Route 153

1,000 November 21, 2012

I go to the gym. I bike. I ice skate. I take walks. I do yoga. I am dabbling in tai chi. Sometimes Tim gets me to try to balance on a moving skateboard.

And I still work out on my NordicTrack CX 990 elliptical cross trainer.

I’ve often sung its praises in the pages of this blog. I had to replace a wheel a couple of years ago—an overpriced part that turned out to be completely worth it. I celebrated its 500^th workout back in 2008 (I say its because other people account for maybe 5–10 workouts). Even then, I was happy that it had served me so long and well.

Yesterday, it hit 1,000.

So, if I were to repeat that celebratory 500 announcement, simply filling in new numbers, it would go something like this:

A beloved member of my Route 153 household today celebrates the reaching of a milestone in a decimal society. My NordicTrack CX 990 elliptical cross trainer—age approximately 7 years, 10 months—has provided its 1,000th workout.

NTCX990, I still love you.

And to my blog friends: I’m sorry I’m a workout nerd. I just am.

Now, off to 1,001.

KL November 18, 2012

I have never been to Kuala Lumpur. What little I know of it comes from watching shows on the Travel channel, like Tony Bourdain doing a food tour through KL’s mixed Malay/Chinese/Indian culture. I’m familiar with the Petronus Twin Towers, of course, briefly the tallest buildings in the world and scene of scary heights in the film Entrapment. I understand that by simply writing those two sentences, I am putting my vast ignorance on display.

So it’s funny to think I have a friend in KL—one of those friends I’ve never met. A blog friend. Damyanti recently mentioned me in one of her blogs, Writing on Writing: Amlokiblogs, in a post called “I Miss You: The Bloggers We Really Miss.” Me!

That Damyanti. I can always count on her for a good kick in the pants.

Damyanti is one of those people I think of as a “real writer” in that she truly devotes her life to her craft and works hard at it all the time. I admire that. I’m a little intimidated by it. When I think about real writers, I am sometimes likely to feel less obligated to write, because real writers are putting good stuff out there that is truly worth people’s time. (Read Damyanti’s haunting, lovely tales in her A to Z Stories of Life and Death, available on Kindle, Nook, and other formats!)

But thinking about real writers keeps me coming back to why I—if I don’t think of myself as a real writer—blog. One reason is to make myself write, of course (a helpful tool as an editor), but blogging has morphed into a way to keep in touch with people all over the world: my virtual pen pals. That’s why I’m here. Most of us met through a year-long project that began almost seven years ago, and when it was over, we needed to still hang out. Damyanti then found me on a follow-up let’s-keep-writing project, I believe during one of her Internet searches that had something to do with Italy.

Ahhh, Italy.

And here we are.

Of course, I’ve been letting work and life get in the way of posting. I will try to do better, even when I think I have nothing to say. I will wave to you in Malaysia and New Zealand and Canada and across these United States.

See? Look at me waving!

Skunk(s) November 15, 2012

I do not mind the one or two or three I sometimes see gathered under my bird feeder, feasting on dropped sunflower seeds. What they eat I don’t have to clean up. What they eat the mice don’t get.

But the feeder sits along the driveway, and they are too focused to notice when their world has suddenly lit up. Perhaps they don’t care. My car inches toward them. If necessary, I tap the horn. Eventually, they scatter to one side of the garage or the other.

On the rare occasion that I can’t get them to move, I park at the end of the drive and use the front door. I do not think they would spray me; they seem quite peaceful. But I respect their space.

I have neighbors who seem to find them quite threatening. I suggest that those neighbors make no sudden moves.

I have been feeling oddly fond of the skunks recently, calling them to come back! from the safety of my back door.

According to Wikipedia, skunks occasionally “may be found acting as scavengers, eating bird and rodent carcasses left by cats or other animals.” Lately we have been releasing a lot of rodent carcasses into the wilds of our yard. I like to think someone is getting a decent meal.

Maybe the one whose back is so, so white.

Slap November 7, 2012

I go to the staff meeting, and the executive director tells us that Mitt Romney has been elected president. The board of trustees, therefore, will continue to get everything they want, even though they are clearly out of touch with our membership and are micromanaging the staff.

That dream woke me up last night. Tim and I went to bed early, figuring there was no way there’d be firm election results at a decent hour. Besides, we were worried our man wouldn’t win. Why torture ourselves?

At 5:27am, I made a trip to the bathroom, knowing that in 3 minutes, when our alarm went off, we’d have our answer.

“Who do you think won?” Tim asked when I crawled back into bed. “I dreamed that Romney did,” I said.

What an amazing, almost shocking, relief we then experienced.

And states voting—instead of legislating—for gay marriage? People voting for civil rights? The election of an openly gay senator? What a glorious slap to my cynicism!

My dream was really about work. And about the country. And about work.

I wonder how many of our trustees voted for Romney.