Cheese Sandwich: Faster Than a Sleeping Bullet

The Garmin said my average pace was 11:11, but for some reason I had this number stuck in my head that I had kind of computed at the end of the run. You know, when I had very little glucose running around in my brain, and not much more oxygen? So I did the numbers again, and yeah, we did run almost exactly an 11:11 pace, which is very cool. And we did have a "kick" at the end, finishing the last tenth of a mile at a 10:39 pace, which was the fastest of the race.

So yeah, "Trust your instruments."

Anyway, very pleased.

Not so happy about the official results, because the times are all off. (My number was 1340, if you want to do a "Find" on the page.) The started the race at 8:00 a.m., but then they held all the runners up for a couple of minutes to allow the wheel chair competitors to avoid the huge mob. Then there's the time it takes just to get to the starting line from our place near the back of the pack. So the "official" time was 2:29:11, as opposed to my 2:27:39.

I checked the results for the Gate River Run, and my partner had run a much faster race back in March. She wasn't holding back for me, as I was running backwards from time to time to let her catch up. She had a sore toe though, so that was probably hindering her performance. This race was hugely better than my Gate River Run pace, which was something like 11:50 or so, for 9.2 miles.

Anyway, now I want to try and work on improving my pace. Don't ask me why, I just do. In my age category I was near the back of the pack, which is kind of disappointing until I thought about the fact that most guys my age can't (or more precisely, won't) walk 13.2 miles, let alone run that far.

You're all going to get very tired of me talking about this soon...

Movies: Quantum of Solace

Loved it. Daniel Craig has overtaken Sean Connery as the best Bond ever. Totally different styles, of course. But I love what they've done with the franchise. Could have done without the "fuel cell" nonsense, but there you go.

Social Hygiene: Based on a True Story

I read yesterday that an employee at WalMart got trampled to death by the Black Friday mob storming through the doors at 5:00 a.m. I wonder if it was a "smart mob?" I wonder if that is a manifestation of "the wisdom of the crowd?" I wonder if that's all just part of the "conversation?" I wonder if he Twittered his last words?

We are narrative creatures. For better or worse, we are burdened with memory and imagination. We recall the past and we can imagine the future. The present is just a fleeting thing we barely experience as our attention is absorbed by the past and the future. So we try to fashion a story for ourselves, that attempts to explain the nature of the present to us. It orients us in it, and tells us how we should act.

The only power we have is the power to choose, but we choose not to use our power to its full potential. Instead we choose to surrender to our little story-teller, whose works of fiction become the fabric of our existence. Habituated behaviors are parts of the narrative, each with their own "backstory," to justify their existence, and lend depth and gravity to the development of our own character-based serial drama.

As conscious, or perhaps merely semi-conscious, entities, aware of our own existence and its finite nature, we must present some subjective aspect to the object of the subect-object phenomenon. Again, it's a choice. Do we say "yes," and embrace what is before us, or do we say "no," and reject it? Of course, we do both, but most of the time we do one more than the other, and I rather suspect it's mostly "no." The difference between "yes" and "no" is the difference between faith and fear.

Fear is a great motivator. It generates a lot of energy. Things get "done" with fear, and God knows, it's all about Getting Things Done in this life! I mean really, "What are you doing with your life?" Doesn't it just scare the shit out of you that you might not be doing anything with your life? Better get with the frickin' program!

We often allow our memories of old hurts and slights and injuries to become the central plot points of the narratives we construct for ourselves. We fear experiencing these hurts again, so we might construct a narrative that allows us to avoid those plot points in our imagined future.

If we once dreamed of falling in love and having a loving relationship with someone, and if we got badly hurt trying to make that dream come true, then a new plot line can fashion a future where that can't happen again. Our character learns, through hard experience, that love is merely an illusion, a scam for suckers, something used to sell Hallmark cards and jewelry. Sex is just sex; fun, but just sex. And happiness is something you create for yourself by pursuing your dream. Your new dream, that is. A goal. Something attainable. You can't make someone love you, but by God you can make enough money to buy something that'll make you happy! And if that takes a long time, well, so much the better! Because it gives you a place to focus your attention. You don't have to entertain that still small voice, because you've got to get to that goal. Because that you can control.

There are many variations on this theme - happiness is located in something outside oneself. Money. Other people's money. Drugs. Drama. Attention. Well, it's ultimately all attention anyway, but that's another story. Yes, you really do exist. And yes, it's a good thing. But, um, the only place where that comes from that really matters doesn't require all that other stuff.

The reality is, we control very little. The only power we have...

And the still small voice never really goes away. We redouble our efforts, and we cling even harder to the story, because fear is a great motivator! We forget that getting hurt didn't kill us. In fact the memory of the hurt is probably something quite comfortable by now, though some people nurture it or reenact it in minor ways to keep it fresh. But the fear, that becomes something fixed.

Inevitably, this is bound to fail. It's a terribly unbalanced situation. Fear is a great motivator, but it expends all its energy accomplishing nothing, and that is eventually obvious. Either you achieve your goal, and find that you're no more happy than you were before; or the goal eludes you, and you realize you have to do something about the fear, because it can't take you where you want to go. But expect this to be a painful lesson. The still small voice loves you, but life doesn't care. Well, that's not exactly true, life loves you too. But life is quite content to keep hitting you upside the head with a two by four until you start paying attention. And it's not fair, and sometimes it's brutally unfair. Tragically. Brutally. Unfair. The still small voice is looking after you. Life's got the big picture to worry about.

Meanwhile, most of us are trapped in narratives of our own making. Some are better than others. Some manage to avoid the big hurts or manage to avoid the worst of the fear. Some are quite comfortable and even come with storybook happy endings. Lucky bastards! Well, maybe not so much. Because life, or our experience of life, is too big to be contained in a narrative of our own creation. We edit out most of it. Even in the ones with the happy endings. But still, there's no denying the appeal of a happy ending. We'd all like one.

But it's sad sometimes, when you kind of get a glimpse of someone past the costumes and the sets and the makeup, and they're right there for a moment, and you're right there for a moment. And for a moment, you're both right there. And then somehow the stage lights come up and the play begins all over again. Everyone is back in character, and the narrative moves on. We only have moments to live, so we should be thankful for those precious few where we're both right there.

This started out as one thing, then became another, so maybe I ought to circle back and make it about that first thing again.

We're killing ourselves with our own bullshit. Literally and figuratively. Bad guys kill us with guns and bombs based on bullshit, and the "good guys" are killing us with bullshit about life. That guy who got trampled to death was killed by a culture that thinks happiness is something you buy at a store. A culture that promotes fear. "Act now! Quantities are limited!" A culture that views buying and selling as the central, essential, vital act. The meaning of life is to be found in the marketplace, because the market for things to believe in is infinite, and there's always someone who'll want to sell you something to believe in. And those are the good guys!

They're trapped in their own narratives about what makes them the good guys, just like the guys who kill people with guns and bombs. We buy into their narratives and look for supporting roles to play in them so we can all play a part in the "larger picture." "Open source elected President Obama." Right. Whatever.

It's not that narrative is itself, bad. It's not, and it's probably even necessary. But we really ought to get better at figuring out just how much of it is pure, unadulterated bullshit, and relegate it to the fiction section of our internal libraries. A lot fewer of us would be dying because of it. And a lot fewer of us would feel compelled to actually kill someone over it.

But we're afraid to even look at our narratives. It's that faith and fear thing again. I suppose it'll remain that way until life gets a big enough two by four to get our attention. Which it seems to be reaching for, more and more, every day.

Which maybe sounds a bit scary. But don't worry about it. We only have moments to live. What's so bad about this one? The last one is gone and can't hurt you anymore. The next one will take care of itself. And maybe there are bad things about this moment, and you shouldn't deny those but honor them. Honor them in the context of the larger picture of your life. It's a very big picture. Honor all of it. Don't let fear give you tunnel vision. It's not easy. But it's not impossible and it's really what life calls us to do.

I think, anyway. What do I know? I'm an authority on nothing, I make all this shit up. Do your own thinking.

Cheese Omelet: Half is Enough

Well, that was fun!

Did the half-marathon yesterday, and I have no desire whatsoever to ever do a whole one! Though I did enjoy it.

The weather was perfect, pretty much the same as we'd been training in for the last few weeks, which is to say, cold. The course was nice, very flat, lots of shade.

My time wasn't exactly what I'd hoped, we came in at 2:27:39, so what's that? About an 11:21 minute mile? Something like that. Looking at the split times, we were ahead of pace for the first eight miles, with the fastest in those miles being 10:56 between one and two, and the slowest being 11:07, which was our best pace in training. But we fell steeply starting in mile nine, with 11:51 being the slowest at mile ten, and then finding a "kick" (Hah!) in the last tenth of a mile with a 10:39 pace. We had to pause a bit at mile ten for my partner to stretch, but it probably only cost us 20 seconds or so.

I don't know for certain, of course, but I suspect that had we not run nine miles on Sunday, we might have been able to sustain the faster pace for a bit longer. And I think that was on my mind for the first few miles, because I didn't "feel" very good, in fact, I was wondering if I'd even be able to complete the race. Looking at the data, partly it was because I was running at a bit of a faster pace than usual, though not by much. But by mile five I was feeling very good and had no doubt I'd be able to finish. And though I had the Garmin on, I didn't really consult it for pace, and I wouldn't have thought our pace had diminished so much after eight, it felt pretty consistent up until ten. After ten, it felt like it was getting difficult, though I still knew I could run the whole way. I had some discomfort in my groin, and the outboard sides of my knees were starting to complain, but it was all rather manageable.

The only "bad" thing was this group that was training for another marathon that did some walk/run thing, and the leader would yell "Walking!" and they'd walk for a while and we'd pass them. Then you'd hear her yell "Running!" and they'd pass us, usually running right between my partner and I. Then they'd walk again, in a pack, and we'd have to run around them. It went on like this for the last four miles, but we couldn't summon the energy to get ahead of them and stay ahead of them, and they wouldn't stay ahead of us. And they gabbed the whole way. It really made the last part of the race much less enjoyable, as one is beginning to deal with some physical discomfort, and then have to do this repetitive nonsense with these people.

But everything else was great. My partner wants to do a marathon, but I told her she'd probably have to do it without me. We are going to continue to do the Sunday runs, because I want to do another half-marathon in February, and then the Gate River Run, which is a 15K in March.

After the race, I enjoyed a cold beer with my partner and her friends, then headed down to Atlantic Beach to meet some other friends of mine at a Thanksgiving tradition, Bloody Marys at Pete's Bar. It's kind of a street festival, and I'd never been to it before. I was still in my running clothes, but it didn't seem to matter. Ran into several of my friends and neighbors there and enjoyed a couple of drinks before heading home to change for Thanksgiving.

Of course, I had to walk Bodhi, and I was supposed to have made a pumpkin pie for dessert, but that kind of got overtaken by events. So I showered and grabbed all the pie ingredients and headed over to my daughter's house for dinner, and made the pie there. Everything went really well, although once I sat down on the couch after being on my feet all day and running a half-marathon, it was something of a genuine question whether I'd get back up again to join everyone at the table for dinner! I did, and the pies turned out well and everything was great.

I got home about 7:00 pm, walked Bodhi again and sat down to watch a movie. My phone rang and it was the president of the association who said that one of the residents had called him about a leaking hot water heater in a vacant unit. Since it was vacant, someone would have to get into the unit and shut off the water, and he was 200 miles away. The hot water heaters are in a storage closet actually outside the unit, but they share the same key. So I had to go to the management office and get a key from the key locker, and halfway there I realized I didn't have my key for the management office! I had to go back to my place, and I was getting really tired of walking!

When I got the closet door open, it was clear the water was coming from the unit upstairs. So I went up and knocked on the door and fortunately the resident was at home. She's an elderly woman who lives alone, and it took some time to find her keys. We got the closet opened and it obviously was her heater that had failed. I shut off the water, and then I wanted to turn off the power to it. She let me in, but I couldn't find the breaker panel anywhere. I advised her to call a plumber, and she told me that would be something her son-in-law would normally handle. So I asked if we could call him so we could let him know what had happened?

We got her daughter on the phone and she told me where to find the breaker panel behind a picture on the wall, and I was very glad we did because that breaker was almost too hot to touch. The daughter indicated they would come right out and help her mother get her things out of the closet and get a plumber there right away. I figured that was about all I could do, so I expressed my sympathy for their trouble, wished them a happy Thanksgiving and finally went home to enjoy the movie!

So while it was only a half-marathon of a race, it was something of a marathon day! I feel pretty good today. My legs feel like they've run a half-marathon, that is to say, a little weak but not too sore. My knees are feeling better and my groin doesn't hurt at all. We'll see how we feel tomorrow!

Okay, I've been rambling for some time now. I guess I'll go walk Bodhi again and get on with the rest of the day.

Competing Messages: Like Panasonic - Just Slightly Ahead of My Time

Please excuse the reference to a commercial marketing slogan from the seventies, we are a product of our upbringing after all, but I wanted to point to a couple of items that have garnered some attention elsewhere.

Karl Martino, a long-time and consistent blogger and blogging acquaintance, pointed to this post by author John Scalzi, and the discussion in the comments is worth a look as well, although it's mostly depressing. People like to believe what they like to believe, especially if it makes them feel better about themselves. Scalzi's point should sound quite familiar, although in different words and with a slightly different perspective. But say it with me now, "Technology changes how we do things. It compresses them in time, and expands them in space. It does not change what we do."

Someone made the point in the discussion that ideas change us, and mentions slavery and the notion that the idea that one cannot own another human being as property has changed us. I'm pretty sure he's not keeping up with current events. I would say that many people thought the Holocaust "changed us." But, you know, maybe not so much... Maybe "never again," doesn't really mean "never again." Because we are who we are, and until we understand and accept that, it will never be "never again." It's going to be "over and over and over again."

Recall, "The beatings will continue until morale improves around here." That was not simply an offhand non sequitur. Paying attention yet? I thought not.

Jason Kottke pointed to a new book called How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer. Looks like a good book, and it's almost certainly getting added to my queue. (Which I may have a shot at actually getting through should I become unemployed.) But regular readers here may recall something similar. We reason backward from our feelings. Yes, it's much more complicated than that, it's a terrible over-simplification. But the point is to dethrone the pernicious myth that we are rational creatures, and that reason is the basis for our choices. Which we've known for quite some time, but always seem to forget because, well, we like to believe things that aren't true if they make us feel better about ourselves.

"In fact, those pants don't make your ass look fat!"

Okay, sorry for the self-aggrandizing, ego-centric, confirmation-bias, self-congratulatory posting. But it's nice to see ideas one has been shouting into the void for several years pop up elsewhere. I don't take credit for this stuff. I just think it has merit and doesn't get anywhere near the attention and consideration it deserves.

Meanwhile, all the high attention-earning authority figures, utterly oblivious in their own certainty regarding their own biases and prejudices and cherished notions keep rolling that snowball down the hill, kind of like that snowball that was the housing bubble. More about that another time.

But never a word of doubt from the true-believers. No. That would be a betrayal of the dream. Or it might cause their speaking engagements to dry up. Who wants to listen to someone who isn't sure?

Cheese Omelet: "Cold enough for ya?"

It's supposedly 44 degrees out there. There's no wind, but it feels colder than that. Bodhi, naturally, loves it. Me, not so much. At least it's not raining!

The Match.com thing has been interesting. Because it's so close to Thanksgiving, and I've got a lot on my plate (nyuk-nyuk), I hadn't planned on winking or e-mailing anyone, but a number of women have e-mailed me! Doesn't take much to flatter my ego, I will say that. A couple are intriguing, but some are too far away to be of any practical interest. One sounds very interesting, but I should probably say no more. The day will come when they'll learn my true name, and then Google will reveal all...

Walked four miles yesterday at lunch. It was in the high sixties and very little wind, I was comfortable with my shirt off at the beach (trying to maintain my tan, or my early date with melanoma). Legs feel good this morning. Should be good to go tomorrow, but we shall see.

Picked up my race packet last night on my way home from work. Not supposed to be as cold tomorrow morning, but I'm still unsure of what I'm going to wear. I bought this long-sleeved cold weather shirt that was, to my great surprise, a compression-type garment. That is to say, the type of thing super-heroes always seem to be wearing. I was pleased to note that, while it's not the kind of thing I'd normally wear even running, I didn't look absolutely ridiculous in it. Just slightly ridiculous. Cool. But I wore it the other day with another long sleeved shirt over it, and it works great at keeping you warm. And I don't have to put band-aids over my nipples to keep them from bleeding. ("Heh-heh. Heh-heh. He said 'nipples.'" Anybody remember Beavis and Butt-head?) So it's a candidate for tomorrow. The ten-mile run was probably the coldest. I wore a flight-deck jersey on the way out; but I was just in a lightweight short-sleeved shirt on the way back, because I was running with the wind and was quite comfortable. The five miles out into the wind were another matter entirely. I don't think I felt my fingers till long into the walk with Bodhi after the run.

Okay, one other quick comment to make that I want to break out in Competing Messages, and then I've got to fly.

Cheese Omelet: Off to the Races

Meant to post here Sunday, but got overtaken by events. Nothing horrible, just busy.

But I did run Sunday. We did the nine-mile loop again. Of course, I was walking Bodhi this morning, thinking to myself that my legs still felt rather weak and wondering if they'd be feeling good by Thursday? I happened to bump into my running partner out with her two huskies, and she said that she'd checked the schedule after we had run and noticed that we were only supposed to do six miles on Sunday!

"Doh!"

We ran with one of the huskies, and so our pace was a little slower than our previous runs. She's run with her dogs for many years, even training for marathons with them. The male is nine and he can still run, but the female is ten and going blind so she doesn't run anymore.

I registered for the race yesterday, and picked up a couple of packages of that gloop that restores carbs and electrolytes, and a belt with a holder for a water battle. I don't carry water with me when I run, but I figure 13 miles might require a little hydration. Of course, there are water stations along the route, so maybe I'll carry a beer instead.

Just kidding.

Made it to yoga last night for the first time in a few months. Not sure if that was a wise thing to do or not, leg-wise. It was a very good workout though. New instructor. Not sure what the terms are to describe the sequence of poses, but I'd done something similar in taekwondo and it's an ass-kicker. Go to plank, which is the push-up position, down halfway - hold for a breath - down till your chest is an inch off the floor - hold for a breath - back to plank. Repeat. Five of those was enough to get my arms burning. Sound easy? You try it! We used to count to five in tkd, and then stop at halfway again on the way up. But the effect is the same. Felt good when we were done though, and not just in the "like beating your head against a brick wall: It feels so good when you stop," sort of way.

Read an article in the NY Times that more folks my age are meeting other singles online now than by any other method, the next two being work and friends. Well, there are almost no women at work, (the two that are there are married), and my friends all seem to be decades younger than me. (I? Whatever.) So I went ahead and re-tooled my profile on Match and made it visible, posted some pictures, and paid the subscription fee. We'll see what happens next. I'm sure I probably made some questionable calls with regard to my narrative and pictures, but what the hell? One of the pictures is of me doing a keg-stand. I figure I can explain it's just a yoga pose: "downward facing keg." Do I worry that it makes me look immature? Nope, that's kind of the intent.

Of course, I've lived alone for over nine years now, so I've gotten kind of used to it. And I can't really say I've dated anyone in the usual sense in about that long as well. So this ought to be really interesting. There have been a couple of passing distractions along the way, including at least one, well, yeah, broken heart. So it's not like I've been a hermit or anything. And my one previous effort on Match yielded a couple of contacts that both kind of spooked me. But Action Dave, Cool-Guy Bachelor, is looking for something else now. Undecided as to whether there will be periodic progress reports here or not. Chances are, if you hear nothing, something's going on. If nothing's going on, it's pretty much a sure thing I'll be complaining about it.

Well, I guess I'd better get my ass in gear and get to work. While I still have a job that is. Life is probably going to get very interesting at some point this year. Previously, as a naval officer with a secure job, I could be counted on to make almost herculean efforts to jump-start the economy with my own consumer (that is to say, frivolous) spending. Now, as a government contractor who is likely to become an unemployed government contractor, I'm going to be like everyone else and throttling back to max-conserve. (New MacBook? "Ooooh, shiny... No!")

I keep waiting for all the leading lights and starry-eyed "optimists" of the online universe to 'splain to me how social networking and Web 3.x (Beta) is going to "change everything" and lift us all out of this economic disaster. They're all pretty damn quiet about that. "Changes everything," my shiny metal ass.

I am pretty confident it'll be a quicker recovery than the Great Depression, and hopefully won't require a world war. But it's still going to suck for quite some time.

Plus, the O-man is showing every sign that he's got game! Rock on!

So, we got that goin' for us.

Be of good cheer. We're all gonna die anyway. Just kidding. Ray Kurzweil isn't going to die.

Competing Messages: Blind Faith

"Love is blind."

"Blind faith."

Love is faith in action.

There's an essay in there somewhere, but not this morning.

Nope. Something else today.

Stayed home with a stomach virus of some kind yesterday. All's well that ends well, thank you. But I spent much of the morning in the recliner enjoying Grumpy Old Men for the x-teenth time. I love that movie. Anyway, kind of got me in touch with my inner grumpy old man. So I'm going to indulge him this morning with a bit of compare and contrast and crusty, curmudgeonly commentary.

As the stock market continues its free fall into the Clinton era, and the economic news grows worse and worse, we are cheered by the report of a study that indicates that "Teenagers' Internet Socializing Not a Bad Thing." Of course, irony being the fifth fundamental force of the universe, that little online headline was placed immediately across from this one: "Woman Who Posed as Boy Testifies in Case That Ended in Suicide of 13-Year-Old."

While I think that's just about one of the worst examples of headline writing I've ever read (the case ended in a suicide of a 13-year-old?), I think we also know that the headline refers to the Lori Drew/Megan Meier case. And say what you will about whether or not the prosecutor is overreaching, or what compounds the tragedy, it is somewhat ironic that the two stories should appear in such close proximity.

But that's not all. Because both stories take place within the context of the current economic meltdown, which is nothing less than the failure of all the titanic minds of finance to recognize risk, or restrain the worst excesses of greed, or, dare I say it? because of blind faith in the financial, not to say exactly "capitalist," system.

Recall that irony is the fifth fundamental force of the universe. Because that same oblivious confidence, that unreasoning optimism, that worshipfulness of a cherished notion, is patently manifest in the giddy proclamation of one of the, perhaps lesser, out of an abundance of deference to his modesty, titanic minds of the internet, Dr. David Weinberger. Dr. Weinberger notes that the study, finds that the stereotypical idea of the Internet as a soul-devouring, anti-social wasteland for our kids is just plain wrong. If you suspected otherwise, now you know you were right.

"Now you know you were right." Hmmm...

I hate labels because they usually obscure more than they illuminate. I'm reluctant to say that I'm an optimist, a pessimist or a realist. Maybe I'm just, I don't know, skeptical. But I do know that I don't share Dr. Weinberger's blind faith in the power of technology to improve humanity. One gets the distinct impression that Dr. Weinberger believes the perfectibility of the human soul will be achieved through technology, presumably because it doesn't share our limitations. The internet, from which all blessings flow, is to be deified and worshipped, and unbelievers, those poor benighted souls who haven't seen the light of salvation issuing through glass fibers, are not to be listened to, let alone tolerated, because they are wrong.

But aren't we starting to get an inkling of the kinds of trouble we can get ourselves into when we invest ourselves so completely into something we want to believe in because it appeals to us so much? Spreading democracy? "Financial innovation?" Ubiquitous, intrusive, networked technologies? Probably not.

Never underestimate humanity's inability to learn from its mistakes. Humility is not one of our virtues.

The beatings will continue until morale improves around here.

Born 2 Run

Well, probably not. But I ran 10 miles this morning. It was pretty chilly too, at about 45 degrees out there, with some wind. Since it was near low tide at 7:00 a.m., and I didn't have a good loop for 10 miles where I wouldn't have to stop for traffic, I figured I'd just run down the beach till I hit five miles and turn around and run back. Simple.

My partner overslept, so I pressed on without her.

Well, the wind blows pretty hard at the beach, and the sand, even at low tide, wasn't as firm as I might have preferred. So my pace was lower and it felt like I was working harder. In any event, I was able to complete the run, but my time was 1:55, for an average pace of 11:30 a mile. I'm going to guess it was the sand. Once again, the fastest miles were the last two at 11:03 and 11:07, and it did feel as though I was flying once I was back onto pavement. I did happen to run into my partner on my may back, she was running with one of her two Siberian Huskies, so she still had a training partner!

My calves are feeling it a bit afterward, again, I suspect because of the uneven surface of the sand and the variable firmness. Next weekend is supposed to be another nine-miler, and then I guess I'll have to figure out if I want to run this race or not. I may just do it, though I have no idea what I'm doing for Thanksgiving this year. I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough.

Little Time, Fewer Words

So anyway, things have been busy around here, busy and crazy; and while the "busyness" has abated somewhat, the craziness remains about the same. The craziness seems to demand some mental effort at sorting it all out; discerning, or perhaps fabricating, some meaning or larger context. Which is great if you like to write blog posts. Not so great if you wish do so before you go to work in the morning. Of course, some of the mental effort takes place while walking the dog, but it's a big task and dog-walk-thinking doesn't always lend itself to paragraphs of logical discourse. If I may be so presumptuous as to believe that anything even approaching "logical discourse" ever issues from these ephemeral traces of electromagnetic energy. You've been warned.

With that complaint out of the way, perhaps a review of first principles, assuming we have any. The difference between faith an hope: The former is an affirmation of all that is, was and will be. The latter is a preference for, and an imposition of, one's ignorant, ego-centric, momentary and transient desires on what will be. Short summary: Abandon hope.

If it can be said, and I don't know if it can be, but if it can be said that the ultimate ground of being is nothingness or emptiness, and that being itself is the negation of nothingness, essentially an affirmation, then being is nothing more than an act of faith. All being springs from that essential affirmation. And who are we to deny some of it out of preference for the parts of it we find most agreeable to our limited view? So of course we affirm this as well. That we are flawed, ignorant beings, prone to losing our way.

The good news is, finding it again gives us something to do.

Whatever. Time to walk the dog again.

We now return to your regular program, already in progress...

Ran

It was really chilly starting out, but I think the temperature and lack of wind actually worked to our advantage. We did the nine miles in 1:40:28 (and, technically, it was 9.03 miles). Now, I haven't done the math, but Ascent, which takes the data from the Garmin Forerunner 305, indicates we ran at an 11:07 mile pace, which is one second faster than my pace last weekend when I ran eight. (My neighbor had a headache.) And, for whatever it's worth, last weekend was two minutes faster than the only other time I'd run eight miles, which was just before the Gate River Run back in February.

My neighbor had this gel thing we shared about the 6.5 mile point. I'd never tried anything like that before. I don't even bring water when I run. I'm kind of Forest Gump about it, I guess. Anyway, it seemed to make a real difference because my head was clearer and I felt better afterward. In fact, we ran the last mile at a 10:41 pace, which was the fastest mile of all.

The last four weeks have been successively longer distances of 6, 7, 8 and now 9 miles. The average pace has dropped from 11:33 to 11:11 to 11:08 to 11:07. I don't really train in between runs, I just walk four miles at lunch time and however many miles Bodhi and I get in each day, usually another three or four. A couple of times I had a workout on the heavy bag, which includes jumping rope, and the Friday before last, I ran five miles as something of a cathartic exercise, but nothing else beyond that.

Next weekend we're planning to do 10 miles. I want to buy new shoes, so that might be a new wrinkle. That'll be the longest distance we do to train. Two weeks from now is another 9 miler. At this rate, I may just run the damn race for the hell of it.

One thing is consistent, the runs generally leaved me rather wiped for the rest of Sunday. But that's okay. I'm going to spend most of today head-down in Excel anyway.

"Is this a great country, or what?"

I have been busier than any other time that I can think of in recent memory. For the most part, this has been a good thing, as it has involved a certain added dimension to my social life. Alas, it seems that that was not meant to last. The upside is, I have just a little bit of time to spend here.

The results of the election were a source of great joy to me, and profound relief. That's probably all I'll say about that, as I'd rather look forward than back. And looking forward, I wish to note for the record that I understand that all men have feet of clay. But some remain better than others, clay and all.

In about an hour, I'm going to go for a nine mile run with a neighbor of mine who is training for a half-marathon coming up in a couple of weeks. She doesn't like to train alone, and I don't mind the company even if I'm not training for a half-marathon. At least, not the one coming up later this month. I'll be doing one in February, and then a 15K in March.

I'm still probably not what you'd call a "runner," my pace is usually over 11:00/mile. Though I was pleased at my 5 miler about a week ago, which I ran in 53:33. The weather has been much more conducive to running this fall. Of course, as I sit here it's 45 degrees out there, only three degrees warmer than my parents' place in upstate New York. But it's been that cold a few times and it doesn't feel cold once you get moving.

It's been a relatively productive weekend. I did a lot of housekeeping yesterday, which was overdue, and it's something of a relief to have a little less mess. Of course, as noted scientist, philosopher and rock star Neil Young once observed, "Entropy never sleeps."

I've been working on finance matters for my condo association. That is a source of enormous stress and frustration, as it seems one can't please anyone; and no one is reticent about sharing just how screwed up everything is, and how it should have been done. So I'm just now trying to take a new approach and not talk to anyone about it. That policy probably ought to include here too.

The combination of social life changes and this effort to plot a course through some rough financial seas has made me the beneficiary of a great deal of purported sympathy and concern, as I've been on the receiving end of all manner of criticism, feedback, advice and "things I need to hear," that I really have little wish to listen to. It really is too much at times. And it was the other night when it kind of brought an early and unhappy end to what was supposed to be a pleasant evening.

Not to dwell on it, I guess in the end what I finally realized, was that I shouldn't listen to everything everyone has to say. The vast majority of it is just noise, and people scratching their own itches. But for my part, I invite much of it by even raising the issue. So the lesson is, "Keep your mouth shut!"

Though I prefer Heraclitus: "Silence, healing."

Gotta run.

In Case You Were Wondering...

I am still here. I may have more to say later, but for now, regardless of your political persuasion, here's something that I think is worth thinking about. The main thesis is clearly flawed, but the particulars are dead on:

(Editor's note: It's been a long time since I've done this, so it may not work and I may not fix it right away if it doesn't. As the French say, c'est la vie...)