I'm still beating myself up over it.

A view from the course, seconds before the finish line. I was thinking of making a series:

And a half-second later a tired, uncoordinated, sweaty finger caught my earbud wire and the iPhone flung end-over-end out of my hands and into the air. I was mid-stride, and took a few steps before I caught myself, turned, and abashedly retrieved the thing. It was a grassy end-strip at the finish, so there was no damage. But you should have been there.

It is a good thing to run hard for thirteen miles, give it your all, and then experience the personal triumph of the finish line, with your best time at that distance. It is another thing entirely to reach the finish line and do something so dopey that it inspires a collective, dispirited OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH from the spectators. No, I'm serious. It's what happened. I was about to cross the finish line, and I dorkily pulled out my camera-phone, and then dropped it, and then had to go back and get it, and hundreds of people went OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH, and the announcer made a joke, "SEE LADIES AND GENTLEMEN? THIS IS WHY YOU NEED YOUR OWN CAMERA CREW TO FOLLOW YOU DURING THE RACE." At which point I raised my arms triumphantly, or defiantly, and crossed the finish line. It took about seven seconds off my finish time.

Which ordinarily wouldn't have mattered. But I had, this year, set a half-marathon goal of 1:39:00.

Back in 1998, 15 years ago, when I was so depressed and had failed professionally at all my passions, I took on running as a way to clear my head and find some self-control. I was in a pretty bad space. I remembered liking running in my youth, and later getting kicked off the  track team in high school for various disciplinary reasons. But in my twenties I'd been inspired to run a marathon by an old friend who was no runner. This guy was a pale, bookish-type writer, who had the body-shape of a fire hydrant, and yet he was so inspired by the grand endeavor of The Marathon, that his passion had, at long last, sunk into me and lit a spark down under. So I was finally going to do it, too. Conquer a few demons. Show that old high school coach that I really had it in me. I was 28 years old. I was lost. But then I ran my first race: a Half Marathon. My time was 1:39:00.

So here I was, 15 years later. I've run 19 full marathons, now. I'm a changed man, and an older and wiser one. I've got a real job, now. I got a life. But I am getting a bit faster, in spite of everything, and I had this wild idea to beat that dumb twenty-something's time from my way back when: the young, stupid, carefree, lost me, from fifteen years ago.

There I am at the finish line in beautiful La Jolla, California. My three kids safe at home, and my sweet, surefooted wife a few miles behind me. And then there I am lamely dropping my cameraphone and going back for it. When I collected myself, finished, and finally hit the STOP on my RunKeeper app, the time read -I'm not kidding- 1:38:59. So I was going to have to wait for the official results to roll in over the wire. I spent a serious amount of time examining the location of the chip-timing registers, and trying to recall if I had pressed START too early, or STOP too late. Seconds mattered! Zooming in on the photo, you can see the gun time clock reading 1:39:07. But, even though I was in the first wave of runners, I was a bit behind the early pack, (I am not an elite runner) and these seconds become important as you begin to find yourself in the sport. So I waited, and considered it all. But... really?

Then why did you pull out your stupid camera phone RIGHT AT THE FINISH LINE?

I guess I don't know what's important to me anymore. Because, when I finally did cross the finish line, the first thing that went through my head was I wish I had shot video, because that was a hilarious, priceless, YouTube moment: I'm seconds away from achieving my goal time and I do something so stupid that THE CROWD GROANS -it's the stuff ABC's Wide World of Sports is made of.

So I still see things from a storyteller's perspective. And it is a curse. I cannot be still in the moment. I cannot bask in the glory or the beauty or even the personal achievement of life, without considering the placement of the camera, the angle of the light, the showmanship of the subject, or the literal superlatives to describe it so that those not present can one day understand. Even though I spend the bulk of my days raising my children and raising high the roof beams of some retired suburbanite's aluminum patio cover, I still can't help but be bothered by the Third Eye, the watchful faceless outsider of my second-self. Hell, I sit on the toilet and imagine myself onstage, sometimes. I am forever bothered by the all-seeing perspective of The Author and his sentiment.

There may be a quiet wonder of a man in your life who takes it all in, who lampshadedly stands back at cocktail parties and observes, who listens happily, and seeks the story of your drama, but who -if you're lucky, and he is a man of good will- carefully cherry-picks the bad moments of gracelessness, pity, mistake and self-doubt in your life, and then surreptitiously whiles away some private time to highlight your strengths and create the arc of your character, and then embolden the drama and heighten the action of your final story. He's the man who writes your biography, shoots your biopic, and pens your obituary. And you are unwittingly doomed to treat him right.

And, shit, sometimes I think that guy is supposed to be me.

~

No one knows I’m here.

Okay, I am going to come clean. I’ve been stealing from my family. Taking what’s not mine. Embezzling moments from my children, a few at a time. Sneaking a few odd clock-beats away, and hoarding them to myself. 

I’ve been pilfering an hour or two, here and there, a couple times a week. I’m sure Mrs. Ditchman can see right through me, but I’ve convinced myself, with some weenie logic, that it’s all necessary.

Sometimes it’s before work. On my way, I’ll hit a Starbucks and linger for an hour, and not entirely regrettably. And sometimes on my way home, if the work day goes smoothly and passes fast, I’ll stop in at a local microbrewery -one of those unnoticeable places down a clean grey alley in an unassuming low-rise industrial park. They’re happy to have me.

If I bring my own glass I get to sample their beer for a cheap two or three dollars, (I pay cash, so there is no traceable cyber-trail.) Then I take a seat on a bench in the back of the room. I lean my pack up against the rack of big oak barrels emblazoned with brew dates. And then I slip out my laptop, unfold the technical majesty, and type a bit, until the battery goes dead. As long as the Lithium heat from the microprocessors doesn’t raise the ambient temperature and affect the fermentation process, no one cares. No one knows I'm here. No one, that is, but the bartender.

The beer’s all right. So’s that corporate coffee. A lot of places are loud and well-patronized and they have free Wifi. It’s just like home, of course, but at home... well... everybody knows your name.

“Cheers,” are the only words I exchange with anyone for an hour. Here, I am a nameless superhero, as repeat customers are so often treated. As well, I have the one-off power of invisibility. Even as I type this, no one notices me. It’s the only place I can concentrate, in my inconspicuous solitude.

I’ll limit myself to one latte, or two beers, and I’ll type and think for a while. Sometimes I read up on things. And then the guilt gets to me and I’ll have to pack up and blast off. Get on with life.

I can’t explain why I have to be so selfish, but it’s the only thing that’s working for me right now. In my defense, there are a thousand worse things I could be doing. You know what they are. I don’t believe I am the only dad who does it, and I’m not going to shame them by listing the things they’re doing. And I know that there are better dads out there who do it less, but there are other dads here, I can tell, and my half-sober views are vindicated by their presence. And that’s the downside of invisibility: while engaged, you see everyone else who is also invisible.

I do believe it’s mostly harmless, and somewhat productive. At least I have something to show for the serpentine tendencies in my daily schedule: this is, at best, a word count, and a certain cerebral justification for that useless liberal arts degree I’m still paying for. Those assholes conned me.

At worst, it is an indulgent man-joke. Irreverent, self-involved escapism. A professional sport. Men kid themselves that they need cave-space, but in truth, it’s the opposite. They’ve always been self-involved cave-dwellers. What they really need is a home-maker. A truth-teller. A lion-tamer. A woman. Someone who fills the lonely gaps of life with her own invisible, intoxicating scent. Which is why I won’t linger any longer in this cold empty space, and which explains why I so easily tire of such lonesome superpowers.

[Cel phone rings... Invisibility permeated...]

“Hi, honey. I’ll be home soon.” 

~

Terrorists bomb the Boston Marathon. 

I heard it on the radio while I was building a dumb aluminum patio cover. And, though I try to avoid cursing unnecessarily, I thought: WTF? Cursing, in my head at first, because it was necessary. Cursing out loud, later, because I lamely had no other way to express my anger.

It’s been said recently, and can’t be repeated enough, that if you ever lose hope in humanity you should go to a marathon. It’s all there: the legions of people with the will to press on through unbearable circumstances, partnered with the good-natured support of legions of empathetic strangers. Universal camaraderie. An all-pervading glow of triumph over the will. The Human Spirit, soaring to its greatest height. We try to overcome seemingly impossible circumstances. And, if we can’t, we cheer on those who do.

And for some evil nut to try and destroy that, has got to be utterly psychotic. 

He will suffer an eternal shame for the despicable deed, I believe, but for now we have to deal with the immediate circumstances. And the media did not handle it well, with their repeated airing of the few seconds of the bombs exploding and the white smoke, heralding the arrival of some awful anti-pope. When I got home I immediately went looking for information and images to satiate my emotional need to get a handle on the event, and I found the video, taken from a camera phone of a nearby spectator.

But what I saw in the full record was more than smoke and noise, and again fifteen seconds later, down the block. I saw a runner in the immediate vicinity fall to his knees from the concussion of the shockwaves. And I saw someone run to help him up, a half second later. I saw people go down in the bad mists, and then a myriad of others run straight into them, shouting.

I saw people running from every direction. Running. Without delay. Into the smoke and unafraid. I saw officers and event volunteers ripping apart spectator barriers and throwing them onto the course, in a desperate effort to get at the carnage.

And later I saw the carnage. A man being moved swiftly away in a wheelchair. Dazed look on his face, overcome with the worst kind of shock, as he was missing a leg. The bone sticking straight out, blood everywhere, long tendons dragging alongside the madness. This man will never run again, I thought.

And then to hear that an eight-year-old boy had been killed, his sister had also lost a limb, and his mother had suffered brain injuries. They were there cheering on their dad, who ran 26 whole miles to see this, and collect what was left of them.

And if I had run the Long Beach Marathon a couple years ago, a few minutes faster, that might have been me. And that might have been my family.

Some evil, self-loathing person made this, whether for glory or for cause, and he should be removed. His name erased. His soul given up to God for judgement. 

As a runner, I must admit it’s all hit home and gotten pretty personal with me. I was at a race last week, and saw the pride and joy and good spirit of humanity all around. This terrorism is sickening, but it’s also a giant fail. Because, outside of the American Soldier, I doubt you could find anyone more tenacious to attack than the Marathon Runner. But the marathon runners are disarmed, and that makes you a coward.

Cowardice is an awful thing, and drives us to desperate acts. That ancient god, Mars, was the god of war, but he was also the god of cowardice, and there is wisdom in that invention. A wise man will rage in only a rare moment, but a coward will cast disparages, passive-aggressively build up his own self, run from his enemy and fortify his position, and then, hoping in his lonesomeness that he will be vindicated, ever pursue the upper hand, raging all along. 

And yet the wise man has the upper hand. He is running the race. He is cheering on those who do. He is, I believe, good. And he is, I pray, legion.

~

Tax Season begins mid-January for us. After the New Year's hangover has worn off, one uneventful day we get out one of those white storage boxes that look like all the others and write the last Year of Our Lord on the side with a fat Sharpie. Then Mrs. Ditchman begins filling it with stapled receipts and wild spreadsheets and mindless job reports and post-it notes with impressive figures scrawled on them. And then we do the Winter Home Show, where we blow whatever money we had left after Christmas just to get in on the action. That same weekend is the Carlsbad Marathon and Half, so it's a busy time. And the following week, there is no resting up to recoup any energies, real or imagined. It's work as much as possible to get caught up on the bills, trying to avoid the rainy days and still get ahead of the game.

February begins with Lincoln's birthday. Not that Lincoln, our Lincoln. He's our new little tax for the season, so something must be planned: cake, presents, family wanting to show up. A couple days later is my mother-in-law's -ahem- Grannie's birthday, which needs at least an equal amount of attention, to keep the peace. And then there's my birthday, which I always try to get out of, followed swiftly by Serena's birthday, who demands all manner of celebration. The imperfectly-named "Spring Break" arrives with nowhere for the kids to go but in your face, so less is accomplished around the house. And at the end of that week is the Ditchman anniversary, which usually goes unattended and without the respect it ever deserves. The next week is Mrs. Ditchman's birthday, who also deserves more than she ever gets, and then there's Easter -our holiday, where everyone is welcome. We cook and play and eat and drink and host, and wonder how we can survive to afford it. The next day the phone rings and it's Grandpa, wondering why we forgot his birthday. But we are busy on our way to the Carlsbad 5000 that weekend, which every Ditchman must certainly, and always, run. And then, bam, the Spring Home Show.

When you're just getting up off the floor, Tax Day thwacks you hard in the back with an obnoxious, soul-hardening guffaw, the old friend you never really liked. So, you see, Tax Season is just a series of endless parties, bookended by professional footraces and home-and-garden expos. And if you made any money at all in the interim, and kidded yourself that you were actually getting ahead, on April 15th, or thereabouts, you send all the money you have to the government. Everything is liquidated. Checks cross in the mail, and fingers cross behind your back. You spend your energy on hope, itself. The miracle of a garage sale is considered. The magic of eBay is conjured. And there's always Craig, and his preternatural List. And your daily prayers.

Then you shrug. You sigh. You get back out to work, and keep hoping it will all work out.

It's Tax Season. But summer's coming, and the weather is warming up, when everyone, God-willing, will be looking for shade.

~

They still call it “Back to School Night”, if you were wondering. I shudder a bit at the thought. I hated school, though I will never admit it to my children. I was bored and annoyed, the latter due to the social construct, and the former due to... well, let’s just say they never taught me what I wanted to know. I still have bad dreams where I find myself in a strange classroom at midterms, not recognizing anything. I liked college, where I found real classes about real subjects that stoked my pre-existing passions and curiousnesses. (It’s a word. Trust me.) But elementary school I remember not enjoying, though I aced it for six years. It was in high school where I realized none of it mattered, and then blew the grades off, too. I think I was right, no one cared.

It’s different for the Little Ditchman. Someone cares. And she loves school. She is perfectly un-shy, which I never was, and she’ll sit in the front row or back, raise her hand anyway, and give it her best shot. Her teacher just told me to move along when I asked how she was doing. “You have absolutely nothing to worry about,” she claimed, glad for the respite from the troubled, struggling ones in the class, I presume. And then Mrs. K added, “She’s an artist.” And I kinda felt like apologizing.

As much as I was proud. Good, I thought, because I always wanted to be an artist, which is all about materializing the meaning of existence, and here I’d finally done it by having children (which seems an awful sort of Mobius loop.)

Then the 1st grade teacher added, “If there is something to be concerned about...” and I thought, Oh dog, here it comes, the first big school problem, and she continued, “...she takes too much time with the drawings. It takes her a while. Everything has to be perfect.” And I looked at Mrs. Ditchman and said, “I wonder where she gets that from.” But Mrs. Ditchman just smiled back at me, neither taking responsibility for it nor blaming me, which is one of the reasons I love her so. (But we both know, it’s me.)

Serena took me around the room (Mommy volunteers in the class, so has seen it all) and showed me the leprechaun traps, the toucan drawings, the rainbow writings, and so forth. Beautiful, perfectly cute 1st grade faire. And then she showed me a selection of “All About Me” posters that the pupils had done. They had their names and a self-portrait, a few fun facts about their pets, and a drawing of their family. And in the lower right-hand quadrant, a space where they had to write out and illustrate the rest of the phrase, If I had one wish, I would wish for... 

And it was enjoyable to review the class’s answers. Mrs. K had filled out the first one, and drew a nice little line drawing of herself on a beach in Tahiti, which sounded perfectly wonderful to me. The rest of the kids had things like, a pet bunny, and a pony,  and a new toy, which sounded utterly, prepubescently charming. But then we got to Serena, who, when asked the question “If I had one wish, I would wish for” answered, confidently, with “my own world.” And drew it out, so there was no mistaking just whose world it was.

So she wants her own world. Who can blame her? Is this not a base sentiment in each and every one of us? This little girl, when you take her out and about for most of the day,  upon arriving at home will disappear into her bedroom, close the door, and not emerge for at least a good half hour. Who knows what she does in there? Plays. Reads. Arranges things. Then she comes out and acts like she was never away. Little smile on her face. So she needs Her Own World. This, I totally respect.

You lose it when you have kids. And this, I have said before. I would like to trademark the statement, or title a book with it. You Lose It When You Have Kids! I love the multiple meanings of the phrase, “You lose it.” Because when you do have kids, you lose it all; your money, your time, your life, your patience, your sanity, your world. And you just have to accept that this is what you asked for, whether you knew it or not at the get-go. But kids deserve their invented worlds. Where else would they go? Their parents lost theirs.

So it’s funny that she wishes for one. Because, even in the first grade, you realize the world is not your own. And how about that? A good lesson. For me, for you. For a kid.

~

As it is an odd year, we did not celebrate the “Eight Days of Marci” this season, as we have in previous years, much ado, and with some success. I didn’t want the concept to go stale, nor did I want the kids to get any spectacular ideas (last year Serena asked, “Next year can we do the fourteen days of Serena?”) So, since it was an early Easter, with The Anniversary crammed in there the same weekend, I let the extra seven holidays slide.

With all due respect, and to keep it interesting by falling back on the obvious for once, I just went for the Easy Three, the Great Triumvirate of girlfriend gifts: flowers, chocolate, and diamonds. I’m awesome that way. And the mommy deserves it, after all these years.

The flowers were easy. I had them in the yard. Yanked as many as looked nice out of the ground and created a lavish end-to-end display around her primary work station, the kitchen sink. It really looked great, and impressed the mother-in-law. As a bonus, it was cheap and easy (if you don’t count the water bill, fertilizer costs, and the back-breaking toil of weekend after weekend for a season and a half.)

The chocolates were a snap. My dearly departed mother worked over 25 years at See’s Candies, (the best chocolates in the world) and I know the place like I know the Stone beer menu. I stopped in and deftly picked up a fixed-variety pound of dark chocolates. Mrs. Ditchman really digs the dark chocolates. Bonus: I get to have a few since the box is too big for a decent person to pound in one sitting.

And the diamonds. Diamonds! I’m made of money! I’ve bought jewelry for my wife two times in ten years -and one of those times was the engagement ring- so I figure I’m about due. The other time was a pair of quarter-carat diamond studs -tiny little pissant grains- for Christmas that year after we got married, when I built that secret patio cover and pocketed the profit to shower her with gifts, (though I didn’t quite make enough on the job to afford the surprise! Mission-style bedroom dresser we’d had our eyes on.) Anyway, a few years later one of the little diamond studs went down the drain in the Jazzercise locker room, and then the remaining stud went into the bathroom drawer, where it languished lonely and unattended for several years. Until I got the big idea, recently, to repatriate the rock with a new mate.

I found the old box, even. Plopped it in there and went down to Robbins Bros and asked if they remembered me. They did! I showed it to them and they smiled at its cuteness. I asked for another, and they proceeded to talk me into an upgrade. So I went full bore, and am not even the least bit ashamed to admit that I splurged for the one-third carat, giving the original as a trade-in. Now, I can’t really see the .08 difference between the diamonds, but I’m sure it’s there. I can feel it in the wallet. Sparkles like all get-out. (Not my wallet, the diamond.) They even gave me a new box!

So I was ready for Mrs. Ditchman’s birthday. So was Lincoln. He got up at 5AM to work the scene, and Mommy was there. When I eventually arose, I announced to my dear wife that it looked like her birthday had gotten off to a bad start, and how disappointing. Then she had to go off to volunteer for the 1st grade class, where our first grader suddenly announced she was sick, but Mommy was there (literally.) Brought her home and then ran back out for a pedicure, only to discover that she was coming down with a similar stomach virus. So the day was shot down before it got its boots on, and we hadn’t even gotten to the sushi dinner, which was soon cancelled by the queasiness, as was the fine wine. After a quick non-dinner, I heard calling from the upstairs and it was the Mommy with the tone in her voice that she reserves for when a baby throws up on her, so I ran up to find that, yes, a baby had, in fact, thrown up on her. And it was a putrid kind of barf, too, that trailed from room to room and down her shoulder and onto her jeans. Lincoln had waited until after his bath and until he was fully dressed in his clean pajamas to do the dispiriting deed, so the bath and dressing all had to be repeated. Later, one of the cats was observed licking up said barf.

So, without a word about it, we had cake. A nice little ice-cream cake. And the other children demanded that Mommy have as many candles as she was old. Now, don’t get excited, but I’m not saying the number. Let’s just say it took more than one box, and we had to resort to a couple Hanukkah candles and a few extra votives to fill out the bill and satisfy the young counting crew. And it was a small cake. But don’t worry, I got it on video, and, though she was not amused by the massive stoking of candlefire that her old age demanded, she was still able to satisfy the crowd by smiling politely and blowing it all out in one full, I’m-done-with-this-frikin-day, exhale. So I got the rest of the kids to bed, and did not answer the small queries about the vomitous smell coming from the hall.

I took a shower. I slyly pocketed away the diamonds, which were yet to be revealed. I went downstairs to finish my glass of wine and pretend to enjoy Dancing With The Stars with my beautiful, but enervate wife, on the couch. Still feeling a little sick, she was not in the mood for any chocolates, even dark ones. She said that this was a pretty lame birthday, and a little while later I pulled out the diamond earrings, which made her smile, weakly. It didn’t really fix anything, to be honest, but she looked great wearing them, and I think she liked the gesture. Maybe I should have gone for the full half-carat.

A little while later, in bed, Mrs. Ditchman sighed and rolled over, and I pulled out the book I’m reading, Moby Dick. I’m on chapter 49. It begins:

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own...

I thought this was pretty funny, in light of it all, and I turned to share it with Mrs. Ditchman, but she was asleep and away, and done with it all.

So it was a queer time. A strange mixed affair. A bad day. There have been worse days, but it was a birthday, so the powers of demoralization were in full effect. But I have to say, she gave the day her full energies, worked hard and owned it. Saw the joke and punched back, twice as hard. She never backed down, never gave up, blew out the candles with full lung and here, now, she lay asleep, fortifying her reserves for another day, another year, the rest of her life. Maybe it all is a big joke, but it was her joke, and she was going to own it. And I admire her for that.

With the little diamond earrings, I happen to think she’s gonna look good doing it.

Melville continues:

...However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke. 

~

At the end of a long, hot day last week I bent over for the thousandth time that afternoon, hefted up my dusty old toolbox, carried it to the truck and went for the tailgate handle. I grabbed it with a thoughtless pull of day-end force and ripped the thing clean off, the handle flung over my shoulder and into the street. That's when I knew it was time to get the truck painted.

It's been bugging me for years. We were calling it the "car cancer", and when you drive down a SoCal street and look for it, you'll notice every fourth car has it: the faded color, the peeled back clear-coat, and the mottled, dry paint job suffering the sun's rays in the Mediterranean climate. It's the price we pay for living here. Even the cars have the skin of an old sunburn, twice-fried and peeling. 

It had gotten to the point where I was embarrassed to show up on the job site. Did a gig last month in a fancy neighborhood of multi-million dollar homes. I showed up with the other contractors, and we all stood there for a moment and looked each other up and down. They with their clean shoes and cel holsters, me with my dirty cargo shorts, torn work shirt, and holy boots. I wasn't all bad, I'd shaved, but they looked sharp and professional. I merely looked like I knew how to use the tools. I admit to not spending time on appearances, but neither am I impressed by them. I happen to be interested in integrity, and I know that all I need is a good set of references. I believe my work sells the job, not my truckshine. 

And yet... perhaps I do lack an air of professionalism, but only recently have I considered myself a professional in what I do, and so I have never paid it any mind. It's over a decade since I got my General Contractor's license, and maybe I should clean up a bit. The tools are old and worn, like my body, and the clothes have had half their thread-count laundered clean out of them. And the truck needs a paint job.

And a new bumper. And some tires. It's got a broken windshield. Torn trim. Headlights are yellowed and clouded. And there's the matter of that trunk latch... So I resolved to clean up my act, since that's all it really is, an act. I stripped the truck down and hauled it to Earl Shieb, where I abandoned it for a week. Spent our Spring Break monies on the family business. Again. And I took a few days to recoup.

I got on the Internet and bought some new parts on eBay. I went by AutoZone and invested in some car cleaning supplies. Spent my break days spray painting the truck rack, and burnishing the old vinyl trim. Then I went and got some new boots. Ordered some new work shirts and a couple logo-stitched jackets and caps. And then the day came and I picked up the truck. 

A fresh look. I feel a bit stronger. I work a little more carefully, more meticulous and methodical. I throw stuff around less. I don't lean up against the new paint with my tool belt. Clean work, like an old man does. And, most importantly, I pull up to the job site and don't feel like a scuzz.

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," writes the preacher in Ecclesiastes. But maybe, sometimes, just a little vanity. Pride in ownership. Pride in workmanship. It all has value in this world. Or maybe it's just a matter of self-respect, the forgotten component of good personal hygene.

~

I'm going to quit running. I've never liked it. It's miserable. It takes up too much free time, and I look stupid doing it. It takes so much effort and for so little reward. I've never been any good at it. I've never won a race. So many other people are better, faster, luckier. And every time I do it, I just get tired, and sore, and sunburned. And I'm mostly just tired of explaining myself.

And then I get injured, and non-runners just mock me. They say I was stupidly asking for it, which I was. And sometimes even my running buddies mock me! And this after running all those marathons. I'm tired of people calling me crazy, and an idiot. Which I am, because it is. I'm coming clean. I have always hated it.

I've never liked marathons, which is like surrounding yourself with 20,000 other mentally ill people and then engaging in collective self-torture. After a marathon, I can barely walk. My groin and armpits are chafed. I cramp up and my nipples bleed. And my knees ache for a week. But I have seen the light, and it is so obvious and so bright! I don't need to exercise. I get enough of that at work. And I can point to several legitimate scientific studies out there that prove that slightly overweight people actually live longer.

I've had a few running friends try to keep me in the sport, when I shyly admitted my desire to quit altogether. But they're idiots, too. Look at them! Lying to themselves. Morons. Besides, they're in better shape than me. I'm just not a runner. I'm sure they pity me, but they don't know what it's like. And I don't really care what they think.

I've been doing it for thirty years and am finally realizing what a stupid waste of time it's all been. I mean, seriously, it's taking years off my life! And I don't want to spend what life I have left lamely covered in ice packs on the couch, poring over pace times, and thumbing through Runners World magazine ogling the thin, fit, tan athletes on the cover. I'm not an athlete. I admit it. I've never been one. I mean, seriously. Running? Come on. Just where do you think you're going? Didn't you see Forrest Gump? I know it sounds ironic, but running is for the retarded mindset. It's sad, really, how so many people get sucked in.

I've spent hundreds of dollars on races a year, and they're all no more than overpriced t-shirts. What a hassle. And I abhor crowds! The whole scene is so stupid and useless, and I am finally seeing the light. I'm going to take that money and buy an Xbox.

I have even -I admit it- traveled out of state to run a stupid race. What an incredible waste of money! Seriously, no one ever wins these things! The last race I ran, I came in 1536th place! I am an idiot! And I am so sorry. I am sorry to everyone when I lied and said how great it was and how they should have been there, and should do it too, because you would be so proud of your dumb, easily-persuaded, brainwashed self.

All those people who I conned into running a marathon? Pathetic bastards. You believed me? You're a fool. Just look at the obvious facts. And then I saw them stoked and bragging about it later. They should lock me up. I am so ashamed.

And then there were all those fads we got sucked into: heart-rate monitors and GPS tracking devices and those god-awful protein-loaded space bars that looked and tasted like blocks of hardened, regurgitated cat food. And the barefoot craze, remember? The VIBRAMS! Oh my god, can we all just pull our collective head out of our collective posterior? Good Lord. (Who shakes His head at us.)

I'm going to burn my race shirts, with my dumb Asics Kayanos wrapped in old race bibs and marathon medals sitting on top. I'm going to douse it all in sunscreen and analgesic oils. It will be a sacrificial pyre to the gods of Common Sense, and I will drop to my knees in the smoke and firelight and beg forgiveness. I'll do penance. I'll go to local races on Sunday mornings, get drunk on Mimosas, and stand on the sidewalk and hold up sensible, philosophical signs that implore to strangers YOU'RE BEING MISLED and YOU KNOW THIS IS ALL WRONG and THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS WHAT A WASTE OF TIME THIS IS, WHY DON'T YOU?

Now that I think of it, I've seen those signs, and never heeded them.

Sometimes we get so caught up in ourselves, we can't see the forest for the trees. Self-delusion is such an easy path. One can get caught in a downward spiral, and lose all sense of clarity. You forget everything that mattered -especially the little things- and you get sucked into a tunnel of narrow-mindedness. Overwhelmed by an easily-justified insecurity, you surround yourself with people who prop you up, speak your language, and tell you what you want to hear. You convince yourself:  They're right. It's better this way. It always was. And I feel great now. I really do.

But no one can tell me what to do. I have to make these decisions on my own. I'm quitting running. You can't convince me otherwise. You fool! Look at the evidence!

~