-i have begun to smell like ammonia.....bleh. what it means is there are not enough sugars in my body for the long runs i am taking. my body begins to breakdown amino acids, protein, in order to get energy. i have changed that by eating more carbs than i normally do the day before a long run, and drinking gatorade too, which helps. no more ammonia sweat.
-also, twice now i have noticed a dusty substance on my skin after a good run. the first time i thought it was because chicago is dirty. but then i realized it was dried sweat salt. awesome. if i don't shower and go out for fries, i can just rub them on my face to season them. also, chicago IS dirty.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
I'm here but you can't see me....
I am a career pedestrian, having never owned a car, I have a lifetime of ped stories up my bum and some are funny, some are horrifying, and some are just plain boring.
But, as with anything in life, certain wisdoms and life lessons have developed from these experiences and while I'm certain that my anecdotes could make a book (hey maybe I should write a book about walking!!!! That is so a million dollar idea....I'm on it.) one observation that stood out to me is about how differently we function when behind a wheel versus out there in the wide open space with nothing but our clothes to separate us from the masses.
My favorite is how when you are safe (safe being a subjective word, of course) behind tons of steel and chrome, it is so easy to yell and scream and curse, commit acts of passive aggression and in general denounce the characters of the other human beings around you merely because they are in your way. We honk like it's going out of style and to me, it seems the pinnacle of rudeness most of the time, except when it's ok, which is far less often than you think.
Because really, when you think about it, what if it weren't the streets, what if it were the sidewalks? What if you were downtown on a Monday during rush hour? Person A just brushed your coat-do you yell and scream at him, or better, blow a loud air horn in his ear? You don't, because you know that it would seem ridiculous, that while his disregard for your personal space was certainly an affront, that more than likely it wasn't on purpose, that he may not be paying attention and aside from a minor fleeting feeling of irritation, you LET IT GO. Or maybe you don't. Maybe you are a sidewalk-rage fiend, and you begin to follow him real close, almost but not quite stepping on his toes, and do this all the way until you reach his building, at which point you stand outside as he walks in, and glare at his back hoping he will look back and feel the wrath of you.
There is this phenomena, I used to call it the 'car-honking theory' but soon realized it was a poor, poor name for what I am about to explain-that happens every single day thousands and thousands of times a day. Basically it's when cars are lined up to make a right turn on any intersection, and the light is green, which in all cases means that they can drive right? WRONG. They can drive only and only if someone is not in the crosswalk, because obviously, it's the law, but more importantly, if they drove forward, they would HIT the person in the crosswalk. What often happens in these cases, is while the first car in the right turn lane is waiting, one or two cars back in line, there is someone honking furiously. That person is frustrated because they believe, with absolute certainty, that the reason the person in the front is not turning is because they are stupid, don't want to, or because they are simply crazy, and that the honking will instill smartness and make them drive.
What that honker never knows, doesn't see, is the pedestrian in the street. It never occurs to the honker that if the car first in line did indeed drive that there would be an accident and people would get hurt. See, I think people are all varying levels of mean and will say and do things or stand by things done and said out of pride that are atrocious, BUT I think most people would not knowingly encourage random murder and mayhem. Which is why I can only assume that those honkers, who cannot see the pedestrian, are themselves assuming that there is nothing there. In other words, that their vantage point is just as sufficient for the making of driving decisions as the person in front of them's vantage point.
I've been that person, the driver, who was frustrated because a car in front of me wouldn't go, only to be ashamed moments later, when a little old lady appeared from the front of their car, that I could not see. I have been with friends who have honked and seen in passing the biker or the mom walking the child that we couldn't see at first and I have seen the honkers honk as I walked down the street and wondering why they did not seem to care about the children who were then crossing the street.
And so I wondered, how often it is, in life, that we make snap assumptions, decisions, based on the things we could clearly see, never guessing, never knowing, never having one inkling, that there was something there that we could not see. Something that would have changed everything, literally thrown all in a different light.
My brother once told me of a conversation he was having with a respected teacher and professor, a colleague of his-they were talking about living in the US as a Jew versus an African American and were discussing the challenges each group has had to face and I remember the professor was undermining the severity of the African American experience in relation to his personal history and experience as a Jewish man and my brother made a very poignant point, that African Americans are still LIVING in the land that opressed them specifically. That we live in a land where a slave owner is on the one dollar bill and that today this is not even questioned. The teacher had never seen it from a different point of view, and was reluctant to admit there was a side, that he had not only not considered, but wasn't really aware of.
You know that saying-"the older I get, the less I know?" Eighteen year olds know EVERYTHING, by the way, and I know much less than they do because I am in my thirties. I shudder to think of how little I will know when I hit sixty, but seriously, folks, just what is it that I don't know and how much of what I am putting out there based on snap decisions and judgements could potentially hurt someone?
Ultimately, the thing about cars, and sometimes blogs, and all those things we can use to communicate with others without looking them in the eye, is that we begin to lose sight of compassion and basic respect because we don't have the benefit of someone looking back at us when we put it out there. We forget that eyes will see and ears will hear, even if we are hidden behind a vehicle when we say it. We feel less compelled to 'think' before we speak with the horn because the very fact of the horn's existence seems to justify our use of it. And it's so easy because the person or persons we are speaking to often do not have an opportunity to respond, so the consequences of what we say are insignificant to our eye. We don't have to look at it, so in essence, it doesn't exist.
What ends up happening, in our attempts to show someone else what they should know, should be doing, or how much they suck, is that we show the world, and ultimately ourselves, how much we don't know.
But, as with anything in life, certain wisdoms and life lessons have developed from these experiences and while I'm certain that my anecdotes could make a book (hey maybe I should write a book about walking!!!! That is so a million dollar idea....I'm on it.) one observation that stood out to me is about how differently we function when behind a wheel versus out there in the wide open space with nothing but our clothes to separate us from the masses.
My favorite is how when you are safe (safe being a subjective word, of course) behind tons of steel and chrome, it is so easy to yell and scream and curse, commit acts of passive aggression and in general denounce the characters of the other human beings around you merely because they are in your way. We honk like it's going out of style and to me, it seems the pinnacle of rudeness most of the time, except when it's ok, which is far less often than you think.
Because really, when you think about it, what if it weren't the streets, what if it were the sidewalks? What if you were downtown on a Monday during rush hour? Person A just brushed your coat-do you yell and scream at him, or better, blow a loud air horn in his ear? You don't, because you know that it would seem ridiculous, that while his disregard for your personal space was certainly an affront, that more than likely it wasn't on purpose, that he may not be paying attention and aside from a minor fleeting feeling of irritation, you LET IT GO. Or maybe you don't. Maybe you are a sidewalk-rage fiend, and you begin to follow him real close, almost but not quite stepping on his toes, and do this all the way until you reach his building, at which point you stand outside as he walks in, and glare at his back hoping he will look back and feel the wrath of you.
There is this phenomena, I used to call it the 'car-honking theory' but soon realized it was a poor, poor name for what I am about to explain-that happens every single day thousands and thousands of times a day. Basically it's when cars are lined up to make a right turn on any intersection, and the light is green, which in all cases means that they can drive right? WRONG. They can drive only and only if someone is not in the crosswalk, because obviously, it's the law, but more importantly, if they drove forward, they would HIT the person in the crosswalk. What often happens in these cases, is while the first car in the right turn lane is waiting, one or two cars back in line, there is someone honking furiously. That person is frustrated because they believe, with absolute certainty, that the reason the person in the front is not turning is because they are stupid, don't want to, or because they are simply crazy, and that the honking will instill smartness and make them drive.
What that honker never knows, doesn't see, is the pedestrian in the street. It never occurs to the honker that if the car first in line did indeed drive that there would be an accident and people would get hurt. See, I think people are all varying levels of mean and will say and do things or stand by things done and said out of pride that are atrocious, BUT I think most people would not knowingly encourage random murder and mayhem. Which is why I can only assume that those honkers, who cannot see the pedestrian, are themselves assuming that there is nothing there. In other words, that their vantage point is just as sufficient for the making of driving decisions as the person in front of them's vantage point.
I've been that person, the driver, who was frustrated because a car in front of me wouldn't go, only to be ashamed moments later, when a little old lady appeared from the front of their car, that I could not see. I have been with friends who have honked and seen in passing the biker or the mom walking the child that we couldn't see at first and I have seen the honkers honk as I walked down the street and wondering why they did not seem to care about the children who were then crossing the street.
And so I wondered, how often it is, in life, that we make snap assumptions, decisions, based on the things we could clearly see, never guessing, never knowing, never having one inkling, that there was something there that we could not see. Something that would have changed everything, literally thrown all in a different light.
My brother once told me of a conversation he was having with a respected teacher and professor, a colleague of his-they were talking about living in the US as a Jew versus an African American and were discussing the challenges each group has had to face and I remember the professor was undermining the severity of the African American experience in relation to his personal history and experience as a Jewish man and my brother made a very poignant point, that African Americans are still LIVING in the land that opressed them specifically. That we live in a land where a slave owner is on the one dollar bill and that today this is not even questioned. The teacher had never seen it from a different point of view, and was reluctant to admit there was a side, that he had not only not considered, but wasn't really aware of.
You know that saying-"the older I get, the less I know?" Eighteen year olds know EVERYTHING, by the way, and I know much less than they do because I am in my thirties. I shudder to think of how little I will know when I hit sixty, but seriously, folks, just what is it that I don't know and how much of what I am putting out there based on snap decisions and judgements could potentially hurt someone?
Ultimately, the thing about cars, and sometimes blogs, and all those things we can use to communicate with others without looking them in the eye, is that we begin to lose sight of compassion and basic respect because we don't have the benefit of someone looking back at us when we put it out there. We forget that eyes will see and ears will hear, even if we are hidden behind a vehicle when we say it. We feel less compelled to 'think' before we speak with the horn because the very fact of the horn's existence seems to justify our use of it. And it's so easy because the person or persons we are speaking to often do not have an opportunity to respond, so the consequences of what we say are insignificant to our eye. We don't have to look at it, so in essence, it doesn't exist.
What ends up happening, in our attempts to show someone else what they should know, should be doing, or how much they suck, is that we show the world, and ultimately ourselves, how much we don't know.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Grr Factor of the Day
When I choose to go to the coffee shop, rather than the library, for internet. Pay the expected amount of dollars for a beverage (and internet usage) and proceed to log on....and the damn shop's internet connection is not working properly. Then I have a full cup of tea and no way of doing the job stuff I meant to do and I want to kick someone because it is too late to change my mind and go the library and too much a waste of money to go to another shop to get another tea I do not even want to drink. If I did not think swearing was uncouth for an online medium, I would say one right now.
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