Friday, April 09, 2010

Slaughterhouse 65

START TIME: 10:32 PM
END TIME: 11:33 PM
WORD COUNT: 525

“Write a diary entry.” –Ken Faikus

Dear Keyboard,

Today was full. There was no work of the occupational variety, which granted me one day where everybody could conceivably hate me behind my back without worrying about my potential appearance. There was a great deal to accomplish but there was no set time frame in which to accomplish it. I was awake early enough considering the lateness of the checkout time last night and I don’t think I slept late enough to inspire any resentment. I got the pictures done that I said I would do this morning and got those sent over after three tries. The camera saves the pictures with preposterously high detail and the SMTP servers for Google don’t allow this sort of foolishness.

Looking back on the day I think that I got everything done that I needed to. I remembered that I forgot the scotch tape when I was inadvertently reminded at 9:30 and I remembered that I forgot the maple syrup at 6 PM when I was on my way someplace else. I remembered to buy lucky cereal and I’m laughing sardonically at the last time that I had any of it, which now seems more than a million miles away.

I didn’t eat very well today but I ate sufficiently. I did work out for an hour, running a glacially slow three miles and doing an abdominal workout. I renewed for another year at the gym and gleefully noted that the charge for my membership comes to 50 cents a day.

I took [my girlfriend’s] bike to McGhies to get tuned up and prepared for her fitting on Monday afternoon. I said hello to old friends at the bike shop and caught them up on the lives of those around me that they knew about.

They still ask how Nannette’s doing; I mentioned she just moved back out west. She’s now done triathlon camps and is looking to race more seriously. [My ex-wife] is doing a triathlon. [My girlfriend] is doing a triathlon. All around me are people training, people getting faster, people thinking of what that first race is going to be like. The first race is one of those experiences I would gladly not do over again; the bottomless nerves, the swimming paranoia, the confusion, the endless obsessing over transition. Give me the cold dreary professionalism and thousand yard start of my third race in Chicago, or my third in San Diego, or the fourth Las Vegas Triathlon. Races where I could identify the climbs by where specific weeds were growing on the side of the road, where every speck of what I was feeling was already burned in my muscles from years prior. The first of anything is always the worst when you never know what to expect.

The kids are doing great and ate well, they found each other’s Easter eggs and helped out and had fun playing together. They fell asleep as quickly as I wanted to, but I had writing and such to take care of. There are things to do, people to meet, and places to be tomorrow. Today was pretty good and tomorrow will be even better.

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