Races Like a Girl

There’s a new Internet meme on the loose. I like this one, because it was compelling enough to have me lying awake at night thinking about how to respond.

But first, here’s a helpful, timely interview about memes, and Internet memes specifically, with the man who originally coined the phrase, Richard Dawkins.

Now that you know what a meme is, here are the parameters:

1. Answer this question: if you had the chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be?
2. Pick 6 people and give them this award. You then have to inform each that she has gotten this award.
3. Thank the person who gave you the award.

A case of arrested development

There are lots of things I wish I’d done differently. When I first started thinking about this little meme, I found it difficult to pick one. But eventually I realized that my regrets all tied back to one essential flaw. Or maybe it’s not a flaw. More like a failure to, for whatever reason, reach a state of self-awareness that most people achieve fairly early in life.

I did not see myself as a wholly autonomous actor in my own life until fairly recently, meaning within the last, eh, maybe eight years? Before that, I made wildly dramatic decisions and took risks that would seem to indicate a great deal of autonomy and confidence. But I think that’s called overcompensation.

No, I was pretty much along for the ride in most aspects. I’d make a big decision (e.g., move to New York after high school, borrow a shit-tonne of money to go to grad school, start a business, etc.), entrench myself, fully committed…but from there pretty much let external circumstances or other people define the outcome of those experiences.

The unfortunate result of this failure to reach what I suspect is a critical milestone of emotional development is that my life’s trajectory has been neither smooth nor predictable. And it’s never felt under my own control. Again, until recently.

I have been extremely lucky to have had, through the past couple of decades, a few relationships and pursuits that have served as an anchor to which I could tether myself. Or maybe the better nautical analogy is water wings I could strap on so I could finally go from treading water to learning how to actually swim.

Unfortunately, my previous “follower” nature, along with my tendency to avoid all forms of confrontation, meant that for a long, long time I attracted and tolerated the wrong kinds of people and situations. I saw myself as moving air molecules aside as I made my way through the world, but that was the extent of my impact. I guess it comes down to not having a clue that I mattered. You can imagine how the absence of that essential missing brick in one’s personal foundation affects the life that is built upon it. Bad relationships are endured. Good ones, unrecognized, go to seed or, worse, are torpedoed for stupid, clueless reasons. Dreams are concocted, but plans never made.

Could I have done anything to change this arrestation of personal development? Probably not. But I still regret it.

Anyway. Things are better now. I have no idea why. I suspect I went through, albeit slowly, whatever range of life experiences I needed to in order to earn my “emotional intelligence” and “self esteem” merit badges. I do credit running with having helped in some indirect way. Or maybe directly. My brain functions better when training and I’m overall a happier person. The actions I take while “on running” are not the desperate gambits of the past, but conscious decisions that include active plans for follow-through: to try to make something original and valuable out of nothing (Houston Hopefuls); to ask — and hold out — for what I want (I’m turning down projects/clients that are not a good fit for me); to keep my mind open to new experiences, however scarily foreign or seemingly extravagant (going somewhere new to altitude train for 4-5 weeks).

I know people who are very private in their online lives. I’m not one of them, although I can be impenetrable in person. I don’t think of myself as an “oversharer,” or exhibitionistic. (Although when I read something like this, I’m not so sure.) I do know that some of the best relationships I’ve found and fostered have come as a result of being authentic on this blog. People who sort of knew me in “real life” came to know me better. People who didn’t know me at all decided they wanted to. Perhaps I come across as a navel-gazing fruitcake. But I’m recognized by the right fellow fruitcakes, all of whom are most assuredly not navel-gazers. So something’s working.

If you were hoping for something less amorphous, like “I wish I’d stuck with those ballet lessons in third grade,” my apologies.

Six people, six insights

I suspect you’ll get some interesting responses from these people. I know some of them well. Others, I just wish I knew better.

• Susan (she’s my sister; she’s also got a running blog)
• Kevin
• Anti-blogger (not her real name)
• Kim
• Jaymee
• Caroline (author of this guest post, which is one of the better items I’ve ever posted to this blog)

Thanks, Joe

Joe, who tagged me in this meme, is one such “online-to-offline” discovery, although he might bristle at being included in the fruitcake category. He’s a thinker and a careful reader, he gathers information, he loves a debate. He holds strong opinions, but his mind is open to new data and points of view and, beyond that, he works to connect people for the purpose of creating discussion and sharing information. He’s also upbeat and fun to talk to.

Filed under: everyday life | 6 Comments »

It’s funny that on the weekend that I am tasked with redoing my résumé in order to satisfy the procurement requirements of a creative agency that would like to hire me for some freelance work, I have also been offered the challenge of describing myself in the style of a Time Magazine cover article.

It’s 3:06 on Saturday and thus far I have managed to avoid touching my dusty CV with all manner of legitimate and illegitimate distractions. I did 90 minutes of stretching and strengthening exercises, people. I think that should more than make up for the fact that I was watching this at the time.

Just as I was about to fire up the teakettle and get to work, TK’s challenge arrived. You can read about the details here. But it’s basically like a sophisticated version of Mad Libs (I know; I’m dating myself.) Since writing funny shit about myself is much more enjoyable than trying to describe my dubious skills to an anonymous HR person, I’m going to answer her call (although I’m breaking form by not using all caps). I’ve still got all day tomorrow, after all. Or maybe I can kill two birds and just make this my résumé:

One of the humans admiring them is Julie Threlkeld. Threlkeld is a member of another perennially threatened species, the pessimistic, repressed introvert with no sense of direction. But she’s not as sanguine about it as others. She’s grateful to be smarter than a box of hammers. She’s a physically sturdy woman, 5 ft. 5 in., with linebacker shoulders and legs resembling tree trunks, but her posture is not so much hunched as unconcernedly collapsed. At 45 (she was 44 before her last birthday), Threlkeld gets carded regularly, which mystifies her given that her hair is as heavily salted as a large serving of fries from Arthur Treacher’s. For awhile her hair was blonde. But that was bankrupting her, financially and otherwise. Can we stop with the hair now?

Okay. Who’s next?

Filed under: everyday life | 3 Comments »

I can’t sit quietly in a parking lot for five minutes without another human being engaging with me in a negative way. Why is this? I deliberately avoid engaging with strangers. But for some reason I’m weirdo bait.

Today was not the greatest of days. I spent the morning being therapeutically mauled, which was an exhausting and painful experience. As part of this process, I was given instructions for stretching and strengthening. Naturally, these called for more pieces of equipment: resistance bands and a medicine ball. Jonathan was told to try gel inserts. Fine. We’d go after lunch.

The first stop was CVS. Our destination? The foot care aisle. But upon getting out of the car I noticed a sticky substance along the floorboard of the driver’s side (I always drive; it works for us). A Hammer Gel, lodged in the door pocket, had exploded from the heat and leaked. So Jonathan went ahead while I took a few moments to clean up the mess.

I travel with paper towels, water and extra clothes in the trunk. Band-aids and a flashlight too. You’d think I’d been a Girl Scout, but I rejected that racket when I learned we had to sell cookies door to door.

Did you know that when you open the driver’s side door and then subsequently pull the trunk release lever on a 1997 Toyota Camry LE Sedan that this combination of actions will cause all of the doors to lock? I learned about this feature today.

There they were, on the passenger seat: my car keys, along with my bag containing my wallet, phone and iPod. I knew Jonathan had no car key because he never drives. I limped into CVS and gave him the bad news.

While I mulled over what to do (go to a pay phone and get a cab? Borrow someone’s phone and call Geico’s roadside assistance?) Jonathan was practically running away. Which was impressive since not only was he wearing sandals but he also has not been able to run for close to two months.

We were about 1.5 miles from home. He figured he could hoof it there and back with a car key in about 45 minutes. He was eager to solve this problem. I was experiencing mounting pain in my hip again, as I’d forgotten to take a painkiller. Off he went before I could think about alternatives. As I watched his retreating figure I wondered if he’d remembered to bring his house keys.

So now I had to kill 45 minutes. I had no money, no form of distraction and I was in pain. I made my way over to the edge of the parking lot, found a shady spot and sat on the curb. This was pathetic. I played with my watch and observed fat people going in and out of Dunkin’ Donuts.

Then, excitement. A kid, about 17, came blasting across the lot on one of those Razor scooters. He attempted to use a smoothed over section of curb as a ramp and proceeded to fall ass over teakettle right in front of me. He lay immobile on his back for a few seconds, then got up and looked at me with a combination of anger and sheepishness.

“Are you alright?” I said, more out of obligation than concern. Asking this made me feel old all of a sudden. Matronly.

He picked up the scooter and sulked off.

Three minutes later he returned, looking very agitated. He disappeared among the storefronts, then returned to the scene of his accident.

He asked me a question, which I thought was “Did you see me fall?”

Oh, great, I thought. He’s thinking of suing CVS and wants a witness. Why me? I also thought this was an incredibly dumb question. Of course I saw him fall.

“Uh, yes.” I offered.

“Well, where is it?”

This confused me.

“What? Where’s what?”

“My phone.”

“Oh.” This kid needed elocution lessons. “Your phone. No, I thought you asked if I saw you fall. I haven’t seen your phone.”

This enraged him. He raised the scooter and hurled it to the ground. “FUCK!!!!”

Okay, so now I know I’m dealing with a chimpanzee and not a bonobo.

“I lost my fucking phone!” He starts frantically looking under the shrubbery, continuing his rant. “The person standing next to me when I find it is going to get it. I’m going to shoot up everyone in this place.”

O. Kay. Time to get over to where more people are.

But I can’t walk without looking like a spastic. I lurch and wince. I suddenly have a reluctance to appear weak. I don’t want to be the injured gazelle that gets taken down.

So I just sit there, waiting to see what he’ll do next.

He stomps off again, searching for his phone.

By the time he returns for a third look around, I’ve managed to hop my way over to the Dunkin’ Donuts entrance, where I lean in the blazing sun. This he finds suspicious. I worry that he’s going to come over and demand his phone. I’m ready to tell him to fuck off because I’m having a worse day than he is, and let the chips fall where they may.

He leaves me alone. Minutes later, Jonathan shows up, now in running shoes, with keys. He’s run the 1.5 miles back. He says his legs feel very fresh. He’s not angry or annoyed, as I thought he’d be. He seems, if anything, perky. The day’s looking up.

Filed under: everyday life | 6 Comments »

I realize it’s only been a few days since I last posted, but it feels longer than that. Or maybe it’s because so much of my posts have had to do with either The Green Mountain Relay or weird keywords people use to get to this site. It doesn’t feel like a site about my training anymore.

Maybe that’s because what I’ve been doing lately hardly qualifies as training. I’ve more been throwing in a few quality runs between races. I think I’ve raced something like 13 races so far this year (more like 16 if you could GMR as three races, which I kinda do). I’m not sure because I haven’t posted a report for every single one on the Races page. That, along with the Stats page, has been somewhat neglected.

Why all the neglect, you ask? Well, I’ve been working my ass off, for one thing. I’ve run my own little company since 1995. We have many clients, but for the past seven years one — IBM — has dominated my workdays. I’ve basically been a FT freelancer for them all this time, helping to manage one of their websites. In addition to that, I do lots of other editorial-related work for other people. So working 50-60 hours per week (sometimes more) has become the norm during many months of the year.

Jonathan works on his own projects most of the time (he’s the other half of my corporate empire of two). If we’re lucky, which is about 20% of the time, we get to work on projects together, which means we can have arguments over lunch, followed by accusations of sexual harassment. (I’ve often said that we could really clean up with a lawsuit against ourselves. Although the costs for defense would probably bankrupt us.)

About a month ago  I reached a couple of tipping points. For one, I realized that most of the freelance clients we had that were not IBM were paying us a great deal more than I was making working for them. I could slave away from them for 40 hours, or work for someone else for 20 or less and still come out ahead. I was finding that I had to turn down work to accommodate my 9-5 gig, and that was frustrating from a business standpoint.

Then I launched Houston Hopefuls while at the same time pursuing other running journalism projects (I hope to get paid for my first one soon). Those projects are quite time consuming. So in addition to 60+ hour weeks, I was piling on another 10-20 for these other interests, usually feeling too mentally drained to focus on them properly when I was working on them.

Where was the time left for basics, like, well, running, for one thing? And then there are other things like shopping, cleaning, paying bills, filing forms, hiring people to fix problems with our house. We were slipping into what I call “Our Lives Are Falling Apart Mode.” Mung gathers on the bathroom sink, the cat goes checkup/shotless, and we eat boring dinners that can be cooked in 15 minutes. I can tolerate living this way for limited periods, but lately it was becoming the norm, with no relief in sight. That was not acceptable.

So a week ago Monday I took a big step and dropped IBM as a client. I’m still working for them through mid-July at reduced hours, to tie up loose ends on projects, but I’m basically out of there. I may eventually work for them again in a purely editorial capacity — but that’s probably at least a year down the road, since the consensus seems to be that it will take that long for the people in the fancy chairs to realize they may have cut too deep and need to start rehiring.

Now I’m doing writing, editing and content strategy full time, having jettisoned the last vestiges of my somewhat fuzzy job description that basically amounted to web project manager/traffic cop. I am very happy with this new state of affairs. I love writing and the work I’m doing now (a lot of technology and finance writing for some big corporate clients) is interesting and even fairly creative at times. So my mind is engaged, but now it should only be taxed for around 40 hours a week, leaving lots more hours and brain cell processing cycles for other projects.

This week I worked Monday but I’m off until Sunday (when I need to get rolling on a freelance thing that’s due on Tuesday). Yesterday I got back to work on Houston Hopefuls, editing one interview and prepping for the next one. Today I’ll work on the interviews I did with the elites at the Mini 10K, even though they are quite late in coming. I hope they’re still of interest, since my questions were not related to that race per se. Then we spend a few days with family members whom I should have seen much earlier than this.

Last week felt like a watershed of sorts. I spent the previous weekend up in Vermont taking part in an event that was all-consuming. I was having a great time and didn’t have the mental space to think about anything else. But it was fun being there and knowing I was going to give myself some relief on Monday in the form of dropping IBM, and in doing so definitively reprioritize some things that are important to me.

Last but not least, the one nagging worry (besides ending up a bag lady, but that’s always there) was put to rest yesterday. Before the relay I’d gotten called back for a followup ultrasound after an iffy mammogram. At 40 I hit the age in which regular mammograms are expected. Now, at 45, I’m in False Positives territory. Everyone I know has them, and ruling things out is a matter of one unpleasant (and often invasive, painful or both) procedure or another. For me, it was getting an ultrasound and watching as the technician honed in on what appeared to be a grandfather clock in my left tit. She must have taken at least 200 glamor shots of it, with lots of circling and note-taking thrown in, just in case the drunken or glaucomic radiologist missed it. As I wrote to a friend, it was something so obvious that it was practically waving at us.

I braced myself for another round of breast mauling upon my return from Vermont. And at one point I found myself thinking, “Wouldn’t it suck if I had this great weekend, dropped a job I’ve been unhappy in for several years, got this running journalism thing going — and then learned I had cancer?” Yes, that would suck. On a truly colossal scale. I tried to put it out of my mind.

So, in addition to everything else good that’s happening these days, add in the absence of a very bad thing.

It’s a beautiful day today — the humidity is gone and it’s actually cool outside. Time for a run.

Filed under: everyday life | 17 Comments »