Showing posts with label a totally justified FUCK!. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a totally justified FUCK!. Show all posts
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Flashback Wednesday: Sheer, Abject Terror Edition
"Just lean back off the roof and hold onto these alarmingly tiny ropes that we guarantee won't snap and send you plummeting to your death," they said. "Look around and enjoy the view that very few people get to see," they said. "Keep yourself horizontal to the building," they said.
"STOP SHAKING YOUR DAMN LEGS. YOU LOOK LIKE A LOW-RENT ELVIS IMPERSONATOR," they said. "GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER OR WE WON'T LET YOU RAPPEL," they said.
"I've taken the training and paid the money and I'm not giving up now," I said. "I won't look down at the pavement where I could easily splat and die in abject terror," I said. "I won't look down at the pavement where I could easily splat and die in abject terror," I said. "I won't look down at the pavement where I could easily splat and die in abject terror," I said.
"Here I go, shakes and terror and all," I said.
"Holy shit I hate this I hate this I hate this eyes on the ropes squeeze your hands hard don't look down don't look down to hell with looking around at the view I hate this I hate this I hate this is it over yet," I said.
"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," I said.
Yes, I literally made the noise "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" all the way down the building.
"I'M BACK ON SOLID GROUND AND IT'S FINALLY OVER," I said. "I AM NEVER NEVER NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN," I said. "I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO FUCKING SCARED IN MY ENTIRE LIFE," I said.
"I NEED ALCOHOL," I said.
Yes, I really said "I NEED ALCOHOL" because I was still shaking in my legs and tummy and though I've barely had any alcohol in my life and I had no idea what an entire drink would do to me, I WANTED SOME DAMN ALCOHOL.
"I'll have a Tom Collins," I said to the waiter. Because someone recommended it and it sounded interesting.
I drank my Tom Collins, still shaking in my legs and tummy. And it was GOOD.
The end.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Sunday, September 02, 2018
I can’t tell what’s worse:
feeling my knee explode in pain at mile 2.5, pushing myself to mile 3 which made the pain almost crippling, making the decision to actually quit a race for the first time in my life, realizing that pushing myself to 3 miles meant having to hobble 3 miles back, avoiding eye contact with all the runners who were behind me because I didn’t want their pity, admitting absolute defeat at the 2-mile water station and having the volunteers call for a ride back to the start line for me, feeling bad for sweating all over the nice driver’s car, or being so irrationally mad at myself that I’m slinking home instead of cheering for all my friends as they cross the finish line.
My pace was already over a minute slower than my goal pace at mile 3 and would have gradually gotten slower to the point that I would have probably been disqualified from the race anyway. So I guess it’s better that I quit at mile 3 and not had to hobble even farther home in a race I wouldn’t have been allowed to finish.
I’m going to continue being irrationally mad at myself for a while and then get over it and move on. But there won’t be a group finisher selfie today. Sorry, guys.
I’m going to continue being irrationally mad at myself for a while and then get over it and move on. But there won’t be a group finisher selfie today. Sorry, guys.
Saturday, July 28, 2018
1. I finally ran the Elveløpet 15K
2. But not really.
3. There were probably 100 15K runners overall.
4. I was clearly dead last of the runners by mile 4.
5. Seriously. Just me and the very lonely road.
6. And the nagging worry that I’d end up running the wrong direction for miles and miles without knowing it.
7. In writing, we call this foreshadowing.
8. So there are lots of hills in Decorah.
9. OH MY ODIN THERE ARE HILLS.
10. But they’re nothing compared to the all-but-literal MOUNTAIN that started about mile 5 1/2.
11. MOU. NTAN.
12. Just hills and hills and trees and the road and me.
13. And at one point two startled deer.
14. Plus my irrational worry that I’d encounter a marauding band of feral gnomes who’d abduct me and I’d never be seen again except for occasional sightings of me in a chin beard and gnomey hat under a bridge.
15. Irrational.
16. Except it WAS Nordic Fest so the gnomes might have been emboldened and hungry.
17. But let’s not think about that.
18. Because there’s no such marauding bands of feral gnomes, right?
19. Anyway ...
20. The mountain kept going up and up and up.
21. And then you’d go around a bend and there’d be even more up.
22. But finally there was a plateau.
23. With a rough-hewn rock that had been mowed around in a figure 8.
24. Again: foreshadowing.
25. So the road started going downhill.
26. Finally.
27. FINALLY.
28. The road eventually came to a fork.
29. The official Elveløpet directional arrow sign that had been stuck in the ground at this fork CLEARLY said to go left.
30. Which felt wrong, but I was so turned around that I had no faith in my sense of direction.
31. Foreshadowing.
32. There’s that word again.
33. So I went left.
34. And the road started getting uphilly again.
35. Let me interrupt this gripping narrative to mention that I’d been maintaining an 11:30 pace through my entire Alpine adventure to this point.
36. I’d expected to run a 12:00 pace, so 11:30 was both an awesome surprise and a genuine motivator to maintain my sprightly clip.
37. Though it was clearly epically slower than the collective pace of the other 99 Elveløpet 15K runners.
38. Because they were so far ahead of me that I was ALL ALONE on this winding, forest-of-trees mountain.
39. That was surely crawling with marauding bands of feral gnomes.
40. But back to our story ...
41. So I’m going up and up the mountain of hills, thinking it’s awfully odd that I’ve run a good two miles almost entirely uphill and it’s already mile 7 and I’d better get downhill soon so I can get all the way back to the finish line, which doesn’t seem at all like it’s only 2 miles away.
42. Oh, yay! I seem to finally reached a plateau.
43. Look at that interesting rough-hewn rock that’s been mowed around in a figure 8.
44. Hey—wait a minute ...
45. FUCK.
46. Yup.
47. That left-pointing arrow just sent me on mile-and-a-half repeat loop.
48. So I am no longer running the 15K course that had been mapped out.
49. So I am officially no longer running the race.
50. And now I’m so behind that the finish line may be dismantled and abandoned by the time I get there.
51. Again with the damn foreshadowing.
52. But at least it’s new and different foreshadowing.
53. In the mean time, I have no other option but to keep running and hoping I circle back to that FUCKING WRONG left arrow and see what happens if I go right.
54. Which I did.
55. Still having no clue if it would get me back on course or get me totally lost.
56. In the land of marauding bands of feral gnomes.
57. It’s amazing what a volatile mix frustration, uncertainty and mounting anger can be when you need extra power to fuel a long run.
58. Long story short: Turning right got me back on track.
59. For a whole mile.
60. Then the arrows just disappeared entirely.
61. But I had no way of knowing that.
62. Until a dude on a bike saw me and told me I’d run way past the turn to the finish line.
63. I had to trudge through a hay field to get to the trail I needed to be on to get back on track.
64. A FUCKING HAY FIELD.
65. By then I’d on-good-faith run 10.3 miles of a 9.3-mile race.
66. I was exhausted.
67. And hot.
68. Because I was finally out in the sun.
69. And pissed.
70. Because through no fault of my own I technically hadn’t run the race I’d been dreaming about running for 20+ years.
71. So FUCK IT.
72. I walked the rest of the way back.
73. Which ended up being a whopping 1.5 miles.
74. Which almost adds up to a 12-mile journey.
75. Remember that foreshadowing about the finish line?
76. Well, it hadn’t been dismantled and abandoned, as I worried it would have been.
77. But it HAD been pulled off the street onto the grass so the street could be reopened to traffic.
78. Some dude was fucking still standing there with a fucking bullhorn and he fucking announced to fucking NOBODY that I crossed the finish line.
79. At this point I was furious.
80. Plus I was far enough from the long-abandoned starting line that I had no idea where I was.
81. But after I finished my Gatorade—I always run with a Gatorade in my hand—and found a bathroom, I calmed down a bit.
82. Because my half-marathon training schedule had me supposed to be running 10 miles this weekend.
83. Which I totally did in today’s 9.3-mile race.
84. And by the transitive power of holy shit when will these hills ever end, that number is more like 13.1.
85. Which—coincidentally—is the exact distance of a half marathon.
86. So I’m totally on track for rocking the half I’m running over Labor Day.
87. Eyes. On. The. Prize.
88. So I’ve decided to look at all of this as I ran the Elveløpet ... plus a lot more.
89. I’m sorry I don’t have an actual finishing time.
90. Because this race was ROUGH and BRUTAL and OTHER ROUGH AND BRUTAL WORDS so it’s totally a one-and-done.
91. But the shirts are awesome.
92. And I know I conquered some killer terrain at a better-than-expected pace for a good 7 miles.
93. Which I’m really thrilled about.
94. And also a little proud of.
95. Plus I rewarded myself with gluttonous amounts of sweet rømmegrøt pudding afterward, which was my only other goal of the trip.
96. Plus the Nordic Fest parade was more delightful and fun and even stirring than I had any idea it would be.
97. I love my cool-fun-proud-and-sometimes-goofy Norwegian heritage.
98. Except for its inability to point simple arrow signs in the right direction.
99. And ALL THOSE HILLS.
100. And it goes without saying its penchant for stirring up marauding bands of feral gnomes.
4. I was clearly dead last of the runners by mile 4.
5. Seriously. Just me and the very lonely road.
6. And the nagging worry that I’d end up running the wrong direction for miles and miles without knowing it.
7. In writing, we call this foreshadowing.
8. So there are lots of hills in Decorah.
9. OH MY ODIN THERE ARE HILLS.
10. But they’re nothing compared to the all-but-literal MOUNTAIN that started about mile 5 1/2.
11. MOU. NTAN.
12. Just hills and hills and trees and the road and me.
13. And at one point two startled deer.
14. Plus my irrational worry that I’d encounter a marauding band of feral gnomes who’d abduct me and I’d never be seen again except for occasional sightings of me in a chin beard and gnomey hat under a bridge.
15. Irrational.
16. Except it WAS Nordic Fest so the gnomes might have been emboldened and hungry.
17. But let’s not think about that.
18. Because there’s no such marauding bands of feral gnomes, right?
19. Anyway ...
20. The mountain kept going up and up and up.
21. And then you’d go around a bend and there’d be even more up.
22. But finally there was a plateau.
23. With a rough-hewn rock that had been mowed around in a figure 8.
24. Again: foreshadowing.
25. So the road started going downhill.
26. Finally.
27. FINALLY.
28. The road eventually came to a fork.
29. The official Elveløpet directional arrow sign that had been stuck in the ground at this fork CLEARLY said to go left.
30. Which felt wrong, but I was so turned around that I had no faith in my sense of direction.
31. Foreshadowing.
32. There’s that word again.
33. So I went left.
34. And the road started getting uphilly again.
35. Let me interrupt this gripping narrative to mention that I’d been maintaining an 11:30 pace through my entire Alpine adventure to this point.
36. I’d expected to run a 12:00 pace, so 11:30 was both an awesome surprise and a genuine motivator to maintain my sprightly clip.
37. Though it was clearly epically slower than the collective pace of the other 99 Elveløpet 15K runners.
38. Because they were so far ahead of me that I was ALL ALONE on this winding, forest-of-trees mountain.
39. That was surely crawling with marauding bands of feral gnomes.
40. But back to our story ...
41. So I’m going up and up the mountain of hills, thinking it’s awfully odd that I’ve run a good two miles almost entirely uphill and it’s already mile 7 and I’d better get downhill soon so I can get all the way back to the finish line, which doesn’t seem at all like it’s only 2 miles away.
42. Oh, yay! I seem to finally reached a plateau.
43. Look at that interesting rough-hewn rock that’s been mowed around in a figure 8.
44. Hey—wait a minute ...
45. FUCK.
46. Yup.
47. That left-pointing arrow just sent me on mile-and-a-half repeat loop.
48. So I am no longer running the 15K course that had been mapped out.
49. So I am officially no longer running the race.
50. And now I’m so behind that the finish line may be dismantled and abandoned by the time I get there.
51. Again with the damn foreshadowing.
52. But at least it’s new and different foreshadowing.
53. In the mean time, I have no other option but to keep running and hoping I circle back to that FUCKING WRONG left arrow and see what happens if I go right.
54. Which I did.
55. Still having no clue if it would get me back on course or get me totally lost.
56. In the land of marauding bands of feral gnomes.
57. It’s amazing what a volatile mix frustration, uncertainty and mounting anger can be when you need extra power to fuel a long run.
58. Long story short: Turning right got me back on track.
59. For a whole mile.
60. Then the arrows just disappeared entirely.
61. But I had no way of knowing that.
62. Until a dude on a bike saw me and told me I’d run way past the turn to the finish line.
63. I had to trudge through a hay field to get to the trail I needed to be on to get back on track.
64. A FUCKING HAY FIELD.
65. By then I’d on-good-faith run 10.3 miles of a 9.3-mile race.
66. I was exhausted.
67. And hot.
68. Because I was finally out in the sun.
69. And pissed.
70. Because through no fault of my own I technically hadn’t run the race I’d been dreaming about running for 20+ years.
71. So FUCK IT.
72. I walked the rest of the way back.
73. Which ended up being a whopping 1.5 miles.
74. Which almost adds up to a 12-mile journey.
75. Remember that foreshadowing about the finish line?
76. Well, it hadn’t been dismantled and abandoned, as I worried it would have been.
77. But it HAD been pulled off the street onto the grass so the street could be reopened to traffic.
78. Some dude was fucking still standing there with a fucking bullhorn and he fucking announced to fucking NOBODY that I crossed the finish line.
79. At this point I was furious.
80. Plus I was far enough from the long-abandoned starting line that I had no idea where I was.
81. But after I finished my Gatorade—I always run with a Gatorade in my hand—and found a bathroom, I calmed down a bit.
82. Because my half-marathon training schedule had me supposed to be running 10 miles this weekend.
83. Which I totally did in today’s 9.3-mile race.
84. And by the transitive power of holy shit when will these hills ever end, that number is more like 13.1.
85. Which—coincidentally—is the exact distance of a half marathon.
86. So I’m totally on track for rocking the half I’m running over Labor Day.
87. Eyes. On. The. Prize.
88. So I’ve decided to look at all of this as I ran the Elveløpet ... plus a lot more.
89. I’m sorry I don’t have an actual finishing time.
90. Because this race was ROUGH and BRUTAL and OTHER ROUGH AND BRUTAL WORDS so it’s totally a one-and-done.
91. But the shirts are awesome.
92. And I know I conquered some killer terrain at a better-than-expected pace for a good 7 miles.
93. Which I’m really thrilled about.
94. And also a little proud of.
95. Plus I rewarded myself with gluttonous amounts of sweet rømmegrøt pudding afterward, which was my only other goal of the trip.
96. Plus the Nordic Fest parade was more delightful and fun and even stirring than I had any idea it would be.
97. I love my cool-fun-proud-and-sometimes-goofy Norwegian heritage.
98. Except for its inability to point simple arrow signs in the right direction.
99. And ALL THOSE HILLS.
100. And it goes without saying its penchant for stirring up marauding bands of feral gnomes.
Saturday, June 30, 2018
Friday, June 15, 2018
Today's Moment Of Pure Ridiculous Joy: "I Just Wanna Dance"
Fun fact: There is a 2001 three-act opera exploring, parodying, mocking and even sympathizingly understanding the cultural underpinnings and social normalizations of The Jerry Springer Show. It is called (if you can even believe this name wasn’t already taken) Jerry Springer: The Opera.
Its breakout song—at least for gay men at massive circuit parties in the early 2000s—was “I Just Wanna Dance,” in which a stripper who is done being belittled and called a whore takes ownership of the actions and choices her circumstances have offered her and proclaims “I’m tired of all this trying / I wanna do some living / ‘Cos I’ve done enough dying / I just wanna dance / I just wanna fucking dance!”
Yes, there is swearing. It’s about JERRY SPRINGER.
But back to us gays and our massive circuit parties (which are massively massive dance parties with laser light shows, rampant shirtlessness, speakers the size of industrial refrigerators and deafening remixes of awesome dance songs, with the exception of Madonna’s appalling rendition of “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina,” which is in every conceivable on this and all other planets way the polar opposite of awesome and you are to NEVER MENTION AGAIN). Anyway, we gays OF COURSE made many deafening remixes of “I Just Wanna Dance,” which is an awesome dance song. Plus it’s about wanting to dance. TOTAL TWOFER.
Speaking of twofers, here’s one of the remixes paired with dance clips from every awesome genre of awesome movie musical from West Side Story to Xanadu. IT. IS. SO. AWESOME. Watch it. Love it. Sing along with it. If it doesn’t make you wanna be gay, it will at the very least make you wanna dance. I mean wanna FUCKING dance!
Its breakout song—at least for gay men at massive circuit parties in the early 2000s—was “I Just Wanna Dance,” in which a stripper who is done being belittled and called a whore takes ownership of the actions and choices her circumstances have offered her and proclaims “I’m tired of all this trying / I wanna do some living / ‘Cos I’ve done enough dying / I just wanna dance / I just wanna fucking dance!”
Yes, there is swearing. It’s about JERRY SPRINGER.
But back to us gays and our massive circuit parties (which are massively massive dance parties with laser light shows, rampant shirtlessness, speakers the size of industrial refrigerators and deafening remixes of awesome dance songs, with the exception of Madonna’s appalling rendition of “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina,” which is in every conceivable on this and all other planets way the polar opposite of awesome and you are to NEVER MENTION AGAIN). Anyway, we gays OF COURSE made many deafening remixes of “I Just Wanna Dance,” which is an awesome dance song. Plus it’s about wanting to dance. TOTAL TWOFER.
Speaking of twofers, here’s one of the remixes paired with dance clips from every awesome genre of awesome movie musical from West Side Story to Xanadu. IT. IS. SO. AWESOME. Watch it. Love it. Sing along with it. If it doesn’t make you wanna be gay, it will at the very least make you wanna dance. I mean wanna FUCKING dance!
Saturday, May 19, 2018
Guess who’s parked precariously on the narrow shoulder of a rural highway somewhere north of Vinton IA with a flat tire and a 45-minute wait for AAA
Hint: It’s the gay guy who worked very hard to make sure this flat-tire photo is centered, balanced and artfully composed:
This 45-minute wait has given me plenty of time to cancel my much-looked-forward-to afternoon (sorry!) and evening (also sorry!) plans using my new, non-battery-abruptly-dying phone, though. So there’s that. It’s also given me plenty of time to visit the websites of every tire store in Cedar Rapids to find out that they’re ALL closed Saturday afternoons PLUS all day Sundays. Because there’s no reason to have convenient weekend hours when we all know that car tires go flat and need to be replaced only on weekdays. EXCEPT MINE.
But! AAA and iPhones are a potent car-trouble-fixing combination when you’re parked precariously on the narrow shoulder of a rural highway somewhere north of Vinton IA late on a Saturday afternoon. And I have a full tank of gas and a not-gonna-die-anytime-soon phone battery (plus Facebook!) and I’m as relatively safe as I can be parked precariously on the narrow shoulder of a rural highway somewhere north of Vinton IA, so this unexpected turn of events is more of an adventure-ish setback than a catastrophe.
OH BUT WAIT! Because LITERALLY JUST AS I TYPED THAT LAST SENTENCE, AAA called to tell me it won’t be a 45-minute wait—40 minutes of which have already passed—BUT A THREE-AND-A-HALF-HOUR WAIT.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Why the fuck do I even *HAVE* AAA if they’re going to suck this bad? And I really have no place to move my car and try to put on my spare by myself IN MY SPORTCOAT AND TIE while I wait.
FUCK.
But! AAA and iPhones are a potent car-trouble-fixing combination when you’re parked precariously on the narrow shoulder of a rural highway somewhere north of Vinton IA late on a Saturday afternoon. And I have a full tank of gas and a not-gonna-die-anytime-soon phone battery (plus Facebook!) and I’m as relatively safe as I can be parked precariously on the narrow shoulder of a rural highway somewhere north of Vinton IA, so this unexpected turn of events is more of an adventure-ish setback than a catastrophe.
OH BUT WAIT! Because LITERALLY JUST AS I TYPED THAT LAST SENTENCE, AAA called to tell me it won’t be a 45-minute wait—40 minutes of which have already passed—BUT A THREE-AND-A-HALF-HOUR WAIT.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Why the fuck do I even *HAVE* AAA if they’re going to suck this bad? And I really have no place to move my car and try to put on my spare by myself IN MY SPORTCOAT AND TIE while I wait.
FUCK.
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