You'd still run

Yup.

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Wednesday's Song of the Week

I totally had this all queued up to be posted yesterday and then got so distracted by shiny things and eggs over easy and winter seasonal beers that I totally forgot to ever hit publish. So you get it today. Maybe if you're super lucky, you'll even get a real blog post out of me too. But I'm leaving for Philadelphia in 10 hours and I'm pretty excited about it so my attention span is even shorter than usual, which is to say somewhere between goldfish and a hamster.

One of my all-time favorite Christmas songs, as performed by a band that is currently getting quite a bit of play time in my office cube. Goosebumps.

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Wednesday's Song of the Week

Yesterday Mojo sent me the link to Paste Magazine's 50 Best Albums of 2011 and there went my entire Tuesday night! I was happy to see some of my favorite albums of there year nestled in there like candy canes on a Christmas tree but I also got to spend some time exploring a lot of bands that frankly, I'd never heard of. And there are some real gems! One of which is Seryn.

As Paste puts it: With mostly acoustic instruments—ukulele, banjo, accordion, violin, cello and trumpet—and soaring choruses, this Denton, Texas, quintet builds nearly every song into a joyful crescendo adding voices—and urgency—as it progresses. That’s never more apparent than on “We Will All Be Changed,” which gets exponentially better with every decibel you turn it up.

I like to listen to my music loud.

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Clip 'o the Week

Can't deny it. Can't stop laughing. You're all welcome.

via Shmitten Kitten.

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Don't mean to be fresh ...

I'm not breaking any exciting scientific news here when I say that dogs are rude. Everyone knows it. My dog is one of the cheekiest little assholes I've ever met. I love him to death, but damn he is cheeky. But its not like he's the only one. Dogs will roll in shit and then jump on your couch. Or they'll eat dead things and then throw it up on your carpet. And then they'll try to eat it again. And they won't even think twice about running into the neighbor's yard while you're in your sweatpants, slippers, and a long fur coat. Or, as I've most recently discovered, they'll shove their head in their crotch in public and absolutely no type of gentle coercion is gonna get them to move it. Rude.

First, I'll give you a recent example from my own dog. I say recent because we went through quite a long time of this dog acting like a complete and utter dickhead until we loved (and emotional dog therapy-ed) the dick out of him. For the most part. But way back when there was all that real rescue dog behavioral stuff we had to deal with, like humping and growling and biting and snapping and snapping at small children and humping small children and humping grandparents and crawling under things and not eating and temper tantrums and barking and attacking other puppies, and did I mention he bit the puppy kindergarten teacher on puppy kindergarten graduation night, and generally just being a dickhead.

But that was a long time ago. Now he's just cheeky. I've recently taken up trail running and on my shorter runs, I'll take Rooney. He's pretty good in the woods and usually keeps himself relatively close to me unless he's off on a scent. Even then, he almost always comes soon after I call. Recently, it's been really muddy in there though. I mean REALLY muddy. There are portions of the trails that are downright swamp and there's no real way to avoid them. Some of these puppies stretch on for 10, 15, 20 feet and take up the entire trail.

What I'll usually do is slow down and tip-toe my way around the inch- or two-wide edges where the mud and water is just a few inches deep, as opposed to the rest of the puddle that can be shin-high with muck. The kind that sucks your shoes in and makes explicit sounding sounds when you pull them out and dirty water a few inches even higher than that. So of course for those few seconds I always pretend I'm journeying through the Swamp of Sadness from the Neverending Story and I have to prevent myself and my trusty steed from being sucked in to our doom and did you know that I STILL can't watch this clip without crying? FIGHT AGAINST THE SADNESS, ARTEX!

The dog -- who is always a few paces in front or behind me -- always takes this exact moment to run up next to me and bump me into the center of the giant puddle. Because we're usually moving at a relatively good clip and I'm hopping on my toes, often from rock to rock, my balance can't really take a good jolt to the knees that he gives me and I inevitably end up in the middle of the swamp. Once safely on the other side, he turns around and wags his tail at me. Every. Single. Time. It doesn't matter if Rooney's 50 feet behind me and I think I'm safe; he'll come sprinting up next to me just in time to knock me in. It's like the dog takes great joy in watching me stumble into the filth. He does it on purpose. I can just feel it. Dick.

Anyway. I was taking a stroll through town with Rooney this past weekend when we came across an older man walking his golden retriever. The dog's name is Boo, which is ironic because this man is a bit of a neighborhood Boo Radley. He's an older guy and a little worse for the wear for it. He lives alone in an huge, old, somewhat decrepit house around the corner from us. He's very friendly, but he's clearly a little slow and I can see why he can come off as a little creepy to some people.

Whenever I see him walking, I usually stop and say hello and let him get some of the talking out that he seems to have been holding in all week. Every single time we stop to chat about the dogs, Boo shoves his head in my crotch and keeps it there. He doesn't move. It's like he's warming his nose in my lady parts. I'll try to deflect by petting his head with both hands and discreetly shoving him away or crossing my legs or turning my hips or putting Rooney in between my crotch and Boo. Look, Boo, a dog butt. Nothing works. The dog's and dog and he has a one track mind: My crotch.

And you can save all your jokes about my crotch smelling so good/bad/like dog food, Falko, or my choice of underwear/time of the month/showering habits because he's not even sniffing. He just forcefully shoves his nose in between my legs and stands there. Instead I invite you to make all the jokes you'd like about my chastity/lack there of/the dog's need to guard my virtue/lack there of.

The old man either doesn't notice or doesn't care and I can't figure out which. Every time I take a few steps back, Boo's owner takes a few steps forward so Boo doesn't pull on his leash. It's like an ongoing lady bits avoidance dance and Boo is just happy as a kid in a candy shop. Or a dog in a crotch. Finally, this past weekend I lightly pushed Boo's head away and said, "gettin' fresh, Boo," thinking that this might call his position to attention. The old man just stared blankly at me then continued on with whatever he was saying before.

What do you say to the man who continuously fails to notice or care that his dog's head is wedged between your legs? Excuse me, sir? Could you please not let your dog shove his nose up my vajay? Mmmm thanks. It's gotten to the point where I'll turn corners to avoid Boo and his owner if I happen to see them out walking because I'm just not particularly in the mood to be sexually assaulted at the moment. But I feel a little guilty about it because the old man probably doesn't get to shoot the shit with many people throughout the day and now I'm denying him that too?

I should just start walking the dog after happy hour because I'm much more amenable to groping after a couple drinks. Now that I think about it, this whole Boo thing reminds me of a guy I once dated. ZING.

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Wednesday's Song of the Week

I've had a very harried past couple weeks at work and I've found that more often than not this week, I'm in need of some mellow tunes. Billy and I caught the tail of The Civil Wars set in between our walk from Amos Lee to M. Ward at the Newport Folk Fest this past summer and it was one of those moments you have at every music festival when you have to make the decision between two really awesome bands and it kind of breaks your heart. It's like choosing between awesome and awesome, which is awesomely difficult. But alas, we had to walk away from The Civil Wars.

Anyway. One of the albums on rotation for me this week is that very band and my goodness. It's just what I needed.

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Final Marathon Musings

I was working from home today so I had wanted to get this post out early this morning but when I woke up the Internet wasn't working and then I had real work to do so I had to go somewhere to do it but then Comcast sent someone over and before you know it, I had just spent the last three hours with the Comcast technician talking about jobs, life, cancer, his three-year stint in the Navy, fatherhood, dogs with giant balls, and our own realizations about finding true happiness. Heavy shit, man.

I would like you all to picture this going down while we both sat Indian-style on my living room carpet while occasionally hitting refresh on my Internet home screen and sometimes plugging and unplugging something. I'm no fan of Comcast, but by mid-afternoon I was giving my new friend Dave a hug and wishing all of his family a very happy holidays season, especially his children, all of whom I know by name. And viola! I have Internet once again. Thank you for your magic wires, Dave from Comcast. I'll spend a morning on the floor hitting refresh for you any day.

Anyway. With the marathon now a few weeks behind me, I've had some time to reflect. I may have missed my goal but I still ran a relatively respectable time, which was my fastest to date. And even though I do still kind of wish I'd just gone ahead and peed my pants, I've let that self-loathing wash down the drain with the leftover pickle juice that I couldn't convince B to finish drinking even though I made it VERY enticing. To his credit, he sure did try.

Unlike this time last year, I'm completely injury free and I'm not walking like someone with a gigantic pole stuck up their ass, so that's a total plus too. Because we all know I get a little ... hard to live with ... when I can't lace up a pair of sneaks and pound out my mildly psychotic tendencies on the pavement.

By the Thursday after the marathon, Thanksgiving, I was back out running, albeit very slowly. The next day I went a little further. And further the next day. And one week later I am feeling completely recovered. Without the pressure of trying to achieve a certain time at a race hanging over my head, I am back out running for the pure love of running again. Minus one toenail.

I found running the way most people find religion. I grew up with it. And ironically, it was in avoiding religion that I truly made it my own. When I was in high school, I discovered that it took me approximately the same time to run six miles as it did to sit through a Catholic mass. So on Sunday mornings I'd assure my parents I was on my way to church, slip outside in my running shoes and go for a spin. In college, I became even more religious with my running (see what I did there?) since I no longer had a track team to keep me in shape. I found the half-marathon. A few years after college came the marathon. And since then it's been a never-ending challenge of longer, faster, stronger, and not peeing my pants. And let me tell you something, I promise you that you are forced to make just as much if not more peace with yourself, your life, and your god on any long, hard training run than you would in a pew. As Christopher McDougall wrote, "If you don't have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain't getting them." And as Bridget Horne wrote, "oh my god I'm going to pee my pants."

Even though I hate it, I absolutely love the marathon. The months leading up to a marathon, I begin to obsess over it more and more, until it finally takes up whatever space is left in my brain that isn't thinking about food. And then that's about all I think about until race day. Marathon and food. My memory starts to go. I forget entire conversations I've had with people and for once, it's not because of those three martinis I had last night. It's like a constantly ticking clock in my brain until finally I'm so excited to run the marathon for the mere fact that I can stop thinking about running the marathon.

And of course, during the marathon, typically between miles 22 and 25, I swear off marathons for the rest of my life. I despair over the fact that I am still moving my legs and I have to continue to put one foot in front of the other for how many more miles? Four? Oh, Jesus Christ. NEVER AGAIN. By the next morning, I'm usually scanning the Internet for the next opportunity to run another 26.2 miles.

And then there's the fact that it seems like such a shame to spend all those months training for just one morning of running, don't you think? Might as well take advantage of this peak fitness. That's exactly how I convinced myself to run a 50k trail run in January. Because if 26.2 miles hasn't made me cry yet, why not shoot for 31?! B is taking this current news as a serious sign that I have officially "fallen over that ledge." It'll be great!

And finally this has nothing to do with running but I received a couple emails yesterday asking me if I do in fact dance around my house in my underwear singing songs into a spatula. Let's not be ridiculous. I use a wooden spoon. And good thing Dave from Comcast wasn't early, because I had the music turned up to 11 while I was making soup this morning.

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