"There's only one hard and fast rule in running: sometimes you have to run one hard and fast."








Friday, December 17, 2010

Lost that Christmas feeling

Maybe it's having spent all day chipping ice off my roof (and ruining several pairs of gloves, which got wet and froze to metal - chisel, ladder, gutter, etc.), but I'm kinda losing the Christmas buzz I had going. There's no decorations at my house, as I'm the only one who'd see them and it just seems a waste of time. There's not much shopping for presents, as I'm not very close to any family - and my siblings are all a decade or so older than me and have whatever they want by now. There's no real church goings-on, as mine caters mostly to young people who go elsewhere for the holiday. I haven't seen another runner in 11 days [my bad, Colin. I saw your time at the 1500, but I'm not sure what you were aiming for].

Still, Trailer Park Goth Girl came back - that cheered me up. You'd have to have read this blog from the beginning to be familiar with that name, but I met her when she was 15 and now she's a freshman in college (straight A's in her first semester); it's admittedly weird to have friends that different in age, but she's one of those people I just simply like.

I see Meghan's started telling people she's a writer. Here's my latest 15 minutes:

Winter Solstice

She lowered her eyes
...And dipped her head;
And a single tear fell to the snow.
Freezing in an instant
To a pure and perfect glass,
It reflected the last rays of her love.

And as she raised her head again
The wind lashed at her face
With her own frozen hair.
This, the shortest day of her long year
Drew to a sudden close.
It grew quiet, cold and still.

Her breath came now in gulps
-Frosted billowing clouds -
Tendrils sublimed in the setting sun.
The sound carried over snow-shrouded wastes:
"No." was all she said.

9 comments:

Colin said...

Hope you're able to get over the winter/Christmas blues!

I knew you weren't planning to be at that 1500, so no worries there. My time was probably about right for my current fitness (although I had a cold at the time, perhaps I could have shaved off a couple of seconds if healthy). It's hard training 100% outdoors for an indoor 1500, especially with the trails in such rough shape after last week's storm! BTW my next race will be the Meet of Miles on January 10th (assuming I can find some information about it, e.g. what time, how much, etc.)

Re: your poll, I thought I was being clever (and correct) by picking Venice. After my selection, I checked out Google Earth to see if I was right (spoiler alert: I wasn't). All I can say is that I feel a bit better that plenty of others are also getting it wrong. That's a tough poll -- they're all really close latitude-wise!

SteveQ said...

@Colin: Shhhhh! Yeah, they're amazingly close - the suburbs overlap.

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Here's my latest 15 minutes

I read that poem in under 10 minutes. What do I win?

Icy roof
(Or is it 'ruff' -
(Only Howard Cunningham would know
(But Mistah C. - He dead)
Harshes a Christmas buzz.
Frozen gloves, chisel, ladder, gutter, etc.
All that was groovy
Now?
Un-
groovy.

Shop till I drop?
Why not
Just
Drop?
Cut out the middleman.

Cheer up. The world is a bottle of beer.

And you have the only Popener.

SteveQ said...

@G: I'm like totally the only one widout a Popener (I wanna John Paul I; the William Henry Harrison of popes).

Meghan said...

Thanks for the note. Your poem is a bit sad, though lovely.

C said...

Hiya. If you didn't just receive an email from me could you please email me at ukxenia at gmail dot com? I need to electronically converse with you briefly.

Many thanks.

Gretchen said...

Mmm. I liked the poem. Sad, maybe. But I think that's what I liked.

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

When you reply to Xenia, use tiny words. Because you'll be dealing with a person who seriously thought your e-mail address was "noreply-comment@blogger.com".

True story.

Hahahahahaha! I am such a DICK!1!

RBR said...

How do you turn it into something beautiful?

I do not have such talent. I just get fat and turn into a bitch.


.. and occasionally get an unplanned, involuntary "vacation"

Stay off frozen roofs please.