perhaps i'm going to have to do this nyc marathon 2031 thing last minute. sinking feeling that the night before I’ll be lacing bobo running shoes for the huffing first mile of practice, "wracking" my brain to figure some adrenaline-laced recipe for success only to end up the next morning sprawled on my 300-pound ass in a pile of crushed gatorade cups on fourth avenue in the gray November light looking up at the clock tower thinking it's the empire state building, drooling into the cracks in the concrete.
i keep getting signs from the world that i need to keep it simpler. that i need to find comfort in my own skin and not spend every waking minute trying to escape.
when i was a wee plus-sized i learned to "dodge" reality through books, a strategy that made good sense then. even if books can't tune out your childhood's screaming violence, they can help one you make it through the aftershocks. stick a book in front of your face and a) it acts as a simple visual shield b) it fills your brain with other elements, other compounds, a bright new atmosphere. ignoring for the moment that what i loved to read then was horror.
"the" problem being that decades later i don't know how to turn off that winning escape instinct. dodging reality has served me well enough to this point, so why suddenly believe in the here and now. deep down i do, i do, i really do, though its been hard to get a brain quorum on that.
Doogie Howser diary entries aside the late-or-non-bloom curmudgeon will lace up shoes this morning, not for a jog but for the subway steps, up to the summer street and on to numbing work.
{P.S.: mountain goats sunset tree on the train in this morning, and how that guy has really learned to reckon with his memory, to find his pain and use guitars to anesthetize it, if not beat it}.
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