Accouterments of patriotism

CedaRound: Alliant Energy Tower

Does YOUR city’s relentlessly vertical optic-white limestone late Modernist 10th-tallest-building-in-the-state tower have hella-cool patriotic LED-laser-focused dramatic uplighting like this? No. Your city’s relentlessly vertical optic-white limestone late Modernist 10th-tallest-building-in-the-state tower does NOT have hella-cool patriotic LED-laser-focused dramatic uplighting like this.

We win.

The last appearance from a representative of my bountiful wardrobe of clearance-rack patriotic attire

The first weekday training run since my hip grew back. Here’s hoping it takes me a full three miles!

#HowToTurn50 #AndNeverLoseHope

#WellMaybe #ButJustALittle

50 Things About My Fourth Of July:

1. I ran my 8K this morning with 99.76% NO PAIN. 
2. See what I did there?
3. I said .76 because of 1776!
4. Because I am nothing if not mathematically patriotic.
5. I hadn’t realized how defeated I’d gotten over my stupid hip injury and the fact I hadn’t run a step in 10 days, and the fact that the pain is gone has filled me with near euphoria.
6. WOOT!
7. As the cool kids say.
8. Rule No. 1 for running is to NOT try something new on a race day.
9. No clothes that you’ve never worn before.
10. No foods that you’ve never eaten before.
11. Because that’s DUMBASS.
12. But I’m a total dumbass.
13. Because I bought new compression shorts yesterday to hold my brittle, aging hip parts in place at the advice of a Facebook friend.
14. While I was at it, I also got some new running socks that have padded collars in the backs to prevent my super-cute patriotic running shoes from sanding away my Achilles tendons like last time.
15. Plus I dug out my long-overlooked patriotic sunglasses that I don’t remember fitting very securely.
16. Because why not?
17. Oh! I also dumbassedly chugged a never-before-introduced-into-my-body Rocktane(R) Ultra Endurance Gu(R) Energy Gel before the run.
18. But everything worked out perfectly and didn’t give me any problems.
19. Except.
20. Ex. Cept.
21. EX! CEPT!
22. Compression shorts—which I’ve never worn until this morning’s race—not only don’t feel noticeably compressiony but they do nothing to keep the seatbelts fastened for the bumpy ride.
23. NOTHING.
24. So after bouncing around in their slippery, unsupportive pouch for 4.97 miles this morning, my Margos are what we will politely call Channinged.
25. Ouch.
26. Ouch ouch ouch.
27. Also: They’re made with the same Super Slippery Slipperiness(R) as gym shorts.
28. Super Slippery Slipperiness(R) + Super Slippery Slipperiness(R) = MY GYM SHORTS WOULDN’T STAY UP.
29. I’m sassy!
30. After the race, I foam-rolled my hip even though it didn’t hurt.
31. Because I’m responsible hip owner.
32. While I was on the floor rolling my hip, Bridget sat down next to me to keep me company.
33. Just look at this picture of us.
34. LOOK AT IT!

35. I. Love. That. Dog.
36. Then I fell asleep sitting up in a chair.
37. Because the Rocktane(R) Ultra Endurance Gu(R) Energy Gel had clearly worn off.
38. I was still wearing my finisher medal.
39. Yes. I’m THAT guy: The douchebag who SLEEPS IN HIS DAMN RACING MEDALS. 

40. I ran into so many—SO! MANY!—wonderful friends before and after the race this morning.

41. Including—but not limited to—my training buddies Rob and Scott and my saintly friend David, who patiently ran at my old-injured-man pace with me through all 4.97 miles.
42. Even when I had to stop and walk.
43. Which I’m thrilled to announce was because it was insanely hot and not because my hip hurt.
44. WOOT!
45. Again, as the cool kids say.
46. So—unless this morning was a fluke—my Summer Of Running Away From Being 50 is BACK ON!
47. With super-slippery compression shorts if Margo and I feel like I need them.
48. Plus real, ACTUAL support from Bridget.
49. And that’s #HowToTurn
50. #50!

Finished! And my hip feels great! Seriously!

OHMYGODYAYYAYYAY! 

But now we’re stuck behind a damn train on the way home.

And we’re off!

Only a gay man would artfully arrange his running attire for a night-before photo

I could say I haven’t eagerly to the point of giddiness waited until I could FINALLY pin a racing bib in its designated place of honor on the front of my new Summer Of Running Away From Being 50 shirt since the moment it arrived in the mail over a month ago, but we all know I’d be lying.

I could also say I haven’t eagerly been planning my patriotic little running ensemble since this time last year, but I’d only partly be lying because I didn’t know until today that I’d be wearing brand-new compression shorts to hold the randomly loose parts of my aging, brittle hip in place for tomorrow’s 8K.

Bonus purchase: cushy new running socks! With a pop of neon lime! To tie everything together with my red-and-neon-lime Rocktane(R) Ultra Endurance Gu(R) Energy Gel!

#HowToTurn50 #LetsDOTHIS

I am not a subtle patriotismer

What I learned this morning:

1. I think I’ll be able to run tomorrow’s 8K.

2. There’s a chance I may be an idiot for doing it.
3. Which would completely sabotage all my summer and fall running goals.
4. Or not.
5. My physical therapist gave me the go-ahead to run tomorrow, but only because she trusts me to pull my head out of my ass and stop running at the first sign of pain.
6. Those weren’t her exact words.
7. But she’s right.
8. These two yahoos are saints for joining me this morning in what I warned them might end up being just a lovely sunrise walk.
9. Which it pretty much was.
10. I estimate we ran a mile and walked a mile and a half in aggregate.
11. My stupid-damn-fuck-you-I-hate-you-I-hate-you-I-hate-you-not-fair-why-why-why-injured hip is definitely sore right now.
12. But in an I’m-just-being-overly-cautious sensitive way and not an I’ve-reactivated-my-injury-and-completely-sabotaged-all-my-summer-and-fall-running-goals way.
13. I think.
14. But I just said “I think” on list number 13, which probably negates it and I might as well set up a ladder in a black-cat breeding mill and walk under it.
15. Or I just said that to pad this list so it reaches 25.
16. Game ON!
17. We didn’t plan to be so collectively patriotic in our running attire this morning.
18. Clearly Rob and I are actory drama queens because we’re not afraid to be weird in our selfies.
19. Clearly Scott is a master of self-restraint and decorum because he always looks normal and respectable in our selfies.
20. Or he’s just a fun-selfie sabotager.
21. You’d think that given the consistency in his boring, normal smiles over the last two months that Facebook would always automatically recognize him when I post our selfies.
22. But you’d be wrong.
23. But we still embrace him as one of our own.
24. C’mon, 25! You can do it!
25. BOOYAH!
26. Oops.

It’s my first time running on my damn crippled hip in nine days

and it’s my whatever-mileage-doesn’t-hurt test run for tomorrow’s 8K. Observant readers will notice my patriotically appropriate attire. GIVE ME LIGAMENTS OR GIVE ME DEATH!

I’m at physical therapy. Sup with you?

Today is the anniversary of the 1871 Chicago Fire

... which historians are not opposed to believing actually could have been started by a cow kicking over a lantern in Mrs. O'Leary's barn -- though, to be fair, there are many other credible, though less historically charming, theories as to how the fire started. During the 15 years I lived in Chicago, I saw it as my civic duty to read and learn as much as I could about my city and its history. I was excited to start reading this book when I found it, but it turned out to be more of a lengthy essay on the cultural and sociopolitical Zeitgeist that framed the fire than on the timeline and geography of the unfolding inferno and the human-level experience of surviving it, which I would have found far more meaningful.

In any case, upwards of 300 people died and thousands were left homeless and impoverished 146 years ago today and tomorrow. I mark this day on my calendar every year so I'm reminded to think about who they might have been and the horrors they most certainly endured. And I encourage you to a moment today in their memory to celebrate what you have while you still have it.

Here's my review from 2012:
I was hoping that Smoldering City: Chicagoans and the Great Fire, 1871–1874 would be a breathless page-turner about the human dramas of conflagrant destruction, abject suffering and triumph over adversity peppered with tantalizing details about old Chicago buildings and neighborhoods that I recognize. Instead it’s a hyperwonkish examination of class inequality, political grandstanding, religious imperialism (particularly the emergence of “scientific” relief that favored distributing blankets and food and financial aid to the religious and the “worthy” newly homeless rich over assisting the chronically poor and the working class who were technically able to support themselves though there was little to no work available in the months after the fire) and the simmering intolerance toward (particularly German) immigrants in the fire’s aftermath. It does draw some timely parallels to America’s current obsession with “big” government in its discussions of Chicago’s post-fire laws against rebuilding with wood (which made rebuilding almost financially impossible for low- and middle-class fire victims) and its curiously detailed recounting of virulently sabbatical opposition to German-immigrant beer gardens serving alcohol on Sundays, which temporarily drove the mostly single-issue People’s Party into power over the status-quo Law and Order party of native-born religious privilege. The book does frequently refer to one concept that will amuse modern Chicago residents, though: the idea that fire victims “fled the city” northward to the neighboring community of Lake View.

At least the flag is still there

Happy early July 4 from me and Bitch Kitty, who hissed at me and scampered off to no doubt make pro-Putin posters and buy more MAGA hats from China before my camera had time to auto-focus for our patriotic selfie portrait. So the key takeaways here are 1) Bitch Kitty is eliminating your insurance before she bites you, 2) my disco-fantasy mustache makes me positively irresistible even when I sit next to the empty spot where my heartless kitty humiliatingly abandoned me for our patriotic selfie portrait, 3) my Snoopy shirt has a red collar and blue sleeves but Bitch Kitty ran away and killed my patriotic spirit before I got my blue sleeves in the frame and we're all gonna die anyway so why bother, 4) isn't our needlepoint flag pillow super-cute? 5) Mom is stuffed full of pain pills and tucked cozily into her blanket-draped recliner for the first night of her predicted eight weeks of shoulder-surgery recovery while I'm climbing under a blanket on the couch next to her so I can re-pill her every three hours and it feels really good that I'm here to take care of her, 6) she's still hoarse from her nerve block so she has one of my marathon cowbells at her side in case she needs to wake me between pills, 7) she might lose a hand if she actually rings that damn bell while I'm sleeping, 8) she's wearing my pajama bottoms for reasons she describes as because they're much too big for her so they're easier to get on and off with one hand but we all know it's because the hospital vending machine was out of Diet Coke today so I had a real Coke, 9) is it bad to hope that everyone setting off fireworks right now plus all the legislators who gave them unfettered access to all those fireworks lose vital organs in incendiary ways tonight? asking for a friend, 10) seriously -- how super-cute is our needlepoint throw pillow?

Red, white and gay

I just had a manly arm and shoulder workout but I also managed to dress myself this morning like a majorette at a bunting festival. I even packed a red workout shake bottle. If we had a daycare center at my gym, the toddlers would have beaten me up by now.