Sunday 10/4/20
I've been running stairs for a number of years now, but today was the first time I actually wrecked. An absolute header. It was my second time going up the BC stairs, taking them two-at-a-time, and near the top I didn't clear the back step, and I went down hard. Bruised collarbone, knees, bloody chin, blood under my fingernails, blood on the stairs. My chin was flush against the stair, like if you were going to administer a curb stomping. I drove hard into the edge of the stair with my left pectoral, which I'm having a hard time moving right now. I was displeased with myself for falling, so as punishment and to re-stress the need for mental discipline, I ran the stairs a full twenty times instead of the usual ten, and each time I went up to the top, I stepped in the pool of blood until it was all gone. Which is kind of intense, when you think about it. Damn. Intense? Or Zulu? Today was ultimate workout day. I walked twenty miles, ran those 5400 stairs, and I also ran sprints between Arlington and Mass. Ave. on Comm. Ave. It's eight long blocks from one end to the other, so I sprinted a block, walked a block, and so forth.
Of course, the first thing I checked when I wrecked with my head still against the stone were my hands. I took a water break after eight times up the stairs, and when I stood up again I was locking up in the knees. Kimball had a good tip later to keep moving and stay loose. All of this is for one reason--so I can keep going and get past these people in publishing and endure what I have to endure right now to ultimately arrive at where I am going. Each step, each mile, each stair, each time my foot came down in that pool of blood is part of that journey and a result I will not be denied. I am not losing to these evil bigots, and I'll be as strong as I need to be in every way--and that includes physically, with what my heart must go through, to handle the stress, the abuse, the discrimination--until I beat them. Anyone else would have gone home. Let that be a metaphor. I'll go home when this quest is complete. And then I'll just make some more art, but in the situation and setting I deserve to be in.
Speaking of my stairs! This was actually pretty cool. So, I'm watching the BC-North Carolina game last night on ABC, and one of the announcers says there are these crazy stairs--they're so many of them--next to the football stadium, and walking up them once is this extreme cardio workout. Shout out for my stairs! Then they said there were 120 of them and trust me, it's 130, but that was neat. I got a charge out of that. When are campus stairs ever mentioned on a football broadcast? They have to be like really lofty stairs, right? Notable stairs! And someday, and I hope it's soon, I'm working to make it soon, people will go up them, and they'll say, "the guy who wrote this and this and this and did that and this and that, that guy we all know, used to run up these stairs." And I think that will be fucking cool. And I believe it's going to happen. One might even see me go running by.
