Runnish and Zevon

We had a show last night and it was delightful. The funny thing about quitting smoking is I've seemed to gain back an octave. There are no octave loss warnings on the packages. Birth defects...not really applicable. Cancer, well, thought I was invincible, etc., etc., but if the packages said "Warning, WILL assuredly sound like Marianne Faithfull by the time yr 35" that might have made me quit earlier. I love how music critics call that, what is it, "cigarette stained". That's a load of crap. Ladygirl can't hit it like she used to, is what they mean! I read an article once that Emmylou Harris started smoking a little here and there to grit up her voice. I think you have to be Emmylou Harris for this to work effectively. Chipping at cigarettes rarely works.
Things are finally getting back to normal which means chemo again next week. Yeah! I can hardly wait for things to taste like battery acid again! Love it! But in an attempt to combat all the tiredness that comes along with this nonsense the dog and I have embarked on an exercise program I have decided to call "runnish". When the dog and I used to sort of run together in my old neighborhood (the gnarled heart of midtown) I found it difficult as sometimes friends would pull up next to us and ask us what we were doing. I would wheeze out a "runn...nning" and they would say "From what?" as this is my relationship with physical activity. They would slow down at the cross walks and ask if I needed help, or a ride. Then I would remind them of my policy to never wear sweatpants out of the house and how breaking that rule obviously meant I was trying to better myself through rigorous activity. And then they would ask me what time I would be at the bar later. Needless to say.....since moving out of "the Shire" I enjoy relative anonymity and can run about in sweatpants with the dog and not be questioned as to my intent. So me and my sidekick McWizzlers have begun "runnish", a self-devised program of walking rather quickly and then occasionally, when the mood strikes us, sprinting from mid-block to stop sign every once in awhile.

I have a friend who I admire to the point of sort of standing in awe of her and not quite knowing what to say. I am like this with most people who possess great amounts of discipline because I have none. She is a runner, and by runner I don't mean, yeah she gets out of bed and takes the setter for a spin around the park before she goes to work runner. I mean the lady logs miles. Many miles. $947 worth of airline miles miles. She is serious about it and I respect that to no end. She has the discipline to do a rather uncomfortable thing and her reasoning is not obvious which makes it more intriguing. She's not the sort to do it for vanity. Health perhaps, but she is all around one of the healthiest people I know. If it is for joy, as I suspect it may be, then I totally understand. I came to music late in the game and had to go through all those awkward 15-year-old-boy steps as an adult. Every step was terrifying, uncomfortable, sometimes painful (failure is never fun) but the joy I got out of it was worth every single wretched bit of it. Its not old hat now by any means. The moment that happens I'll need to stop. I am still flummoxed by it. I still fall in love with it daily. But I do have my sea legs under it. I have a handle on it. I think its time for me to do something I am entirely afraid of. Think I'm going to start figuring out running. I will begin with runnish, however, for a good long while. Unlike my lovely friend I possess little if any discipline. Obviously. I have cancer which means I overindulged in more than a few somethings along the line! (Tee-hee). And hell, you know it might be good for me.

It is a strange thing when you realize you are not invincible anymore. When you have lived hard and rough and fast and loose and come to the point where you're obviously too old to overdose and young enough to actually want to see how it all plays out. How yr friends kids will turn out; what the next record might sound like. As the strange wizard Zevon said "I'm too old to die young and too young to die now". There is a certain breed of folk, I perhaps included, who never thought they'd get to thirty. So now we're here. Shit! There is no trading up or trading in. This hoopty-ass body of mine is what I've got to work with. Parts are expensive (as I'm finding out). Time accumulates. And I am not saying I'm old, just full of time. You'd think I'd be smarter by now...but as my beloved says while watching reality television "Man is a stupid animal and slow to learn." Amen! So I'm going to learn to run because I'm here and I can.
XOX
miss a.