Running stairs in the barbaric humidity

Friday 8/7/26

We must be waiting for the barbarians because I know we're not waiting on humidity given that it's already infiltrated the gates here in Boston. Where else but the Many Moments More journal would one get a J.M. Coetzee weather joke?

This is some barbaric humidity, though.

My Monument efforts have largely been stalled this week. I've been displeased with my effort in all phases of my life--which means my work/art, my attempts to keep living, and the stairs, because there is nothing else right now and likely ever for me--and so on Tuesday I decided I'd try not to miss any days of running stairs, including when the Monument is closed either because it's not normally open on that day or because of heat.

On Tuesday, I did 100 push-ups and ran 3000 stairs at City Hall. It was bad. But it was about to get worse and keep getting worse.

On Wednesday, with a 70 degree dew point, I walked three miles, did 100 push-ups, and ran five circuits of stairs in the Bunker Hill Monument.

This was a bad time.

I returned on Thursday, meaning that I again walked three miles, did my 100 push-ups, and was set to go into the Monument, when I saw them taking the flags down that had just been pushed up as I stood on the far side of the lawn. Turns out they'd just gotten the call that the heat was too much and the Monument would be closed for the day.

So, with the dew point at 75 miserable degrees, I ran up and down the stairs right outside the Monument at the Connecticut Gate sixty times, which is 3000 stairs, which is, that's right, the equivalent of five Monument circuits.

Then today was the worst. Did my 100 push-ups. That's simple enough. But the dew point was once again 75 degrees when I went to City Hall, where I only managed 2000 stairs. Still, that number doesn't reflect the amount of effort involved in doing those 2000 stairs, because that wasn't really "only" 2000 stairs' worth of stairs. Because this sucked.

At least on the day prior outside the Monument, some shade was afforded. The City Hall stairs are often right in the sun, and today that hot sun was dead center. Like a beam of heat focused on me. The humidity was sickening. It was close to actually sickening. Bad enough to make you sick.

Now, I'm not saying what I was doing was dangerous, per se, because I do this a lot, but if you don't do this a lot, then yeah, dangerous. I sat on the marble island near the bottom of the stairs and there was a puddle at my feet in less than a minute.

I should have done another 1000 stairs, but the truth is that this felt less like a workout and more like punishment. I do deserve to be punished for not trying as hard as I should in the aforementioned parts of my life.

I am disgusted with myself, frankly. I'm not fighting. It's like I've quit and have committed a form of suicide that doesn't involve formal death as of yet. But all the same, this was such a bad time that maybe, just maybe, this wasn't the worst decision to say, "That's it for now, I'm calling this."

On the way back, I stopped at Haymarket. I didn't have enough money to get what I need, so I'll likely have to return tomorrow. This vendor I regularly buy fruit from asked me if I had been running, and I told him I'd been around the corner running the stairs, and he said I must be dying, then asked if I ran marathons.

Well, I guess that's good, right, if people ask you if you run marathons. Figure you'd have to look fit and healthy. Then he added that I must be dying and handed me a paper towel, which I wiped my face with but it had no chance.

I hate summer. I hate it even more after this summer. I feel stymied and ineffectual. I have so little control in my life, like with the bigots of publishing. At least for now. Calling them out is a way to eventually get control over my situation and life. At least in theory.

Not doing this, though, and in effect doing nothing, save producing the matchless art and work, is a virtual guarantee to die in poverty and anonymity, so that being the case, I have no choice, unless that is my choice. And it isn't. But the stairs are something that I usually have control over each day. It's up to me how well I'll do. Right now, it isn't.

I could factor in the degree of difficulty and count days like these last four the same as I do what I just saw the automatically-generated Google AI sum up as my "extreme" workouts. Isn't that funny? Local author with his extreme stair endurance workouts. (Incidentally, the AI was wrong. It said there are no landings in the Bunker Hill Monument. There are quite a few.)

Does this sound like something I'd do, though? Do I seem like a man who gives himself the benefit of the doubt? Or grades on a humidity curve in this case? The hell I do. Would this be smarter? Sure. But in this area, I'm not going to be smarter. I'm just going to be demanding and, right now, disappointed in myself.

I confirmed that the Monument was closed today--as I knew it'd be, but just in case--and I expect it to be closed tomorrow and I'm not sanguine for Sunday. Sanguine for Sunday. Hmmm. Anyway, that means City Hall, where I hope to do better than I did today. Fridays have typically been my weakest workout day of the week, with weeks starting for me on Saturday, instead of Monday for everyone else just about. Saturdays are my Mondays. There are no weekends here.

The upcoming week looks to be bad as well, weather-wise. But when the weather does turn, I wanted to be poised to do great, with lots of big-number days--Google AI, by the way, even notes my highest totals--as fall gets underway (which I mark as September 1 each year), and I figure the best way to do that is not to miss days now and be ready to go when the more favorable conditions hit.

The Coetzee isn't any good, by the way. We know how meaningless the whole "Booker Prize-winning author" thing is. Right, George Saunders? Other things. It's always about other things, and never what the thing is purported or ought to actually be. I'm trying to change that, which is why I do these stairs in the first place, so that I'm here, creating, fighting, and strong enough in mind, heart, soul, and body.