A possible new stair record inside the Bunker Hill Monument, with observations and thoughts about the United States from outside the same
- 15 hours ago
- 8 min read
Saturday 4/11/26
Doing okay of late stair-wise. Not too great but nothing to feel bad about either.
Ran 6000 stairs Monday at City Hall, then five circuits of stairs inside the Bunker Hill Monument on both Wednesday and Thursday. Been doing at least 100 push-ups a day. Yesterday was the first warm day in a while. I was able to wear a T-shirt and shorts to Charlestown so I did ten circuits. Not having on the extra clothes makes a nice difference. It's like taking the doughnut off a baseball bat.
There has been a line each of these past three days, and I've been showing up ten minutes or so before they open. It's a sloppy line. People can't even make a proper one. They stand on the wrong side, they're far apart from each other in groups so you're not sure if they're in line, but I know that if you moved ahead of those same people they'd screech with rage.
There's a ramp leading up to the door of the lodge outside the Monument. The door is on the right side. So, of course, the line should be on the right side of the ramp. Nope. These people are on the left, in the middle, some on the right. They take up the whole thing. And they look so dumb doing it. Breathing through their mouths, being loud, being unfunny. They remind me of so many stupid cows. All ages. The children are often poorly behaved. They're unable to stand there for any time at all without grabbing at each other.
People--especially out-of-shape people--can't wait to feel slighted so they can go off. It's like they live for it and nothing else, which may be true. So I just hang back and wait on the right side, sometimes like I'm in a line by myself. You watch people and it's as if there isn't anything they can figure out or bother to think through.
As we're waiting, they usually talk like they're about to set off on a mountaineering expedition to the top of the Himalayas. You'd think these people--and it's not like this is limited to a particular group of people on the odd day; no; it's a similar crowd every time--hadn't exercised in their lives the way they go on about a modicum of physical activity, with some of them complaining before they've started.
You get such an eye and earful of America in 2026 just waiting in this line for ten minutes before the doors are open. You'll see these women who have tried to keep themselves in a semblance of shape and the fat men they're with--guys let themselves go very early on--in what you know are their loveless marriages.
You can tell from their interactions. They don't have things to say to each other. You see the absence of joy. I don't mean just there and then, as in limited to. You know what you're witnessing is just a case of different time, different place. They're joyless people living joyless lives, though they got what they wanted to get, what they tried to get. They aren't victims of anything. This was their plan.
They're commonly together so they didn't have to be alone and at this point so they don't have to start over, though you know that the woman, often, wishes she could go back and do it again. The fat guy just wants the sex when he's able to get it and his meals. He hates having to do days like this, but it's the price he has to pay in his mind.
They're ignorant, uneducated, bad parents. When their kids ask them questions, they don't have the answers. And they treat the questions like a challenge they have to respond to to get the kid to shut up again. That's the goal--to quiet the kid's voice as fast as possible with their reply, until the next time.
It's depressing. For me. These are the people I need to be intelligent, to think, to read, to care about art and ideas and decency and truth. I feel horrible waiting in this line.
When the door opens, it's like sleepy cattle being roused on Rawhide. People don't walk into the lodge so much as they slowly shuffle. They actually drag their feet. They look like they've just woken up or been born. The rangers wend the line past the desk at the front, down towards the back, where it loops and moves forward to the door that leads out to the Monument itself. We go so slowly. You'd think everyone had come out of a cave and their eyes were adjusting to the light.
People go through life like this. Like it's too much effort--metaphorically now--to raise their feet more than they have to in order to not be fully inert. Then when we get inside the Monument, the pissing and moaning really starts. "Whose idea was this?" and "Remind me why we're doing this again?" are common lines.
I think, "Then die, you fat fuck. You're not doing anyone in this world any good anyway. You're not helping the human cause. You aren't adding anything positive to the human enterprise. Just be off."
Of course, I don't want them to have a heart attack while I'm in there, because that will close the joint and I have circuits of stairs to run. I mean, the powers that be (rangers) going to let me keep stepping over the body as the paramedics work. There wouldn't be room anyway. I'd try, though, if someone didn't stop me. Or lend a hand with the stretcher. Like that time recently I carried that woman's suitcase up to the top for her. You could make it part of the workout.
The people least likely to complain are kids, but only up to a certain age. They learn bitching and moaning fast. This past week, there were a number of groups of high school students on field trips. Try running stairs in an obelisk with classes of high school students. One of the many things I've learned inside of the Monument is that I am in better shape than high school students in America. And some of these kids must be athletes, too. But they're in poor shape, the high schoolers. Most complain. Many are loud. They yell as they go. Some sit down the on the steps to rest. Some use their hands on the ground like they're crawling.
Some are sweet and polite to the point of being needlessly apologetic. I'll see these shy girls who apologize...for nothing. Girls who aren't with a group of friends. Because even in the Monument, friend groups travel together. I want to say, "Be confident!" They are as entitled to their side of the stairs as I am to mine. You've done nothing wrong simply by us passing! Believe in yourself, little miss.
But boys and girls who are, say, nine-years-old to twelve-years-old are often the best in the Monument. They do the best physically. They'll also try and challenge themselves by pushing the pace to see how fast they can get to the top. They leave their parents way back in the dust.
Sometimes, the parents will take out their lack of fitness on their kid, practically yelling at the child with this bitterness derived from the sad truth and frustrating (but not enough to do anything about it) truth that they themselves are now this grotesque pudge ball. They want to hold the child back, pull them down to their level. Gives you some insight into how it works at home.
Yesterday this little girl was in front of me and she was all enthusiastic. Maybe ten-years-old. The stairs are numbered every twenty-five stairs. So, 25, 50, and so on, and then 294 at the very top. She would say each of these numbers aloud in this song-song fashion, but also like she was trying to cheer herself on to keep pushing. Her shoe was untied, but I didn't say anything going up because I didn't want to slow her down in her enthusiasm, but when we reached the top I tapped her on the shoulder before I turned around and told her to tie her shoe before she came back down.
It's also depressing the amount of entitled, clueless people who park their blobular selves on the top step. If it's a guy, I'll simply carry on like he's not there. This guy yesterday yelped like a woman as he jiggled like the pile of Jello he was from a taste of the old hip. Don't stand there, asshole. Other people exist. I will issue an excuse me, sometimes a second, more stentorian, but after that, I'm coming through.
Having gotten to the top, people talk like they're the greatest heroes in history. They are so damn self-congratulatory for having walked up some stairs. Slowly. With breaks. I resent them. Because you're not just one way in one part of life. The way someone is in one area of their life is typically how they are in all of it and this impacts me in horrible, hellish ways.
Sometimes, while they're stroking themselves off, they'll see me dripping with sweat as I hit that top stair and turn around, and let me tell you, that dims their self-love fest. It's sobering. A blast of reality. As to what they are and aren't.
And you know what? No one likes that. People like people like themselves. Most people suck, most people prefer people who also suck. It helps them keep stroking themselves unabashed. I don't. This is what happens with publishing. And the public.
It's the single biggest reason why I am in this situation I'm in. Why my life is what it is, this thing that is worse than hell. If I sucked, it would be different. As Thoreau said, the public demands and average man and hates nothing more than the person of absolute greatness.
Yesterday, I was about twentieth back in line before they opened. Which means I barely got in with the first wave. They only allow twenty-five in the Monument at a time. One of the rangers has a counter in his or her hand up by the door. Sometimes, when they haven't done a tip-top job with the counting, they'll ask me how many people are inside after I've come back down or when I first go up if I got there late.
We went up slowly. The stairs were so clogged with flabby beef that it wasn't worth it to try and pass people until they stepped aside, sucking wind, leaning against the wall like they were holding on to life itself. But I felt pretty good over the course of the workout, so I pushed a bit at the end of each circuit and raced hard to the top.
It was freeing not to have on all that additional clothing. The temperature was also perfect. An ideal day to run stairs if you are someone who runs stairs. The ranger who put up the flags outside yesterday even said to me, "It's a good day to do it ten times" as he walked past carrying the ladder. When someone says that to you, you can't come back out having done less.
I think I may have done ten circuits in less than an hour. They let us in late and I was outside again at 2:02. I know that if I hadn't had to go so slowly the first time up I definitely would have done it in less than an hour, but I really think I did anyway (sometimes I have the stop watch going, but not that often; usually I just check the time when I come back out, and I'm almost always aware what time they let us in, or me by myself when they let me in early; it's not the Olympic trials) and I believe I've only done that once before, so that's actually pretty good.
With yesterday's ten circuits, I reached and went over 100 circuits since March 11, which puts me on pace to do 1000 circuits in ten months rather than twelve, as is the goal: 1000 circuits in a year, Monument circuits being separate from City Hall runs. That is, I don't convert 6000 City Hall circuits to ten Monument circuits--they're the same number--and do it that way. Nope--separate. Lot of stairs all in all.
My hair is like a tuft when I have my Celtics headband on, but will no longer be after today. I have a Zulu cut scheduled at noon--so I'll nearly be bald--and then I'll be at the Monument again when it opens at one (takes fifteen minutes for the barber to "cut" my hair--no scissors are involved). My hair is thick and grows fast. Anyway, I'll be more aerodynamic.
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