My wife and I sat down before the computer for virtual mass via Facebook. The camera setting was too slow and the images pixellated, but we're not picky. About 2/3s of the way through, we lost the feed. Facebook uploaded an earlier mass. I slide forward to the interruption point and we finished the ceremony with a different priest.
So that's how the exercise of faith rolls in pandemic times. Hope all are well and safe.
Trouble on the block after the neighbors splurge on fancy scientific equipment.
Here's a sample of the writing:
"Initially, no one complained about the Joneses’ extravagant time-themed parties. The machine spun and flashed into all hours of the night as neighborhood couples in flapper dresses and top hats slipped bottles of SKYY vodka into ’20s speakeasies. The binge-watch of the first five Super Bowls was all anyone could talk about for weeks, and even Mrs. Martin herself had to reluctantly admit that Oklahoma! was better with the original cast."
What next? Something. I assure you. Something will be next.
Well. The City of Los Angeles has closed Griffith Park. The City of Pasadena has closed the Rose Bowl. The County of Los Angeles has closed the trails above the JPL labs. With all my favorite routes off-limits, where do I run?
Coming off a lower back injury back in early March, the streets around my place are the most convenient. Alas, most of them feature speeding traffic and go uphill. That means a robust start to any run, followed by a speedy descent that requires managing to avoid stressing my knees. The upside is that I should be a pretty darn strong runner when the pandemic ends.
A small quake-let centered in the San Diego area shook the living room last night, leading me to wonder about the fate of social distancing in a major temblor. I decided not speculate too deeply.
Anyway, we're keeping our spirits up and hoping for better days.
May safety follow you about in these interesting times.
Having difficulty holding down jobs, a young Ottawa woman finds telemarketing has never been more diabolical.
Here’s a sample of the writing:
“It’s better than retail,” you mutter, stung. And it is, really. It’s better than selling designer knock-offs at the mall, or records in the cramped vinyl shop on Bank; better than bartending at weddings, or working the night shift at the sketchy 24-hour diner. No, it’s not your dream job, but those are a myth anyway. And it’s not like the Dark Lord Himself is ever going to drop by an office building in an industrial park out east of the Rideau, right? He’s definitely got better things to do than check up on his telemarketers—like, can you even imagine? Does Anna think he’s going to come in and scorch the dropped ceiling with the heat of his Perpetual Flame, or inspect the new wireless headsets with his single glowing Crimson Eye?"
I vacillated for nine days. Less next time. Stay safe!
At a high-end publishing house, we learn that time heals all wounds and uncovers all deeds. Nice forshadowing in this pleasant well-written tale.
Here’s a sample of the writing:
“We would meet up in the kitchen around one, have soup and a chunk of bread I’d warmed up, and then we’d go for a long walk. Sometimes we’d walk for two or three hours. Less in the winter months, as we wanted to be home before it got dark. We’d have simple dinners, usually stews, listen to classical music on the radio, and then go to bed. As I said, we were happy. That is, until Gerald was notified that he’d been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. At that moment, he changed. Life became hell. What should have been a most joyful moment in our lives became an absolute misery.”
During a home invasion, a washed up old actor finds the best solution lies within. You can see how this one will play out, but nonetheless enjoyable.
Here’s a sample of the writing:
"That is not the crack-pause-crack of the fireworks one or two streets over. That is the sound of someone knocking on the front door, though it is late now, getting on toward midnight. “The witching hour,” he remembers intoning in his heavily-accented voice on some talk show or another a decade gone now, when people still cared who he was.
He rises from his chair and it is like rising from a coffin. His arms and legs feel heavy, bound in chains, as he was in The Secret Door. He can feel them dragging along behind him as he struggles across the hardwood floor, into the narrow hall. On the TV at his back, he is walking the other way, up a set of stairs cast in chiaroscuro."
There’s no life like the afterlife, but there are some things only the living can offer. A wry tale of what could lay beyond this mortal coil.
Here’s a sample of the writing:
"The cowboy crossed in the open, an old habit, not any more necessary than the twin revolvers hanging low around his hips. He only kept them for the memories. One hand still hovered over each polished butt, and he still imagined his spurs jangling as he moved, heard the faint echo of a lifetime of chink, chink, chink in his steps.
This particular saloon wasn't much. He spat again before pushing through swinging doors that were just a hair off kilter. Even the conversations inside were muted, the voices somehow subdued by the ominous and continuous presence of death. Not too different from the old days to be honest, but the afterlife carried a depressing and lackluster aura with it, a cheap facsimile only simulating real life."
I'm not sure what tomorrow will be other than later on.
An unhappy woman on the brink of divorce returns to the scene of her marriage only to rediscover hope. A number of typos marred this simple story as did the narrator’s long backstory dump. But rewarding enough in its own way.
Here’s a sample of the writing:
"The man stood watching from the edge of the palm trees. He couldn't take his eyes of the dark-haired woman he saw standing at the water's edge, gazing out to sea as though she was waiting for something - or someone. She was beautiful, with her slim figure dressed in a loose flowing cotton dress, her crazy hair and bright blue eyes not far off the colour of the sea itself. It wasn't her looks that attracted him though; he came across many beautiful women in his work as a freelance photographer. It was her loneliness and intensity that lured him. Even at some distance he was aware that she was different from any other woman he could meet.”
The first romance story I’ve ever read. (It’s only the biggest genre category out there.) Tomorrow, something much different.
Intriguing military sci-fi that examines the result of a smart weapon becoming too clever. Some initially confusing pronoun use, but turns out not to be an affect, but germane to the story.
Here’s a sample of the writing:
“On the way back to camp, we wound between the birds’ crumpled bodies. I stepped on one by accident, and its bones made a noise under my boot like ice crust breaking. The sniper turned back to look at me, reproachful, either for the noise or for the trespass.
A little farther on, the sniper found an immaculate corpse. It had fallen with the others, but somehow its feathers were snow white, untouched by the smog. They crouched down and picked it up, turning it over in their hands, extending one delicate wing and then the other.”
My fourth short story, chosen at random, and I’ve yet to locate an American author. I’ll find one. You just wait. Tomorrow, a change of pace.
Back in the day, to avoid arduous writing tasks, as well as training for a marathon, I took a break to write up a brief history of the battle of Dien Bien Phu, it being March 13 and the anniversary of the opening salvos. Here is what I jotted down then:
Today marks the 52nd anniversary of the Viet Minh attack on the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu — a remote valley in northern Vietnam near the border with Laos. The Viet Minh were an umbrella group of Vietnamese nationalists under the leadership of communist Ho Chi Minh. They had been fighting the colonial French, and other Vietnamese nationalist groups, since 1946.
The French viewed their position in a flat valley surrounded by hills as an offensive base. From there they would venture out and cut the Viet Minh supply lines, preempting an attack on Laos. As a result of this outlook, the garrison never outposted the hills. They'd be attacking and, besides, it was impossible for the Vietnamese to haul any significantt artillery up there.
Unaware of French opinion, the Vietnameses went ahead and hauled heavy artillery up onto the hills along with daunting amounts of anti-aircraft guns. On March 13, they let loose a barrage, followed by a human wave attack that engulfed a French strongpoint manned by crack Foreign Legionnaires. The fight was on.
For the next several months, while peace talks droned on in Geneva, the Vietnamese strangled the French. All French supplies had to come by parachute. The planes—many flown by American contract pilots— braved intense flak dropping their cargo. As the garrison was compressed, the drop zone grew smaller. Food and ammunition ran short. Meanwhile, generous supplies from nearby communist China—including American ordinance captured in Korea— enabled the Viet Minh to bombard their opponents at will.
Despite horrendous casualties, the Viet Minh seized one French strongpoint after another. Finally, on May 7, 1954, it ended. The French surrendered. Over 10,000 men marched into captivity, many of whom died in Viet Minh prison camps. French colonial rule in Vietnam and Laos ended. In 1955, Vietnam was partitioned into a communist north and a non-communist south along the 17th parallel.
Now back to running and writing stuff.
Sixty-six years have now passed and the valley appears to be something of a tourist stop. For a better short summary of the battle, try here. And while I'm considering another marathon, much writing awaits my hand today. And yet, I repost. C'est la guerre.
Here’s a droll little tail from a quarterly webzine seeking “fantastic fiction infrequently published in English . . . described[ed] as irreal . . . resembl[ing] the work of writers such as Franz Kafka, Kobo Abe, Clarice Lispector and Jorge Luis Borges." A dead man looks back on his last day and realizes he’s not as unique as he thinks. Funny, fast, with a nice twist at the end. And it certainly lived up to “irreal.”
Here’s a sample of the writing:
“Patiently, I gathered all the possible data regarding fatal traffic accidents of the past five years. I investigated—with the help of an astronomer—the periodical variations of solar flares, eclipses, and the strontium levels found in fluvial precipitations. I consulted experts on ecology and numismatics. Finally, using a bell-curve graph—the result of my erudite and tedious investigations—I honed in on the N260 and N300 bus lines. From that moment onwards I felt more assured of accomplishing my goal: math was on my side.”
Continuing with yesterday’s offering of things happening in China—other than Wuhan virus and dissident beatings—comes this flash fiction piece from Pushcart Prize-winning author Su-Yee Lin. A magical realism tale of loss and memory, a young woman reacts to a sound that she shouldn’t be hearing. There may’ve been other deeper elements but, as usual, I missed them. Once again, a mother is involved. Here is a sample of the writing:
“And despite the chatter of everyday life, I can still hear the ocean. No one else seems to notice, or maybe they're just used to it. It's like the way you can get used to anything—having the ocean in your backyard, white hum of electricity in a room, an illness that comes and goes, a disappearance of a person you love. You get used to it all in time.”
Tomorrow, I’ll read a short story not involving China.
half-dozen regular readers of this blog. Today's offering hails from Clarkesworld: "Time Reveals the Heart" by Derek Kunsken. (His name contains an umlaut over the u, but I can't figure out how to add one.) Here's the opening paragraph of this science fiction tale: "Guo LÄ›i mounted the stairs to his mother’s apartment at seven in the morning. He hadn’t visited in two weeks; he never knew what he would find. It was early, but he had a launch today, maybe several, and no matter what, he tried to see his mother before every launch, just in case. When silence answered his knocks, he used his key." That's pretty nifty writing. You've got your foreshadowing, the knowledge that the protagonist's work is dangerous, and that his mother's health is an issue all bundled in the action of knocking on the door. It'd take me a page and half to get all that out. A story exploring time travel, addiction, the dangers of altered perception, and the worth of reality, this is a quick read, not too heavy on dialogue with nice descriptive touches such as "His voice sounded like falling drops of water, shapeless, wobbling in free fall, transparent." Weighing in at 5804 words, "Time Reveals the Heart" is available online and as a podcast at the Clarkesword site.
Reading a book the other day and channel surfing. I found myself alternating between the first John Wick and the film version of The Equalizer. Both films featured protagonists who were widowers with awesome killing skills battling cruel Russian foes who are heavily tattooed. As a general note: if your loved one is a cruel, heavily-tattooed Russian mobster, encourage him to avoid widowers. You just never know.
As a story-telling rule, Russian mobsters are way past their diabolical shelf-life. What's wrong with exploring vicious Chinese Communists as villains? Ah, that's right. Hollywood simply won't bite the hand that feeds them, no matter how many dissident organs are harvested. That's show biz.
They wait, these eBooks, for eyes to fall upon the words within. Let them be your eyes. What's it cost? Nothing but the time spent reading, always time well spent. That's how Smashwords rolls with their March Read an eBook promotion. Least you think this some manner of public service announcement, my books and essays are also available. (For free, until Saturday, that is.)
Oh, fine, all the books in this Smashword promotion are not free. Some are steeply discounted, others less so. But that is the way of commerce.
Also, you don't have to wear high heels to avail yourself of the service. This just happened to be the last unused promotional banner. Let your footwear reflect you as you indulge your reading tastes at crazy old Smashwords Read an eBook extravaganza.
FREE eBOOKS THIS WEEK! FREE FOR YOU, I SAY!!
(OR DISCOUNTED DOWN TO PLEASING LEVELS. EXCEPT FOR MY BOOKS . . . FREE UNTIL SATURDAY!)
Three of my eBooks will be free along with many others not to mention discounts galore. Starting this Sunday to next Saturday, glut yourself on the electronic word. Read on your phone, your Kindle or Nook, your tablet or laptop. But read, read, I say.
First off, excellent seven mile-run this afternoon on the bridal trails that encircle the golf course. Relaxed, practicing my various chi running focuses, finished strong. Then I begin my post-run stretches.
To better understand matters, there is a grassy area where I was stretching. Then a low concrete rail fence. Beyond that, the dirt bridle trail. Then a six-foot chain-link fence. On the other side of the chain-link fence is the golf course.
Golf balls occasionally drop into the grassy area. Not often, but occasionally, a golfer will ask you if you could bring over his ball. A polite request always results in a returned ball.
Today, there was a golf ball behind me as I lengthened various muscle groups. Something told me to kick it into the ivy. "What nonsense," I thought.
So on I stretched, working this muscle group and that. A voice sounded behind me from the golf course. "There it is. Behind that guy. Hey! Hey, you." Then "Hell-ooo" with a mocking lilt. "Right behind you. Get my ball."
Wow. It's like I was this guy's caddy. (He lost me on the 'hell-ooo.') But before I could brush him off, he erupted into non-stop profanity, cursing me for not quickly fetching his golf ball. My back was to Foul Mouth Duffer and I continued stretching, tossing off a curse or two of my own.
Back he came with his golfing partner. They hailed a woman walking past on the bridlepath. She was asked—politely I might add—to retrieve the cursed ball. Throughout, Foul Mouth Duffer stayed on his side of the chain-link fence and kept up a barrage of bile toward me involving the sexual act, the sexual act with my mother, me being fat and old, and, after I hoped he didn't have a heart attack, wished me death by heart attack while running.
At one point, he stormed over to his golf cart and threatened me with a golf club. When I didn't run, he grabbed his putter and stomped off, still cursing and swearing. I've known a few rageaholics in my day—been one myself a time or two—and realized this guy was in his own special land.
As soon as he was out-of-sight, I left. The whole incident reminded me of the that scene in Werner Herzog's documentary Grizzly Man in which subject Timothy Treadwell erupted in a fiery rant against absent Fish and Wildlife agents. I'll let Werner Herzog take it from here.
Note: Thu. Feb. 20: I'm not normally so serene in the face of provocation. But after running over an hour and twenty minutes, my body was awash in yummy endorphins. Stretching out provided more. Were I paying my taxes, it might've been me chasing the feral golfer with a club.
Well, not so private. I'm posting on the Web. But given my traffic, it's nearly exclusive. If you skimmed my original kanban post, you'll recall me bemoaning my sloth in not taking a picture. Now I have.
Note My SEO-Free Heading!
Strange to loath search engine optimization when it attracts viewers. I must have a desire to failure, though it comes wrapped in fantasies of wild success. Still, my board lists the immediate, which consists heavily of updating all my old books, garnering reviews, new artwork, etc. Each day, I strive to write at least one page of a short story and a longer work that may end up a novella. Progress, consistency, and a visual record of achievement.
In the right of frame, you'll note a section of my running/exercise calendar. Last month on top and current month on the bottom for comparison. As of now, I'm doing better with running than writing, but that's only because writing is more difficult, especially when mixed with the many marketing chores facing the indie author. You can write what you like, but then it's up to you to sell it.
Little yellow Post-Its proliferate: lining my computer screen, on the desk, on the calendar, reminding me of writing matters and indie author marketing. Also, there are piles of scrap paper suggesting I upload an ebook to Draft2Digital, or buy a new eBook cover and send it to my niece as she builds me a Squarespace web page. But in a recent quest for organizational help, I came across concept of the kanban board.
Actually, kanban means "visual signal." An organizing system, it can be as simple as three columns with the headings To-Do, Doing, Done, or broken down further to a more granular level. I like seeing a cohesive lists of tasks. So I used half a piece of foam core and divided it into three sections with duct tape.
Like Ordering from Pizza Hut
Order a pepperoni and mushroom pizza online and Pizza Hut uses little icons to show your order received, cooked, and en route to your dwelling. Basically, that's the kanban system. My first section I call the Bullpen. Contained within are all my short story drafts, novellas, a finished short story that needs to be sent out, and two novel drafts. Those little yellow Post-Its come in handing for listing projects. In addition, there are marketing tasks such as obtaining reviews, updating back matter, updating cover photos, formatting manuscripts for softcover conversion, etc.
In the second section, Doing, I transfer a small amount of Bullpen material. I further divide Doing into Pending and Ongoing. Pending pertains to projects like sending out a story where I have no control over the time. Ongoing contains stories that I'm currently writing or rewriting. Sell a story and it moves to the third column.
Done is Done. I have two projects up there: a pair of recently purchased new books overs. Like the pizza, the goal is to move a Post-It along to its final destination. Seeing progress where you normally see nothing until a story is sold or a book published helps with focus and moral. Like "Dr. Strangelove," there is a big board and I can see it.
I'm a Poor Bloglord
Cell phone photos depicting all the above would be nice, but I'm writing this while watching John
Walsh on Investigation Discovery guide me through the murder of a South Carolina women by her drunken former live-in boyfriend. I'd need to visit my office with the cell phone, well, you know the rest. Not that I won't. But it won't be this post. More t/k on the kanban board.
Pasadena 5K Results
As mentioned a few weeks back, my wife Joy and I tackled the Pasadena 5k. A very chilly morning, I felt cold throughout. Finishing up inside the fabled Rose Bowl, I was passed in the last 40 yards by a woman pushing a double stroller, an 11-year-old boy and his mother, and got picked off at the finish line by a young woman. Nevertheless, it was a successful run. I finished in 33:48, a high ten minutes per mile, my best 5k time in over a decade.
This week, I travel down to Santa Monica for an all-day workshop with Danny Dryer, the founder of Chi Running. Hopefully, I can straighten out any problems with my form and pick up a few tips for better performance. Should be fun.
To be fair, Smashwords wasn't especially miffed, but they won't release one of my ebooks to their premium catalog—which means no Barnes and Noble, Kobo or other potential sales sites. Reasons given are murky and technical. Fixes necessary are to refer me to a list of approved technical fixers. And the book has been up on Smashwords for almost seven years. I have another idea.
At least their advertising is winsome and coy. Allow me to quote:
"Draft2Digital has always made it a priority to make eBook conversion as easy as pushing a button. Our free eBook conversion tool has been praised as the best there is.
Authors get attractive EPUB and MOBI files they can count on to work with any eReader app or device on the market. They even get a print-ready PDF to use with Print On Demand (POD) services, such as CreateSpace and Ingram Spark—all for free."
Basically, I send them my doddering old manuscript and they update it to Mobi or Epub or pdf for a writer guy like me. They'll supply an ISBN, though I prefer to use my own. That said, I'll be shifting the surreal, cosmic satire Little Book of Big Enlightenment over to D2D. If successful, more books may follow.
Cycle Through the Seasons
A cross-training favorite of mine is stationary cycling. My ride consisted of a cheap Chinese bike
with pedals, wheels that turn and a knob for increasing effort. Basic with a capital "B." However, my force multiplier is YouTube, specifically the Global Cycling Network. By spinning away to one of their numerous videos I can ride hills in Majorca, or perform sprints, tabatas, fat burns all to human beings with British accents urging me on. (Note: I'm paid nothing, NOTHING for this.) Commercial at the beginning, but no interruptions, at least on the videos I employ. My current favorite is a 15-minute cardio burn. You sweat more than an IRS audit.
Thanks, Nice French People!
Speaking of Europe, a tip of the old beret to the French who've been clicking through Write Enough! in large numbers the last two weeks. Why? I cannot say. But muchas gracias for stopping by.
Yesterday I picked up my race bib. Had to show a QR code and a picture ID. In return, I received my 5k race bib. (No technical shirt until after the race. I don't know why either.)
Email this morning. I was issued the wrong bib, receiving one for the half-marathon. Now I must return today, or arrive extra early tomorrow, negotiate the pre-race crowd, and exchange bibs. Issuing race bibs shouldn't be a complicated process or involve extra effort on the part of a runner paying today's inflated prices. But alas, so many things are fouled up in California. Why not 5ks?
Wife Joy shall join me this year. Due to a ruthless work schedule, her training suffered, but she'll amble in whenever for a medal and a technical shirt.
Being 34 pounds lighter than 2019, I should do better. This brings me to:
From such 5k and long run data as I've collected, it appears I could run a 5:30 marathon. That's around 12:32 a mile for 26.2. A reasonable pace for a guy my age, in my condition, informed by competent medical authority eleven years ago that he'd never run again. (Always gotta throw that in.) Right now, I'm only running three days a week. I'd like to add a fourth day while building up my core.
In May, I'll be running my first 10k since 2008. Should my finishing time be around 1:13, then I'll increase my weekly mileage in preparation for a half-marathon. By the time this theoretical 13.1 rolls around, I'll know whether or not I can manage 26.2.
If all goes according to plan, I'm thinking this November might see me lined up once more on the marathon start line.
We are our dreams.
And mine are to finish 26.2 miles before the water stations close. Hence, running aspirations will be to focus on good form, strong core, greater flexibility through yoga, and no more stinking injuries.
YOU good blog reader will be updated as the year unfolds.
Everything must begin somewhere. And in the United States Marine Corps, my enlisted tour commenced with yellow footprints. Drawn on the asphalt of the recruit depot with heels close together and toes angled out to 45 degrees, they are where I, along with seven other guys from our suburban Chicago neighborhood, stood to begin military service. Then we marched somewhere, boxed up our clothes and mailed them home, coming to the realization that our new life would be different from drinking beer behind a bowling alley.
The Vietnam War was winding down, at least for the United States, though the North Vietnamese would launch a huge attack against South Vietnam toward the end of March as we conducted infantry training at Camp Pendlelton. (In September, now a Private First Class, I would find myself in an Army hospital called Camp Kue on Okinawa, sharing a ward with American advisors who'd been wounded helping the South Vietnamese forces stop the communists.)
In 1991, I visited the footprints on a vacation to San Diego with my girlfriend. (Now My Fine Wife or MFW.)
In 2002, I stood on a hill in Vietnam called Con Thien with a Vietnamese guide who told me about the obliteration of his village by B52s, bombing the NVA advance.
But on a Friday night, January 14, 1972, I stood on yellow footprints. Oh, right before we boxed up our clothes, this happened:
(The following scene is rather accurate, except there's no C&W music. Just buzzzzzzz.)
On this 48th anniversary of my enlistment, I pay my respects to Tom Poto and Steve Lovell, two of my comrades who are no longer with us. RIP, bros. Hard to believe we were once young together.
Yesterday, I basked warmly in the fine sales of my prostate book. Two more positive reviews popped up from men either in the cancer pipeline or on the brink. Good me. Nice me. But then I thought, whaz'sup with Smashwords?
Nothing at all from what I can tell. In the world of ebooks, they offer such worthy features as presales, discount coupons, and access to markets like Barnes and Noble, Apple Books and Kobo. Essentially, Smashwords is a large portion of the twelve percent of the ebook market not dominated by Amazon Kindle.
Anti-Marketing Campaign Drawbacks
Which returns me to my original point. I'm such a marketing Luddite when it comes to my own books—possibly a reaction from having worked in marketing—that I fail to wrest full advantage from all the open venues. Yes, Kindle is King. But if authors don't wish it to become god-emperor, then it would be wise to foster competition.
A side order of oppression, please.
The Federal Bureau of Rapid Nourishment
Imagine a favorite coffee shop. Now picture that establishment owned and operated by the federal government. Would your French Toast and bacon be cooked to order? Would unionized wait staff with faces like Greta Thunberg provide crisp, efficient service? Ponder such a world.
Eat Out Launching This Month
In January, I will release a solo short fiction piece. Instead of publishing on Amazon and forgetting about it for several years, I'll release "Eat Out" to pre-order on Smashwords. This horror tale about genetic engineering and unintended consequences will feature a discount coupon. I'll explain more as soon as I figure out how they work.
(One might always check out my author Facebook page where updates thrive, awaiting your perusal. Do sign-up and stay abreast of my writerly doings.)
Normally, I don't run Saturdays and I most certainly don't run in Griffith Park. Like the Rose Bowl, the park's trails are alive with runners, almost all of whom are faster than I. One also encounters a fair number of runner/dog walkers.
Gerontophobia
Alamy There was a dog, too, and no track. Just read the copy
Leading a little mutt on a leash, this chick in her thirties zipped past me. Fine. I'm used to it. A few hundred yards ahead, she slows and allows her mutt to nose around the leaves on the side of the trail. I continue on pace. But as I near her location, she tugs the dog by the leash. "Come on." Off she goes at a good clip. Whatever. I continue on pace. Rounding a curve, I spot her again, letting the mutt sniff away near a telephone pole. This time I ran past her. Behind me I hear, "Come On." Yanking the dog along, she speeds up to pass me. This time the woman burned some calories. At one point, she turned around and checked the distance between us. Then I lost sight of her.
When young male runners find themselves passed by young female runners they call it being "chicked," I believe there's a corollary. Gerontophobia is fear of the elderly. From my observations, I suspect certain young women detest being passed by older men or "fossiled." Having coined the phrase, I will now translate it with my college German:
Nothing says dead serious like a German translation. So now you know two words and a phrase to describe the aforementioned condition:
1. Gerontophobia - far too formal.
2. Fossiled - Just the right touch of breezy American slang.
3. Befürchtungen Alte Männer - Only if you enjoy being a snotty show-off.
Choose whatever you will, but I suspect such a phobia may've been in play on this chilly morning.
Black Days in 2018
Without creating a link web that no one ever follows, 2018 was a brutal year for my physical fitness. In toting up my 2019 mileage, I noticed I didn't really start fully running until July. (That means running my training distance with zero miles walking.) Curious, I checked my stats for '18. In June, I injured my good right leg—not the benighted left leg—climbing over a construction fence. And that was it. Save for a brief half-mile, I did not run again for six months. And I did not resume where I left off for over a year. No wonder I weighed 271 pounds.
More news on a possible marathon coming soon. Soon. Oh, so very soon. Did I tease it enough? SEO, SEO, click, link, SEO.
