When we last left you we were just beginning our "homeless day" in L'viv. We planned to head out of L'viv for Krakow on Wednesday morning but after a very dramatic train/bus ticket buying experience where the lady who finally sold us our tickets told us with a roll of her eyes, "I don't know why on Earth you boys are trying to go to Krakow. It's the exact same thing as L'viv." But we were skeptical so we bought bus tickets anyway, the earliest ones available, which were for 10:00 PM. So off we wandered into L'viv for the day to lounge on benches in the city to read books and eat ridiculous amounts of juice (we've each had at least on liter per day since arriving in Europe), vafly and borsch. And surprisingly, this may go down as the best day of our lives.
For those who are wondering about Serhey since you heard from me last, you might be interested to hear his side of the story, which I have for you as he left a comment about me on couchsurfers that we have been laughing about nonstop for three days: "Eli is man of a nice surprise) One won't regret to meet him: positive, open minded, democratic and with good sence of humor =)." We haven't quite pinned down what my "nice surprise" was but I'm ecstatic that he thinks of me as democratic. Gosh I miss Serhey.
We boarded the Krakow-bound bus that evening after being told that we would arrive in Krakow the following morning around 6:00AM. Why on Earth does it take eight hours to drive from L'viv to Krakow when it looks only this big (holding fingers close together) on the map, you ask? I'll tell you. Because after 1 hour of driving to the border, the bus stopped and we engaged in what I'm finding to be a pretty typical land-border crossing experience throughout the world. For the next 3 or 4 hours, we were moved in and out of the bus (which would pull forward about 35 feet every time we got back into it, only to be ushered back out again) while various armed guards took and gave back our passports repeatedly in a near never ending cycle of unproductive nonsense. Fortunately during all of this we were able to meet multiple entertaining people including one Russian kid who was willing to tell us how to buy cocaine in about 15 different countries if we were interested. While I wasn't quite to that point, this was probably about the closest he was ever going to come to finding me willing. There was also a group of Spaniards aboard the bus who were trekking back home after completing some pilgrimage. Matt was fortunately listening and able to translate their conversation when they first boarded the bus only to find that they couldn't sit together, to which an older woman announced to the group with a big smile, "we are separate, but we are happy." And then immediately holding up a sack of something unidentified, she enthusiastically continued, "I have onions! Who wants an onion?!" We later saw some of this group eating these onions like apples. Fortunately for the border crossing people the onion mastication occurred after this group was specifically sequestered for what we found out was apparently a very intrusive frisking, as was evident in the wide eyes, odd walking, and panicked hand gestures meant to demonstrate to each of us that they had been given some special treatment in the back room at about 3:00AM when they were returned to the group.
But we finally made it into Krakow without eating any onions or buying any cocaine. We then met our new couch surfing hosts, Marta and Tomasz. I will never be able to adequately describe Marta and Tomasz. All I can do is later send you pictures we took of their wedding photo album. Marta and Tomasz didn't really speak much English and they wouldn't ever really look us straight in the eye. But they love climbing and followed us around the apartment here and there insisting on talking about it as much as possible, saying over and over again things like, "you haven't pictures climbing?", "you climb?", "we climb, zis is good", and occasionally "have you see cat?" The cat comments came up particularly frequently whenever we attempted to ask a question about how to get out of their gate, which apparently sounds an awful lot like "cat" to them. But Marta and Tomasz were incredibly nice and great hosts. They let us wander around and do what we needed to while they carried on with their lives (which included a lot of what we think was intense argument in Polish about the weather. But we can't be sure).
Krakow was incredible. As the bus lady in L'viv told us, it did look quite a bit like L'viv, which was fine with us. The city was gorgeous and the people were very friendly. Just after we got into the city I started talking to a girl named Eliza on the tram who looked like she knew her way around only to find out that she was from Poland and currently living in London and that she had brought over a group of friends to show them around Krakow. She helped us buy some train tickets and gave us some great advice. We ended up meeting up with their group later to take a tour of the salt mines just outside of the city, which were incredibly interesting. Unfortunately the tour of the mines was about 13 days too long and by the end I felt like the whole thing was going to turn out like The Dissent. But we survived. Our favorite thing that happened here was when Matt and I split from the group and asked a girl on the way out how to get back to Krakow, to which she responded (and this quote is exact): "Zis is best idea. You must take bus. First you must be looking good. Zen you must put your hand to the up." (Translation: Take the bus. Look carefully to find the right one and then raise your hand to get it to stop). For two days now we have been inserting her directions into every song and rap we can think of. We're adding "hand to the up girl" to our long list of people we want to take home with us.
Yesterday we headed out to Auschwitz, which is about an hour away from Krakow. As you can imagine, it was incredibly depressing and horrific. We wandered the camp for several hours, which has been left pretty untouched since the end of WWII. Even some of the buildings (gas chamber buildings), which were blown up, still lay untouched since the 40s. It was incredibly bizarre to be there and a really good experience, although uncomfortable and sad (uncomfortable both because the history is so tragic and because it's just a miserably hot un-shaded place in the summer, much like I think it probably was when it was actually in use).
We hopped a train last night in Prague. This was a sleeper train and each small compartment had SIX people in it, with three beds going up each side. It felt like I was living in the dorms again with about 500 rowdy 20-something year old travelers from all over the world.
There is about a 65% chance we both contracted bacterial meningitis. But we made it to Prague this morning. Fortunately we had a last minute couch surfer contact us last night, offering her place. Her name is Ivana and she met us this morning and took us to her apartment and then went with us into the city for a 3 hour walking tour. The city is gorgeous but unfortunately overrun with tourists. In any event, it's fun to walk the winding streets and see so much incredible architecture. The city looks a lot like L'viv and Krakow, but bigger and taller. We'll stay here until Monday afternoon when we'll hop a train to Vienna.
Having an incredibly great time and laughing constantly (except for at Auschwitz, of course). Thanks for all the messages.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Sleeping With Sergei, L'viv
When we last left you we were in Kyiv having a great time with Max and Natalia. We spent a lot of time with both of them and toured a lot of the city (and I mean a LOT--Max may be the fastest walker I've ever met in my entire life. There were several moments where we actually had to break out into a run to keep up with him, which was strange because he looked like he was going at a leisurely pace). On our last night there we thought it would be nice to make them some Mexican food (because, you know, we're from Mexico). This did not go without turning into sort of a mess where at the grocery store I sent Matt to weigh peppers (you have to weigh produce and get a label on it before checkout).
When he brought it up to the checkout lady she freaked out because he had come back having labeled his two red peppers "apples" and something that we still can't identify. To his credit, when I took them back to give it a try I found that even an understanding of the language wasn't that helpful because the label machine was like a very stressful identification game with black and white "pictures" of about 2,000 different items of produce that all looked exactly the same. I got about four or five different labels for each and took it back to let the lady choose whichever one she thought would work. We finally made it home and cooked (chimichangas, or something we called chimichanges--very Mexican, I know). We think they liked it. In any event, it all worked out very nicely and we were very sad to leave them and the kids and we miss them quite a bit already.
Then we boarded our first of what will probably be many many trains over the next week. Things that happened on the train: homegirl from below tickled Matt's feet (he was on the top bunk) every hour, on the hour, all night long; the train seemed to hop the tracks and just go off-roading for most of the night; Matt came back from the bathroom and only had one thing to say--"well, it was pretty wet in there"; and it was well over 200 degrees for the vast majority of the trip. All of the usual really.
We rolled into L'viv early yesterday morning and wandered my favorite parts of the city, including every church that I wish I could live in permanently. We attended a great Orthodox service in the middle of all of that. Then lunch happened where we had some of the greatest borsch of all time. Part way through lunch we both started talking about how we wished we were wearing shorts instead of pants.
We then remembered that we are currently packing our entire lives around with us at all times so changing is usually an option. Matt stepped inside the restaurant to ask where the bathroom was so he could change and then came out about 5 minutes later looking very confused. I then went in to look for myself, going down the basement of the place because we thought that looked like a place where one might keep the bathroom. I didn't find a bathroom however down there but did find an empty dining room, so naturally I just changed in there.
This seemed like a good idea until I came back up there stairs and passed every single person who worked there who were now each staring at me and my handful of clothes that they had just seen me in, probably wondering why I just got undressed in the basement of their restaurant where there is no bathroom. We got out of there in a hurry thinking that we would never have to see those people again. Wrong. About four hours later we went back for borsch (you have to believe me--this stuff was really good).
We still desperately tried to hide from anyone who we recognized which was effective until we ran into one girl on our way out who actually laughed in our faces. We're positive they've been thinking all day about the Americans that took their clothes off in their restaurant. And who came twice in one day to eat borsch. And who don't smell so great. And who look incredibly sleep deprived.
But our real concern throughout the day had to do with where we were going to stay last night.
We had set up something through couchsurfing with a guy named Sergei who looked nice enough on his profile to trust with our lives. Right before we were supposed to meet him at his place, Matt happened to look at his profile again, in time to read a message I seemed to have missed when I initially searched for people in L'viv and sent him a request: "I have one room where i'm living, so i can share with it! There can be placed 2 people on my bed!" This was in the middle of several other things he wrote about how "L'viv is fan place!" and "come stay! 3 days is too many!"
We got to Sergei's apartment at 9:00PM wondering all day whether "there can be placed 2 people on my bed" meant what it sounded like (and optimistically coming up with thousands of other possible interpretations, none of which actually made any sense at all. But we were hopeful).
Our hopes were in vain as we entered Sergei's apartment and he showed us his room with the worlds smallest bed and optimistically told us, "I think we can all three fit there tonight!" He then pointed to Matt and explained, "it is good thing you are big zis way and not big zis way" (using hand gestures to explain that he is relieved to see that Matt is just tall and not fat). We enthusiastically agreed, trying desperately not to make eye contact because we knew we would lose it the second we did. We had a good conversation with him for a while before he told us we were welcome to go to bed if we wanted to.
I'm not sure that we really wanted to go to bed but we were incredibly tired from train off-roading the night before so off to bed we went. Sergei stayed up for a while in the kitchen while Matt and I lay in bed trying with all our might to gain composure, more freaked out that we were going to start laughing when he came to climb in with us than we were about sleeping with a stranger in the first place. There were a lot of jokes exchanged during this time that did not help us in our pursuit to either fall asleep or get really good at being stone-faced (there were suggestions that I should have told Sergei that Matt wets the bed every night).
The anticipation almost killed us and unfortunately neither of us were even close to being asleep when Sergei climbed in. Although we pretended to be. We pretended to be all night. Including every 45 minutes or so when Sergei attempted to cuddle with me in his sleep. He took up about half of the tiny bed, and we took the other half--although Matt had one arm on the ground the whole night, holding himself up in a half pushup as I inched closer and closer to him each time Sergei put his arm or leg around me.
We got up incredibly early and high-tailed it out of there after Sergei made me hold some rodent he had bought that day. Despite all of the strangess of the situation, I do have to say that he was incredibly nice and actually pretty normal to talk to. And we learned something new about what to look for on couchsurfing profiles.
We hoped to take a bus early today out of L'viv to Krakow but we couldn't get one until 10:00 tonight so we are lounging in L'viv for the day before another inevitably sleepless night.
Ok, we're off to the next adventure. Thanks for all your email responses. Sorry I don't have to time to write back individually--but it's good to hear from you anyway.
~It Just Gets Stranger
When he brought it up to the checkout lady she freaked out because he had come back having labeled his two red peppers "apples" and something that we still can't identify. To his credit, when I took them back to give it a try I found that even an understanding of the language wasn't that helpful because the label machine was like a very stressful identification game with black and white "pictures" of about 2,000 different items of produce that all looked exactly the same. I got about four or five different labels for each and took it back to let the lady choose whichever one she thought would work. We finally made it home and cooked (chimichangas, or something we called chimichanges--very Mexican, I know). We think they liked it. In any event, it all worked out very nicely and we were very sad to leave them and the kids and we miss them quite a bit already.
Then we boarded our first of what will probably be many many trains over the next week. Things that happened on the train: homegirl from below tickled Matt's feet (he was on the top bunk) every hour, on the hour, all night long; the train seemed to hop the tracks and just go off-roading for most of the night; Matt came back from the bathroom and only had one thing to say--"well, it was pretty wet in there"; and it was well over 200 degrees for the vast majority of the trip. All of the usual really.
We rolled into L'viv early yesterday morning and wandered my favorite parts of the city, including every church that I wish I could live in permanently. We attended a great Orthodox service in the middle of all of that. Then lunch happened where we had some of the greatest borsch of all time. Part way through lunch we both started talking about how we wished we were wearing shorts instead of pants.
We then remembered that we are currently packing our entire lives around with us at all times so changing is usually an option. Matt stepped inside the restaurant to ask where the bathroom was so he could change and then came out about 5 minutes later looking very confused. I then went in to look for myself, going down the basement of the place because we thought that looked like a place where one might keep the bathroom. I didn't find a bathroom however down there but did find an empty dining room, so naturally I just changed in there.
This seemed like a good idea until I came back up there stairs and passed every single person who worked there who were now each staring at me and my handful of clothes that they had just seen me in, probably wondering why I just got undressed in the basement of their restaurant where there is no bathroom. We got out of there in a hurry thinking that we would never have to see those people again. Wrong. About four hours later we went back for borsch (you have to believe me--this stuff was really good).
We still desperately tried to hide from anyone who we recognized which was effective until we ran into one girl on our way out who actually laughed in our faces. We're positive they've been thinking all day about the Americans that took their clothes off in their restaurant. And who came twice in one day to eat borsch. And who don't smell so great. And who look incredibly sleep deprived.
But our real concern throughout the day had to do with where we were going to stay last night.
We had set up something through couchsurfing with a guy named Sergei who looked nice enough on his profile to trust with our lives. Right before we were supposed to meet him at his place, Matt happened to look at his profile again, in time to read a message I seemed to have missed when I initially searched for people in L'viv and sent him a request: "I have one room where i'm living, so i can share with it! There can be placed 2 people on my bed!" This was in the middle of several other things he wrote about how "L'viv is fan place!" and "come stay! 3 days is too many!"
We got to Sergei's apartment at 9:00PM wondering all day whether "there can be placed 2 people on my bed" meant what it sounded like (and optimistically coming up with thousands of other possible interpretations, none of which actually made any sense at all. But we were hopeful).
Our hopes were in vain as we entered Sergei's apartment and he showed us his room with the worlds smallest bed and optimistically told us, "I think we can all three fit there tonight!" He then pointed to Matt and explained, "it is good thing you are big zis way and not big zis way" (using hand gestures to explain that he is relieved to see that Matt is just tall and not fat). We enthusiastically agreed, trying desperately not to make eye contact because we knew we would lose it the second we did. We had a good conversation with him for a while before he told us we were welcome to go to bed if we wanted to.
I'm not sure that we really wanted to go to bed but we were incredibly tired from train off-roading the night before so off to bed we went. Sergei stayed up for a while in the kitchen while Matt and I lay in bed trying with all our might to gain composure, more freaked out that we were going to start laughing when he came to climb in with us than we were about sleeping with a stranger in the first place. There were a lot of jokes exchanged during this time that did not help us in our pursuit to either fall asleep or get really good at being stone-faced (there were suggestions that I should have told Sergei that Matt wets the bed every night).
The anticipation almost killed us and unfortunately neither of us were even close to being asleep when Sergei climbed in. Although we pretended to be. We pretended to be all night. Including every 45 minutes or so when Sergei attempted to cuddle with me in his sleep. He took up about half of the tiny bed, and we took the other half--although Matt had one arm on the ground the whole night, holding himself up in a half pushup as I inched closer and closer to him each time Sergei put his arm or leg around me.
We got up incredibly early and high-tailed it out of there after Sergei made me hold some rodent he had bought that day. Despite all of the strangess of the situation, I do have to say that he was incredibly nice and actually pretty normal to talk to. And we learned something new about what to look for on couchsurfing profiles.
We hoped to take a bus early today out of L'viv to Krakow but we couldn't get one until 10:00 tonight so we are lounging in L'viv for the day before another inevitably sleepless night.
Ok, we're off to the next adventure. Thanks for all your email responses. Sorry I don't have to time to write back individually--but it's good to hear from you anyway.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Finally in Kyiv
We made it to Kyiv a couple of days ago after the most miserable day of travel I've ever had in my life (and this is saying something because I've had some pretty miserable travel days in the last few years, including a 24 hour surprise layover in Russia where I wasn't allowed to leave the smoke filled airport due to visa restrictions and also the infamous Jordan/Israel "take to nearest police station" border crossing episode, which grandma recently referred to mid shudders as "that aweful aweful day"). It all started in SLC where a flight delay got me freaked out that I was going to miss my connecting flight in NYC where I was supposed to meet up with Matt to fly on to Paris and the from there, to Kyiv. The flight made it to NYC in time, however, not that it mattered because when I arrived I was told by Air France (aka, the WORST airline in the history of aviation) that I was nowhere in their records but not to worry because "we'll totally put you on standby for flights over the next day until we find you something suitable. Totally." After lots of panicked yelling (not the mean kind of yelling, but the productive kind), I was passed off to Delta (I think because it was Delta who I made the reseravations with in the first place) who was much more responsive to my productive yelling when I told them that I didn't care if they had to hire me as a flight attendant to put me on a flight that went through Iraq on an airline that came into existance that morning, I had to be in Kyiv by Saturday afternoon. This panic was because Matt had made the flight out of NYC and the thought of him rolling into totally unfamiliar and (let's be honest) not super friendly Kyiv airport (which is actually a good half hour drive outside of the city) was a little worrisome, particularly because I had no way to communicate with him to let him know that a) I was alive, b) I was coming to Kyiv at a later time, and c) when that later time was. Eventually the Delta people worked something out with a Russian airline (Aeroflot) where surprisingly nobody speaks any English at all, including the pilot who, to his credit, desperately tried to translate all of his messages throughout the flight until some point toward the end of it where he finally gave up. I think this didn't matter, however, because most of his translations ended up being an incomprehensible attempt at interpretation of about 2% of his original message. At one point he came on and spoke in Russian for about 4 minutes and then followed it in English with something that sounded like, "Hello. I'm pilot. I fly plane. Plane, he flying. Fly. All you need is love. Heppy birsday" followed by fragments of what I think was the pledge of allegiance. But it have also been lyrics to Lady Gaga's "Poker Face." (This is actually almost no exaggeration).
Of course the flight out of NYC left about 2 hours late (because when has a flight from JFK ever been on time). But I barely made my connecting flight in Moscow anyway (yes, I woke up in SLC and somehow ended up in Russia, never intending any of this). I rolled into Kyiv about 5 hours after Matt and frantically searched the airport until I found him, totally relaxed and, according to him, prepared to just make the Kyiv airport his permanent home until someone he knew showed up. I think Matt has never been stressed out in his life, which is probably something I should try to pick up from him because between the bar a few days ago and a few days without sleep mixed in with that travel day, I aged exactly 37 years and have started experiencing some bizzare hallucinations (which always happen at night and strangely always have to do with really large spiders above my head).
Anyway, we eventually got into the city a couple of days ago and met up with our first couch surfing friends Max and Natallia who live on the edge of Kyiv. They are probably the nicest people I have ever met in my life and I'm considering moving in with them permanently. They have two little boys (ages 2 and 3) and if I can figure out a way, I'm going to try to take one of them with us when we leave. I don't really care much which one but the older one is a little bit quieter so I think it will take them a few minutes longer to notice that he's missing. Max is a bishop in one of the Kyiv wards (he's a couple of years older than me and was called to be a bishop at age 24). We've mostly hung out with them over the last couple of days and it's been a lot of fun. Tonight we're going to try to make them Mexican food if we can remember how to make tortillas, which is iffy at best.
Yesterday we visited the temple site, which is really close to where we are staying, and then wandered the city for most of the afternoon and evening. We spent some time wandering around Big Mama, cautious of course because I'm still conviced that that thing is within minutes of coming to life and terrorizing the world with her giant mammoth head and sword (when I brought Krishelle, Will, Megan, Matthew, Andrea, and Stacee to see her 2 years ago, they had to undergo several months of therapy just to overcome the initial shock of seeing her. Big Mama is sort of the statue of liberty equivalent for Ukraine but she sits on top of the highest hill in the middle of the city and she is quite a bit bigger, plus somewhere around 600% scarier).
We'll go check out some great churches, including the catacombs and the Lavra today before hopping a train tonight to L'viv. We plan to stay in L'viv for probably just one day before heading off to Krakow.
Things are going really well so far. I'll probably touch base again in a few days. Hope everyone is doing well.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Of course the flight out of NYC left about 2 hours late (because when has a flight from JFK ever been on time). But I barely made my connecting flight in Moscow anyway (yes, I woke up in SLC and somehow ended up in Russia, never intending any of this). I rolled into Kyiv about 5 hours after Matt and frantically searched the airport until I found him, totally relaxed and, according to him, prepared to just make the Kyiv airport his permanent home until someone he knew showed up. I think Matt has never been stressed out in his life, which is probably something I should try to pick up from him because between the bar a few days ago and a few days without sleep mixed in with that travel day, I aged exactly 37 years and have started experiencing some bizzare hallucinations (which always happen at night and strangely always have to do with really large spiders above my head).
Anyway, we eventually got into the city a couple of days ago and met up with our first couch surfing friends Max and Natallia who live on the edge of Kyiv. They are probably the nicest people I have ever met in my life and I'm considering moving in with them permanently. They have two little boys (ages 2 and 3) and if I can figure out a way, I'm going to try to take one of them with us when we leave. I don't really care much which one but the older one is a little bit quieter so I think it will take them a few minutes longer to notice that he's missing. Max is a bishop in one of the Kyiv wards (he's a couple of years older than me and was called to be a bishop at age 24). We've mostly hung out with them over the last couple of days and it's been a lot of fun. Tonight we're going to try to make them Mexican food if we can remember how to make tortillas, which is iffy at best.
Yesterday we visited the temple site, which is really close to where we are staying, and then wandered the city for most of the afternoon and evening. We spent some time wandering around Big Mama, cautious of course because I'm still conviced that that thing is within minutes of coming to life and terrorizing the world with her giant mammoth head and sword (when I brought Krishelle, Will, Megan, Matthew, Andrea, and Stacee to see her 2 years ago, they had to undergo several months of therapy just to overcome the initial shock of seeing her. Big Mama is sort of the statue of liberty equivalent for Ukraine but she sits on top of the highest hill in the middle of the city and she is quite a bit bigger, plus somewhere around 600% scarier).
We'll go check out some great churches, including the catacombs and the Lavra today before hopping a train tonight to L'viv. We plan to stay in L'viv for probably just one day before heading off to Krakow.
Things are going really well so far. I'll probably touch base again in a few days. Hope everyone is doing well.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Friday, July 29, 2011
The Bar
The bar exam happened yesterday and the day before that. While full of entertaining procedures, I have to say that the test seemed to be run very well. We started early on Tuesday morning as all 500 or so of us spread out on plastic tables in a giant room while proctors wandered up and down the aisles checking on whether any of us had brought things into the room from the long list of prohibited items, which included anything not necessary to stay alive for up to 7 hours. Interestingly, the list of prohibited items seemed pretty unnecessary as the examiners provided an exhaustive list of acceptable items (which, I think, literally included only four things) that could cross the sacred threshold into test-haven. Nonetheless, the list of prohibited items included a range of things that I can only imagine somehow have the potential of concealing cheating, creating chaos, or aiding violence. I mention violence because "weapons" were actually on this list, which was unfortunate for anyone who had hoped to bring with them their lucky machete. Based on the 3,000 stern warnings we had received via email prior to the first exam day, I sort of expected to see TSA at the doors with full friskings and "nude" machines. Instead we were all mostly on the honor system, but a much more bizarre version of the honor system than any that I have ever experienced. Rather than try to explain to you the rules of this honor system, I'll provide an example of it: one friend of mine was asked to pat herself down in front of the doorman before entering the room, presumably because he wasn't comfortable patting her down himself. I never was quite sure what he expected from the self-pat down, however, and I also didn't hear whether he asked afterward if she discovered any prohibited items on herself during the quick investigation. But I wished that she had told him that during the course of her protective frisk she discovered that she was attempting to smuggle a shotgun into the testing area and thus should be immediately apprehended (this while simultaneously running away screaming, "you'll never catch me!").
The exam went without any real drama on Tuesday, although I did hear from multiple sources that someone had thrown up into a sink in the men's bathroom during the morning. Nobody knew who had done it but the talk of the lunch break was that the puke was bright orange, which I unfortunately heard about from half a dozen or so people who all seemed to be completely mesmerized by the abnormal color.
Perhaps the only entertainment of the day that wasn't disgusting was listening to the 30 minutes of instructions from Ms. Thang, explaining to us many things in painstaking detail that people should just be required to know in order to be alive. For example, she told us more than once that the top left corner of the test booklet is the one closest to the staple. We were also informed on multiple occasions that we were not allowed to take our test materials into the bathroom with us (presumably so they wouldn't get orange throw up on them). She repeatedly explained how to do tasks that each of us came out of the womb performing as she instructed us to fill out our personal information on the test materials. After each instruction she asked us to look up at her when we had completed the task so she would know when everyone was ready to move on. This seemed impractical, however, as all 500 of us were spread out so broadly across the room that there was absolutely no way whatsoever this woman could possibly have known when or if all of us were looking up at her. Fortunately we were given half of an eternity to finish each part of this process even though the most time consuming of any of the tasks constituted nothing more than filling in a couple of bubbles on a scantron bubble sheet.
Wednesday was more of the same only instead of typing essays for seven hours, we answered a couple hundred multiple choice questions. And just like that, it was over. There was some awkward clapping when we were finally released before the parking lot cleared out about 4 minutes later. There was no real intense feeling of relief when it all ended. A new sort of panic called "nothing-I-can-do-about-it panic" was immediately born, which perfectly replaced the old panic called "oh-shoot-the-test-is-in-blank-days-and-I-still-don't-understand-the-way-the-world-works panic." Neither is preferable to the other. Although the latter necessarily comes with embarrassment while the former, only the potential for it.
And now the last 24 hours have been a blur as I've attempted to get my affairs in order for a 5-week backpacking trip through eastern and central Europe with a friend (and a few family members, toward the end of it). Due to the bar (and general laziness) absolutely no plans have been made for this trip (stay tuned for some likely enlightening posts). My flight leaves five hours from now (at 8:30AM) and I just started packing. Obviously I'm feeling a great amount of urgency, as is evidenced by a much undeserved blogging break. My time management discipline has been a bit off since the test ended and I don't seem to have direction anymore. What's that saying? Idle hands are something about the devil? A penny saved is a penny earned? It takes one to know one? Don't look a gift horse in the mouth? As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death? Whatever it is, it applies here.
I'm very tired.
~It Just Gets Stranger
The exam went without any real drama on Tuesday, although I did hear from multiple sources that someone had thrown up into a sink in the men's bathroom during the morning. Nobody knew who had done it but the talk of the lunch break was that the puke was bright orange, which I unfortunately heard about from half a dozen or so people who all seemed to be completely mesmerized by the abnormal color.
Perhaps the only entertainment of the day that wasn't disgusting was listening to the 30 minutes of instructions from Ms. Thang, explaining to us many things in painstaking detail that people should just be required to know in order to be alive. For example, she told us more than once that the top left corner of the test booklet is the one closest to the staple. We were also informed on multiple occasions that we were not allowed to take our test materials into the bathroom with us (presumably so they wouldn't get orange throw up on them). She repeatedly explained how to do tasks that each of us came out of the womb performing as she instructed us to fill out our personal information on the test materials. After each instruction she asked us to look up at her when we had completed the task so she would know when everyone was ready to move on. This seemed impractical, however, as all 500 of us were spread out so broadly across the room that there was absolutely no way whatsoever this woman could possibly have known when or if all of us were looking up at her. Fortunately we were given half of an eternity to finish each part of this process even though the most time consuming of any of the tasks constituted nothing more than filling in a couple of bubbles on a scantron bubble sheet.
Wednesday was more of the same only instead of typing essays for seven hours, we answered a couple hundred multiple choice questions. And just like that, it was over. There was some awkward clapping when we were finally released before the parking lot cleared out about 4 minutes later. There was no real intense feeling of relief when it all ended. A new sort of panic called "nothing-I-can-do-about-it panic" was immediately born, which perfectly replaced the old panic called "oh-shoot-the-test-is-in-blank-days-and-I-still-don't-understand-the-way-the-world-works panic." Neither is preferable to the other. Although the latter necessarily comes with embarrassment while the former, only the potential for it.
And now the last 24 hours have been a blur as I've attempted to get my affairs in order for a 5-week backpacking trip through eastern and central Europe with a friend (and a few family members, toward the end of it). Due to the bar (and general laziness) absolutely no plans have been made for this trip (stay tuned for some likely enlightening posts). My flight leaves five hours from now (at 8:30AM) and I just started packing. Obviously I'm feeling a great amount of urgency, as is evidenced by a much undeserved blogging break. My time management discipline has been a bit off since the test ended and I don't seem to have direction anymore. What's that saying? Idle hands are something about the devil? A penny saved is a penny earned? It takes one to know one? Don't look a gift horse in the mouth? As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death? Whatever it is, it applies here.
I'm very tired.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Spam in the Final Hours
Well we're in the final days of battle preparation before we stampede into the great unknown. Three years of rigorous academic competition has now led us to the final hurdle for becoming whatever it is we've been trying to become for however long it's been since we started trying to become it. The bar exam starts on Tuesday this week. The bar exam is a magical mechanism by which a bunch of grumpy attorneys test and then grade hundreds of state applicants on their knowledge of 20 or so complicated legal topics, 3 of which may actually be applicable to their future careers. Some have compared it to fraternity hazing. I think though that the analogy fails because the "hazers" standing on the other end can't possibly enjoy watching any of this take place, especially having to waste the rest of their summers away grading garbled nonsense spewn out in 7 hours or so of essay typing as panicked and exhausted career beggars dump all 400,000 things they've crammed or attempted to cram into their brains, in no particular order.
My friends and I are spread broadly across the nation this evening, celebrating Pioneer Day in unison by closing up the books and calling it an early night. Annette Thacker's pony-tail has become permanently affixed to the top of her head by now (a true sign of panic) and Corey Boyd's apartment looks like a den of schizophrenics with papers strewn about containing diagrams and phrases written in giant squiggly handwriting as Boyd walks through it speaking somehow even faster than she normally speaks. I've seen or communicated with both of these super-humans and wondered if I could possibly have any claim in passing the bar exam if these two seem at all concerned. In any event I feel the bond in the air as 150 of my closest friends, once again, feel the same thing at the same time, the same way we have all felt the same things so many times before. Gosh I love my battalion.
This week as I began to study one morning I noticed that an old friend was logged onto Facebook. I clicked on his picture and attempted to instant message him, starting out by calling him an offensive-in-some-circles word that had sort of a special meaning to us over the years. Instantly I realized that I had in fact clicked on the wrong picture and instead had clicked on a person who is older, conservative, professional, and absolutely would not think what I had said was funny. In my 3 seconds of absolute panic, I immediately began typing: "heeeey, :) I just won a free ipod!!! This is ToToAlLy LEGIT man!!!! :)-"
Yup. That's right. I pretended to be spam. It apparently worked as I got a message from him a little later saying: "Eli, I think your facebook got hacked! I'm so sorry! I just got a really weird message from you. You may need to change you password." Deception, successful. Soul, less.
Ironically this was the day I visited the prison and subsequently vowed to never ever do anything wrong ever again, including parading myself as spam online to avoid consequences of my carelessness.
Anyway, off to the bar. Please send all positive vibes my way. I would also appreciate sacrificing firstborns if you've got one to spare.
~It Just Gets Stranger
My friends and I are spread broadly across the nation this evening, celebrating Pioneer Day in unison by closing up the books and calling it an early night. Annette Thacker's pony-tail has become permanently affixed to the top of her head by now (a true sign of panic) and Corey Boyd's apartment looks like a den of schizophrenics with papers strewn about containing diagrams and phrases written in giant squiggly handwriting as Boyd walks through it speaking somehow even faster than she normally speaks. I've seen or communicated with both of these super-humans and wondered if I could possibly have any claim in passing the bar exam if these two seem at all concerned. In any event I feel the bond in the air as 150 of my closest friends, once again, feel the same thing at the same time, the same way we have all felt the same things so many times before. Gosh I love my battalion.
This week as I began to study one morning I noticed that an old friend was logged onto Facebook. I clicked on his picture and attempted to instant message him, starting out by calling him an offensive-in-some-circles word that had sort of a special meaning to us over the years. Instantly I realized that I had in fact clicked on the wrong picture and instead had clicked on a person who is older, conservative, professional, and absolutely would not think what I had said was funny. In my 3 seconds of absolute panic, I immediately began typing: "heeeey, :) I just won a free ipod!!! This is ToToAlLy LEGIT man!!!! :)-"
Yup. That's right. I pretended to be spam. It apparently worked as I got a message from him a little later saying: "Eli, I think your facebook got hacked! I'm so sorry! I just got a really weird message from you. You may need to change you password." Deception, successful. Soul, less.
Ironically this was the day I visited the prison and subsequently vowed to never ever do anything wrong ever again, including parading myself as spam online to avoid consequences of my carelessness.
Anyway, off to the bar. Please send all positive vibes my way. I would also appreciate sacrificing firstborns if you've got one to spare.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Monday, June 27, 2011
Snake Infestation
Recently my well-meaning sister Krisanda sent me a link to an article that I never should have read. The article was about a snake infestation in a house in southern Idaho. There are about 300 reasons I never should have read this article. Topping the list are: it involves snakes, Idaho is too close for me to feel apathy, I have enough other terrible stuff to lose sleep over, and I'm so behind on my bar study right now that I should be strapped to an uncomfortable chair and have my eyelids removed with nothing but the giant stack of bar prep books strewn about in front of for the next month if I expect to ever catch up (also meth would help).
But I read it. Not initially, but I read it after about a week of letting it take up space in my inbox. The pressure mounted and finally I popped the sucker open and read all of the horrific details until I lay curled up in the fetal position on top of the highest, flattest, clearest surface I could find while humming songs from my childhood that I thought might bring me back to my "happy place" (which is a tropical beach with no animals). And I know what you're saying to your computer right now as though I can hear you: "Oh jeez. I've read that article and they are just garter snakes. Calm the heck down." To you, antagonizer and unsympathetic close-minded electronic heckler, I respond: "I wouldn't care if it was even just one garter snake that was four inches long and died while saving a family of puppies from a fire. Once even that snake is discovered within reach of a person's property, that person should have a Constitutional right (and I don't hand those out often) to prompt the president to declare a national state of emergency and have the whole town evacuated. Also, I hope you're doing well. I'm sure we haven't seen each other for a while (and maybe we've never met). I love what you've done with your hair."
But once the shock of the possibility of the thought of a snake infestation subsided and I began to see color again in the world (several days later), I was left with one lingering concern. During this snake infestation, the man of the house took the initiative to sweep the property and collect the snakes in buckets in order to protect his family, one time going so far as climbing through the crawl space under the house through a man-covered snake den to survey the extent of the problem. While conceding immediately that if ever I'm on any kind of committee that has a say in this, I will absolutely and without reservation support this man going straight to heaven no matter what he does for the rest of his life, I was left wondering if this kind of gall is a prerequisite for manhood. I've always seen men do things of this nature without flinching simply because (and say this next part in a gruff man voice) "it needed doin'!" Case in point, the dead bird massacre of three years ago where Bob scooped a rotting, once-flying beaked animal off the ground while I lay inside with a warm washcloth over my forehead. And I don't mean to assign this special bravery to men alone. In fact one of the biggest "it needed doin'!" people I know happens to be my younger sister Micalyne who I once saw eat a sandwich made out of cookies, bbq sauce, ranch dressing, lemons, lunch meat, mayo, brownies, and a number of other unidentified substances, just to win a game (she also spent about four years changing adult diapers and showering biting geriatrics in the Alzheimer's wing (another straight-to-heaven candidate)).
So the real concern is whether I can never be a man unless I'm at least theoretically willing to do the snake sweep in order to protect my family and property. If this is a requirement for manhood, I, without a doubt, am at least one requirement short of achievement. If I hypothetically had a home, wife, and children (hypothetically, because hypotheticals are all I have) and I became aware that a snake could possibly be somewhere on the property, I would immediately call the house from a long-distance number (because I would have caught the first flight out of town before doing anything else), tell my wife to leave everything but the children and get as far away from the town as possible, and then pay someone to set the entire property on fire. Twice. Then I would send a tractor to dig up the whole property and this would be followed by a duster plane that would cover the land 12 times with anthrax. The property would be re-burned every six-months for the next decade. Once the ten years were up, I would sell the property (from a remote location) to bad people. Note that never during that explanation did I ever say I would have anything to do with weaseling my way around in a crawl space under the house to survey the problem.
My friend told me over the phone the other day (I've been talking about this with a lot of people) that I just need to wait to buy a home until I can afford to pay people to take care of all of the snake-type situations and then I will never have to worry about having to do it myself or feeling like less of a man for letting the problem fester. In this way, he claimed, I could effectively buy my manhood. If this is true, it may be my only way. Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated.
And I'm really not kidding about the cookie sandwich. I even have pictures.
~It Just Gets Stranger
But I read it. Not initially, but I read it after about a week of letting it take up space in my inbox. The pressure mounted and finally I popped the sucker open and read all of the horrific details until I lay curled up in the fetal position on top of the highest, flattest, clearest surface I could find while humming songs from my childhood that I thought might bring me back to my "happy place" (which is a tropical beach with no animals). And I know what you're saying to your computer right now as though I can hear you: "Oh jeez. I've read that article and they are just garter snakes. Calm the heck down." To you, antagonizer and unsympathetic close-minded electronic heckler, I respond: "I wouldn't care if it was even just one garter snake that was four inches long and died while saving a family of puppies from a fire. Once even that snake is discovered within reach of a person's property, that person should have a Constitutional right (and I don't hand those out often) to prompt the president to declare a national state of emergency and have the whole town evacuated. Also, I hope you're doing well. I'm sure we haven't seen each other for a while (and maybe we've never met). I love what you've done with your hair."
But once the shock of the possibility of the thought of a snake infestation subsided and I began to see color again in the world (several days later), I was left with one lingering concern. During this snake infestation, the man of the house took the initiative to sweep the property and collect the snakes in buckets in order to protect his family, one time going so far as climbing through the crawl space under the house through a man-covered snake den to survey the extent of the problem. While conceding immediately that if ever I'm on any kind of committee that has a say in this, I will absolutely and without reservation support this man going straight to heaven no matter what he does for the rest of his life, I was left wondering if this kind of gall is a prerequisite for manhood. I've always seen men do things of this nature without flinching simply because (and say this next part in a gruff man voice) "it needed doin'!" Case in point, the dead bird massacre of three years ago where Bob scooped a rotting, once-flying beaked animal off the ground while I lay inside with a warm washcloth over my forehead. And I don't mean to assign this special bravery to men alone. In fact one of the biggest "it needed doin'!" people I know happens to be my younger sister Micalyne who I once saw eat a sandwich made out of cookies, bbq sauce, ranch dressing, lemons, lunch meat, mayo, brownies, and a number of other unidentified substances, just to win a game (she also spent about four years changing adult diapers and showering biting geriatrics in the Alzheimer's wing (another straight-to-heaven candidate)).
So the real concern is whether I can never be a man unless I'm at least theoretically willing to do the snake sweep in order to protect my family and property. If this is a requirement for manhood, I, without a doubt, am at least one requirement short of achievement. If I hypothetically had a home, wife, and children (hypothetically, because hypotheticals are all I have) and I became aware that a snake could possibly be somewhere on the property, I would immediately call the house from a long-distance number (because I would have caught the first flight out of town before doing anything else), tell my wife to leave everything but the children and get as far away from the town as possible, and then pay someone to set the entire property on fire. Twice. Then I would send a tractor to dig up the whole property and this would be followed by a duster plane that would cover the land 12 times with anthrax. The property would be re-burned every six-months for the next decade. Once the ten years were up, I would sell the property (from a remote location) to bad people. Note that never during that explanation did I ever say I would have anything to do with weaseling my way around in a crawl space under the house to survey the problem.
My friend told me over the phone the other day (I've been talking about this with a lot of people) that I just need to wait to buy a home until I can afford to pay people to take care of all of the snake-type situations and then I will never have to worry about having to do it myself or feeling like less of a man for letting the problem fester. In this way, he claimed, I could effectively buy my manhood. If this is true, it may be my only way. Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated.
And I'm really not kidding about the cookie sandwich. I even have pictures.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Monday, June 13, 2011
Utah Valley Marathon
The Utah Valley Marathon happened yesterday. The race organizers did an incredible job and the weather was perfect. This was my fourth marathon and fortunately my best, in many ways. Nonetheless, it was still chuck full of hilarity (the main reason I put myself through these things).
For a dramatic recount of last summer's marathon experience in SLC, see this. You can assume that most everything written there is a pretty accurate description of this marathon as well, with a few differences.
Pre Race:
We had to catch the shuttles in Provo that took us to the starting line at 3:30AM (because, as usual, the race organizers wanted to make sure we were standing by, somewhere up in the dark cold mountains, hours before the gun went off). Most people spent this time standing in a slow-moving line for one of the 3,000 porta-potties. These lines remained 30 people long each, right up until we all heard the sound of a gun at 6:00 when all immediately stopped hoping for relief and sprinted toward the starting line, meaning that dozens upon dozens of people presumably started the race carrying more than they had hoped. Fortunately more porta-potties lined the course throughout the remainder of the 26 mile adventure, although sadly for those in the back, conditions were likely less ideal inside the by-that-time-highly-trafficked-by-tired-and-desperate-people potties.
Miles 1-10:
I ran the race with my friend David, expecting him to eventually split away from me and probably set some kind of world record. But at least for the beginning of the race we stayed together. We also tried to stay relatively close to one of the designated pacers who held up a protest-type sign on a stick for the entire race saying that he was on pace to run a 3:10 (Boston qualifying time for men in their 20s). For this period of the race David and I recounted word for word our favorite episodes of Friday Night Lights.
Miles 10-15:
Somewhere in this space David got ahead of me (never to be seen again) as I ran with the 3:10 pace group. Running with the pace group could be compared somewhat to living a self-help book with a group of strangers. The pacer was possibly the most positive human-being of all time; this is the kind of person you would like to punch on normal days but find yourself trying to stick as close to without touching like a parasite that fees on positive emotion when having to run 26 or so miles. So our parasitic relationship lasted until mile 15 where I stopped to use a porta-potty, only to find that the pace group apparently didn't feel the need to wait for me (and after all that we had been through together). It was probably about time for us to split anyway. Not only was I out of my league with that group, but one of them smelled like he should have used a porta-potty himself around mile 10 but probably didn't want to experience the abandonment that I braved at mile 15.
Miles 16-23:
We saw the mouth of the canyon ever approaching as we climbed a few more surprising inclines (surprising because I never bothered to check out the course before the race to find out that it actually wasn't a 26 mile free-fall like I had originally assumed when I heard we would be running down a canyon, but rather a long road with ups and downs and an overall small net-loss). At about mile 19 an aid station handed out more energy gel packs (our third offering). I accepted (because I was in no position to decline aid by this point) but then desperately asked every runner within earshot whether eating a gel pack that late in the race would really kick in and benefit me in time. As I asked I found myself silently begging all of them to tell me there was no use by this point so I would feel justified in not eating another one of those terrible things that has the texture of your grandma and tastes like your great-grandma. The general consensus was that it was still worth it, and so I sucked another one down, dramatically shuddering and whimpering for the entire 8 seconds that it took to complete one long continuous swallow.
Miles 23-23.7:
Micalyne jumped in after not having run 12 feet in about 4 years (this little girl was once one of the fastest runners in the state and is not shy to admit that baby-raising and a dozen other impressive pursuits has led her to slower pastures in recent years . . .). Typically by this spot in a marathon I'm going at a speed that is slow enough to make my family and friends on the side-lines pretend that they don't see me when I go by so they don't commit social suicide by claiming me through cheering in front of all of the other spectators. So Micalyne probably thought this would be no different. But I was actually maintaining a pretty good speed when I met up with her so our little stint didn't last very long. Nonetheless, her words of encouragement were both motivational and comforting during my time of great need. For that short stint, I heard some of the following (if you read these in a WWF wrestler voice, they are much more entertaining):
Micalyne: YOU LOOK STRONG! YOU LOOK POWERFUL! PUSH YOURSELF!
Miles 23.7-26.2:
We approached Corey who now jumped in as Micalyne's motivational speech suddenly came to a complete halt and she exited the race without saying goodbye. Corey, being a great friend, immediately took over the role of inspirer, using an approach that differed dramatically from Micalyne's. After pressing play on her phone in hand to serenade me with her favorite collection of Britney Spears songs (just what I always wanted (note: sarcasm); she claimed she had a Paul Simon song ready to play as well but I never did hear it . . .) she began her own string of motivational statements that differed dramatically from Micalyne's:
Corey: Your haircut looks great! Also I really like your running outfit! Most of the people we've seen go by are dressed terribly. You wouldn't believe it! Like, their clothes are really loose. It's like, "hello? You're running a race! Wear clothes that fit you!" Why aren't you responding to me? It's really awkward to talk to you when you don't respond.
Somewhere around this point, the statements turned into self-compliments:
Corey: Guess what?! I didn't eat any chocolate yesterday! So I guess we're BOTH accomplishing big things right now. And my hair also looks super good. And I'm running so fast with you right now!
We then ran through the last of the aid stations where I think I literally took over one-dozen cups of fluids from the 10 or so people holding out water and Powerade (and just so we're clear, the proper use of the word "literally" is the only strict confinement of hyperbole I consistently hold myself to). I felt like a monster running through that line, grasping for everything placed in front of me with both hands, and pouring it onto my face just in time to grab another. I actually took three cups at once from the last guy. As I finished going through the line I heard shocked laughter from the volunteers behind who likely felt like very recent victims of a rapid and violent pillaging. It was at this point that Corey said something in a tone that clearly indicated that she thought this was the most important accomplishment of the day:
Corey: Those people back there think you're so funny! I bet they all want to be your friend!
Shortly after this we approached the final few blocks and Corey disappeared as mysteriously as she came. I realized that she and Micalyne had successfully motivated, distracted, and entertained me during the most difficult part of the race, and I'm incredibly grateful to both of them
I finished with a 3:22. I was pleased with it. It's a 14 minute personal record for me and the first marathon I've run without feeling the need to be hospitalized the next day. As usual it was incredibly hard and for the rest of the day I vowed never to do one again. But the memories of misery are slowly slipping away and I'm starting to wonder if maybe I have a few more left in me. But much of it will depend on whether they can find a way to make the power gel packets edible.
~It Just Gets Stranger
For a dramatic recount of last summer's marathon experience in SLC, see this. You can assume that most everything written there is a pretty accurate description of this marathon as well, with a few differences.
Pre Race:
We had to catch the shuttles in Provo that took us to the starting line at 3:30AM (because, as usual, the race organizers wanted to make sure we were standing by, somewhere up in the dark cold mountains, hours before the gun went off). Most people spent this time standing in a slow-moving line for one of the 3,000 porta-potties. These lines remained 30 people long each, right up until we all heard the sound of a gun at 6:00 when all immediately stopped hoping for relief and sprinted toward the starting line, meaning that dozens upon dozens of people presumably started the race carrying more than they had hoped. Fortunately more porta-potties lined the course throughout the remainder of the 26 mile adventure, although sadly for those in the back, conditions were likely less ideal inside the by-that-time-highly-trafficked-by-tired-and-desperate-people potties.
Miles 1-10:
I ran the race with my friend David, expecting him to eventually split away from me and probably set some kind of world record. But at least for the beginning of the race we stayed together. We also tried to stay relatively close to one of the designated pacers who held up a protest-type sign on a stick for the entire race saying that he was on pace to run a 3:10 (Boston qualifying time for men in their 20s). For this period of the race David and I recounted word for word our favorite episodes of Friday Night Lights.
Miles 10-15:
Somewhere in this space David got ahead of me (never to be seen again) as I ran with the 3:10 pace group. Running with the pace group could be compared somewhat to living a self-help book with a group of strangers. The pacer was possibly the most positive human-being of all time; this is the kind of person you would like to punch on normal days but find yourself trying to stick as close to without touching like a parasite that fees on positive emotion when having to run 26 or so miles. So our parasitic relationship lasted until mile 15 where I stopped to use a porta-potty, only to find that the pace group apparently didn't feel the need to wait for me (and after all that we had been through together). It was probably about time for us to split anyway. Not only was I out of my league with that group, but one of them smelled like he should have used a porta-potty himself around mile 10 but probably didn't want to experience the abandonment that I braved at mile 15.
Miles 16-23:
We saw the mouth of the canyon ever approaching as we climbed a few more surprising inclines (surprising because I never bothered to check out the course before the race to find out that it actually wasn't a 26 mile free-fall like I had originally assumed when I heard we would be running down a canyon, but rather a long road with ups and downs and an overall small net-loss). At about mile 19 an aid station handed out more energy gel packs (our third offering). I accepted (because I was in no position to decline aid by this point) but then desperately asked every runner within earshot whether eating a gel pack that late in the race would really kick in and benefit me in time. As I asked I found myself silently begging all of them to tell me there was no use by this point so I would feel justified in not eating another one of those terrible things that has the texture of your grandma and tastes like your great-grandma. The general consensus was that it was still worth it, and so I sucked another one down, dramatically shuddering and whimpering for the entire 8 seconds that it took to complete one long continuous swallow.
Miles 23-23.7:
Micalyne jumped in after not having run 12 feet in about 4 years (this little girl was once one of the fastest runners in the state and is not shy to admit that baby-raising and a dozen other impressive pursuits has led her to slower pastures in recent years . . .). Typically by this spot in a marathon I'm going at a speed that is slow enough to make my family and friends on the side-lines pretend that they don't see me when I go by so they don't commit social suicide by claiming me through cheering in front of all of the other spectators. So Micalyne probably thought this would be no different. But I was actually maintaining a pretty good speed when I met up with her so our little stint didn't last very long. Nonetheless, her words of encouragement were both motivational and comforting during my time of great need. For that short stint, I heard some of the following (if you read these in a WWF wrestler voice, they are much more entertaining):
Micalyne: YOU LOOK STRONG! YOU LOOK POWERFUL! PUSH YOURSELF!
Miles 23.7-26.2:
We approached Corey who now jumped in as Micalyne's motivational speech suddenly came to a complete halt and she exited the race without saying goodbye. Corey, being a great friend, immediately took over the role of inspirer, using an approach that differed dramatically from Micalyne's. After pressing play on her phone in hand to serenade me with her favorite collection of Britney Spears songs (just what I always wanted (note: sarcasm); she claimed she had a Paul Simon song ready to play as well but I never did hear it . . .) she began her own string of motivational statements that differed dramatically from Micalyne's:
Corey: Your haircut looks great! Also I really like your running outfit! Most of the people we've seen go by are dressed terribly. You wouldn't believe it! Like, their clothes are really loose. It's like, "hello? You're running a race! Wear clothes that fit you!" Why aren't you responding to me? It's really awkward to talk to you when you don't respond.
Somewhere around this point, the statements turned into self-compliments:
Corey: Guess what?! I didn't eat any chocolate yesterday! So I guess we're BOTH accomplishing big things right now. And my hair also looks super good. And I'm running so fast with you right now!
We then ran through the last of the aid stations where I think I literally took over one-dozen cups of fluids from the 10 or so people holding out water and Powerade (and just so we're clear, the proper use of the word "literally" is the only strict confinement of hyperbole I consistently hold myself to). I felt like a monster running through that line, grasping for everything placed in front of me with both hands, and pouring it onto my face just in time to grab another. I actually took three cups at once from the last guy. As I finished going through the line I heard shocked laughter from the volunteers behind who likely felt like very recent victims of a rapid and violent pillaging. It was at this point that Corey said something in a tone that clearly indicated that she thought this was the most important accomplishment of the day:
Corey: Those people back there think you're so funny! I bet they all want to be your friend!
Shortly after this we approached the final few blocks and Corey disappeared as mysteriously as she came. I realized that she and Micalyne had successfully motivated, distracted, and entertained me during the most difficult part of the race, and I'm incredibly grateful to both of them
I finished with a 3:22. I was pleased with it. It's a 14 minute personal record for me and the first marathon I've run without feeling the need to be hospitalized the next day. As usual it was incredibly hard and for the rest of the day I vowed never to do one again. But the memories of misery are slowly slipping away and I'm starting to wonder if maybe I have a few more left in me. But much of it will depend on whether they can find a way to make the power gel packets edible.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Sunday, June 5, 2011
The Way the World Works
Have you ever gone to a road race? There is one thing that is certain to happen at literally every single road race that is ever planned: they will not have your shirt size. This is absolutely the case 100% of the time. No exceptions whatsoever. They will, however, have hundreds of t-shirts that are 2 sizes larger than anyone could possibly ever wear who would be interested in running a road race. They will have exactly 0 smalls, 4 mediums, 75 larges, 2,000 XLs, and roughly 8 million XXL-XXXLs (and this all despite the fact that only 200 people registered to run). And I am absolutely positive that nobody who has ever run a road race has ever wanted anything larger than a large and 98% would prefer a small. This is even more ridiculous when the race is a marathon (although maybe not as I am regularly passed in marathons by overweight middle-aged men who don't seem to be straining themselves--this is depressing for many reasons, not the least of which is that this is evidence that regular exercise is no guarantee, apparently, of anything. Interestingly in last year's marathon the large group of overweight middle-aged men were all dressed as the Statue of Liberty. I never did find out why this was the case but I was embarrassed for humanity).
Races don't have the market cornered on nonsensical order decisions. I am always floored that in every store I ever enter I can find a pretty similar ratio of clothing items. Some have argued that surely the store ordered an equal number of sizes initially and the smaller sizes just sold more quickly because the smaller sizes fit actual people. To this I have two responses: first, this does not explain why the ratios are so imbalanced even when the item is clearly new, and second, if it really is the case that the normal sizes are selling more quickly, then why on Earth wouldn't the store order more in those sizes in the first place?
And these stores have other problems as well: I went to Sears recently. At least I think I did. I pulled up to a large building that looked like it had been shot-out during the Civil War. When I walked in I had the distinct impression that this store had been shut-down in 1985 and they just forgot to lock the doors. I noticed a sign pointing me to the appliances, which apparently were located in the basement. When I got there and asked spandex lady with a Sears name tag where a certain item might be located, she informed me that that appliance was on the third floor with some of the other appliances (all of this amid cackles, the source of which I never really understood). When I arrived on the third floor after walking up the escalator (yes, walking. It of course was not working at the time) I searched for a while until I found butterfly eyelashes girl who was about 40 years younger than spandex lady but equally helpful. Butterfly eyelashes girl nodded and assured me that what I was looking for was located in the basement. Feeling like I was well on my way to getting caught in an eternal loop (and at Sears, the happiest place on Earth), I explained to her what spandex lady had told me (but without the mysterious cackles) to which butterfly eyelashes responded, "well . . . it sounds like you figured out that we don't have any then." I know I just gave one out recently, but I would like to officially award butterfly eyelashes the Tellin'-it-like-it-is-award. She seems like the type who has probably earned it every day of her life.
Because I'm the easiest customer in the world to please, I'm sure I'll go back. Maybe they have a pile of XXL t-shirts I can dig through.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Races don't have the market cornered on nonsensical order decisions. I am always floored that in every store I ever enter I can find a pretty similar ratio of clothing items. Some have argued that surely the store ordered an equal number of sizes initially and the smaller sizes just sold more quickly because the smaller sizes fit actual people. To this I have two responses: first, this does not explain why the ratios are so imbalanced even when the item is clearly new, and second, if it really is the case that the normal sizes are selling more quickly, then why on Earth wouldn't the store order more in those sizes in the first place?
And these stores have other problems as well: I went to Sears recently. At least I think I did. I pulled up to a large building that looked like it had been shot-out during the Civil War. When I walked in I had the distinct impression that this store had been shut-down in 1985 and they just forgot to lock the doors. I noticed a sign pointing me to the appliances, which apparently were located in the basement. When I got there and asked spandex lady with a Sears name tag where a certain item might be located, she informed me that that appliance was on the third floor with some of the other appliances (all of this amid cackles, the source of which I never really understood). When I arrived on the third floor after walking up the escalator (yes, walking. It of course was not working at the time) I searched for a while until I found butterfly eyelashes girl who was about 40 years younger than spandex lady but equally helpful. Butterfly eyelashes girl nodded and assured me that what I was looking for was located in the basement. Feeling like I was well on my way to getting caught in an eternal loop (and at Sears, the happiest place on Earth), I explained to her what spandex lady had told me (but without the mysterious cackles) to which butterfly eyelashes responded, "well . . . it sounds like you figured out that we don't have any then." I know I just gave one out recently, but I would like to officially award butterfly eyelashes the Tellin'-it-like-it-is-award. She seems like the type who has probably earned it every day of her life.
Because I'm the easiest customer in the world to please, I'm sure I'll go back. Maybe they have a pile of XXL t-shirts I can dig through.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
The End of the World
In case you hadn't heard yet, the world is ending on May 21st (this coming Saturday). See http://www.wecanknow.com/. These people mean business. When I tried to order a bumper sticker from them this afternoon, I was told that it's too late because "with our Lord's Return such a short time away, we are no longer offering free printed materials since there is not enough time remaining for us to effectively produce and distribute them." (And by the way, I would like to take this time to formally award wecanknow.com the "Tellin-it-like-it-is" award. Congratulations. May you join the short list of mind-speakers proudly).
When I saw this, I thought, maybe I should stop studying for the bar. I mean, I don't have that much to lose because they've given me a date that's close enough that I don't forfeit much if I alter my week plans in vein. Had they listed May 21st of next year as the date, it would be a trickier decision. On the one hand, if I stopped everything boring that I was doing and the world did in fact end when predicted, then I would have made out pretty well in that situation. Of course if I wasted the year and nothing happened after all, I would be pretty upset with someone.
But Saturday? I could blow some pretty miserable things off this week, because there's no sense in memorizing a bunch of stuff about criminal punishments if God is going to swoop down and take care of it all with his own form of due process just four days from now. If he doesn't show up, I can make up four days pretty quickly.
Other things you may want to consider blowing off this week:
1. Brushing your teeth
2. Exercise
3. Eating sushi just so your friends think you're cultured (it doesn't really have that effect anymore anyway).
4. Planning your summer family reunion (especially if you're ordering t-shirts (see wecanknow.com message above)).
5. Yard work (it may all get burned up on Saturday anyway)
6. Anything at your job that has a deadline post-May 21st (you're probably pretty safe to hold off for now)
7. Don't start Crime & Punishment. In my experience it will take more than six years to finish it (I did read 3 pages recently, in case you wanted an update on my progress. But it's going back on hold until after May 21st).
8. Calling any customer service line to get a problem resolved (especially if it's Dell or T-Mobile, in which case you may be on the phone until the judgment day no matter when it comes anyway).
9. Buying anything from Costco. You won't get through it in time and it will take you an hour to find what you're looking for.
10. Dieting. I mean, you probably don't want gluttony to be listed among your final acts, but there's really no point in starving yourself for the next four days if there will be no need to have a beach body this summer.
I only wish I had heard about this before my long run last Saturday where I actually attempted to drink out of a river because (surprise, surprise) I somehow forgot, again, that my body needs fluid when I exercise in the blazing sun for two hours at a time. Fortunately I stopped myself from river-drinking after noticing a dead animal half-way in the water just four feet up-stream (it was a May miracle).
Anything else anyone would like to hold off on until we're sure that there will be a next week?
On the bright side, if the world does end, at least that means that "Glee" won't return for a third season.
~It Just Gets Stranger
When I saw this, I thought, maybe I should stop studying for the bar. I mean, I don't have that much to lose because they've given me a date that's close enough that I don't forfeit much if I alter my week plans in vein. Had they listed May 21st of next year as the date, it would be a trickier decision. On the one hand, if I stopped everything boring that I was doing and the world did in fact end when predicted, then I would have made out pretty well in that situation. Of course if I wasted the year and nothing happened after all, I would be pretty upset with someone.
But Saturday? I could blow some pretty miserable things off this week, because there's no sense in memorizing a bunch of stuff about criminal punishments if God is going to swoop down and take care of it all with his own form of due process just four days from now. If he doesn't show up, I can make up four days pretty quickly.
Other things you may want to consider blowing off this week:
1. Brushing your teeth
2. Exercise
3. Eating sushi just so your friends think you're cultured (it doesn't really have that effect anymore anyway).
4. Planning your summer family reunion (especially if you're ordering t-shirts (see wecanknow.com message above)).
5. Yard work (it may all get burned up on Saturday anyway)
6. Anything at your job that has a deadline post-May 21st (you're probably pretty safe to hold off for now)
7. Don't start Crime & Punishment. In my experience it will take more than six years to finish it (I did read 3 pages recently, in case you wanted an update on my progress. But it's going back on hold until after May 21st).
8. Calling any customer service line to get a problem resolved (especially if it's Dell or T-Mobile, in which case you may be on the phone until the judgment day no matter when it comes anyway).
9. Buying anything from Costco. You won't get through it in time and it will take you an hour to find what you're looking for.
10. Dieting. I mean, you probably don't want gluttony to be listed among your final acts, but there's really no point in starving yourself for the next four days if there will be no need to have a beach body this summer.
I only wish I had heard about this before my long run last Saturday where I actually attempted to drink out of a river because (surprise, surprise) I somehow forgot, again, that my body needs fluid when I exercise in the blazing sun for two hours at a time. Fortunately I stopped myself from river-drinking after noticing a dead animal half-way in the water just four feet up-stream (it was a May miracle).
Anything else anyone would like to hold off on until we're sure that there will be a next week?
On the bright side, if the world does end, at least that means that "Glee" won't return for a third season.
~It Just Gets Stranger
Sunday, May 8, 2011
The Public Library
I am technically finishing up two jobs right now before I take the bar in July. One is at the Attorney General office and the other is with the professor I've worked with for a few years. She and I are desperately trying to finish up a paper ASAP on online contracting (my apologies to the 4% of you who got so bored that you died just now). What this means is that I'm sort of splitting my days, spending a little time on each project. I occasionally attempt the contract research at public locations rather than at home, knowing very well that the "at home" option is not one that I'm capable of performing without long naps on the floor. It always starts out with the best of intentions, usually with me sitting up straight and alert with a laptop in front of me, repeating motivational statements out loud with the occasional fist pump. Then within 3 minutes I make the first mistake of finding a blanket to wrap myself in. About 30 seconds later I decide that I'll be more productive if I lay down on the floor, even though I know very well that trying to type and research while lying down is actually incredibly uncomfortable. It's usually 2 minutes after that that I begin my 6-8 hour nap (nap for me=laying silently, but awake, thinking about things that will never, ever, be important, like how much weight could I lose before dying* or would I be able to distinguish between people if everyone was bald**).
So having learned my lesson on more occasions that I would like to admit, long ago I decided that work-time can never happen at home for me. Fortunately I'm quite productive when in public places, partly because I have this totally irrational fear that people are judging me if I'm on Facebook or YouTube instead of a website that looks incredibly boring. This is most irrational when my choice of work venue takes me to the Salt Lake Library where I'm probably not only the only person who has anything productive to do at all, but I'm also the only person who is not screaming at someone across the table with a mullet about whose turn it is to do laundry (I'm actually not kidding when I tell you I have witnessed this exact argument by two separate couples at the library in the last week). I think, naturally, adults without children who hang out at the public library in the early afternoon on a weekday don't have much going on.
Yet despite the entertainment happening around me, I'm still able to get quite a bit done. That was until the other day when the following conversation took place (names have been changed):
Man: Do you have a cigarette?
Woman: Does it look like I do?
Man: You always have a cigarette.
Woman: You already owe me like 900 cigarettes.
Man: No! I gave you some beer yesterday!
Woman: Oh yeah. Well like 200 then.
Man: That's more like it. So can I have a cigarette?
Woman: Fine. But you can't smoke in the library again. (Again?)
Man: Fine, I'll go outside.
Woman: And not just downstairs like last time. You have to go outside.
Man: I know!
Woman: And we can't smoke in front of the kids no more. They don't brush their teeth enough as it is. The last thing we need now is for their teeth to rot because they're smokin'.
So many things I'm learning in the public library: some beer is roughly the equivalent of 700 cigarettes, you shouldn't smoke if you're a child and you don't brush your teeth often enough, and the public library smells like cigarettes apparently because people can get away with smoking inside. Mystery solved on that last one.
~It Just Gets Stranger
*70lbs
**No
So having learned my lesson on more occasions that I would like to admit, long ago I decided that work-time can never happen at home for me. Fortunately I'm quite productive when in public places, partly because I have this totally irrational fear that people are judging me if I'm on Facebook or YouTube instead of a website that looks incredibly boring. This is most irrational when my choice of work venue takes me to the Salt Lake Library where I'm probably not only the only person who has anything productive to do at all, but I'm also the only person who is not screaming at someone across the table with a mullet about whose turn it is to do laundry (I'm actually not kidding when I tell you I have witnessed this exact argument by two separate couples at the library in the last week). I think, naturally, adults without children who hang out at the public library in the early afternoon on a weekday don't have much going on.
Yet despite the entertainment happening around me, I'm still able to get quite a bit done. That was until the other day when the following conversation took place (names have been changed):
Man: Do you have a cigarette?
Woman: Does it look like I do?
Man: You always have a cigarette.
Woman: You already owe me like 900 cigarettes.
Man: No! I gave you some beer yesterday!
Woman: Oh yeah. Well like 200 then.
Man: That's more like it. So can I have a cigarette?
Woman: Fine. But you can't smoke in the library again. (Again?)
Man: Fine, I'll go outside.
Woman: And not just downstairs like last time. You have to go outside.
Man: I know!
Woman: And we can't smoke in front of the kids no more. They don't brush their teeth enough as it is. The last thing we need now is for their teeth to rot because they're smokin'.
So many things I'm learning in the public library: some beer is roughly the equivalent of 700 cigarettes, you shouldn't smoke if you're a child and you don't brush your teeth often enough, and the public library smells like cigarettes apparently because people can get away with smoking inside. Mystery solved on that last one.
~It Just Gets Stranger
*70lbs
**No
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