Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

Since I recently did my fourth half marathon (after doing an 8K the day before), I thought it would be a good time to provide the dissection of what goes through one's mind.  Disclaimer: it is only slightly perverse.  In January I was kicking, and then for the most of February my body and the Lupus told me to f-off, so . . . I'm still delighted with the results and I ran 3.85 today with an average of 10:46 per a mile.  Good, indeed. O'dark thirty, at the start.  Unless you are running in July, this start line will  always  be chilly or outright cold. In March, in Virginia Beach, it was downright cold.  July is the only time an 8 o'clock start will be on the borders of hot.  Joy.   The gun goes off, corals start to cheer.  Those damn seeded runners are going to hit the finish line before the chumps in coral ten (like me) even hit mile one.  'Tis the life.   Mile one: Let's not think about miles.  It's ...

Along The Dover Road, between New York City and Virginia Beach, we tumble through Salisbury...the last place my brother called home. As we pass through, I notice–– as I did in August, the first time I'd been through in nearly nine years–– the growth of the little roadside stop. Well, the academic in me wants to call it sprawl, but most folks draw lines with progress and clutter...the expanded Wal Mart, the chain restaurants, and the new chain gas stations all replacing the single owned ones known along the area for subs and fried chicken.  Somewhere along the way my mind remembers golf balls and rides in his partner's blue pick up truck. Those...those are memories for me to hold onto for another day.  Perhaps like the skybirds (Skybirds http://coolerthanyoustupidthings.blogspot.com/2009/08/skybirds.html) of my youth.  I still wonder what those are, then again I doubt that I really need to unearth that. This past February made ten years since my ...

There's something to be said about handcraft.  The nature of it, the making of it, and the solitude of it.  Much like running  there is a rhythm and solace to the craft.  Of course, there are levels of talent and learned skill . . . none-the-less, there are few things so simply sweet and gratifying--to me--as sewing with my own machine, creating a beautiful item from a sheet of fabric, rearranging prints and designs for an altered perception.  Until recently, I've always sewed on someone else's machine . . . well, I finally have my own and the results have been rather cathartic and lovely. Last spring I made my wedding dress, as I did the plunge--per se--in May.  Instead of making a muslin, or a practice dress as it is often called, I made my muslin from the fabric the dress would be from.  I've done this for years, usually finding a cheap fabric so that I get the feel of how the item will actually look in a pr...