Today I didn’t even have to use my AK

If I could lie beneath the wing of a bluebird as she sings, the six o’clock alarm would never ring.  But it rings, and I rise to find an email announcing that the arrival of a new niece is imminent.  I’m still awaiting a ruling from the source of such things on the nomenclature, and I am resisting the urge to use Beavis 2.0 in the meantime.  Or Butthead.  The experience, however, provides an argument for the efficacy of checking the email prior to MP so as to have fresh material.  Birthing needs a little prayer said for it.  Like landing an airplane, the fact that childbirth happens every day could lead one to believe that such things are not fraught with all sorts of potential disasters.  Skipping ahead in our chronology, this one came out splendidly and with help from a last minute “push em out, shove em out, waaaaay out” by the D.

But that was later.  First off, I kissed my Sweet Lady goodbye as she left for a trip to the RTP.  8 hours in the car for an hour or so of meeting.  Important meeting, but ouch.  Tallulah and I sallied forth to school and play.  I took this first really hell yeah spring like day off.  Let’s call that excellent planning rather than dumb luck.  Also excellent planning was a breaking of the fast with @bentmatches, who confirmed for me that you don’t know what you are doing here either.  I’m feeling better about that.  Alas, our time was too short due to my need to go get a needle stuck in me.  Need may be a mischaracterization.  Need to please the doctor who wanted to stick a needle in me is more like it.  Here we have a process which, for other reasons, was fraught with negative possibility but which has so far not been the bummer it could have.  Much love is due the SubDude for tagging along.  Good times!

It was, perhaps, a bit insensitive of me to mention to the SubDude that my next intended stop was Bent Creek.  (Wait a minute!  @bentmatches …. Bent Creek?)  The T5 incident having put the kibosh on his racking up of miles, he may not have been interested in hearing about my intentions.  I myself was not totally sure that is where I would be, but the rapidly warming air and radiant sunshine was too much.  I had a choice: normal runwear or a kilt run.  Really, is that a choice?  There is an advantage gained in changing into a kilt in a Forest Service parking lot in that one’s bits are covered as one drops trow.  This is something that perhaps every girl learns by 6th grade, but it took me until my 36th year to figure it out.

Suffice it to say that the 13 +/- miles of Hardtimes, South Ridge, and Bent Creek Roads were absolutely everything that I hoped they would be.  There were plenty of other folks out experiencing the same thing, and I think I should accept that a guy showing two tattoos who is running a half marathon on something of a lark can afford to smile back at the people whose days are brightened by seeing a guy in a kilt.  No need to prove that I am tough despite wearing this unbifurcated garment, especially since I am not tough.  To the guy who was sitting at the top of Owl Ridge who might be jealous that his girlfriend and I exchanged waves as I ran by I say two things: a) I am in deep passionate love with my Sweet Lady and am not interested in making a change and b) do more cardio if you want to keep that girlfriend.

Higher than a kite from that run, I headed back to Worst Altamont for a protein shake in homage to Ace.  This is a habit which I have adopted despite today’s opportunity to pig out on chinese buffet instead.  For some reason, fried greasy vegetables warming on a line for three hours were not what I wanted when I emerged from the woods.  What I did want was the new Broken Bells album on vinyl.  Being brokedy broke from a series of unexpected expenses this week, I had no choice but to rip some CDs and then take them in the Harvest Records for trade.  Those guys know their music, so they did not want much of mine.  There was just enough to make an even trade.  In the words of my boy Napoleon, “Sahweet!”  Now I sit, blogging to you whilest this incredible record (hells yeah, record!) plays in the background.

So why do you need a recounting of this day.  I’ll tell you why.  With the exception of breakfast, pretty much everything about this day was supposed to suck.  Guess what?  Including breakfast, very little about this day has sucked.  Most of it has ruled.  Just goes to show what I know about the future.