Saturday, May 30, 2009

to my northwest peeps: seattleversary

saturday marked one year since i arrived in seattle. it was kind of weird because last thursday i was in simi and departing for home, which coincidentally happened to mark the one year anniversay since i left. trippy - i know.

maybe i put too much weight and symbolism into things like this but anniversaries give people opportunity to look back and take stock in order to better move forward.

i promised myself i wouldn't write a 'fuck where i came from post' and i'm not going to. but the contrast between where i am from and where i am is quite sharp. i feel a sense of relief when arriving in seattle, knowing that thus far this is the best place i've found for me to be.

in retrospect i probably didn't leave california for the right reasons. there was a desperation to the whole thing which now seems sort of artificial. but i know i made the right decision, which is a powerful realization since i rarely make the right decision.

it was a rough year and there were a number of changes. i was, however, fortunate enough to make fateful connections with many people who were also going through some serious life changes. looking back it warms my heart to think about how we all held each other up and how we've mostly come out the other side wiser and stronger, with all the cool scars to show for our trials.

i am, for the first time in a long while, happy. my bills still aren't fully paid. i still don't own more than what can fit in my car. but this morning while walking to the bus stop across the I-5 bridge at 45th, i looked south and there was rainier. this was the first time since i moved (to wallingford) that it was clear enough to see it from that spot. it made me smile.

something about living in the volcanic shadow of that massive snow covered mountain just feels right. it reminds me that although imminent doom is always going to be hanging over my head, chances are that everything will, in general, be okay.

i know there's a lot of things that given the opportunity, many people would change about seattle. i respectfully disagree. there are things about this place and the way it effects people that can be annoying. but if seattle wasn't exactly the way it is i never would have met any of you people - and that to me is unacceptable.

when i think about how this place has allowed me to grow and develop, the way it forced me to get out of my comfort zone, all the weird and tasty vegan food chelsea used to coax me into eating, the bonfires, the beach trips, MTG and craft nights, the running, the knitting, the organic produce bin deliveries, the fact that i now eat thai food and tomatoes and golden beets...none of this would have happened had i continued to stay within 20 miles of where i was born.

i am grateful to have made it this far, to have learned what i've learned, to have seen what seattle has shown me - both about myself and about what it means to be alive. but more than anything i am grateful for all of you. you're all in a sense my family now and as we continue to grow i know that some of us are going to move on and that's of little consequence. no matter where we all end up in year or in ten years we will have always had these two beautiful summers and the intervening 9 months of hell, together.

i'm not going to make a list because i would inevitably leave someone out on accident and someone would be all butt hurt but i am going to say you should know if you're one of the people this is directed to, and that i love all of you.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

it's just unnatural

i never thought i'd see the day when iowa is more progressive than california when it comes to lettin' the moes get hitched....

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

...to hell in a handbasket


so i know that this is inherently cute. i know i'm supposed to go awwwwwwww and smile and forward the email it came in to everybody i know so that they too will go awwwwwwww and smile and feel good. puppies, rainbows, kittens, kittens and puppies together, kittens and puppies together holding hands against a rainbow backdrop. i get it.
i find them annoying and i'm probably going to hell for it.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

the legend continues

when i worked at baxter, they sent us to this 'personal accountability' seminar. as corporate seminars go - it wasn't that bad. it was an all day thing but the dude managed to keep us entertained and even might have had some decent advice and tips for being a better drone.

the way these things work is simple - you spend 20 years on your knees sucking corporate ____, you analyze your years felating non-organic entities and you come up with some bullshit 'program' that you use all your cock-sucking skills to sell your 'program' to the same bastards who robbed you of the best years of your life making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in the process. pretty good deal right?

well the chipper prick who led my particular session of personal accountability training told us a story. a buddy of his was a runner. somehow the buddy talked him into training for a half marathon. the instructor told us all about how he trained, even when it was difficult and even when he didn't want to. throughout his struggles his buddy (who was now his training coach) supported him and eventually, race day came. upon finishing the half marathon the coach asked the instructor "so are you ready to run a marathon?" the instructor answered "no". the lesson was supposed to be that it's good to set goals and even better to reach them, but to know your own limitations. however, in hindsight i think the lesson of the story was that the instructor was a pussy.

i still can't walk normally, but oddly enough my pain has been localized to a different area of my body - shifting each day. sunday into monday it was the left side of my pelvis, monday into tuesday - legs, tuesday into wednesday - butt. today it's my right knee. weird. kinda curious what will ache tomorrow.

Monday, May 11, 2009

the legend of postfontaine

final time - 1:55:38


avg min/mi - 8:49


gu packets - 3


pee breaks - 2


5 hour energy shots - 1


here's the play by play:

i arrived and had to pee so al and i wanted in the long line for the honey bucket. they told us to line up for the start but there was a delay. i needed to go again but wasn't about to compete with the 5k'ers for toilet access so i peed on a tree. mile 1 went by very fast. gupp and his kids stood on the corner of 113th and 124th before mile 2. one of his daughters told him that i should be called lion, not pony on account of all the hair. that was where this was taken:
i ran past the 1st water station but needed to pee again. so i slowed down long enough to realize there were 5 women in line ahead of me. no fucking way, right? no i scurried down the road to pee behind a wall of trees on 132nd. that was where i encountered the thorny bush and the acquired the sliver i spent the rest of the race trying to extract from my thumb.

after that i hit every water stop but didn't stop running until after mile 10 where i had to pee again. luckily i found a random set of condos under constuction and snuck (well ran) across the street to do my biz.

the rest of it was a blur. i had issues with the left side of my pelvis from the start which made for a very difficult rest of the day on sunday. (because i couldn't walk you pervs!) it got so bad that last night while walking home from a movie some random dude stopped on 45th to ask me if i needed a ride.

the rest of the pics are on my flickr. i apologize for the watermark but i wasn't about to pay $45 for a cd with 6 digital photos on it.

special thanks to my support crew/coach alicia and to kev for getting the girls dressed and to the corner in time to cheer me on.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

1.5" inseam

i'm back home now and trying to 'get into the groove' as madonna would say. there was obviously a wrench or two thrown into my training schedule over the last two weeks but i did manage to squeeze in a long hilly run while in simi. it was pretty much a disaster as i had no ATP, and was coming off a 3 day bender.

postfontaine will not be so easily defeated. the half marathon is indeed on. to facilitate this quest i am looking for the shortest pair of running shorts i can find. these badboys have a one-and-a-half-inch inseam and built in liner to keep my man bits private.
inseam - in case you don't know, as i didn't - is the distance from your package to the bottom of the fabric. this is how you spell g-o-d-d-a-m-n s-e-x-y.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

no cornholin' and no pukin' on the floor

this is my grandpa. david warren mcintyre, or as i so affectionately refer to him - d. dubya mcintyre. him and my grandma are from columbus, georgia - a factoid that i struggled with up until the last couple years. confused, i once asked my grandpa which state it was he was from. "georgia!! you raise that goddamn rebel flag boy!" was his reply.

in many ways he was a dichotomy. he was - to a certain degree - racist, as would be expected of someone who grew up in the deep south in the 1930's. it wasn't uncommon for him to talk shit about mexicans and every once in a while if he drank a little too much he'd drop an n-bomb and then cover his mouth like a small child who accidentally just said "fuck" in front of their mother for the first time. at christmas my cousin and i tried to record him to referring to obama as "a nigger" but no dice - grandpa had more class than that. but he did go so far as to say that we should all be ashamed for voting for him.

but his son-in-law and two of his grandchildren were mexican and even had an adopted chinese granddaugther. in spite of his upbringing, he loved them just the same as he did any other family member. his one time best friend, al (who died in the '91 quake) was black. he loved that man to death, yet still used that awful word when talking to or about him. it was pretty funny.

he wasn't much of a talker. not to say that he couldn't hold a conversation, but he was definitely the strong silent type. probably because anytime he did open his mouth about something emo, he would cry. we were in vegas together once and he started talking about my father, who at the time was sick. he didn't get more than two words out before he welled up and couldn't continue. and that kind of frames who he really was. he just had a giant heart and an overwhelming love for his family.

grandpa had quite a way with words. once, while digging ditches for him, he told me i was "sweatin' like a whore in church". another time during my radical phase i was extolling the virtues of anarchism and communal living at a family gathering. he didn't catch most of what i was saying, but when he did catch led him to announce "boy! i love you......but i hate your fucking politics".

when i embarked on my ill-fated marriage adventure he made arrangements at the imperial palace in vegas (where he was practically royalty) for my bachelor party. over dinner he told all of us that there "better not be any bullshit" going on in the room. curious and wanting to the know the ground rules i inquired "what exactly defines 'bullshit' grandpa?" without missing a beat he said "no cornholin' and no pukin' on the floor".

grandpa wasn't the give-you-a-bunch-of-money type of grandparent. but he was always willing to let me work for him. i never would have gotten through the first 5 years of college had it not been for all the landscaping work he let me do. i recently told him how much i appreciated the job training and how it came in handy when i moved to seattle.

my grandpa loved to smoke, drink, gamble and fight but always held down a job. in the end he told me "do what you need to do but always leave a little room for fun" which in my opinion was a highly euphemistic thing for him to say because in his 75 years he left a lot of room for fun. another time in vegas, he drunkenly told me how he played blackjack to make sure grandma would be taken care of when he was gone. and yes, he was crying. 

if i had to pick one word to describe the man it would be badass. he spent most of my life telling me that he would "whuup my ass" often threatening to do so with one arm tied behind his back. but he never laid a hand on me. except for that time when i was 4, but i had it coming.  i got a great deal of enjoyment out of mocking his accent and mannerisms. sometimes if i went a little too far he'd shoot me this look, say "fuck you" and then laugh. i think that is what i'll miss about him the most.

grandpa was a good man. he had his flaws and made his mistakes like every other bipedal hominid on the planet but he was full of love. so much so that it caused him to overcome his own prejudices. so much that he could barely express it words without breaking up like a space shuttle over texas. his love for his family, especially his wife, drove him to stay alive long after his short ass little body should have given out.

he died on tuesday in his own bed and surrounded by the people that loved him the most. if that ain't the way to go i don't know what is.