The Execution Of All Things

I’ve got no middle ground, I’ve got no medium, I’ve got no 5 out of 10.  I don’t know where you get these things. I’m either/or, on/off, one or the other, I am always and completely me.

I love that, except for when I hate it. There is no middle ground there, you get?

Racing yesterday in Queens. Starting 10 minutes late, starting with nobody to race but my friend E, and a few other stragglers. It doesn’t matter, the clock starts at 0 anyway. Net time. We’re off.

And we’re fast, we’re fast from 10 minutes behind, and pretty soon we’re fast from 6 ½ months ago from before I fell down a hill and it was all I could do to limp for the few days from the bottom of the hill to the marathon, the marathon I might have run in 3 ½ hours, the marathon that I was peaking for at just the right time, the marathon that I watched from the sidelines at 89th Street and The Park.  We’re fast and I’m all the way back.

And mile after mile E is hanging in there, something all the more remarkable since he has never ever been there in the half, despite the fact that he could have been there if he wanted it as bad as I do.

My body remembers how to do this, something it did not know how to do 6 weeks ago in Brooklyn, 6 weeks ago when I had not yet been able to start piling on the miles, before I had shin splints, before mile after mile day after day in the blistering South Florida heat. In Brooklyn, my backyard, I’m forced to find a very tenuous middle ground, and I do not like it. This is how I do it.

Somewhere around mile 7, I pull away from E. Nothing personal, but I want to leave you in the dust. I want you to do as well as you can, but I want to beat you and I want you to know I can do it. I want this because you are as good as me, were you much faster or slower than me I could care less. If I can see you during a race though, I want to beat you.

Mile after mile, I pound the pavement. I eat hills like dessert, gobbling the downhills, pounding into the uphills. Eventually it becomes very very hard to do this. I’m talking to myself in some insane melodrama, that even I don’t understand. Amazingly, I’m very close to running my best half ever, but I don’t really know my time and I’m not that close.

Towards the end, I try to open up into a sprint the last 1/10 of a mile, 500 feet or so, and I have maybe 150 feet of sprint in me. I go through the line with nothing left but the strength to pump my fist in the air. An hour later I nearly collapse in the street, and this may be my favorite part truth to tell. I run a minute off my best time, and though I’m still heavier, though my ankle aches at times, my feet are a symphony of pain, I’m all the way back.

This is how I do it. All or nothing. Zero or 100. I either want it, or I don’t care one bit. I don’t need to do anything half assed, I don’t intend to settle. This is how I do it.

Get What You Want

A lot of the time I don't really know what I want out of life, not in detail anyway. I've spent a bit of time thinking about it, and ultimately, all I really want, or at least all I care about, is being loved. I'm not sure where the right and wrong is there, that's for another day.

Seeing as the above is not going to fill out the all day, everyday, I have my career too, and one of my goals with my consulting business is to become something of a tech pundit, and this is something I have taken baby steps towards recently. This week I took the unexpected step of filming a segment for NBC on wireless security. It was very random, a surprising amount of fun, and with any luck will be on the air very soon. So, I'm a little closer, and in a way I never dreamed.

Now how do I define my role in this context? I'll no longer be just a consultant, I'm a consultant who has appeared on the national network news discussing my field. In a certain sense, it's no big deal, but in another it is. After nearly 10 years in business, I know when to sell myself, if nothing else.

Just thoughts mind you.

I'm on a plane...

It turns out I really like to write on the plane, I think because it forces me to focus in a way that few things do. Anyway, here I am on the plane, 15 minute from P, maybe 25 from TO. There is a kid somewhere on the plane that has a peanut allergy and no one for 3 rows in either direction is allowed to eat peanuts or peanut butter. I’m no where near him and I don’t like nuts, I just thought that was interesting.

Anyhow, going home, and I’m not looking forward to it. I don’t want to go home, and this is odd since I’ve been here for a week plus, and usually after 5 days, I’m chafing to go home.

I gotta go now.

Week At A Glance

Friday night at my parents house, and I should be asleep, but I’m not. Instead, I’m in what is considered my room, largely because it is the only other room in the house with a bed in it, other than my parents, and because there are a 6 or so plastic boxes which contain things of mine.

I’ve never lived in this house, it’s the 4th home my parents have had in South Florida, so I have very little connection to the place. I love the things in it that I recognize, particularly the bed spread that my grandmother knitted, and my parent’s bedroom set which they have had for 30 years, at least. Most of the other things are too new to matter to me. If that wasn’t enough, for some reason my mom can barely stand the presence of the boxes, which are in a closet in a spare room. She says that her friends throw out their kid’s shit if they don’t take it. Well my friends have homes they recognize to go home to Mom, so we’re going to have to call it a stalemate. Hey, you finally won with the cat, right?

So, I have liberated from the plastic boxes a few things to be thrown out, Shade The Changing Man #68-70 which I will read when I’m done here, and a 1993 Week At A Glance book, including phone book. In the spirit of reminiscing, here are a few choice memories tied to some of the phone entries.

If you ever were on the fence about me being a dick, this will probably push you over, but here’s the thing; these people were a part of my life 13 years ago, a very few are still an important part, but most are not. This is me summing it all up from down the road. I don’t think I will ever miss a time or a place as I do the time and place in my life they occupied. If I haven’t spoken to you lately, get in touch. It’s been too long.

Alex L. – Man, my cell phone never stored your # after I saw you at the NIN concert, I was so pissed.

Javier A. – Sorry we didn’t get to hang out more this week bro, you rock.

Natalie A. – I so should have hooked up with your sister instead of you, but thanks for the memories anyway.

Samuel B. – We need to be better friends my brother.

Carol – Whoever you were, you thought enough of me to write your own name and draw a flower next to it. Thank you for that.

Brent D. – You’re my best friend brother, but you know that. I’ll see you at the half mary this summer.

Bruce C. – I was right, I had enough friends.

Christina – You were so unattainable, so distant, me and Ralph were talking about that last night.

James C – Thank you for being a friend, when I had so few. I wish we were closer these days.

Lisa F. – I’m sorry we had that thing in the Hamptons. I wish I still knew you.

Julie G. – I’m sorry we never worked out but it was never meant to be, huh? I hope you don’t hate me when all is said and done. We tried.

Jen (Purple Hair) – I so don’t want to hear about your new tattoo. I just wanted to sleep with you. I never want to hear about anybody’s new tattoo.

J.C. – Man, I had some good times thanks to you. Thanks for making me feel like part of the scene when I was a new nobody.

Jessica – Now, I’ve torn Jessica’s number out of the book, which strikes me as an emotional act, but I have no idea what that act was. Maybe I just needed to put it in my wallet.

Darlene L. – I never figured you out.

J.P. – See Jim C’s entry.

Nicky – I think this was the tiny little Irish girl I knew when I first moved to Orlando. Man, I had such a crush on her, and all I have to show for it is a picture of her sleeping on cocoa beach sucking her thumb.

Michelle – Thank you for writing me that letter from wherever you went off to. You’re a fond memory. I had fun that night in Daytona.

Chris O. – Dude, you are such a dick, but then again, you told me you were.

Rick P. – You must have like 5 little kids brother. How are Gary and Paul?

Ralph A. – See the entry for Brent D.

Raoul – ….

Sergio – I’m surprised I never have run into you. Come to think of it, I’m thinking of someone else.

Viviana – You think I would remember someone with that name, but I don’t.

Natalie W. – You were always the most adorable thing. I hope you have much love in your life. I know someone who reminds me of you come to think of it.

34 Years Old

Ok. That’s not so old, but it is old enough that you figure out a few things, and it’s old enough that you know a few truths, and that can make you feel old some times. The truth is just awful.

34, and I think I’m starting to finally figure out a good bit of my life, my pursuits anyway, how the next few years are going to go, I’ve got a realistic picture in my head of what I need to do, of what I want to accomplish. I feel like I’m there. I feel like by the time I hit 35, I’m going to undeniably be on my way to accomplishing all 3 parts of my plan. I think that’s why I was so pissed off about the article, it was a very small but important step towards one of those parts.

The good news there, is that the article will be published it turns out. The better new is that I was asked to do another, though unfortunately, I can’t do it.

Not the point, the point is I have a plan again. I haven’t had one in a while. I liked and I like having a vision of the future. This has nothing to do with anything but I do not see a lot of vision in South Florida.

And the point is I want anyone who cares to know, I know what I’m doing. I’m making all the right moves, all the right moves. Still. Still.

I feel…haunted by the future sometimes. There are other things that I’m just not sure I’m going to get right, and I’m worried that it will be too late one day. I’m afraid that people are going to die. I’m afraid that I’m not smart enough, or brave enough to do what needs to be done. I’m afraid that old dogs have a very hard time learning new tricks. I’m afraid that I’m going to be consumed by these fears, and to some extent, I feel I have been.

I’m afraid of hate, hating me, hating you. I’m afraid that that last sentence is a bit poetical, more poetical than I want to be. I’m afraid that I don’t have the patience that I want to have. I’m afraid that I’m not the same person I used to be, and that some of what I have left behind, I would have been better off bringing with me.

I’m afraid that I can be so honest in a vague way, in a public forum, but that I can’t be this honest with any one human being, at least about myself. I can be as honest as all get out about what I think of you.

It’s a problem.

It’s not one I’m going to solve tonight, so I’m going to close it down now. Good night.

Burning Inside

I hate flying.

I’m on a turbulent flight, I’m up high, I’m here, I’m nowhere. I’m out of control, I can’t even control my reactions to every bump, every shudder of this tin missile. You see that guy over there with his eyes closed, the sun reflecting off his face. That’s not me. I’m the guy turning around to glare at the flight attendant doing drink service because it’s an hour into the flight and I haven’t had a gin and tonic in a long long time. I swear to God I will vault over the seat to get a drink before too long.

So, yeah, I’m that guy and I hate flying. And if you’re wondering why I don’t take a pill, it’s because this flight from New York to Florida is a bit short of that. If we were going transcontinental, you can bet I would have taken an ambian with those g and ts I sucked down at Kennedy.

I mean fuck, what does it take to get a drink?

(1.5 gin and tonics and a roast beef wrap later)

I’m flying Song, which is my first choice after Jet Blue, though honestly, I think I prefer Song which has been around for a couple of years. They both have the TV’s in the seat, and they both are exciting new brands which is completely unimportant, but each in their own way promises something better. Jet Blue has big comfy leather chairs for one, and Song has great freaking food, in particular the aforementioned wrap. They also have a cheese and fruit plate that while excellent in flight food, is pedestrian. It turns out my sister really likes that plate, but the cheeses are something like swiss and muenster and that’s just lame.

Offhand, if I were going to design that plate, here is what I would choose; Manchego, gruyere, and a brie for the cheeses, grapes, strawberries and, pear slices for the fruits. Optional, a $4. mini shiraz.

I doubt that Song is going to be getting back to me on the subject as Delta is curtailing it’s subsidiary in a few weeks. In fact, I booked Song, but this is a Delta plane, which means no TVs, yet they had the food. I have to look into why they killed the brand. I’m curious. More on that some other time.

Don’t you love branding?

The funny thing here, now that I’ve slugged these two g and t’s is I am rocking! The dude sitting next to me probably thinks I’m a nutcase the way I’m pounding on the keys and digging on the death cab for cutie. It’s pretty funny, but at least I’m not noticing every goddamn bump anymore.

So, I’m on my way to Florida, big fucking shock, huh? I’m going to try to get some much needed relaxation, but if the last 25 trips or so are any evidence that won’t happen. My boys will see to that, won’t you boys? Man, I am lucky to have Florida to run off to whenever I need a break. My family is there, and my boys and history and the hot 1999 Toyota Camry. I know my way around and now even K2 is there, which is just fucking hot.

The word fuck just sounds so much better with this kinda buzz, right?

One more thing, and then I ‘m going to do some drunk web development.

Yesterday, my very 2^nd professional byline (and first in 11 years, natch) hit the streets in The Brooklyn Papers. I even got lead byline over the other 5 or so contributors to this particular piece, a sidebar in a special issue on faith. You would think this would be a huge deal for me, and I would be overflowing with good feeling. You would think.

The thing is, I wrote an article for this issue, on Santeria, an article my editor, last I heard, was very pleased with, though to be honest, I was not, but that’s a different story. The article is nowhere to be found, which would be bad enough, except it was referenced on the front page. What happened to my article? Was it a goof? Did it get killed for one reason or another? I have no idea, but I’ll write my editor soon enough. This wasn’t a death blow or anything, but I’ll tell you the truth, I was looking forward to seeing this in print, I was very much looking forward to it, and I was looking forward to giving my mom a copy because it would have made here really happy.

The short of it, I’m pretty pissed off. The long of it, I’m Burning Inside.