I don't know where it's all headed from here. As I make the transition into being supported by words and ideas, as I transfer my endurance ambitions to another site, as my heart is no longer inspired, more disgusted by anything short of extraordinary fascination, the threat of content fade will remain a great threat. But we'll certainly endure. We have for 7 years now. 7 years. There's always SNL...hopefully always Stefon.
March 23, 2011
Time To Pick A Fight...
Hey bro, how's it going? You cool? Cool. November 28th, yeah that was your day and that day wasn't so long ago, was it? Let me just come out and say something before I say a lot of other things, that we are all proud of what you did that day, your first Ironman. Congratulations. If that's what you want to hear, you can fucking have it. Take it, put it in your pocket, pull it out any time you need to jerk off by celebrating your own mediocrity. You'll never fool me. And seriously, if victory like that is victory you want to hang onto, please just dig a grave and put yourself in it. Stop distracting the world from the alarmingly short supply of genuine, inspired effort.
I am going to destroy you in every sense of the word.
April 15, 2011
Holy Shit They Just Let Me Into Kona!
That’s exactly what it felt like when I read the e-mail after class, me as Chuck and running up and down the street in Santa Monica, looking for someone who would understand exactly what it meant - to be allowed to race in Kona - to get ripped by the course I’ve seen rip through contenders as far back as I can remember, sitting on a couch and watching the race unfold on some calm, lazy December day, helplessly crying and crying because I couldn’t take it, because I was so inspired by it - the sight of bodies crumbling and failing and enduring, utter destruction and triumph of the human spirit. It was always so beautiful to me. Now I’m going there, to participate in it. It’s breaking me now, just typing this…
May 02, 2011
Fuck Week...
There's all this shit on my desktop, motorcycle insurance and appointments and academic articles I write because I'm a false fucking whore. Tomorrow morning, I have to go into the DMV, then I have to run, have to sit in the sun, have to let my skin strengthen and burn and grow confident under this suddenly scorching California. I got a call today from someone trying to make my man-u into a movie, who told me about some big swinger in some faraway city who is afraid of my truth, afraid to take my hand, afraid I will break her bones. No, she won't even look into my eyes and it's making me fire, and it's making something recently dormant inside of me agitate. The seams aren't splitting like they used to, instead resilient, expanding and stretching as I breathe weighted, obscene, absurd breath. Everything about this feels so fucking absurd. Everything about me, this week. Hopefully not next. Thursday, I'm driving to Utah. Saturday, I'm running the Ironman and I feel flat, controlled. I feel strong, like I can see him, the Devil, looking at me, hands already tight in white tape. His clout is fading. I'm going to take him by the throat and pin him against the ground, drool and spit rage all over his face. I'll tell him these things, speak my peace then let him up, before I ask him to take my hand and show me what's next and where to wander and where to not fear the fall. He is my friend, sometimes my mentor, often misunderstood as vile. Only when he returns do I realize how much I've missed, the depth of my responsibility. Someone's hand is on my face, holding it, a girl. I'm not dismantling her for trying. There is no desire. There's a ring on my finger that won't come off. It means more to me than anything. It has to always. The streets are too many, my remaining steps too few.
July 19, 2011
We Were Driving Together, Somewhere Near The Beginning...
And talking about this and she didn't understand, saying things like but why would you write there, and put words out there if you don't actually want people to read them. I said she was inaccurate, that I didn't care if people read them or not, that the last thing I ever wanted was to engage anyone or convey a reach out, or make anyone ever believe they could reach back. I explained that the act itself served a purpose, for me, to move me along, or to simply write about the things that mattered to me, or affected me. At some point she mentioned how disappointed she would be if I ever wrote anything about her here, how disappointing it would be that I couldn't just say it myself. I understood that. I only come here when there's nothing left to say.
Friday, I left her and there was a voice telling me to end it. Because it was comfortable, and good. Because it was really good. Because I could see no end in sight. Because I've trained and triggered myself to behave in such a manner to be capable of loving something one day and then walk away from it the next. I didn't love her. But I could have. I would have eventually. Maybe that's why I didn't listen to the voice - there was a part of me that was ready for that. Maybe. When knowing friends asked me about her, this Girl, I would tell them I thought we would go a distance, that the irrational darting madness that often occupies me was stifled, and clearly accepting of her. They would smile and pet my head or shoulder.
It's Tuesday now. I feel like I got what I wanted, and that it's not at all what I wanted. She called last night to hit the brakes, and I got out. She hit the brakes. I do this thing in rare, anticipatory moments when something of feeling is coming at me, where I stand to meet it, to witness the full force of it. Last night, there was a turn in the conversation that stood me on my feet, the morbid excitement of never knowing what's really coming until it comes. No matter how much grace or trained composure I presume to have over the situation, I know a great force will always take me apart, and that it will be ultimately cold-blooded and fucking remorseless. When the time comes, my say is an illusion, and I know this. That's why as I stood to meet it, fists balled, I knew I was getting ready for a hopeless showdown.
I hung up and couldn't sleep, naturally. Around 3 AM, in a haze, I turned over to check my phone to see she had written. The e-mail was short and very dramatic and at first glance, I was actually insulted by it, not angry, but insulted by the frailty of everything that had happened between us - that in the end, we were as fleeting as anything. I was convinced we weren't. This morning I see the letter as something different, more of a gift - someone taking the time to let me know, in words and tones tailored for me to understand, that I was good. Hopefully, that will be enough.
August 09, 2011
On Leaving A Part Of My Heart In CamSur...
Last year, almost to the day, I was getting evicted from my hotel in Naga City, Philippines. I had been there for about 2 weeks, training in a surprisingly great gym and out on the scorching roads and through the villages, living off oatmeal, almonds and boco. I was writing, constantly writing things that will afford me this lifestyle again, and soon. And, I was begging anyone, everyone to help me find a bike so that I could race in my first 70.3. It was an experience that stretched me deeply. It reached inside and showed me the depths of what a stranger I was, the depths of nothing working out the way I hoped it could before everything did. I’ll never forget it, any of it - the people, the smell, the hurt, the hope — and I’m not even talking about the race yet.
Eventually, two hours after the cut off for bike check, this mechanic Erik built me a bike in his alleyway shop in Naga City. I took a cab back to the complex, checked in, slept in a second hotel that deserves its own post, woke up, listened to the YouTube of Playing With Fire about 11 times before walking to the bus, before getting to the start line, racing on a bike with no shoes or pedal grip, blowing up on the run in 100 degree heat, drinking Cobra and stumbling across the line in a 5:29.
I’m seeing posts across the internet for this year’s version and I can feel something growing inside of me, some force asking why we’re not there again, to partake in another day that last year gave so, so much. It makes me sad not being there, and I never expected to feel that way. There’s something untouched and inspired about that part of the world, at the very least for a handful of moments, at least for me. Now, it’s something rooted inside, trying to drag me back. I have no doubt it will soon succeed.
August 29, 2011
When I Think About This, It's Quite Beautiful...
That there was a point in my life, not so long ago, absolutely and not for dramatic purposes, where I became convinced I was going to die before today, my 30th. The thought made me into everything I was, occupying obsession. Then it became something else, something literary, which will become something else, something literary, which will become something else, something literary. Right now I'm trying to think of a brilliant way to lead myself into saying something trite yet poignant like, "This is my life," but there I just said it, and exactly as I had hoped.
