Twenty circuits of stairs in the Bunker Hill Monument for my birthday
Thursday 9/17/26
I arose at two this morning to start my day. What time does he go to bed? I went to sleep somewhere between eight and nine last night. From two I worked until 9:20. I endeavored to finish a long feature and also wrote a complete piece from scratch. So this week has been both a lot of fiction and a lot of nonfiction.
Yesterday I walked three miles, did 200 push-ups, and ran ten stairs of circuits in the Monument. As I intimated, I have something I'm trying to do which I won't reveal here just now. We'll see if I can do it, and if so, I'll mention it then.
Today is my birthday, a hard day which highlights my aloneness. What I try to do in order to get myself through it is try and go even harder. Like I said, this past Saturday was nearly the end. It was one of those days. You can't afford to have two days like the day I had Saturday in a row. You won't survive them both. I mean, I won't, with all my strength.
It was warmer today than yesterday. I didn't check anything weather-wise. Often, I'll take a glance at the dew point, which is the key number. It's the humidity that has dominion. The biggest determining factor. But you know how it is--well, maybe you do--when you are committed to something no matter what and you're going to do it no matter how difficult. I elected not to burden myself with numbers that I resolved not to let stop me anyway.
You can go into the Monument with whatever intentions. You can be fully sincere about your intentions and committed to your plan. But you also can't be totally sure how it'll go.
To be as simple and candid as possible: five circuits in the Monument is a lot. It isn't easy. Ten, and you really don't want to do this anymore, if you can even do ten, which you have to work up to. Having said that, if you did ten and wanted to feel extra good about yourself, you could do another circuit, and then surprise yourself by saying, "You know what, I could do one more." You almost have to trick yourself that you're done and this weight is off you and that gives you a little extra juice. You can do this, I've found, up to thirteen circuits.
After that, if you want to carry on...well, you're in a battle. You are one strong person not just of body, but of spirit. You are built of something different. There is more inside of you to reach down into to use. With stairs, yes, this is a legs and lungs thing, and a heart thing, but at least as much of anything, it's a will thing. A character thing.
You see all these articles that pop up in your feed about what you should workout-wise for your health, and these are the best exercises. You know what I've noticed is never mentioned? Stairs. And I think that's because if people tried to run stairs, they'd very soon say, "Fuck this, this is horrible, I'm never doing this again."
There's no variation in the Monument in terms of the Monument itself. You aren't rolling past different scenes. You're up, you're down, you're up. It is you and your thoughts and your determination. You don't run past this place, that place, oh look, there's a dog. You would have to be a Zulu warrior, inside and out. The Monument isn't just a workout of your body; it's a workout for your soul. With nothing between you and it. This would crush most other people physically, mentally, spiritually. This isn't some quirky thing I do. It challenges me at the level of who I am.
I thought about taking some water with me today, but I wanted to try and do this as I've done it every other time save with, sans water. What? Are you crazy? I know how foolish this sounds. I just wanted to do it that way today. So I did. Three-and-a-half straight hours of stair running. No fluids imbibed. No leaving the Monument. I would estimate that you lose six or seven pounds of fluid, easily, doing this.
I'd like to mention something else, too. The majority of people with whom I interact--which are usually people who choose to interact with me--inside the Monument are quite nice, curious, and supportive to the point of cheering me on. There was that incident with the sub-human, agenda-driven, misandrist harpies--would love to put those names of theirs up here for all to see; I mean, wouldn't you want to stand by your actions?--from back in July. Cheering is regular, though. Someone saying, "You're amazing." I don't instigate anything with anyone unless it's to help them or ask if they need help, or else to say excuse me or tell a little kid they're doing a great job. That is, I don't gab. I rarely will say anything in there unless someone says something to me, and if it's idiotic ("Is it worth it?") I don't respond.
On the support side, for example, there was a woman today with her friend who said, "Here comes Mr. Fitness again!" Not sarcastically. Cheering someone on. They had expressed their admiration a couple circuits back. People often say, "God bless you." There was a bunch of that today. Early on a man asked me how many times I was going to do it, and I replied that I hoped it would be quite a few times. Because I don't want to lie. Say my intended number of twenty and fail to get there. That's how seriously I take my word. I hate lying. I hate liars. I hate the saying of false things. I don't believe in saying anything like you know if you don't actually know.
This one woman today was amusing. Her husband got up to like stair fifty and then turned around, leaving her to it while he waited on a bench outside. I passed her a few times. The second time, she said, "Wait, didn't I just see you?" From that point on, she was all about my progress. A circuit later, when I saw her again, she asked what number I was on now. I told her it was number fifteen. She knew I was trying to do twenty, and she very confidently told me I'd be able to do that. That last five took an age. My mom had also called for my birthday, and I was talking to her as I did them (I do all kinds of things in there. I sent a 1975 film about a Vermont cabinet maker to some people the day before when I was running stairs because I thought they'd think well of it, for instance), but it would have dragged anyway. You are gutting through by then. I find it helps mentally to break the twenty circuits down into groups of five. How you think about this as you do it matters.
After I completed the twenty circuits, and was back outside and heading down the hill, I checked out the dew point, which was 68 degrees. Super humid. Since then, I've heard a number of people remarking about how humid it was today, which explains my state for much of my time in the Monument today. There was a slurry of my DNA in that obelisk. With each step I was taking outside, sweat was spurting out of my sneakers.
I had brought a freezer bag to put my phone in while I ran, so that it wouldn't get wrecked. Obviously I walked three miles today in going over to Bunker Hill and back. I'd done 155 push-ups before entering the Monument, so I did forty-five afterwards to get up to 200 for the second day in a row. I drank so much water (and still am). A big thing of coconut water. A bottle of Gatorade. If I don't drink for just a little bit now, I get thirsty again fast. I went to the cafe to read and I let myself get a skim latte, which I didn't finish but put in the refrigerator and will have early tomorrow when I'm back at the desk working.
I heard today from my mother, my sister, the Admiral and the Captain, and a cousin. That was it. Sometimes, I keep my birthday a secret, because I know that if more people knew the date, they wouldn't say anything to me on it. I try to minimize--and there's only so much I can do here, because I also have to try and advance and get somewhere--upsetting things that make me feel awful. People usually have a way they want to treat me because of what I am.
Also, I am nothing to anyone. Most people are only interested in anybody insofar as what they get from them. A person to come home to, money, sex, comfortable and comparable mediocrity, enabling, the unexamined life. What one gets from me is truth, beauty, art, kindness, loyalty, friendship, empathy. People don't want those things. They'll say they do because they think that sounds good, which is what dictates what people say they want and are about, and they should want those things, but they don't actually want those things.
Lastly: I'm not doing the no water thing again with this many stairs.
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