Jogging @ MindSay

Well, I guess it had to happen really. A few months ago they started to build extensions onto the old-people's home across the road from me. They've added several hundred new rooms with modern facilitites and they've begun to accept retirees.

 

Almost all the units have been sold. So yesterday it happened, as I knew it must, the first of many old couples jogging past my house.

 

There's something very disturbing about seeing old people jogging. I think it's because parts of them seem to be going in so many different directions at the same time. Soon, there will be more . . . ech.

 

Was that a bit harsh? 

Well, today I went jogging... 6.2 miles to be precise! It took me over an hour... Which means that my goal was reached!

Of course, I need to set a new goal for myself... I was thinking of trying to run an hour and a half non-stop... but I also want to increase my speed... I think it is what I should start with... so here is my new goal!

 

I'm feeling good like it does after exercising. It's such a great sensation to feel my blood running through my veins, and my muscles tight ... even though I feel tired at the same time.

 

The thing is that I have to work, and I can't set my mind to it... but I must... I have no choice...

 

Oh! I just remembered… Last Friday was my 2^nd painting lesson of the year and I decided to leave aside all my “works in progress” as I am getting tired of working for too long on the same thing… Of course, I’ll be finishing them, but I wanted to start something new!

I decided to do some abstract again, using plaster, sand and tissue paper, but I had also been wanting to paint something after Kandinski. So, I looked at works by him that I like, closed the book and started working on my canvass with plaster that I shaped. It’s drying at the moment. Next week I’ll add the sand and paper, and then I’ll be all set to start painting it! I can’t wait. Hopefully it won’t look too bad!

 

Waow! I'm proud of myself! Yesterday i managed to jog 40 minutes! I used to be able to run an hour, 5 times a week... a very long time ago... And until yesterday, i wasn't able to run longer than 20 minutes! I blamed my getting older for it... but, of course, it had nothing to do with it! So yesterday i found what rythm i need to run...  which is rather slow, but at least i can do it now, run longer!

My goal is to  run an hour again, very soon!

 

Yesterday, i also went to pick up my order from Phildar so i have more yarn and thread to knit... Among those i got a hat kit.. but sometimes i wonder if the girls wearing the models don't make the models look nicer than what they will on me! lol... Anyway... whenever it is ready, i'll post it on here.

 

 

Well, it's waiting game time.  You guys gave me some really terrific feedback on my query letter, so now all that's left to do is go through my Writer's Market book to find some agents who seem appropriate, and then to send them the letter.

That means there isn't much updating to do right now, so I thought I'd do some real writing instead. 

I've spoken before about how I like stream of conciousness writing.  I like to just sit at the computer and peck away at the keyboard, and see what that crazy mind of mine can come up with.  Call it freestyle writing, where I let the characters and their situations be born out of my fingertips. 

Let's do that now, shall we?  Here's the beginning of a new story:

The sun was orange.  When viewed from the ground of the Nevada desert, its large orb flickered like a golden flame, shimmering through the wavy air.  This appearance made the day feel much hotter than it was, giving the impression that the sun was a giant gas stove cooking everything on the grill of the earth's body.

The ground was a faded brown, the road made all the more dismal by the striking blue of a wide lake running parallel to it.  The sun seemed to have absorbed this lake's qualities during evaporation, because its orange body was rippling like water while the cool blue surface of the lake remained perfectly calm, smooth and wrinkle-free like the flawless face on a commercial for age-reducing makeup.  

A light wind built up from the depths of the planet and rushed outward, as if the earth's core had sighed, releasing a gentle howl across the plane.  It was hot breath that stung human skin, that burned like a burst of air from an oven.  It lifted the dirt off the road, sent it spinning in all directions, giving the impression that a groundhog was burying underneath the ground.

This dirt whisked around the powerful legs of a young man whose weighty steps were beating into the ground, which was perhaps the cause of the earth's sigh.  This man's breathing was heavy, but perfectly controlled, as every organ in his body functioned together, working to propel him forward.
 
His calves sunk in and then bubbled out, emulating the pulsing throat of a large toad.  His thighs rippled from one end to the other, forming a wave very much like a caterpillar's torso as the insect propels forward on thousands of little black sticks.  His legs formed a flawless semi-arch in their movement, reaching out for solid ground, hitting it, pushing off, and repeating, all while moving in opposite sync with the other.  His arms swung in a similar arc, bent slightly at the elbow, pointing him in his direction, urging him onward with the chug of a locomotive's brass bar rising and falling to the spinning of the wheels.  His head bounded up and down on his neck, hair flapping behind him, follicles digging into his scalp so as not to fly off.

There was nobody in front of him.  There was nobody behind him.

There was nobody.

As he let long strides propel him forward, he stared ahead of him at the lonely expanse of road.  Flat and clear, this part of Nevada offered him a view miles ahead, a view that showed him nothing but dirt and small cacti.  And that calm lake.

It was the only thing to look at, the only thing to keep his mind occupied as he ran forward.  The only thing, that is, except to acknowledge how dangerously hot it was.

First he realized he wasn't sweating.  Even though he was three-fourths of the way through a marathon, he was not sweating.  The air was so hot it caused his sweat to evaporate off his body the instant it formed.  It was an odd sensation, to not be sweating in 100-degree heat.  It made him feel like he was dead, like he was just running in limbo; he wasn't heading in any real direction, couldn't actually get to any place, but was just running for eternity.  Would he eventually tire out?  Would he need to eat or drink?  No, if he wasn't sweating out liquid, why would he need to ingest liquid?  He was just a wax figure running mindlessly forward.  Not from something.  Not toward something.  Just running.

So he stared at the lake, the only thing to occupy his mind.  But that didn't help much, that didn't take away the feeling of being dead.  Just like his body wasn't sweating like it naturally should, the lake wasn't rippling like it naturally should.  It was resting perfectly calm, as if it had tensed in preparation for something horrible.   If the lake were a living entity, it would be holding its breath.

But of course, the lake wasn't alive, just like he wasn't alive.  He was just a wax figure running through Purgatory.

But wouldn't wax eventually melt?  Wouldn't it, in essence, sweat?  Why was his body so eerily dry?

His feet pounded into the dirt, his legs moving in a steady rhythm, making the sound of the soles of his shoes hitting the gravel sound like a clock ticking.   

Am I crazy? he thought.  No, not yet.

But still he stared at that lake and its unmoving water, like a sheet of ice, only brilliantly blue

He stared out at it, his legs never breaking stride as his neck tilted, and thought the following:

Look at that perfect blueness.  Look at it sitting there thinking it's so great.  What an insult.  It's teasing me.  That's what it's doing.  It's taunting me.  It's laughing at me, and its so arrogant it doesn't even feel the need to ripple as it does so.  It's like the thing got plastic surgery.  Like it's Botoxed.  And even though it's laughing at me, its cheeks don't change.  No ridges form in its skin.  It stays exactly the same.  Totally calm.  It's Linda Evans.  No, Cher.  No, it's God damned Joan Rivers.  Its face doesn't move, because it's a damn Botoxed Joan Rivers lake.  Damn you Botoxed Joan Rivers lake.  Damn your creepy plastic water.  My body is eating me alive, and this damn lake is staring at me, laughing without moving, beckoning me to come drink from it, to prove that I have water to sweat out.  No, it wants to prove that I can't win this race.  It wants me to stop.  To quit.  It's trying to…

Shit, now I am crazy.

The soles of his shoes slushed against the brown gravel.  Tick tock.  Tick tock.  His arms propelled him forward.  A human locomotive. Chugga chugga  chugga chugga.  

He laughed suddenly.  The only sound had been the steady metronome-like grinding of his feet on the ground, but now he laughed, shaking his head in self-embarrassment.  

"Choo choo."

He laughed again, and the sound caught in his throat, lodged just under his dry mouth.  The words must have been holding daggers, he thought, because he felt tiny stabs inside his skin.  He felt like his throat was about to erupt.

And then it did.  He felt his flesh melt away right where his Adam's apple used to be.  He could feel a burn form and then slowly spread out.  Could smell the white flesh quickly singeing black.  He pictured what he must look like now, with a gaping hole in his throat.  Perhaps it was still expanding, and eventually his entire body would burn to ash that would blow around with the dirt by his feet.  Or maybe it wouldn't get any bigger.  Maybe he would just look like a tracheotomy patient for the rest of his life.    

Can anybody see my tonsils? he asked himself.  Step right up: just look right through this big hole here and take a look at my tonsils.  Are they infected?  Should I see a doctor?  Hey, while you're there, what does the bottom of my tongue look like?  Or did that burn away too?  I hope not, because I like to taste my food, and I don't think you can taste without a tongue.  Of course, it wouldn't do much good to eat if I have this big hole in my neck; the food will just fall right out.  Probably land right back on my plate.  Damn, that's $30 down the tube.  Ha, down the tube. Just like the food going into and then out of my throat.  Plop, right down the tube.  

His eyes suddenly snapped open, as if he had drifted to sleep.  But he was wide awake, he was running a marathon, and he was doing well, too.  His throat hadn't burned away, he was just thirsty.  And there was something that could quench that thirst.  Something right next to him, staring at him, unmoving.  As the dirt kept circling his ankles, trying to pull him down like quicksand, the lake wasn't moving.  It was waiting for him.  It was ready for him.

Just one little drink.

But then he saw something ahead of him.  Not a cactus or a bush.  It was a color, a solid blotch of color in a circle.  He knew what that color meant.  He knew what it was in front of him.

A person.  
 
There was a person in front of him, a woman.  It was as if she had materialized out of nowhere, had popped into existence like a character from a Harry Potter book, but she was there nonetheless, running forward, and her stride wasn't nearly as strong as his.  She was getting tired.  He could catch her.
   
Other colors materialized in front of him as well.  A whole group of colors, different in their shades and in the sizes of the circles, but all there, clustered together.  There were two groups of people flanking either side of the dismal road, waiting.  This was the end.  This was the finish line.  He had made it.  And he could pass this woman, he just knew it.
   
The steady tick tock of his feet on the gravel quickened.  His legs kicked furiously back and forth in that perfect arc.  The muscles in his arms quivered in pain, shaking like a body with hypothermia.  
   
Cold from ice.  The ice of a frozen lake.  A lake that doesn't move.
   
He ignored Lake Joan Rivers to his left and just stared at that blotch of color that symbolized a fellow runner.  The blotch was getting bigger, he was approaching her, and as he ran, he realized the color was the most beautiful he had ever seen; a powerful, vibrant blue that put the lake's façade to shame.  It was breathtaking, and it almost slowed him down for a second.
   
But in this sport, a second can kill you.
   
He quickened his pace still, and felt his throat burn away yet again.  But that didn't bother him this time; it just meant that oxygen had an extra path into his body, giving him more strength to run forward.
   
He approached the woman runner, felt her head turn, knew her eyes were on him, but he couldn't risk moving his head, he couldn't waste the inevitable change in pace that action would cause. Instead he stared forward, stared at the group of people ahead of him, was amazed at how quickly he reached them.
  
His legs kept spinning, his arms kept thrusting forward.  The two posts of the finish line rushed toward him, his hands reached out to them.  The people were there.  The finish line was there.  But so was that damn woman and her beautiful blue glow.  No, he couldn't look over.  He was so close.  He was approaching.  He was going to make it.  
   
Her eyes were on him.  He wanted to turn, just one glance.  But he couldn't.  But he had to.
   
And still the finish line was so close.  And still that blue was so bright.  

Just one glance.  
   
No, he was at the end.  There it was.  This was it.
   
He whooshed forward.