Tethers and Confessions

I have a confession to make - I'm really don't have a cell phone.

Well, I do actually. But I sure act like I don't have one...quite a bit, actually. Often times, it's turned off and resting on top of a drawer, or perhaps in the bento box on my bicycle, for days at a time.

A cell phone was a compromise to some actually sage advice. I resisted signing up for a cell phone for the longest time, but my parents insisted I should have one for emergency purposes. I finally relented and added one to my possessions.

It's not like I haven't used the phone to text or talk to friends, family, etc. I guess it's just not ingrained in me that it's a absolute need to check the thing every hour, much less every day, for better or worse.

This cell phone mentality I think derived to how I have historically felt about wearing a watch. Generally, I haven't felt the need nor the want to wear a watch.

This leads me to another confession - my mom gave me a very nice watch as a graduation present. Oh, nothing that's truly a collectible or anything - just an upper-end Seiko. To this day, it still sits somewhere among my possessions, resting in its original case, never having seen the outside light of day.

Nowadays, I do wear a watch, but for utilitarian purposes. My Timex Ironman is almost always with me - you never know when an outdoor run might happen, and I like to keep some record of how long the run was.

But even here, I have a third confession. A fair number of runs I've logged in the past have been guesstimates in terms of time, though this is admittedly a rarity these days. Some argue that a run in its truest and purest essence is one where you head wherever you feel like and for however long you want. It is those types of runs that tend to act as a salve to the soul or uplift the heart or work out some frustration; a watch in these cases is at best a secondary consideration and in reality, probably unnecessary.

Recently a question was posed to my running group about what zodiac sign I was. One supposed quality associated with my sign was a tendency to roam, and this fits me to a tee. Maybe part of being a roamer is a natural allergy to technological tethers like a watch or a cell phone. Even on the Internet, which is the closest thing to a technological tether for me, inherently built-in is the ability visit multiple-millions of different websites covering a plethora of information in a myriad of forms.

As far as my cell-phone-itis, maybe someone will loan me an iPhone to test drive for a couple of years, where I'd be open to reconsideration of this I guess somewhat odd stance of mine. But even if that outlandish scenario came to fruition, I'd probably at least give some passing thought to turning the offer down.

Rejects

Don't know if this is nothing more than just one of those little quirks one picks up or it has deeper meaning, but it's something I've noticed lately whenever I've bought a coffee.

If the store has wooden stirrers available, I will go out of my way to find those that are warped or broken to stir up my coffee.

Kinda' hard to feel badly for an inanimate object, but maybe deep down I'm figuring if I don't make any use of these misshapen sticks, no one else will.

Bend It Like Back, Man

Sloth was the theme on Saturday, which turned out to be love/hate relationship. I badly needed the rest, but for someone who's used to being physically active, it was anathema to the system.

Sunday I made up for it with about 4 miles of walking spread out over an afternoon. It felt good, even if the surroundings (suburban mall central) weren't the most scintillating.

Close to the end of the day, I ended up walking out of the parking lot next to the COPIA Gardens. On a late Sunday, the parking lot was pretty much empty. Every parking space row was bracketed by concrete islands containing trellises with grapes of unknown variety in full bloom .

Nearing the street where my car was parked, I spotted a soccer ball in the grass next to the sidewalk. It seemed an odd place for someone to leave such a thing, not that it was in the best of shape (it could have used a few good thrusts of the air pump) nor the most expensive in its category (the typical black multi-sided shapes were painted as opposed to embossed onto the surface.)

I'm a crappy soccer player. Most any single-digit-aged kid in your typical soccer league could whip my ass dribbling the ball down the field.

But hey, I had an empty parking lot, a slightly flattened soccer ball, and only a few immovable islands and grapevines to give me any resistance. Who couldn't resist dribbling the ball around the lot for a revolution or two?

At the end, I was reminded that I'm still in recovery. My back area where the extraction had taken place 10 days prior was feeling just a little bit sore. I was breathing a little bit hard. But I was feeling quite a bit alive.

I put the ball back where I found it behind that clump of grass. I figured someone else needed to be lucky enough to find one of the best and most simple of treasures.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Because life can't be always too serious, here's what happens when James Cameron, Bill Paxton, Judge Reinhold, and a few other semi-famous stars have a whack at a wacky music video

Four Days Later

I hinted at it in an earlier post, but my last three months have been quite the blur. Actually, it's something that has been about two years in the making, and all the nitty-gritty details can be found here at this little posting I made on a running forum I frequent.

I'm now into my fourth day of recovery. Physically, I'm progressing just fine; the various aches and pains that were prominent the first couple of days are slowly fading away. My energy levels are still all over the place though. I've had a fair share of lightheadedness after getting up too fast from a seated position. Also, other things you wouldn't normally think of have their effect; today, a mere ten minutes out in high-eighties temperatures was a lot more draining than I would've thought.

I didn't think too much about the mental aspect though, but that little detail finally made itself known just a couple hours ago. I had recently bought a book detailing the experiences of people who've done ironman-distance triathlons. I've been battling nagging injuries for over half-a-year even before the harvest, and I figured it would be perfect inspiration for me to restart my training once I get back up to speed in a couple weeks. Doing an ironman distance triathlon is a bit out there in terms of my current levels of ability, but deep down that would be personally incredible to experience, even if only just once.

I popped open the book and read the first couple of stories. All the right stuff was there to be grasped for inspiration - pathos, whimsy, overcoming difficult circumstances, and so on. But after only a few minutes I put the book down, completely detached. It was odd to experience, especially knowing stories such as these would normally get my juices flowing.

I pondered it for a bit, then realized that my personal emotional tank had reached the proverbial "E" on the gauge. And considering the month I had prior to the procedure as well as the ramifications of the procedure itself, that's really not too surprising I guess.

However, I'm betting the same salve for my physical healing is applicable to the mental, and that salve is a simple four letter word.

Time.

And now that I think about it, it's time to get some sleep. Tomorrow's a new day, as they say...