My New Running Partner

My brother got a great gig at a summer camp he used to work for in Connecticut and in nine days I'll be taking his dog Milo for the summer. This is great news on all counts: Milo is a great dog and I'm going t start running with him, Laura and I will have a dry run of two dogs ownership and my bro will have the opportunity to make it with hot Aussie girls. Win Win Win. I also agreed to mow his lawn and drink his beer. Tonight is his birthday/summer party and everyone will get to try his new pilsner and coffee stout. Good times.

The 8 Mile Barrier

John laid it out to me last week that 8 miles was right about the upper limits of what I should do. Part of me wanted to go ahead and do a 10 mile just to prove him wrong but after doing 8 miles yesterday, I would agree with him.

The weather was in the low 80's and muggy and I was more resigned to the idea of running 8 miles instead of being pumped about it. Zoe, the malamut had just changed from puppy to grown dog chow and stopped at least 10 times during the run to deficate, so there were ample breaks and we lowered to pace to roughly nine and a half minute miles.

I had a couple of low moments where I wanted to give up, which scared me. I've always prided myself in being a mentally, if not physically tough person, and I've always liked how endurance sports have pushed me against that edge of giving up. Having conquered my endurance limits in the past I've begun to believe that that was just part of my persona. In reality, I'm only as tough as the last time I pushed myself.

Perhaps that's at the heart of my current funk. I've just lost touch with my badass side and with it some of my confidence. It's a powerful lesson, but it's something I've realized in myself and can actively work on. It'll be another couple of weeks till I can crush an 8 mile run, but I did wake up this morning without even a hint of soreness.
BAAADASSS!

The Bunnies Are No More

Having saved the bunnies from a certain death in the jaws of my brother's dog, we knew that we were just playing slim odds that they would survive in our care. From what I've read, if you take them away too soon, they might not have built up the benificial bacteria that helps them digest food and they die.

We found "Chinny" two mornings ago, dead in the cage. There are a few theories as to how he passed.
1. The cotten I found around his neck=he might have strangled himself
2. He was malnurished. Though he might have actually been a she which would provide a reason for why Chinny was so much smaller than Lefteye.
3. Aforementioned lack of digestive bacteria

Lefteye hung in for a little bit longer, but when we got back last night, he looked nearly dead, was cold and didn't want to eat. After some deliberation, the decision was made for me to euthanize him. It was quick.

Bunnies!

My brother's dog, Milo surprised him a couple of days ago by waking him up with a dead baby rabbit in his living room. A female rabbit had had a litter in a hole in his back yard, and his dog managed to destroy three of the babies and leave two still alive in the hole. He told me about it and remembering how Laura constantly points out the baby rabbits in our neighborhood, I said that if they're still alive, we could be over ther in 20 minutes.

When we got them out of the hole, one of them made this unearthly, high pitched screeching noise but quited down once we had them in a towel lined box. The internet gave us a bunch of info and so we took em' home and fed them a bunch of Pedialyte and formula. One of them had a pretty sizable gash on it's left cheek, by it's eye, which got worse during the night. We did a little bit of bunny surgery, cleaned out the flap and then reattached it to its face with liquid bandage. We named that one "Left Eye". The other one, in better shape, had a cut on it's chin that we cleaned out. He has been since dubbed "Chinny".

The bunnies are roughly 5-6 days old and the chances of them surviving are pretty slim. In the wild, about 90% of the littler don't make it, which is just as well since they would overtake the planet in short order if not for that. If they do survive, we'll be releasing them in about a month (thats my plan anyhow).

It's a funny situation, morally speaking. In Maplewood, where we live, there are bunnies everywhere and save for hopping under a car or into a back yard inhabited by a dog, they have no natural predators. I've been on a kick lately where I've been wanting to revisit my meat-eating by killing, slaughtering and preparing an animal, but after this episode, I've effectively scratched rabbit off of the list of tasty dishes.

Six Miles Mutha Fucka

Had a freaking excellent 6 mile run in the rain today. Laura came with for the first mile and a quarter and doubled back and the rest went off without a hitch. Inside of two weeks I was able to get up to six miles, not too freaking bad. I was completely endorphin high for about two hours, singing in the shower and generally alienating myself from Laura. Several hours later, I'm beginning to have some hurt in my calves and hip joints.

Ritalin and Running Update

Were I a competetive athlete and open to chemical scrutiy I might get called out on how I did today on my first 5+ mile in a long ass time. That not being the case, lemme just say that running is a freaking cinch now that I'm on ritalin. I was able to concentrate and perform quite well today. It can also be said that I"m in a lot better shape than I was two weeks ago and that helped a lot too. Tomorrow is a 6 mile run, more on that later.

Quality of Life Drugs

After my recent acquisition of out-of-pocket health insurance ($175 for me and Laura, not too bad) I got myself to a local doc. My mother told me a couple of years ago that if I'm picking out a doctor blind from a list I should look for geographical convenience and a last name that belies being one of the chosen people. Since she was in Australia when I was looking for a doctor and neither she nor my father could think of anyone good offhand, I used the same method to get me to Dr. K.

I told him about my ADD and he prescribed me Ritalin. It's been pretty good so far, not too speedy like when I took Adorol when i was 21, but I'm able to focus a lot easier. More updates on that later.

Running Again

As much as I hate it, I like running. Just found a running partner 7 years my junior and it's been working out pretty well. My idea of getting out of shape means not touching my toes, his is not being able to do a no-handed backflip at will. To boot, he has a 70lb malamut that comes along and never gets winded. It's pretty funny finding myself being the one out of shape and at a motivation deficit. At the same time, I've been suffering though it and feeling better every day.

My J-O-B situatuation came to a head today. The place that I was working, a start-up, organic pasta joint owned by a married couple seemed like a good fit. In the end though, it just turned into a completely toxic workplace reminiscent a job I had in New York where I had major beef with a guy straight out of IDF special forces. I know a job situation is in a bad place when I imagine a physical showdown that involves convincing the other guy to put down his knife and fight like a man. In the end, they wanted a further cut on my tips, I told them that I would be leaving, and I left. No big deal.

As my dreams come closer to fruition, I just want to be the boss. Soon my pretties, soon.

Toyota Beats GM Like It Stole Stomething

In high school I drove an underpowered, shitbox Chevy that got 13 MPG and broke down every two months, I vowed never to purchase another GM product as long as I lived. Now it looks like Toyota has finally overtaken GM as Numero Uno and I can't say that I feel at all bad about it. My toyota, which gets about 30 MPG was made in Kentucky and hasn't given me any shit. Hoo-Haa

Yet Another "You're Married" Moment

Laura was going through a comingled box of her and my old photos and came across a nudie pic of an old girlfriend. I took it only a couple of months before the relationship ended, but I developed that roll of film after it ended. I just put that picture, along with the three other non-nudie pics from that roll in a paper case and tossed it in my non-organized-photo box and forgot about it for four years.

Anyone who knows me knows that four years equates to roughly 7 moves, so it's pretty spectacular that the little bugger was able to hang in there for so long. Luckily, Laura was pretty good natured about it and made a show of being all pissed off and throwing it on the desk for me to open. Suffice it to say, I had a good laugh and tossed it into the trash.

St. Louis on the National Scene

Article on St. Louis' downtown revitalization. St. Louis City has been trying to make a comeback for the last five years or so with mixed results. North St. Louis public high schools recently lost their accredidation and St. Louis city was recently named the most dangerous city in the country. On the plus side, the downtown of St. Louis has seen a hell of a lot of developement and there are now a crap ton of loft buildings and new buildings going up downtown and the population of St. Louis city has stabilized for the first year since 1950, and could actually start to rise. As far as I can tell, it's a 20 year tossup that depends a lot on the schools, investment and policing.

Yarwood Runs the City

Mr. John Yarwood ran his first marathon in Boston today. It was apparently one of the shittiest days in the Boston's 110 years of existance. John was also waylayed in his training by a knee injury. Nevertheless, he was able to break the four hour barrior at a remarkable three hours and forty-seven minuts.

He told me just about everything about it except whether or not he got the Gatorade shits in front of thousands of people.

Congrats John!!!

Travel and Beer

Woke up at 5:00 am to get Laura on a 6:30 flight to Ann Arbor for a management training course. Pulling out of the driveway the empty light blinked on and after passing two empty gas stations, we turned around and used my dad's car. He loaned it to me about a month ago and hasn't taken me up on any offers from me to return it. This morning I was particularly grateful.

Went by my bro's place later and spent an extremely enjoyable morning and early afternoon hanging out on his rear porch, brewing beer and slowly shooting an ice sculpture to pieces with a bb-gun. There was the minor hiccup that had to be dealt with when Laura arrived in Ann Arbor only to find out that her debit card didn't work, but it was nothing that three hours of calling, panicing and an enormous charge from Western Union couldn't fix.

In other news I landed a part time job about two miles from my house at a local cafe/restaurant. It frees up my time for the business and it looks like it'll be paying better than the full time job I had in NC. There's actually a lot of good things moving on that front, but out of superstition and the possibility of a poorly timed Google search, I won't be mentioning any of the play by play in this forum. I will say that I dodged a bullet recently by passing on a deal to purchase a failing cafe in a crap locaiton. They just closed their doors today.

Money Maker #285

In the process of looking at different ideas for Laura and my Cafe, I stumbled up on this one:

"THROUGH N' THROUGH"

a healthy, fast food restaurant that only serves food made with Olestra. In light of New York City's ban on trans-fats and America's increased tolerance for runny, anal discharge, I can't see how it wouldn't work.


Right?

Pederasty Stinkeye

Laura's 15 year old cousin, Candice is in town visiting us for her spring break. Laura needed to get some work done, so the two of us went off to go to the top of the Arch. The line was going to be over an hour, so I bought the tickets for later that afternoon. Candice is a metabolical freak and needs to be fed every few hours, so I took her to a South City cafe I wanted to check out. While sitting there waiting for our food a man and woman sat down at the table next to us. The woman had a do-rag on and had obviously gone through chemotherapy so I decided not to stare. As Candice and I talked over the finer points of Law and Order the original, Criminal Intent and Special Victems Unit, I kept feeling a set of eyes on me. Then I caught the woman sneaking a peek at me, sitting there on a weekday, having lunch with a minor and chatting away.

When I got out I told her: "Candice, if anyone asks, you are my girfriend and we met on the INTERNET!!!!"

Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig

Coming back to St. Louis has been a trip. There is no possible way that I could appreciate this city without having left for near a decade. Coming back, I'm looking at it with new eyes.

The first thing that's hit me is the architecture and the history around here. North Carolina seems to have been built, for the most part, somewhere around 2003. When doing my apartment search from my brother's house, I looked at one apartment that was formerly at boarding house from before the 1860's, almost got an apartment that was formerly two hotel rooms in the 1920's and then settled on a great apartment in Maplewood, Mo. that was built in the 1940's.

I would be remiss if I didn't share with everyone my experience with Mardi Gras in St. Louis. After a day of drinking and revelry in the historic Soulard District of St. Louis, I woke up in my brother's best friends brother's house feeling like absolute hell. My bro drove me home and I felt even worse. I barely glanced at Laura, ignored Pig and my brother's dog Milo and headed straight for the bathroom to boot.

As daintily as I could, I vomited. I thought that I was done and sat back on my heels then mustered myself to get up and rinse out my mouth and realized that my stomach was far from done with emptying itself. I rushed over to get to the bowl and on the way down bonked the flesh on the side of my right eye on the corner of the sink counter, saw some stars and missed the bowl. I immediately knew what I had done to myself, puked twice more and then got myself over to the sink to deal with the bloody aftermath.

Five hours of waiting and some supergluing of my face later, I was good as new. I would post photos, but hey, you'll all be able to see my lasting scar at your leisure.

Finally Here

Two days and 830 miles later we're finally here at my brother's house. Tomorrow, the great apartment hunt begins, tonight I drink Jono's beer and watch Survivor/CSI at my parents building's "screening room".

Also on the docket is Soulard Mardi Gras, which used to be the second biggest Mardi Gras celebration but due to mother earth and extreme federal incompetence, St. Louis might be on top.

Movin' Out

All right everyone, I'm the shithead that doesn't update their blog at all.

For all 7 of you that still look at this thing and don't know....

1. Laura and I will be moving to St. Louis
2. We just did a big-ass tour of the east coast.
3. Laura managed to sell the house and our furniture to a woman who was randomly living in our neighborhood.

As for the tour of the East Coast, it was a great time. Laura and I basically "porked up the east coast", eating like pigs all along the way. It was possibly the worst possible time to head north, the weather was cold and shitty the entire time, particularly in Boston. I brought my bike along and took one final ride through New York. It was spectalular. I sighed when we left drove past New York on our way back from Boston yesterday. It will be missed.

Many thanks to Shannon and Tim, Andrew and TK (fucking great Superbowl Party, you're wonderful hosts), John and Noreen, Val and Amy for putting us up. Should the fates leave you stranded in the Gateway City, my spare bed is yours.

Oh The Roadkill You'll See

My morning commute to work is through either rural or formerly rural roads. I have seen exactly 3 other cyclists and they were all going the other way. I started the job as the winter solstace was creeping up and now the days are getting slightly longer. The only thing aside from the sunrise and the weather that varies is the roadkill.

My commute is something around 8.5 miles and you see the whole gamut of dead shit. Deer, possum, squirrels, pets and more deer. I give them pet names like "Dierdre" for the dead deer that has it's tongue sticking out and it's neck in a funny direction. "Rocky" of course is the racoon that the buzzards or the highway patrol took care of over Christmas break, and "Pokey" is the name for the splayed out dead housecat that just wasn't fast enough crossing 15-501.

This morning I found what looks to be the remains of a black lab about 50 feet from "Pokey". I've decided to give the dog a one week moratorium on naming it to see if someone will claim it. After that, it'll probably go by "Lucky" till the highway patrol or the buzzards take care of him too.

2007 Baby

Christmas was a good time. Laura and I went to St. Louis where we stayed with my brother, checked out my parents new apartment and only had to listen to a bare minimum of my dad's lectures on the relationship between ancient Egypt and it's influence on early Judeaism. Go ahead, ask him about it sometime, he'd looooove to tell you all about it.

My brother had brewed a couple of Belgian beers which we both drank in profusion. The dubble was excellent, his seasonal pumpkin beer was the best I've ever tasted but his other Belgian brew was so freaking alchoholic that I got gunshy from it after the first night.

My Cousin/Sister has once again proved herself to be one tough ass little lady. She bounced right back from an elective surgery and barely took a single pain med.

My Dad is still chugging along. He's still reading everything published in English or French about his favorite subject and at this point could probably go head to head with Dan Brown if there was every a "Davinci Code" Jeopardy special.

Mom is kicking ass and taking names. She is on a major charm offensive with a large stuff toy company and will probably have them eating out of her hand by the summer.

Jono is Jono. Teaching, making art, taking classes and raising Milo, a dog rivalled only by my own. If we move there, I'm sure Laura will do everything in her power to find him a good woman.

Laura and I took a good hard look at St. Louis as a possible place to move. St. Louis has changed a lot in the last decade since I moved out. The downtown is developing at a pretty good clip, but not quite fast enough that I would move down there anytime soon (last year St. Louis was voted the most dangerous downtown in America.) The cost of living is so freaking cheap it makes my head spin, and I already have friends and family there.

There's just the matter of confronting my 18 year old self. I have a good decade and about 20 pounds on the little shit, but he is pretty wiry and determined. My parents, of course are totally against the idea of being within driving distance to their future grandchildren and tried to talk me out of it the entire time. Carrboro is nice, but things aren't gelling anywhere close to what I would have hoped. What I realized in moving here and also spending a little bit of time in San Fran and the rest of the country is that nothing is like New York. Nothing. There are quality people everywhere, you just don't get that kind of buzz that you get in New York.

New Years was spent in Chapel Hill where Laura and I had a great meal and spent the night in a nice hotel. I passed out 10 minutes after midnight and Laura and Noreen spent an hour on the phone talking about what shitheads their husbands were (apparently John was something of a liablility on New Year's Eve and had to be escorted back early).

2007 is the year is going to be a pretty big year. If all goes according to plan, I might be a business owner and an expecting father before the year lets out. If not, I'll probably have a huge crisis of meaning and have to figure out for sure what the next 25 years of my life will be about. High stakes all around, it's exciting shit.