again.

i thought (and still think) that deborah harry was amazingly beautiful. i was slightly enthralled by the cover of the album; the contrast of the black and white lines, the men in black suits, and debbie harry in that excellent white slip dress. and i loved that blondie was the name of the whole band, not just debbie harry all by herself. and i loved that she seemed to be "one of the guys" in addition to being beautiful and talented; i loved the equality of the group.

yes, there were other bands who were more influential or far reaching in my life. but i have to give props to one of the first to really make an impact on me. i will always have a soft spot in my heart, and on my ipod, for blondie.


******
you capture

it seems so simple now

the alarm didn't go off.

it's my fault for not checking to be sure that it worked, but still.
 
it didn't buzz.

and i work up one hour before i was supposed to be standing in my starting corral.

super.

as i was hurrying about, abandoning my tried and true, necessary and needed pre-run routine, i just kept thinking "i've worked so hard, and now this."

i shoved two hours of schedule into thirty minutes of frenzy.

i left the hotel and made my way to the start. in the heat and humidity.

i hoped and prayed.

i started running.

i had a time in mind that i believed i was capable of.

i had a time in mind that was my optimistic hope.

but i stopped my watched before it even got to my optimistic hope.

because i was at the finish line.

stride on.

********
you capture

not only

if you run, you are a runner.

no matter how fast or how far.
no matter the pace or the place.
no matter the reasons for stepping out the door.

if you run, you are a runner.

you can't fake it.  you run or you don't.

that is the beauty and the simplicity of the sport.

i think that most people who run  realize that.

but some?  maybe not.

someone who told me they are a runner said to me, just the other day,
"oh... you're only running a half marathon."

wait.  what?

only?

olympic marathoner kara goucher recently completed her longest run ever.  it was three hours long.  can i say that she only ran for three hours because i've run for a longer period of time? 

can someone who runs the 135 mile badwater ultra say that someone who runs the nyc marathon only ran a marathon?

can someone who runs 10ks say that someone else only runs 5ks?

can someone who runs 5ks say that someone who doesn't run races only runs?

"only" is a dangerous word.  it can be belittling.  it can imply that the person on the receiving end doesn't measure up in some way.  is no more than....  is merely....

when you see someone running (or in life), you cannot know their story.  you cannot know what they are dealing with, physically, mentally, emotionally.  you cannot know what they have been through in the past.  you cannot know what their lives entail on a day to day basis.

if you are standing on a starting line with thousands of other runners, you cannot know what each of them has been and done and gone through to be there.  but you can know that everyone has worked just as hard as you to be there.  you can know that you are all going to cover the same ground.  you are all going to start at the start and run until you get to the finish.  regardless of the distance between the start and the finish, or the time it takes to cover the ground.

because if you run, you are a runner.

there is no only about it.

stride on.