Now here's a place we didn't necessarily expect to be

So last night Ken and I and a couple of the brothers journeyed up to Ogden to watch Q. and his band play in a club.  As I sat (at midnight) looking around at pictures of skeletons decorating the walls while my son killed it on stage, I couldn't help but think I hadn't thought this is what my life would look like back in the day when I put my little boys in matching outfits and marched them over to Olan Mills for family portraits.

But I'm glad it does.

Primordial

This morning as I ran in Liberty Park through light and half-light, light and half-light while shadows slanted through the pines, I felt like there was something almost primordial about the experience--running barefoot at dawn through trees and so forth.  And I thought it would have been cool to be something pre-historic like a druid.

Except, of course, for the part where you were running because woolly mammoths wanted to eat you.

Aspirations

This is a bungalow I run past every morning, and actually there are four (not just the two you see here) stone lions guarding this house.  I always go YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME because it takes a certain amount of self-discipline to guard a modest Salt Lake City bungalow and keep a straight face when you're a stone lion who was meant to decorate the front yard of Buckingham Palace.

Rock on, Stone Lions.  Rock on.

A little melancholy tonight

I think I've mentioned before that I have a strange, inexplicable affection for island music even though it always makes me cry, and I'm not even kidding.  You'd think I was a sloppy Irish drunk listening to Oh, Danny Boy.  Which also makes me cry.  (Johnny Cash did a lovely version of the song on his awesome AMERICAN IV album.)

Anyhoo.

Not long ago when I was listening to The Descendants soundtrack, I was overwhelmed by a desire to take one last trip to Hawaii with my parents.  We have a little bit of history there because of the Football Years.  In fact, the only stadium where I thought the opposing team's fans might set my hair on fire was at Aloha Stadium.  Man, those guys HATED BYU, and whenever you sat in the stands you felt like you were caught up in a rolling riot.  In Tehran.  Sports Illustrated once listed my dad as Hawaii's Public Enemy Number One.  And yet off the field, he and my mother were treated with incredible warmth wherever they went.

So I was thinking it would be nice to walk along the beach again with them and play the "remember when" game.  Remember when we drove all over Oahu in that borrowed Trans Am listening to an 8-track CCR tape?  Remember when Sculley was still alive and he and Lou had us to dinner at their place?  Remember the geckos that skittered across the ceilings where we stayed?  Remember when Jim and I took surfing lessons, and I almost got hit by an outrigger canoe when I broke the water's surface?  Remember when Joe took us to the airport in his squad car and turned on his siren so we didn't have to stop at any red lights?

But how would it be to return to a place you loved together, knowing that would be the last time?  How could you bear it?

I wrote

2,000 words today and 2,000 words yesterday.  I am muscling my way through, people.

Now here's a skill set I wish I had

This morning on our walk, Nancy and I were talking about that experience we've all had--the experience of getting TRAPPED by the person who completely monopolizes you for two. freaking. hours. and. you. can't. make. them. stop. talking. and. you. can't. escape.  She'd had that experience at the library last night.  I'd had it at work the night before.  I got cornered by a customer who took me on an incredibly detailed guided tour of the thought processes she employs while parenting, even though there were other customers standing around, waiting for me to help them.  I wanted to put my head in an oven.

Nancy said, "Here's what we need.  We need skills that will help us get out of those situations . . . "  At this point I thought she was going to say "like the ability to say sayonara, sucker."  But she surprised me.  Instead, Nancy said,  "We need skills that will help us get out of those situations like the ones Jeannie had in I DREAM OF JEANNIE or those characters in STAR TREK who said BEAM ME ABOARD!"

And I was all YOU'RE RIGHT.  So here's to acquiring a brand new skill set with a full complement of futuristic, magical (and also awesome) powers.

(Meanwhile, why do I always want to put MY head in the oven?  Shouldn't I want to put the other person's head there instead?)

As if you really wanted to look at my feet

However, here they are.  This is what they look like after I've gone barefoot running.

I decided today that one of the reasons that I like running barefoot is that I have to pay attention to what my feet are doing while I'm running so that I don't step on dirty needles, shards of glass, and so forth.  In other words, at the risk of sounding all Zen, I have to be thoroughly in the moment when my feet are naked, and I am cutting through the mud and grass.  I can't be busy spinning scenarios of future catastrophes for me and mine, a skill in which I awesomely excel.  (HIGH FIVE ME!  WAY TO SPIN THOSE SCENARIOS OF CATASTROPHE!)  In stead I have to pay attention to what's happening now.

Running barefoot = mood meds.