Thursday, November 24, 2011

You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness.


River Hocking flooded. I suspected part of my usual run from Peden Stadium would be flooded, so I began from Habitat for Humanity on Union. I was right, the drainage ditch just past Stimson was impassable. Still, the additional section made my run much longer than I had expected. Almost six miles. I can still do this. Without pain. Thankful.

Tuesday morning I sat in front of my laptop, striving to recreate a moment from a very long time ago. This would be nothing unusual for me, except it was one of those moments I choose not to spend much time with. A moment of shame or embarrassment. A beginning which would eventually lead to a humiliating end. I have written about the end. The beginning is more interesting.

(Wow. Just made a connection. The last time I ever saw the person in question was at The Nine. Forgot about that. It was a bitter reunion. That was also a very long time ago.)

In any event, I failed. Or rather, I began and did not know where to go. There may be no there there. Or there might be, if I can create, rather than document. It will be a challenge. Tuesday it produced one page. Sixty minutes. One page. The one page was produced in five minutes, with another fifty-five spent sighing.

Thanksgiving Day Playlist
Somebody That I Used To Know - Gotye ft. Kimbra
Hips Don't Lie/Bamboo - Shakira
Supermassive Black Hole - Muse
Mothership - Kid Beyond
Steal My Sunshine - Len
Bulletproof - La Roux
It's My Life - Talk Talk
Start! - The Jam
Oxford Comma - Vampire Weekend
Dynamite - Taio Cruz
Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It) - Beyonce
Uninvited - Freemasons
Before the Worst - The Script
Hold Me Now - The Thompson Twins

Stretches
Safety Dance - Men Without Hats
Push The Button - Sugababes

What does it mean to run the same route, again and again? Well, that can be a metaphor, can't it? Running this track by my old school inevitably lets my mind revisit events past. But with repetition comes a flattening out of such thoughts. They do not cease, but they lose their edge.

Sigh. Trite. What was I saying?


Co-eds on the Hocking.

There was a route I used to run in my neighborhood which pissed me off. Even when I did not run directly past the house in question, just running in the vicinity of the house in question made me obsess about a certain person, and that would induce anger.

I stopped running that way. But I do, on occasion. Thoughts of disappointment are entirely overwhelmed, nay, destroyed, by associations with the children and their elementary school, located nearby. Much the same way my niece's birthday has subsumed the date of my first wedding.

Distance: 5.8 miles
Temperature: 40º
Weather: cool, cloudy.

So. Tuesday. I'm making breakfast for children, packing lunches for everyone, listening to The Current. I am struck by a track that sings to me. Slightly retro, sounds like something I would have been big into during my younger days. There's a vocal refrain reminiscent of Sting. I immediately download the song from iTunes -- I never do that anymore.

I listen to it over and over again on the drive down Chester to work. I never do that anymore. A song about an ended relationship, frank, naked, blunt. Well-crafted song. Stirring production.

It's like that old saying; I do not miss you. I miss the person I was when I was with you.

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