Some competition

Thursday 7/10/25

My erstwhile five-year-old buddy has an ear infection so I sent her a text--via her mom--saying I hope she gets well soon. She has to miss some swimming lessons, unfortunately, but I've been told she's been doing really well learning to swim this summer.

I was downloading some Peanuts specials from the 1960s today--those are the ones you have to have--and in checking on the print quality I randomly landed on that early sequence in A Charlie Brown Christmas when they're skating and the vocal version of "Christmas Time is Here" is playing. It went right through me, taking all of me with it. Hits me so hard. There isn't a lot that does this to me to this degree, for all of the art I love. It's almost overwhelming. This isn't nostalgia or about the past or happier times for a man who is so unhappy and in so much pain. I don't think so, anyway. I'm sad because there's something in that sequence that I don't believe exists--or much exists--in the world right now, and it's a vital thing, without which this can't be life but instead something else. And I don't think many people would feel or understand that thing. You can't even really share it.

I got a haircut on Monday. There are three barbers now at the place I go to. The owner who has been there for a long time, whose father owned and ran the shop before him (and maybe his father's father, for all I know), plus a former relief barber who is there pretty much every day now, I think, and a newer barber, who I had the last couple of times prior to this week. You have to book the appointment in advance. They implemented that policy with COVID and I guess it worked out well so they kept it after. It's good, because you don't have to sit there waiting for three guys to get their hair cut, but the shop is right around the corner from me so I also can be going by, see that no one's there, and pop in. I don't like to book things too far in advance, by which I mean, more than an hour or two. I like to go, go, go. When I have something further out in front of me, I feel like i can't immerse myself in what I'm doing as much and as much as I should.

Anyway, I didn't like the haircuts I had gotten of late. I'm not talking from a vanity standpoint. Who do I have to look good for? Besides: hair doesn't much matter in that department anyway. Fitness does. If you're in shape, chances are you'll look okay. But I am entirely alone anyway and I don't see that changing before anything else does, and how anything else could change I don't know. When I get a haircut now, I want it short. I guess this is ironic given how long I've had my hair at times over the last dozen plus years and as recently as two or three years ago. I was almost certain that despite saying I wanted the same razor settings as I usually said I wanted, my hair was longer than it should have been when I left the shop. I mentioned this to the barber--the middle guy in the above list--that I booked with on Monday (the owner is the guy who says hello to me at the Starbucks I had mentioned in the anecdote about the elderly friends outside the other day), and he said that the same settings on different brands of razors produce different lengths. Huh. Who knew? I certainly didn't. And he said that this is more the case with the lower settings.

Usually I get the number 1 on the sides and back, and the number two on the top. I changed it up this time, though, and got what I wanted. I went with the half--which I didn't know was a thing--on the sides and back and the two on top. Very short. You can see skin everywhere. But clean and comfortable. The key with this look is not having a fat face. Or a round face. That's why this looks more normal on me, if you will, than it did fifteen years ago when I was drinking and fatter.

Speaking of haircuts: One should read "Haircut" by Ring Lardner.

The other day, someone told me they had walked up a hill with their family and gotten tired. This hill was in a cemetery. It wasn't like a hiking hill; not, in other words, the Blue Hills or something. And they said their legs had been burning, but their breathing was fine. Then they added that they thought of me and the Monument. Why? I asked. At which point they said that they'd been thinking about accompanying me some time and providing me with "some competition."

If I had been drinking something, I would have choked.

Why are people so clueless? It's like it is impossible for them to think and know anything. Something like this is something they'd have to experience before they had a clue.

Do people really think the Monument is easy? Doable? By which I mean, doable from scratch? This person is in good shape in the "to look at them" sense. But they don't work out. They don't do anything that's demanding cardiovascularly.

I've been running stairs in the Monument for nine years now. You know what a single circuit has never been? Easy. That's part of what makes the Monument special. No matter how often you do it, it's always hard. That you keep doing it is what makes you special. Or attests that you are.

Here's what I think would happen if this person showed up today to do the Monument with me. They might be able to do it once. The way I do it, that is. That's running the first 100 stairs, and keeping a steady pace after that. Typically, one would be out of breath after running those first 100 stairs. Then they're trying to catch their breath for the next 200. Yes, you're not running anymore, but you're still doing some difficult work that itself can make you lose your breath. You have to know how to get your wind back and breath. Easier said than done.

This person will have the adrenaline flowing, because Yeah! It's the Monument! I've heard so much about this workout! It's me and the C-Dawg!

Okay, fine. That might help you do it the once. But there's no stopping, no resting. Hit that top stair, turn around, hustle to the bottom, fit the ground beneath the first stair, and boom, you're running 100 stairs again. The pace is pretty consistent.

Chances are, this person wouldn't be able to do it twice. But even if they did, they'd need to stop. If you do it more than twice, and you're not accustomed to doing it, you will hardly be able to walk in a day or two. I don't care who you are or what shape you're in. But let's say I didn't tell this person what was awaiting them. I can't see someone being able to do it more than twice like this.

This exchange annoyed me because ignorance annoys me. Well, worse than annoys me. You know what I was thinking? That this person could throw up, which is considered a bio hazard, meaning the Monument shuts down, and that would keep me from doing the rest of my workout.

As for my own stair-based workouts: On Tuesday I ran 3000 stairs at City Hall in the horrible heat. This was hard. I couldn't have done many more. I'm curious to see where I'll be at in the fall, when the heat and humidity break, after running more stairs than ever over these warm months. The heat and humidity dictate a goodly amount of what you'll be able to do. You can't just measure your workout by how many stairs you ran.

Yesterday, I walked five miles, did 100 push-ups (same as Tuesday), and ran ten circuits of stairs in the Bunker Hill Monument. I was somewhat foolish in that endeavor. You can't force these things. Do your five circuits--which is an impressive number and an admirable baseline--and be smart and call it a day if the heat and/or humidity is that bad. The temperature had really come down yesterday, but it was raining on the way over to Charlestown (just as it's been raining all morning today--it's six AM right now--only harder) and the humidity was brutal.

But I stood at 290 circuits since May 15, so you can see where this is going. In my quest to get to 400 circuits in three months, I wanted to reach 300 so we could start the final countdown, and not be stuck on 295. So I pushed through, and let me tell you, it was awful. An unpleasant grind. I had the place to myself for the last two circuits, and that was probably for the best. Also: That's thirty-five hours' worth of Monument stair running in that same time period.

I got it done, though, and I come outside and there's one of my ranger buddies standing between the door of the Monument and the door to the mini museum through which you pass going in or out, with two people with him. He says, "Five times today?" I say, "No, ten." And this woman next to him just starts talking about me. With me less than ten feet in front of her. Like I'm not there. "He looks exhausted." "Look how much he's sweating."

I experience this all the time now. Weekly. People talking about me like I'm not standing right in front of them. How dumb is everybody? How socially inept? This was a middle-aged woman. Late fifties. Kids do this, of course. They don't know any better and often can't stop their thoughts from tumbling out of their mouths. But I'd say it's even more adults now who are this way. It's because we live behind screens. We're not in reality. We don't know how to act, behave, think. "This guy's out of breath even on the way down," one guy said to his wife maybe a month ago. (It's called regulating your breathing; breathe right, work out right.) So what, then? I can just say, "Look how fat these two are"? That's what we're doing, no? We're commenting on each other however we please like they're not there? These two were too stupid to understand that I might have been doing something different than what they were doing. It should be really easy to piece that together. You know, the fit guy, the workout clothes, with the damn headband, the huge amount of sweat...I mean, really, Sherlock, we can't deduce anything here?

You might as well be some animal at a zoo. The animal doesn't know what you're saying, so say whatever you want. Again, it's because we're always dealing with people behind screens. They can't hear that thing we wouldn't be saying if we thought they could. Well, I would. But that's me. That's not how other people are.

I was back out at the dentist on Tuesday for the temporary crown. The mirror was positioned such that it was over my legs while they worked, and I had nothing else to look at, so I looked into it and saw my legs, which I noticed are, indeed, rather defined. The bite is uneven, which is annoying, and there is some type of rise behind the tooth--it feels like a popcorn kernel stuck in the gums--which is annoying, but again it's just temporary. I've been out to West Medford so many times of late for dental stuff that I'm not going back to have this fixed but will rather just wait until I have the permanent crown put on. Hopefully I'll know when I leave that the bite is right. That can depend of if they numb you. It's hard to tell what's what when your mouth is numb. But if it's wrong then, obviously I'll have to go back again, which I'd like to avoid.