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Caving the scroll to cyber-bowl a Himalayan miniature golf sushi strip club

post
899

[19 July 2021> For post #899 we're flashing back to 1999, picking up from post #896.]

April 5, 1999 – Tucson
Kevin died two years ago yesterday. Strange day—Easter Sunday and we had a big brunch and invited a bunch of people over. But when I woke up to get the laundry off the line it was blustery (we were planning on eating out on the patio). It felt like snow. It started to rain like an hour later, and when we talked to L in the foothills it was totally snowing there. Then the snow started mixing with the rain and we were running around taking pictures and then it really started snowing, big wet flakes. It was sticking, but it kept coming for about an hour and a ½. I just stood outside in my shorts and slippers eating snowflakes and yacking with our neighbors. It was surreal. Snow in Tucson. It was coming down so hard at one point that it couldn’t melt as fast as it was coming down, but of course it melted.
     We had a big storm earlier in the week that soaked us with rain and dumped a couple of feet on mt. Lemmon. It rained continuously for almost 24 hours which is unprecedented for Tucson. [Our bedder-½] and I went to Lame for a Game on that night—it was pretty fun, the AZ Wildcats in wheelchairs against a real wheelchair basketball team. About half-way through the second half, the power went out. It was kind of freaky. People didn’t know how to react. They started stomping their feet. That band started playing and the cheerleaders were doing cheers to what little light came from flashlights and emergency lights. The players were trying to get everybody to dance and be rowdy. Needless to say, we kind of snuck out. Crowds scare me.
     Anyways, Easter Sunday, we invited[ M and G, L, Gw and S] over and had eggs, potatoes, fruit salad, rolls, bagels, and of course mimosas and chocolate candies. Even had an Easter egg hunt. Inside of course because it was freezing.
     I’m starting to enjoy the company of people more. Starting to find a lot of surprising qualities in people. Can’t believe how lucky we are to have such cool people as M and G, of all the people to get stuck sharing a yard with, it’s weird that it just happened to be with them. Just very solid, funny, interesting and good-hearted people that we seem to share a lot of common interests. Even some people at work are starting to surprise me, people who I had tagged as deadbeat computer nerds (which for the most part they are) are starting to open up to me. And speaking of the social thing, Rusty Jones invited us to his birthday party on Wednesday night. Rusty is the same old Rusty, living like a college student, but still very eclectic and enthusiastic. Lots of freaks at his party.
     What else? The run in Sabino last weekend kind of trashed my right knee so I’ve been taking it easy this week. Was supposed to run the Sabino Canyon run on Saturday but I bailed on it. Didn’t want to be encouraged to run full bore down that hill. I did run 9 miles yesterday but my knee started hurting so I stopped. Hopefully this week I’ll get back on schedule.
     Finished “eQ3”. I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t have big blocks of time to sit down and write so it’s hard to get a coherent unified story down. Ends up being chunky.
     Lots of work to do at work. Worked Friday even though it was a holiday for everyone else (good Friday – Bell+Howell is in the bible belt after all). Got to get version 4.3 ready for the first official release on April 15th. Off to work.

[Tucson in the snow]

April 11, 1999 – Tucson (San Carlos)
Let’s see, I guess the weekend really started Thursday, I was going to work late to get a good grip on the manuals (whose final revision is being released this Thursday). We had lent the Trooper to S earlier in the week since his car died. As seems to be the custom, Nandi rejected her suitor and she shredded some belts. Couldn’t figure it out over the phone so I had to leave early to ride up to Fort Lowell and Campbell to fix the car. Ended up just being the alternator belt which shredded to pieces and also dislodged the power steering belt. Luckily this happened across the street from a Checkers, I ran across and got belts and we got it fixed. Not only did this whack my work schedule but it whacked my workout schedule as well, tired. Finish this later.
     Friday morning we left for San Carlos. L and her friend B spent the night before and they were already getting on our nerves before we even left. All take and no give. Every time L has company, it’s pretty much assumed they will spend the night at our place. And with all the problems with Nandi, god forbid she would drive her new, reliable Volvo. On Thursday, after they had been camping, she just drops this B guy off at our house for the afternoon. So he was just hanging out watching CNN. He’s just this guy who has been out of school for years but is still debating what to do with his life, not working, just bumming around surfing people’s couches and doesn’t take an interest in his surroundings really. Anyway, the four of us went in the Trooper, S and L followed in her truck. Lots of time wasted, stopping for groceries, stopping for car insurance, etc. Finally across the border on the new shortcut that bypasses Nogales, but we still had to go through all the bureaucratic measures at KM 21, getting visas and the cars squared away.
     The drive to San Carlos is pretty uneventful. Not a bad road, four lanes. We left at 8:00 and didn’t pull in until 3:00. The condo was nice, 2-bedroom, Our bedder-½ and I volunteered to sleep on the couches. Of course, L and B just walked straight in and put their bags in one of the bedrooms. S and L haggled with us and would have slept on the couch, but they’re a new couple. And S’s a big guy. And Our bedder-½ and I wake up before everyone. That night S, L, Our bedder-½ and I went walking south to the mouth of the lagoon. Saw lots of neat stuff, and lots of dead stuff. Must be red tide or something, lots of dead pelicans. I couldn’t resist jumping in where the lagoon met the ocean and it was all turbulent. There were lots of birds squawking, and crabs, and fishes and stuff.
     I was going to cook when we got there, as everyone was hungry, but as I started to cook, L comes out and goes—“Derek, I’m not hungry yet.” No consideration for anyone else. Not that I was particularly hungry, but I knew everyone else was. L has major eating issues, though. It’s like she feels guilty if she eats. So the rest of us suffer and live on her schedule. So, I was finally allowed to cook us a big feast of shrimp fajitas—with shrimp from Guaymas that some drunk guy in a pickup sold us that seemed to have everything for sale. Afterwards we played charades. It was fun, really.
     The next morning I was up at six even though I was tired as hell. Was getting dressed to run and our bedder-½ got up too. We ran down the beach towards San Carlos. At first I was running circles around our bedder-½, having to run back and forth, but then my knee gave in. The beach was slanted, which I’m sure didn’t help, or just the softness of the sand, I don’t know what it was. But by the time we got to town I was speed-walking (and almost able to keep up with our bedder-½) and our bedder-½ was enthusiastic about doing her two-hour run then and there. We went most of the way through town before turning back. My knee got worse. Our bedder-½ did great.
     Everyone still wasn’t up. We hung out more, I think we may have gone for another walk, or toured the beautiful gardens of Condos Pilar. They have all sorts of beautiful flowers and plants, including monkey-puzzle, papaya, chiles, hollyhock and even frangipani (something like plomeria in English, we were told?) S’s a really late riser and has to have his big breakfast, so we cooked him breakfast and got him up. Then we finally went out to Club Med, past the Catch-22 runway. We found one beach, but it was windy as hell and polluted. Semana Santa was just last week and the litter remains. We back-tracked back to the beach where I went with Jorge, Ignacio and Matt Pope years ago. It was also trashed, L kept complaining about it. Talking about how she was going to write a letter to someone. She kind of has all those Californian qualities that I left California to get away from. Just being anal about stuff like that to the point where you’re not enjoying yourself, not realizing that you are in a different culture and that not everybody is privileged enough to be so concerned about their environment. I mean, yah, it sucks, but this is their land and they can do what they damn well please with it and we Americans have no right to impose our value system on them. Later she started getting all high and might when I was feeding seagulls from a terraced restaurant overlooking the sea, saying I was “polluting”.
     We finally settled in on a spot, our bedder-½ and I immediately headed for the water and S joined us. Got our masks, and fins and took the plunge. It was cold as hell, but worth it. Like a little kelp forest, with lots of fish, rays, starfish, anemone, sea fans, puffers, . . . I even saw a little cormorant or duck that was swimming around underwater like a metallic torpedo and I chased him around. Our bedder-½ was out of there in like five minutes, but S and I stayed in for probably over 20 minutes. There was too much stuff to look at to get out. But then it hit me all of a sudden, and I got out and so did S. We got out and it was breezy which didn’t help. It took us like 15 minutes of sitting on the rocks, shivering like crazy to get our core temperatures back up. S was curled up in a purple veined ball. Who knows what I must have looked like. Shivering uncontrollably.
     Went back and then talked B into going for a walk. Explored up this little mountain that overlooked our cove and the next one over, and discovered that the next beach was infinitely better, less windy, less polluted and better snorkeling. I forgot to mention that as S and I were in the water, a truck pulled up with a stack of speakers in the back and started blaring cheesy Salsa music super loud, like as loud as in a discotec. A bunch of high school kids started collecting garbage! It was pretty surreal. Anyways, we moved to the next beach down, and I warmed up sufficiently to go back in, this time with our bedder-½ and L. Saw a ton more rays, nudibranchs, urchins, etc. Got out in time before I was frozen. We were all burnt by that time so we went into town to eat at Charlie's rock, great scenery and lousy food.

April 13, 1999
Finishing where I left off, after Charlie’s Rock, we went back to the condo and everyone else was vegging so our bedder-½ and I went for a little adventure. We went back to the lagoon, but this time we started way inland and were able to wade in the shallow water since it was low tide. We waded along the mangroves, while tons of little crabs scurried out of our way. Saw all sorts of birds, Great Herons, Egrets, Sandpipers, and others I couldn’t identify. We got to this spot near the mouth where it got deeper and the tide was coming in. But our bedder-½ was game, we waded deeper, swinging on mangrove branches until we got to shallower water. Then we went back along the beach. Another beautiful sunset. Everyone was burnt and spent after that. We went out for a light dinner with S and L and then just went to sleep.
     The next morning Our bedder-½ and I went for a walk along the beach. We got back and everyone was still sleeping, so went on another walk. This time along the estuary and through the gardens. Then cooked breakfast for S once he got up. By this time it was almost check-out time and here wasn’t much motivation to do anything so we mosied back. I wasn’t going to complain as I had a lot to do and didn’t want to drive at night. Did the long drive back— stopped for lunch in Santa Ana at a little taco stand.
     I haven’t keeping up on my running schedule. Too much stuff to do. My docs are due tomorrow for the official release. I’ve been designated all this other stuff which I’ve been putting off until I finish them.

April 18, 1999 – Tucson
Our bedder-½ is in D.C. She left Friday and by today (Sunday) the house was a mess. I don’t realize how much work she does cleaning up around the house. She’s so quick about it, that I never even notice because she never gives dishes or laundry a chance to pile up. So that’s what I did today besides run 19.5 miles this morning around Randolph (in 2:30 – 7:41 pace). Felt pretty good, knees don’t hurt, except it took me forever to get my core temperature down. It was pretty hot today, it got above 90. I got back and took a shower and made breakfast and was still sweating like a pig. M and G came over while I was eating and sweating like a pig. They brought me curried rice. Then I spent hours cleaning the house. Besides the chores thing, I guess having Our bedder-½ leave has made me realize how much I depend on her, how happy she makes me. I get the same anxious, ungrounded feelings of I don’t know what to call it, kind of like a bored disillusionment even though I am not really bored but am just at a loss. It’s actually the opposite of boredom. There’s too much to do and not enough time. I would’ve like to write today. I would like to install my scanner, it probably would’ve been the socially correct thing to do to meet Gwynn, L and Dimitri for breakfast, etc. but all I really want to do is just chill in the crib and do some writing, but it’s already 6:18. Mom just called. Haven’t talked to her since, I don’t know, somewhere around Christmas. Same old, same old. Evidently Al Pacino called Granini’s house when Roger was there for Easter. Wanted to meet Roger before he takes the part as Salvador Dali. Roger’s also making a webpage dedicated to Kevin with all his artwork, etc.
     Now I lost my thread. This week I finished the official release of the IntellaSert manuals. Going back and forth to Durham with lots of nitty gritty revisions. I guess I am learning a lot about “Technical” writing. What that will do for my fiction writing, I don’t know. Almost back into my training schedule, though I still only did 44 miles this week and I was supposed to do 50+. Doing more cross-training so my knees don’t get thrashed.

Mon: 0
Tues: 5.7 miles
Wed: 2 miles and 30 minutes on stairs + weights
Thurs: 11 miles
Fri: 5.7 miles (including 3 miles in 20:20)
Sat: 0 (caving)
Sun: 19.5 miles in 2:30 (7:42 pace)

Yesterday I went caving with Ralph, Orin, B and Bob to Scroll cave. Kind of a cool outing. . . beats something stupid like a company softball game. Ralph’s definitely adventurous, pretty cool to have as a boss. It’s been like eight years since Harlow first took me to Scroll cave. I had to drive out with Bob since we both had to be back by 7:00. He’s really anal retentive. Kept whining about how fast Ralph was driving, kept thinking he heard something wrong with his car, etc. It was a long drive on the Mt. Lemmon backroad. We got to the cave and Orin just takes off like a bat out of hell, wouldn’t wear a helmet and wouldn’t wait for me to set up a rope. Just started climbing down in. Another candidate for the “Darwin Award”. And Bob was super slow and paranoid. Just didn’t get the concept of rappelling. Ralph was a maniac too, but a little more careful than Orin. He would disappear and then I would see a flashlight coming through some worm hole and I would hear him grunting and then appear coming down headfirst through in some contorted position. Of course I had to try it just for the technical challenge. Wriggle up into this tiny chamber and down this rabbit hole that you couldn’t tell where it was going. It bellowed out about ten feet from the cave floor. Had to support myself by my ankles to keep from falling. Barely able to push off on the sides of the tunnel to support myself and lower myself to the ground. Then slither through a constriction that wanted to pull my pants off.
     We had explored all the options and I was a little disappointed that that’s all there was. I was looking around and noticed a big rock and some other rocks stacked against it that just didn’t look natural. I pulled out the rock and discovered a whole nother section of the cave. Wriggled on my back through between these concrete pillars and a hack saw where it looked like the cave was once gated. And then it opened up into a lot more passage, and much better-preserved formations. We kept going and going, there was lots of offshoots to explore too, and decided to come back on another trip (by this time Bob was whining that he was tired and just sat in the dark waiting for us to come back.)
     I just hunted down my diary entry back in ’91 when I went in Scroll cave before (the advantages of keeping a diary . . . ) and we did go through this secret part and we came to the main room, the one with the scroll in it and “cards”, which we didn’t find this time around. Maybe next time.
     We had met at Home Depot parking lot (not sure why) so that’s where the Trooper was. I was running late for the Cirque Ingenieux show with S and was thinking it would be nice to at least have dinner since I skipped lunch. But Bob had to stop and call his wife and was just being a dork bad driver. I got back to the house at 7:10, covered in mud and dirt. Called S and then talked to Our bedder-½ in D.C., took a shower and dressed and was to S’s by 7:35. Made it to the show on time.
     It was super cool, but maybe not as cool as Cirque Du Soleil. Lots of weird filler skits and new age music (by Kitaro) including some vocal pieces by some Celine Dion sounding french singer. The one thing they had that Cirque du Soleil didn’t have was these contortionists that didn’t some seriously contorted back-bending maneuvers. They didn’t look human, they almost looked like alien spiders, bending their feet over to be next to their heads and walking on their hands. I checked the program and they seemed to be all from Mongolia. Very strange physiology to enable to contort their bodies into such grotesque poses like their bones were made of rubber. They had a guy that did the pole thing and also “Jarek and Darek” the muscle man duo-strength gig . . . I don’t know if it was the same two guys as Cirque du soleil, cuz these guys are one of a kind. Incredible command of the human body, taking the strength and control of the human body to the absolute limit. I think S was pretty impressed too. We had pizza afterward.

[Scrolls cave]

April 25, 1999 – Tucson
Our bedder-½ got back from D.C. She had a good time and got to see quite a bit of stuff. I would like to return with her sometime. It wasn’t that bad being away, but then again it was only for four days.
     This whole name of the “Console” thing is driving me crazy, we called it ReadySert Pro for a while and then back to Console, and then this past week the Marketing director guy gave us the official unveiling of the “Lynx” and I had it all in our documents and screenshots and then learned this was only the project name, like someone in Durham can tell us what to call the project amongst ourselves. Just bureaucratic bullshit, but whatever, it’s just like moving piles of sand back and forth. I also converted the e-Route document to a help file. Can’t complain, at this rate I will make $60,000 this year and will have our credit cards paid off and then some, perhaps money saved up for a trip to Nepal. . . . Speaking of money, spent like $700 yesterday on a rampage shopping spree, new running shoes, Doc Martens, clothes, and I don’t know what else. I guess that included the bi-weekly shopping spree at Trader Joe’s which is cheap and well worth it.

Ran 21.5 miles this morning and I felt good and it was easy, though I was a little disappointed about my pace. Should be improving more. Weekly summary:
Mon: 2 miles (cross trained and did leg weights)
Tues: 8.7 miles (1/2-mile sprints)
Wed: 2 miles (cross trained, stair master and did arm weights)
Thurs: 11.7 miles (@7:32)
Fri: Slacked off and shot a bucket of balls
Sat: 2 miles and ½ hour on the elliptical and arm weights
Sun: 21. 5 miles

X-files is on, gotta run.

May 2, 1999 – Tucson
D came this weekend. I picked him up on Friday afternoon after work. Friday night we went to eat at La Parilla Suiza with him and also L and S. Saturday woke up and I don’t know what we did until about 10:00, must have been just vegging and talking, but then finally D and I decided to go caving. It was the only thing he sounded interested in doing. Our bedder-½ decided to just go into work as she had some stuff to do and she has no desire to set foot in a cave. Drove out to Oracle and out on the dirt road, probably almost a two-hour trip when all’s said and done. This time parked at the cattle gate and went down the hill which was much easier than what we did last time. It was a nice day, a little brisk. Lots of little flowers blooming including lots of Baja Fairy Dusters.
     Found the cave no problem. Set up the rope and got D into a harness. It was weird to teach and watch D rappel. There was this extra measure of security and watchfulness. He seemed a little uncomfortable with it at first but picked up on it pretty quickly. I sent him down first into the dark cave. Then followed after him. This time I didn’t waste any time going back and uncovering the “secret entrance” and getting back to where we last left off. D was a good sport about some of the tight squeezes and crawling and shimmying around in the dirt. I tried this one chute that went up then abruptly down with holes that dropped out of the chute. D didn’t want to follow me that way though so I climbed back. We started in on a series of long belly-crawling passages, flat muddy ground with about a foot between the ceiling and the roof. I almost panicked for a second thinking we were going to get stuck back there as it just kept going with no large rooms in between for relief. Finally we emerged into a large muddy room that had what I’m sure was the “scroll” and all sort of crystalizeed-planar mud formations (“playing cards”). We took a lot of pictures and by this time we had been under for almost two hours and knew we had to get going. I really didn’t want to go back the way we came (which is probably really dumb) but there was so much traffic going through these other tunnels that I figured we’d try them. It was fairly easy going though they seemed to zig-zag back and forth and we took a few dead-end passages. We started dropping sunflower seeds and building mounds to assure that we didn’t backtrack on ourselves. Finally we got to a place that I recognized and we made it back to the secret entrance. D jumarred out while I climbed out. We were covered in mud and dirt.
     Came back to town and then went out to Fioritos with S (Our bedder-½ spent the day with S shopping). Carbo-loaded. Went downtown to meet L and Gwynn because it was L’s last night. Was supposed to meet them at Hydra, the sex shop, but they didn’t show. We just walked around Downtown Saturday Night checking out all the weirdos then went home.
     Ran 23 miles this morning in 2:55 (about 7:36 pace). That would put me about a 3:15 to 3:20 marathon. Guess I wouldn’t be too disappointed with that, though hopefully adrenaline will boost me to something like 3:10. Didn’t feel sore or anything like last time I ran 23 miles before the Phoenix Marathon. Weekly summary:

Mon: cross-trained, ½ hour on bike and did arm weights
Tues: 10.7 miles (1-mile sprints of 5:50, 6:20, 6:20, 6:25, 6:11)
Wed: nothing
Thurs: 7 miles (didn’t feel well at all, was sick to my stomach so stopped early, think I ate too much before, had a cliff bar and some carob drink in cranberry juice.)
Fri: Didn’t run because D was here.
Sat: caving
Sun: 23 miles

Met L for a last breakfast before she left back to Oregon. Then we were being indecisive, D didn’t sound too interested in doing anything except maybe go to Nogales, so we went. Stopped at the Mission and checked it out and had Fry bread and then go back on the road and realized we wouldn’t have any time in Nogales so we stopped at Tumacocari to check out the mission, pretty cool. Then poked around Tubac. Not sure D liked it too much. Came back and ate at the Silver Saddle Steak house and I had a steak and ribs and chicken and I don’t feel so well now on account of it.

[Tubac]

May 9, 1999 – Tucson
[B] came to town this week, during the week for a few days. Otherwise this weekend was kind of nice to not have social obligations. I didn’t get to hang out with B too much, just to eat with them in the evening. She’s very apprehensive about moving in with R and still in limbo as far as jobs (though she got a job as a concierge for the Ritz), so I think she needed some guidance. Her health is also not great. Weird that our bedder-½ could be genetically so similar to B but ended up so different.
       Boring week at work. Just passed the time really. I’m going to Interleaf, but that has been postponed. Big wigs from Durham coming to town next week so it will be a little more stressful, have to actually wear long pants, etc. (life is tough!). I really do have it good and expect it to end soon, but looks like I have more work. Making huge dents in the credit card tally, maybe down to $5000 by this month. Even with extravagant spending, the big shopping spree a couple of weeks ago, getting a plane ticket for R to come to San Diego, treating S to a weekend at Disneyland (not to mention the cost of getting us to L.A. and San Diego these weekends, etc.) going out to eat a lot and looks like now, I might get the valve job done on the car. Have a flat tire now, so might just get some new tires too.
       Woke up Saturday and hung out with [M & G] for most of the day. He cut my hair, cut it all off so I am almost as bald as he is. M showed us how he works, whipped out this incredible caricature in a few minutes. He is unbelievably talented. Then G and our bedder-½ went downtown to get their haircut and M and I went with them. All of us on our bikes. We hung out at Epic and then at Zoes, I got my bike fixed (chain skips which has been really buggging me) and then we got Brooklyn pizza. Changed the flat and then our bedder-½ and I went to the mall to return my doc martens which are defective and stuff.
      This morning was hot. Dropped off Our bedder-½ at the Jewish Community Center and then I went to Sabino. She ran up while I ran down, passed her along the way and then got water I stashed and came back up the hill. Good hill practice. Very easy run, only fifteen miles. Don’t know what pace as I forgot my watch, but I’m sure it was near 2:00 hrs.

Weekly summary:
Mon: nada
Tues: 11.7 miles (1/2-mile sprints of 2:40, 2:33, 2:41, 2:42, 2:48, 2:35)
Wed: 3 miles. Ran to the Rec center but it was closed, went to Hemmel, ran into Shaheen on the way and we did the par course, pull-ups and sprints up the weenie hill they have
Thurs: 12.7 miles (10 miles in 69:51 – what is with this barely sub-7-minute pace thing? Can’t be coincidence that my pace is always 6:59, maybe because 7:00 miles give you a round number.)
Fri: 6.4 mellow and then worked out
Sat: nada
Sun: 15 miles

May 17, 1999 – Tucson (Disneyland and L.A.)
Didn’t write this past weekend because we went to Disneyland. Took S for his birthday. They picked me up at work at noon on Friday. Flew to L.A. and got a rental car. Went the roundabout way to the Hollywood area. Went to the Virgin Megastore complex and just ate and hung out and checked out the “Crunch” club. We eventually ended up down at Melrose, unfortunately stores were starting to close up. We did get into a few and just window-shopped.
       Drove to Anaheim and stayed at the Jolly Roger hotel across from Disneyland. Woken up at 4 a.m. to loud beds creaking and some woman screaming. Got S up, a chore in itself. Ate breakfast and walked across the street to Disneyland. Our bedder-½ did her little jig. She gets so happy to see Mickey, she is like a little girl. We rode all the rides, including the newer Indiana Jones ride (which we went on twice). Pirates of the Caribbean is still my favorite.
       Travelling with S is pretty weird. He has to eat every three hours or he starts to get grumpy. He is fragile in that sense. If he got stuck in the wilderness he wouldn’t survive very long (even though he is training for the day when he meets that bear.) But S is so cool. He is so considerate and just a very solid person. No games, no hang-ups.
       Of course Disneyland was also very crowded and we spent most of the day in line. But there were interesting people to look at while we were waiting. We also went on the new Rocket Rods ride but that was not too exciting. Stayed almost tell closing.

[Our bedder-½ w/ Mickey]

Got up the next morning and headed out. Of course every Denny’s was crowded so it was almost noon before we got to Santa Monica. S got a call from his dad in Fresno who evidently had a screaming deal on a Jeep Cherokee that he knew S would just love. Even put a down payment on it he was so sure. So S was trying to figure out what to do. Meanwhile we walked from Santa Monica to Venice, saw all the freaks, went all the way to Muscle beach and watched the eggie-buffs. But then we had to go. S just dropped us off at the airport and forfeited his ticket. Got a rental car to Fresno to go look at the Jeep. Our bedder-½ and I flew back, home sweet home, Tucson is a nice place to come back to after L.A.
       I faxed my timesheet to Ron Horton (my new boss in Durham). I only had 42 hours down, but he kind of wigged out about it and said overtime needed to be pre-approved. Sent him an e-mail asking him what the deal was, and he said that employees working under him should spend more time with their families. Bible-Belt Baby Boomer. So I guess I better work on having kids so I can come home and spend some time with them. Not. So the downside is the glory days of OT are over with. The upside is I will have more time to write what I want to be writing and reading and doing whatever. Especially since the marathon regiment is over. Ready to go, chomping at the bit. Ran this afternoon but it was hot as hell. Might have hit 100.

Weekly summary:
Mon: nada
Tues: 0 (didn’t run because we had a B+H party)
Wed: 8.7 (got bad shin splints)
Thurs: 11.7 miles
Fri: 0
Sat: 0
Sun: 13 miles in 1:32

Lots of other weird stuff going on at Bell+Howell. All the bigwigs were here last week, boring meetings all day long, the brunt of it being that we will have to conform even more to the Durham standard. Everything is a “Process”. Major bureaucratic to procedure just to get anything done. I basically watched as no one from Tucson defended themselves. Just got our butts kicked and let them tell us what to do even we always talk shit about them and what a bad product they have.

[gratuitous selfie #1421]

May 24, 1999 – Tucson (San Diego)
3:23:26. It all comes down to a number. Months of training, anticipation, all the pain during the race, and it all comes down to a five-digit number which is only 12 minutes faster than my previous marathon.
     We left for San Diego on Friday afternoon. Ended up renting a car just to save Nandi the burden of getting us there, and also save us the worry of having to worry about a car. Got a little red sporty Pontiac thing. Cruised through the desert and ended up stopping up in the mountains outside of San Diego in a little town called Alpine. Ate Sushi and took a hot tub, breathing in the fresh, high-altitude mountain air.
       Woke up early and headed out. Went to the civic center to get our bib numbers and chip, etc. There was a big expo thing going on with all sorts of booths and free give-aways. I had my body fat measured and it was 11% though Our bedder-½ says it’s not a very accurate method. We hung around downtown and then went to Old town but couldn’t check into our hotel. We had a late breakfast (a third breakfast, really). Then went and picked up [R] at the airport. So glad he came. It was a good opportunity to see him even if it was only for a day. I’m just glad he at least got a day off to get out of Mendocino. We drove the first ½ of the route to scope it out and then went to check into the Holiday Inn. Went to Little Italy and ate at that Italian place we ate at last time we were in San Diego. I had the Risotto (wanted to try out rice instead of pasta). Went to bed somewhat early but I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and didn’t really get back to sleep. Too full of energy. Got up at 4:50 or so. Had coffee, a bagel and a banana. Looked out the window and the traffic was backed up on the freeway. So we left early. R was panicking, more stressed then we were, trying to get us to the start. It was a mess, all the roads were closed. Finally we ended up down where the shuttle was and he just dropped us off at the shuttle and we took that. Got to the start just in time to wait in line at the porta-poddies. Got into my corral with a few minutes to spare. Unbelievable the number of people. 17,000 or so. Far cry from the Phoenix marathon. I was just one in a huge crowd. They let the wheelchairs go and then some kid with Leukemia sang the national anthem. Our bedder-½ was back in the 14th corral so I was separated from her. Then the gun. Only took me 10 seconds to start. It was a little cramped at first, not much room to run. Saw R, he was holding up a pink and neon sign with a D on it (and a J on the other side). After a ½ mile or so there was room to breathe. My first mile was 7:10. The bands were great. Every time you rounded a corner there was a new band. It was surreal. The start was in Balboa park and then we looped around through Hillcrest and then back downtown. I was concentrating on keeping a 7-minute pace which was I was doing fairly easily. Through the Gaslamp district. The crowds were great, a constant line of people screaming, cheerleaders, bands, and just weirdos. Then we got onto 163 and began the dreaded hill which wasn’t that bad. I kept waiting for it to get worse and then everyone was like you’re almost at the top. Saw R up there. I lost a little time on the hill, maybe dropped to 7:05 pace or so. (my second or third miles were at 6:45 or so which may have been a mistake). I think what really did me in was not the uphill but the downhill that followed. That lasted for 2 miles. I regained some time but it wrecked my legs. I started to slow a bit at that point. Went down Friars road. When I got to the ½-way point my time was 1:33. I was just concentrating on trying to keep this pace so I could finish in under 3:10. But I slowly was fading. People were passing me. I ate a power gel and drank a carbo drink (I started carrying a carbo drink in one hand and water in the other). The second half of the route wasn’t as scenic. It wound around Mission bay, through some Condo complexes. At about eighteen or twenty miles I saw R and he gave me some water. I saw our bedder-½ walking towards me. She had finished the ½. She stopped at 12 miles because here knee hurt and then she ran the last mile to make it a even ½ marathon. Subtracting the time she took to talk to R, her time was around 2:20? By the time there was 6 miles left I was pretty beat and kept telling myself I would pick it up. There was people passing me, but I was also passing a lot of people and there was a lot of people that had hit the wall and were walking. It was excruciating and I was just hoping for time to pass. Then finally 3 miles left and I might have started picking it up a bit. I definitely picked it up for the last mile, rounded the corner into the Naval training center complex. People in bleachers cheering. It was pretty exciting. And then right when I get across and was catching my breath, I was greeted by this guy that looked just like Elton John, and I was really in no condition to distinguish between him and some impersonator. Then I was given a tinfoil blanket and a banana and some water and some guy took my chip off my shoelaces (this was how time was kept). As I was walking out I noticed that Phillip Taurus, last year’s winner had the winner’s crown on. I shook his hand and told him congratulations. I walked it off. Tried to find Our bedder-½ and R. Finally did.
     We got stuck in traffic going back to Old town and I had to take a piss so bad I thought my bladder would pop (I downed a few liters of water and some carbo drink right when I finished). Ate lunch at the Coyote café then took R to catch his plane. Then we went out to Balboa park to poke around and then to eat Thai food in the Hillcrest area. That’s about all we had it in us. Went back to our room and slept. Slept in, ate breakfast and it was already time to get on the road. Stopped at the sand dunes in Yuma to run around with sore legs. Then stopped at the space shuttle café in Gila Bend for lunch. Now back to the routine.

[anon I'm us in the sand dunes]

May 31, 1999 – Tucson
Broke 100° the other day. Definitely starting to feel like summer. Students are clearing out. Now that the marathon is over, I am starting a weight-training regiment so I don’t look like one of those concentration camp marathon runner types. Been working out with S. My quads were sore as hell for a few days so it was a good opportunity to do weights. Here was this week’s summary:

Mon: (drive back from San Diego)
Tues: rest
Wed: 15 minutes on bike, Arms and shoulders at Metro Fitness (4 sets of military press, 3-4 sets of pull across “chicken squawkers”, 3-4 sets of neck shrugs, 3-4 sets of skull crushers, 3-4 sets of angled bar curls, 3-4 sets of one arm-curls with arm braced, 3-4 sets of tricep pull-down with straight bar)
Thurs: Ran a mile to the Rec, 20 min on bike, did back and abs (3-4 sets of isolateral row-pulldown, 3-4 sets of lat pulldowns, 3-4 sets of lying rowing pull-up)
Fri: Rest
Sat: Did chest at World Gym and ran 20 min on treadmill (3-4 bench press, 3-4 angled bench with solo weights, 3-4 fly on angled bench)
Sun: Did legs at Mid-Valley athletic club (3-4 hamstring, 3-4 on sled, 3-4 squats, 3-4 knee extension quads, 3-4 standing calf raise, 3 sitting calf raise) and then just ran about 6 miles this evening. I ran downtown, through the city hall complex and right down Congress st, and under the Broadway tunnel, it was pretty cool, there was no one on the streets because it’s memorial day weekend.

So now pretty much every muscle in my body is aching, but it’s a good ache. I’d like to get fairly big, but not nearly as big as S. S’s out of control, he’s as big as a horse. But he’s so big that it doesn’t look healthy. I’d like to just get cut. So the reason we worked out at four different clubs is because we’re having turf wars. S is pretty adamant about not joining the rec because all the frat boys bother him. I can see his point but I can zone it out. The Metro is too far, World Gym is out of control with testosteroni gorillas grunting like they are having sex. And Mid-valley was just stuck in the 70’s. It just doesn’t make sense for me to go anywhere but the rec. So I’ll probably be working out on my own. At least I picked up a lot of pointers from S and I might work out with him occasionally.
     What else . . planted some plants and did some yard work. They are as close as we will come to having kids or pets. Mark stopped by last night and we had dinner outside with him and G. M is in Tennessee at some alternative weekly conference. Saw Star Wars. Fixed my bike (had to drive all week). Working on a story for the first time in a long time.

June 4, 1999 – Tucson
I’ve almost resigned myself to just accept my job, to dutifully wake up and go to work by 7 a.m. I could care less about what I am doing is leading to. I’m just a cog in the machine. I’m just a small part of a big corporate bureaucratic machine that is fine-tuning the art of mass-mailing. Big deal. It’s the paychecks, and the gratification of making an honest living. I don’t know how long I will have to do this. It is distracting me from my writing. I write so much during the day that I have carpal tunnel by the time I come home. But I don’t want to quit a good thing, at least not til all debts are paid off. Not until something else presents itself. It’s not so bad anyways. There’s really nothing disagreeable about it.
       We went to some “Landmark Education” meeting last night. Barb, a co-worker of our bedder-½, had peaked her interest. Our bedder-½ felt that it might help her to overcome her lack of self-confidence and deal with other issues that were bugging her. I was expecting the worse, some sort of scientology cult. I can’t imagine stomaching any organized philosophy/religion/self-help crap. I am leery of crowds when they are all agreeing, I question motives of those organizing the gathering, I wonder why it works, I fear being brainwashed or drugged, I am skeptical. Landmark is somewhat distinct in that they manage to avoid labels about what they actually are, words like “technology” or “design” were thrown around, but really it was quite vague. And in being vague, like horoscopes, or religions, people could apply it to their lives and Landmark Education could avoid being criticized. They do a bunch of dumb exercises where people get to talk about themselves to complete strangers, which I guess most people get off on, like unleashing pent up secrets onto people you normally wouldn’t give the time of day. We were supposed to introduce ourselves to random people and tell them something about ourselves that we might think my shock the other person. Some woman told me she used to be a prostitute and a heroin dealer. Who cares. I don’t know her. Maybe if it was a friend of mine I might care, but I just felt strange that this woman would want to tell me this. Anyway, it was pretty much a waste of time.

Physical activity for the week:
Monday: Bike 8 miles
Tuesday: Run 2 miles, Bike 8 miles, shoulders and arms, abs
Wednesday: Bike 8 miles, ½ hr on stairs, back and stomach
Thursday: Run 2 miles, Bike 8 miles, 20 min on stat bike, chest, abs
Friday: Rest (Bike 8 miles)
Saturday: Hiked 10 miles up Mt. Wrightson (approx.1 vertical mile of elevation)
Sunday: Round of golf at Silverbell (92)

Went hiking up Mt. Wrightson today. Saw a beautiful Mexican Milk Snake, saw it again on the way down. Another hiker on the trail saw a bear but we didn’t see it. It was our bedder-½’s first time to the top. First time hiking in a while. First time up Mt. Wrigtson since our return to Tucson. Our bedder-½’s hip and lower back was hurting but she stuck it out. The weather was perfect. It’s actually been quite cool for the past couple of days, in the 80’s.

June 8, 1999 – Tucson
M and G got a new kitten the other day, but Lola wouldn’t get used to it. So, now they’re trying to convince us to take it. So we were over there taking the kitten for a spin, when M broke the news to us that they were moving. So we’ve been sitting here, and it’s been making us think about things. I think we pretty much decided the cat was out of the question. Cute as it is, it would be rash. We want to travel too much, we want to be able to pick up and leave, move to Italy, etc. It would just not be a good idea. Now on to the house. We thought about moving over there, but then we were thinking why? We like our place. That place has a better kitchen, better bathroom, better floors, more room, . . . . almost every detail is better, except the overall feel of this place (of the living room and the loft) can’t be beat. That’s still up in the air, we have lots of time to think about that, not to mention if we have complete goobers for new neighbors (which will most likely be the case) then that will change the situation a lot. I’ve made a pact with myself to write all day Sunday. There’s no excuse. Today is Sunday morning. Time to write.

Physical activity for the week:
Monday: Biked 8 miles, Ran 2 Miles, Legs
Tuesday: Ran 2 miles, Biked 8 miles, 18 min on stat cycle, shoulders and arms, abs
Wednesday: Ran 2 miles, Biked 8 miles, 30 min on elliptical, chest workout
Thursday: Ran 2 miles, Biked 8 miles, 18 min on stat bike, back workout
Friday: Ran 6 miles, Biked 8 miles
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Ran 10 miles

NOTE: Got a new pair of ASICS as my Air Intl Triax blew out. I like the ASICS better than Nike so far.

June 16, 1999 – Tucson
Actually today is June 20. And the monsoons have already started. Earlier this week, it was on the verge or raining. It actually rained big time on the east side, lots of wind and dust, lightning, etc. At first they said it was because of some front. But it’s been clouding up and threatening to rain all around us almost every afternoon. Seems like it’s rained everywhere but our house. One day it was raining when I left work but by the time I got home (on my bike) it was bone dry. It’s also getting hotter. There is a fire on Tanque Verde ridge.
       Yesterday Our bedder-½ and I went to Bisbee. Nandi was acting a bit funny but she made it. We’ve been tinkering with the idea of getting a new car, but she’s fine for puttering around town or even short road trips like this. With the money it would take to fix her (at least $1300 miles) we could rent a car for a day, at least 50 times. Makes more sense to just run her into the ground and rent cars for longer drives. Who’s to say she wouldn’t just break down again if we fixed her. Just did a valve job 60k miles ago. Here’s a pictorial summary of our trip:

[in the days before google maps]

In the interests of practicing my new style, I will subscribe to it while I am journal writing. Common prose seems banal and limited to me. Just like at work, or in science writing, pictures, flowcharts, tables, etc. are used to illuminate concepts, I would like to use more stuff like this in my “fiction” writing. So anyway, as you can see from the map, we went through Benson and St. D, where I pointed out to Our bedder-½ that all mormons have the strange but practical custom of having fishponds in their yards. We didn’t stop until we hit Bisbee. There we walked all around exploring the little nooks and crannies and empty lots of Bisbee. I especially dig the Southwest motif when it borderlines on being trashy or industrial, like Bisbee. I.e. tin roofs, random old run-down warehouses with weeds growing out of the cracks, empty lots with shrines that homeless people have built, signs of weathering and decay, etc. I’m glad Tucson, or southwest Arizona isn’t stuffy and rigid like Santa Fe in terms of what’s “Southwest” and what’s not.
    I got quite a few postcards to really embark on my postcard collection [which guess u cd say eventually led to Poste Restante]. I’ve been meaning to foster this hobby, I’ve collected the few that I have, but never set out with the sole intent of purchasing them. I Just love the simplicity of them. Their juxtaposition of place and time, and human interaction with it. I love the postmarks and the stamps. They express a certain processed finality or officiality. Obviously it helps if the picture on the front is interesting or bizarre, but even if it is mundane, it’s all really how it interacts with the limited text, and what the picture is of, versus where it is being sent. Each one is a unique work of art, a capture of a place and time. I got postcards from as far back as early 1900’s, from all over the world, windmills in the Netherlands, sunsets in Hawaii, fishing nets on the shores of Lake Superior, funny thing is people send a lot of postcards of things like hospitals in Iowa or trees in Florida. I cannot describe the postcards no better than they represent themselves.
    We ate at some Mexican place that was attached to some bar. Bisbee is pretty seedy and seems to be getting seedier. Our bedder-½ went to use the restroom in the bar and there was a guy in the women’s restroom doing drugs. The whole place smells like a brewery. Lots of rich, bored, want to be artist hippies with nothing better to do but sit in bars and coffeeshops all day long. We went exploring up the neighboring hills, lots of jaded, steep, and twisted roads, reminiscent of France or Guanajuato.
    We left and somewhere between Bisbee and Sierra Vista, we stopped to dig up an ocotillo and gather some rocks. It was hot as hell. Drove through boring Sierra Vista and then cut over towards Sonoita, taking that back road through Belgin. Stopped to taste some wines and got some. Between Elgin and Sonoita we stopped to pet these horses and watch these crazy lamas running around chasing each other. It’s a different scene down there.

Physical activity for the week:
Monday: Run 2 Miles, shoulders, arms, abs
Tuesday: Ran 2 miles, Biked 8 miles, 30 min on stairs, legs
Wednesday: Ran 7.7 miles, Biked 8 miles
Thursday: Ran 2 miles, Biked 8 miles, chest, abs, 24 min on stat bike
Friday: Ran 2 miles, Biked 8 miles, back, abs, 30 min on elliptical
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Run 9 miles

This morning I got up at 5:15 and went running. I ran down Tucson to Aviation Parkway and followed that to Park, by the Industrial Arts warehouse district, then downtown and through the Presidio Barrio, then up 5th st and up University and back home. Next figure represents this route.

[not sure what we used in the days before google maps]

I spent a good part of today going through my old journals and photos to finish piecing together Kevin’s scrapbook. It’s pretty cool . . . kind of like Kevin and his art, as the two are inseparable. I also found more postcards for my collection. That kind of thing.

June 22, 1999 – Tucson
Finished Surfing the Himalayas [by Frederick Lenz], it wasn’t that good but I revived my interest in Buddhism. If there is any “religion” for me, it would be like Buddhism. . . no true deity except yourself as an incarnation of the energy pool of life, where the whole point is to achieve Nirvana, or the perfect state of mind where you don’t think, but just do. Where you get so good at an activity that you don’t put effort into it, but it just comes naturally. I would like to be able to run a marathon where I am just in a zone, rather than experiencing pain and discomfort. I would like to live life where you don’t strive to achieve things, but they just come naturally, that things just come naturally. You have to be careful on how you interpret that so you aren’t a slacker, you can still be motivated and driven, but you are driven at what comes naturally, you make decisions based on intuition and spontaneity, rather than forcing decisions and trying to mold your life to fit an pre-determined image and get all frustrated when things don’t work out as planned. Not that my life up to know hasn’t been too far from this, but I’ll embrace this philosophy even more and would like to see what else Buddhism has to offer. The only thing about my current life right now that I am not satisfied with is that I am not writing enough, or travelling enough. Not having new experiences. But hopefully that will change as (drumroll please . . . ) we are almost out of debt!! We have like $750 left on one credit card and that’s it! Besides the $3000 Amex bill next month, but that’s covered. And then there's student loans, but that's a different story...
     Knicks lost to the Spurs. Bummer, but I don’t mind seeing the Spurs win. They deserve it. Reading Junky by William Burroughs. It’s getting hotter, up into the 100’s, though I still can’t honestly say that I have been uncomfortable yet. Rains haven’t really come to stay but still flirt around. A fire burned like hell in the Rincons. Prickly pears are getting thinner and thinner waiting for the rain to bloat them.
     Had a strange schedule of activities yesterday. We were lounging around in the heat trying to decide what to do. M and G wanted to do something with us. No decent movies out, so I suggested bowling. Ended up they had this “Cyber Bowl” special where you can bowl for 2 hours for 6 bucks. They turned on flashing colored lights and disco balls, the pins were back lit with black lights and they played obnoxious music that ranged from Ricky Martin’s "Livin’ La Vida Loca" to a Chipmunk punk rendition of the Car’s “Moving in Stereo”. We drank cheap beer and did some outrageous shots. I actually skinned my knee doing my “Sliding into Home” shot. After we finished, we were cruising down Speedway to go to Trader Joe’s when I suggested we go to TDs kind of as a joke, but it caught on, so we did a U-turn. G and our bedder-½ had both never been to a titty bar and I don’t think they would’ve if it was a planned event, but they really didn’t have much time to think about it. Talk about a reality bubble, going from the hot asphalt of Tucson into a dark, dank bar with topless women prancing around . . . it was strange. There were woman dancing on two different stages and a few others here and there, doing outrageous table dances, dragging their bodies up and down the length of mustached-guys who were sitting in their chair, arms glued to the armrest, with smug looks on their faces. They had a lot of woman, and most of them were fairly attractive. It was kind of surreal. It’s like being in this museum that displays the female naked body, you can watch but not touch. We coerced M into tipping one of the girls that was on her hands and knees, vigorously shaking her bootie, she saw M standing there with his dollar outstretched and stalked over like a ravenous beast. Earlier she caught me looking at her and did this obscene, almost aggressive, gesture at me with her tongue and her finger over her crotch. And of course once M did it, they coerced me into doing it, so I went up to this tall girl and stood at the edge of the stage, she came over and said “how you doing?” then brought her breast up to my face so they almost touching me. I just looked at them thinking it was kind of weird that I was that close to some woman that I didn’t even have a clue about who she was. It was awkward, kind of like how when you’re at a comedy club in the front row you’re expected to laugh so you force yourself to laugh because that’s just how you’re expected to react. Then they decided they were going to get me a table dance, why me, I don’t know. M wouldn’t do it in front of G, even though when they went to the restroom, M immediately went to tip this one girl he thought was hot and kind of knew. Max, what a character. They were waiting for the same girl I had tipped, but she was preoccupied with her head between some fat guys legs, draping her long hair down his crotch. Luckily, another guy grabbed her before they could, and it was getting to be freezing in there and we had had enough so we split. We still had some inclination to hit up Trader Joe’s for some reason so we headed over there until we saw a Sushi place and thought that would be an appropriate follow-up to a titty bar. It was weird to go into a public place after TD’s where people had all their clothes on. It took some adjusting to re-enter the bubble of normalcy. We ate Sushi, planning our next move. It was turning into an epic event, of how many strange and irrelated things you wouldn’t normally, we could do, strung back to back. We thought of going to watch the fire burn on the backside of the Rincons, but that was too normal. Or going to see the bats exit their cave, but it was already sunset. Miniature golf was an easy next move as it was next door to the Sushi place. The “Magic Carpet” mini-golf with the huge Kon-tiki head that you can climb to the top of. We did the front nine with the magic carpet, the ostrich, the aliens, the dancing spiders, the monkey with the tail that looked like a penis, the alligator, etc. The momentum dwindled, miniature golf can get old fast. The highlight was climbing up the kon-tiki head. All the lights were out so we had to go up the circular stairs in the dark, urine-smelling passage. We threw our golf-balls from the top to try to land them in the bull-fighter hole.
       We took a break to go home and let Lola out and water the plants. Then M was going to take us to some Karaoke bar, but it didn’t exist. We ended up at the Bay Horse which is gotta be the crappiest bar in Tucson, so it was probably appropriate. Not much to say about the Bay Horse, it’s like drinking cheap beer in somebody's renovated trailer home, where the main gimmick is an over-sized chair.

Physical activity for the week:
Monday: Run 2 Miles, shoulders, arms, abs
Tuesday: Ran 2 miles, Biked 8 miles, 30 min on stat bike, legs
Wednesday: Biked 10 miles, Swam 32 laps and chilled
Thursday: Ran 6 miles (4 miles indoor), Biked 8 miles, chest, abs,
Friday: Ran 2 miles, Biked 8 miles, back, abs, 30 min on elliptical
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Golf 18 holes, 30 min. of Tae-Bo, 30 min. of Yoga

June 28, 1999 – Tucson
Finished Junky by William Burroughs. Kind of interesting reading it simultaneously with reading Surfing the Himalayas or watching Joseph’s Campbell’s video on Buddhism. The addiction and desire inherent in a search for “something other” is inherent to both. People are always searching for what they can’t see. Perhaps this stems from being bored with reality, or thinking that there just has to be more to it. Why not a completely secular “religion” – one that acknowledges that reality in itself is a miracle, that life can be pleasurable and that is not a bad thing, that you can find an inner peace within yourself in a similar way that you find your inner-buddha manifestation. Buddhism, and the other eastern religions do seem one stop closer in that you IDENTIFY yourself with the divine, rather than RELATE yourself to the divine. But we are still talking the divine here. What is divine? It is not that different that the way Burroughs describes a junkies craving for H. Kevin’s ideas of spirituality became engrained in drugs. They replaced it. But it was the craving to distance yourself from the world, to release yourself from the cycle of life and death, which cause these cravings. While there are no physical side-effects associated with Buddhism or most religions, is it really healthy to go live in a cave in the Himalayas and forsake society, money? To fast and threaten your health? To be so religious that you let it alter or your rational thinking, to be so devote that you won’t eat a cow even though you are starving? Maybe we should embrace life as life was created, as the animals embrace it, and just live, not in fear of death, but just live for the moment for the sake of living and enjoy life's wonders while we can, rather than forsake them in a quest for something beyond the normal hum-drum life. Maybe Nirvana can be achieved in the hum-drum but accepting it and fully understanding it. It’s right there in front of our eyes and everyone’s looking elsewhere. It’s not even in front of our eyes, but it is in the eye. It is at the interface of our sensory input.

Physical activity for the week:
Monday: Ran 6 miles (4 miles inside); shoulders and arms and abs
Tuesday: Ran 2 miles; biked 8 miles; legs; 24 min on stationary bike
Wednesday: Ran 6 miles, bike 8 miles, chest and abs
Thursday: Ran 2 miles, bike 8 miles, 30 min on elliptical, back, abs

Going to Mexico in a few hours, so I will have to hand-write. Will fill this in later.

[... continues chronologically (July–Sept 1999) in post 903]

898 <(current)> 900> Taking stock of Calamari for gonzo journihilists in war-torn countries in the '80s
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