the day after born to run

i just got back from a night run in brooklyn. it's my first run since completing christopher mcdougall's "born to run". burned out runners, scientists, anthropologists, and most of all aspiring runners. you've got to check this book out. and run like the wind "leaving no trace upon the ground" while you are reading it because when it is done and you are back to the literary same old same old your legs are going to get a little heavier.

i just had my first slow feeling run in weeks. slow feeling because i'm not going to wear a watch for awhile and i won'tlook up my route on google pedometer so i can't say for sure how far i went or how fast. running free of these things is only the most itty bitty step towards running like an ultra marathoner. and king of the ultra marathon is the tarahumara indian (pictured). dwellers of the copper canyons of mexico and running in bright red blouses and sandals - they never got the memo that running is bad for you. they are still of the mind that we are "born to run". mcdougall focuses on this group of born to runners after his physical therapist tells him his knees hurt because our bodies aren't made to run. mcdougall doesn't buy it and over the course of 300 pages he's convinced me of the same. going on runs while reading the book i too was convinced i was born to run.

end of book report - a few more random thoughts:

i'm going to run my third half marathon this spring. 13 mile racers are a dime a dozen but what is significant for me is that i never ran further than 6 miles until i tore my left knee and recovered from surgery just in time to put down six 10 minute miles in the third leg of the nyc triathlon. i used a deliberate shuffle kind of stride where my only focus was to stay out of pain. ever since i've been able to run longer distances.

abrupt segue to my wife in the next room watching the biggest loser show on tv. in preparation for this spring's race and - hopefully - subsequent triathlons i just used my birthday money to buy a swim class for the winter. it will be the third time i'm taking level II swimming for triathletes. the last time, 3 years ago (1 year B.A. - before Alexandra) i dropped 10 pounds from my weight of 15 years: from 185 to 175. i was too skinny. ever since the A.A. era (after Alexandra) i've weighed 215. not fat for a guy who's 6'-4" but a whole lot heavier than i want to be.

i'm in the middle of a terrific maragaret atwood book about life after THE flood (a time when running would be a useful skill) but it's just not providing the same inspiration on my runs as "born to run" did. again - my highest commendations to the book you can count on me rereading as i approach the starting line for next year's racing season!

sandbox diaries #1

i wanted to write the occasional post on the antics that occur in or near the parks' sandboxes. pictured here is the 3rd street sandbox - it's the one i pictured when i was thinking of writing and i snatched this pic via image search.

notice the resident toys. each day starts with a set of them. some parents (foolish parents) drag some of their own kids toys up there. it sets the scene for a lot of tug of warring and "mine-ing". what a mess. can't say i love doing time in the sandbox.

lori said i should write down some of the stuff that happens at the playground. crazy stuff. take this one:

we have these neighbors - their kids go to alexandra's daycare. for awhile there we were seeing them 2 times a day. now just once. but the crazy thing is they don't recognize us. which makes this story possible.

alexandra and i were eating a snack on the bench at jj byrne playground - there is a patch of grass in front of the old stone house. and there was B and his mom. they were playdating with another mom and son. each boy about 4 years old.

they had one of those drugstore playballs and the kids were wrestling - equally matched and having fun over it. at one point our neighbor mom started a game of kickball. when the 4 year olds couldn't get it she showed them how and with the full force that her wide as tall brickhouse body could muster she kicked the ball hard and fast into the forehead of her son's playmate.

the tough little guy flipped backwards but for some reason didn't cry. and for some other reason his mom happened to be looking the other way and missed it. i thought the kid was knocked out and alexandra looked at me like "whoah."

the neighbor/brickhouse mom gave an awkward giggle then looked about before trying to head towards the kid. admit her guilt. but since the mom had been looking the other way and neither of the 4 year olds saw what had hit them she realized no one could prove she did it.

so my neighbor/brickhouse/model parent just walked the other way. the knocked down 4 year old bounce back to his feet like the playball that had hit him and kept on going.

but neighbor/brickhouse/model parent/guilty party there were eyeball witnesses in me and my daughter. busted. just another day in the park. stay tuned.

stokke'd

11am just back from a park slope parents classifieds collection run of a baby sling (free) and a ketter tricycle (free) - and there is a note in lori's inbox that we're first in line to buy a used eames rocker.

the whole classifieds operation (imagine craigslist but we are all clones transitioning tikes through small apartments unloading free range plastic goods for cheap) is a post in and of itself - maybe another time.

what i wanted to write about was the walk home. as though i were wheeling gold bullion home in my granny cart i took the first protective measure to wrap the chair in an opaque tarp. i don't think twice about flashing my ipod in the neighborhood. i had just counted $100 bucks in the open outside chase on 7th avenue. but i'll be damned if i'm foolish enough to wheel an eames rocker through the tree lined streets of park slope!

a year ago our neighbor moved out of her place with her son and their things. the movers brought out her stokke crib before they had room for it on the truck and so it sat at the foot of the truck unattended for a second or two here and there. would you believe that no less than three perps tried to wheel off with it...as though it had been discarded curb side...next to a moving van. from that day forward we call this type of white collar theft - stokke'ing.

the return mission was a success - i was pretty sweaty and skittish but the wolves didn't stokke me. welcome to the family and move over ikea now there's something meatier.

sensitive area

this is a sensitive subject for a sensitive area: flushable wipes. whoever said "soft/smooth as a baby's bottom" wasn't lying. so very soft - and smooth. wish i could say the same of my 33 year old bottom. which makes me ask all you guys - why do they get wipes and not me?

of the many things our baby girl and her needs have brought into my home - i am most fond of the flushable wipe. more precisely the excuse to have flushable wipes in the home.

us young dads are part of a small club that's in the know. seriously ask the young dad closest to you and he'll know what i'm talking about!

celebrites too:
terrence howard
howard stern
saddam hussein
brad pitt

further reading:
man of exception blog
The Ass Wipe Network
A Wet Wipe Manifesto

why don't they have more teachers on talk shows?

better late than never i was introduced to the late great frank mccourt during a string of obituaries and recorded interviews that ran on the radio last monday night. i was tempted to head out to the bookstore that night to buy 'angela's ashes' but opted to wait until friday when i finished the other book i was reading.

i picked it up on the way to the f train and when we came out of the tunnel in brooklyn a woman leaned across the train aisle and asked if i had had mccourt for a teacher. i said no had she? and she had - as an english teacher in 10th and 11th grade. she went on to make some small talk and worried that she had wasted time in his class but she left me to my reading adding. 'they say his memoir [angela's ashes] is made up - that a child could never recall all those facts. but i saw him twenty years after i had left his classroom and he asked how both of my parents were by name and even remembered the street i lived on. the facts in that book are not made up."

i'm loving lunch and train commutes with the memoir - a terrific work. thanks to my train friend i have a trust for the book i may not have had otherwise. but my biggest take away from our conversation was the impact that a single english teacher can have on a student. i too wasted away so much of my english classes (in 2001 i actually felt compelled to write my old teacher mrs. h to say that i had finally learned to enjoy reading/studying). most of all i thought of my wife lori.

(pictured: lori and class at the gates opening, 2004. lori second from right. the girl next to her still stops to chat with us when we see her on 5th ave.)

lori is currently wrestling with a phd dissertation, a draft of which has already won the praise of her adviser. she's already feeling the pressure to aim for the stars and land a gig in an academy of 'higher learning'. but she's a damn good high school english teacher.

frank mccourt wrote a some great works but the greatest work he spoke of when interviewed were his students. we live near lori's school so run ins with grads are frequent. i guess this is a blog post to say how much it means to them/us/me to have her in the classroom.

nothing like work to scare some play into you!

friday 5pm and my boss pays a visit saying he hates to say it but we need to pull weekends in order to hit a june 19th deadline. i get scared and so does the young associate dad next to me and we manage to stave of weekend work until next weekend...given the short notice. nothing like the threat of work to scare you into play. here's what we did this weekend - put forth in bullet points in homage to middle management efficiency:

• friday night date night. lori and i paint the restaurant "sette" red with a $20 gift certificate. we walk in just as steve buscemi (killer imdb list!) walks out. gotta love brooklyn.
• afterwards we hit the park slope food coop - in and out in a flash.
• finally on to hagen daas for cones and back to the house in 2 hours time. try keeping that kind of speed while pushing a stroller.
• saturday morning playdate with e,b, and s. bagels.
  
• site supervision on a renovation project next door in construction.
• tell landlord we're moving out of his place and into afore mentioned renovation. he says find a replacement tenant.
• call back in 30 minutes with replacement tenant.
  
• put baby down for nap. work in backyard on a kitchen redo design.
• baby wakes up, we go get (more) ice cream, kitty litter. then bbq and eat posrk chops.
• play in yard, lori goes back to coop, alexandra and i dance down to my krs-one pandora channel.
• put alexandra to bed, back to autcad. turn on danny stiles saturday night radio program - "best rcords from the 1900's"!
• work butt of on the kitchen design until 1am.
• download entire krs-one discography from this torrent. sorry kris i know i owned it all at one point or another. there will never be another one like KRS.
• sunday am sleep in till 8:30 woken up by baby girl to be told mommy has made bacon and eggs.
• lori's hair smells like bacon rest of the day and i love it.
• go for walk with alexandra, meet a, j, and s at a grassroots bike sale. saw a great raleigh there with "rod brakes"which i had never seen before but loved. hope my friend james buys one.
• salami, fresh mozarella, red pepper, olive oil, black pepper sandwich with the gang in our backyard.
• siesta with lori - family nap until 5pm. whoah!
• grilled bone in chicken breasts with bbq sauce. tricky to cook to proper temp but i think i nailed it.
• listen to neighboring community center's christian rock band through the window. not too shabby. maybe it was my calling? (hope my in laws are reading). church!
• administer scissor surgery to a big toenail that's falling off. kinda gross, kinda awesome.
  
• ice cream
  

and that brings us to now - a 10pm blog before i head to bed. what a weekend! i wonder how i'll squeeze an 8 hour work day in the office into that next weekend...stay tuned!

ever google your unborn child's prospective name?

right now we are choosing between:



















and:







(presumably the gentleman in the middle)

i'm leaning towards the namesake of the shirtless fellow.

incidentally this is our daughter's name's rightful owner:

facebook friend triangle

i've been putting this post off because it's about facebook. and how do i make a single concise post about facebook? is it weak of me to admit that i love this social network thing? that its rise is perfectly timed with my new father shut-in phase each night from 8pm on? baby to bed, boot up laptop, fb!

so i'd like to frame this post around the 'facebook friend triangle'. i googled for an article on this concept but couldn't find one. maybe i'm making a scoop here? anyway a facebook friend triangle is when you make friends with someone and start snooping. are they fat? married? dating the opposite gender since the last time i saw them? and finally you root through their friends. and whammo they know another one of your friends and you never knew it. small small world.

i just made my fourth facebook friend triangle.

1. brian (a friend of a friend i met at a party) knows julio (who i work with) because they went to architecture school in pr together.

2. csl (in my triathlon club) knows cdb (who was my wife's roommate who moved to nyc the first week of september, 2001) because they both have written for the nytimes.

3. bethany (my wife's former coworker) knows sarah (my sister's old soccer teammate) as a fellow teacher at her brooklyn high school.

4. and candice (first person i met at virginia tech during summer orientation) who knows chris (who i've been friends with since i was 7) because she loves to dance to his dirtybird records dj sounds.

anyone else felt this phenomenon?