Thursday, September 18, 2008

I suppose the people who still stop by here are aware

that my tagline, or whatever you call it, "Seeking transcendence one relationship at a time" is a bit of satire. But since nobody's mentioned it, I figured maybe I should say something.

Any suggestions for how I could make it funnier?

[Edit-5/16/2010: Good thing I quoted the tagline, eh? Since I changed it. It's actually quite a brilliant line. I think I changed it out of guilt.]

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Oh, good. It's clearing up. (Not for the squeamish.)

[Before I get to that, remind me to say something about Snopes' Sarah Palin articles before the election. I've got that page sitting open now and I'm about to use it for something else.]

Yesterday was my last chance to take a really long run before the Marathon. I had the day off, so I decided to run down from the house here to Victory Memorial Parkway, south to Wirth Parkway to Cedar Lake Parkway and on over to Lake of the Isles. The whole route is just beautiful, except for the plain old city streets in this neighborhood.

Let's see if I can find some good images... Not so good of Memorial Pkwy, it was taken too early in the spring... Here's the Theo Wirth Golf Course as it will look a few weeks hence, I ran by that... I've gotta get a new digital camera. Somehow ours didn't make it back from Oklahoma. Oh! There's Brownie Lake! I like to look at that as I run by.

This guy's got some pix of the Cedar Lake Bike Highway. I run for a mile or so alongside that on the pedestrian path. And this pic is definitely Lake of the Isles, not Lake Calhoun. If you flip through those pix, there are several of Lake of the Isles. Calhoun is a big, round thing. Oh, this is better!

When I get a new digital camera, I'll post some good pictures.

Well, the run went just dandy, though it took me four and a half hours. I'm sure it was a full twenty miles, maybe a little more. Wouldn't want to peak too soon, don't you know. I was draggin' my a-- pretty bad by the time I got home. That was at 1:12, I started at 8:40 AM. It's been tough to train consistently this year, for the same reasons it's been tough to blog consistently. Some of the same reasons, anyway.

But... This is where the squeamish might want to turn away. I got in the shower and soaped up, when suddenly the call of nature became urgent enough, that I got out of the shower all soapy to take care of it. My pee was all red! Real red! And then I got nauseous and dizzy. I'm not sure if that was just squeamishness or if I had really lost that much blood... I feel exactly the same way if I watch someone take blood out of my arm, whether its a lot or a little. I can't watch that. Now I know what happens if I see it coming out of my you-know-what.

I still needed to rinse off the soap, but I was afraid of what might happen if I didn't sit down, so I sat down in the shower stall to rinse off. Thank God! Next thing I know, I'm at a party where everybody's talking and moving like a vidoetape on fast-forward, I open my eyes and can't figure out what the hell's going on or where I am. I was having such a nice nap, why do I have to get up now? What the...? Oh, I'm in the shower!

I'm still too soapy, the shower head is still in my hand so I finish rinsing; apparently I was in a stable position, I hadn't flopped over much... Now I have to get up and get the towel. Okay, that worked out OK, but I rushed through the drying and grabbed a pair of shorts in case my daughter, who was due home from school any minute now, walked in on me. Put the shorts on and went to the next room to flop on a mattress we have on the floor.

Then the doorbell rang. I'd locked her out.

The details get rather mundane after that. I read somewhere that blood in the urine is a common occurrence after a long run. Don't bother the doctor unless it persists longer than a day or two.

So, I guess I'll just monitor the situation for another day, and if I'm not happy with the progress, I'll go bug somebody about it.

So that's what's on my mind. How about you?