In an effort not to let myself dwell on *ahem* my back situation, I've brought in another member of the Horsie family.
This started as a diversion tactic but has turned into something better. My horse, whom I own, is the victim of a horrible, did-you-go-to-the-online-farrier-school, shoer. Lightly put, the front part of his hooves are curling around and back into in the sensitive white part of his hoof. This is not something that happened overnight but over the span of about seven months. Coincidentally, how long I've been using this person.
Anyway, think of walking around with ingrown toenails on all ten of your piggies and running a marathon in ill-fitting shoes. What's the first thing to come into mind? Pain. . .hm, what else? So this is what my poor defenseless animal, who had no other way to tell me other than, starting last week, walking with his head so low and barely moving his front feet.
There could be a happy ending - I've got the Manolo Blahnik of the horseshoe world coming on Monday with the vet by his side. (For those few unenlightened, search Manolo's on Google - note the price. It will not be much different for this farrier.)
Sooo, at the advice of my good friend and guardian angel, Christi Bacot, who owns the beautiful farm where Cowboy lives, I started to ride Cecil.
What a beautiful horse. I'd like to think we had a connection the first time I rode him. Smooth changes and he's practically telepathic, my cues using my legs were so subtle. I knew right away I wanted this McPonypants in my life.
So I leased him. Now my English-riding ass gets to learn Western. I even bought a sweet pair of boots.
As when I first met Cowboy, he's kind of wondering who this person with the baby-talky voice who's getting on his back on a daily basis. (She does bring cookies, though.) It will take time for him to either get sick of me or become my friend. With horses, usually the friend wins out. I'm not above bribery by cookies.
My pony is, of course, insanely jealous. He's stuck in a stall with funny boots on his feet. He used to be a wild horse in South Dakota, so you can imagine how well this is going over. He gooses me every time I get near him and demands nose kisses and ear scratches.
We're in the same boat, Cowboy and I. Due to injuries, we're stuck in a stall unable to do what we really want to do. We both know it will eventually heal but in the meantime we pace, we wonder why we're caged up and we're not doing what we were born to do - rely on our high spirits to drive our lives.
More pictures of Cecil the Sea Monster to follow.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The see-through triathlete
It isn't about life. It isn't about death. It is something for which I'm trying hard to bypass melodrama and it's definitely not bad enough to seek out book rights.
It's this simple: An entrapped nerve in my back = no Longhorn 1/2 Ironman.
Coach asked me why I do triathlon. And not in a rhetorical sense. He means, "What do I get out of it? What are my reasons?"
My first thoughts are what they always are: Triathlon is the polar opposite of where I was in 1991. And this is true.
Why else?
Here's where the possibility of melodrama presents itself but disregard that sentence and give me this.
Unless I'm in the middle of a workout it's impossible to put this reason into words.
I disappear. But not in a bad, psychologist's dream-client kind of way.
My whole life disappearing has been my superhero talent. I don't literally disappear (that would be a psychologist's dream client) but I can be silent beyond silent and be so still that it's a long time before anybody sees me and then they jump. "Oh! You scared me! I didn't see you there!"
I used to escape parental punishment this way. Not forever. I knew it would come but it would come on my terms, when I was ready. Sometimes they were so surprised to see me standing right behind them that the punishment was forgetten. And yet, they looked under the bed, in the closet against a wall but they didn't see me. I was an Olympic champ at hide and seek.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that this is a major reason I race. I like that I can wrap myself around where I am inside and I race on my terms. Whether anyone can physcially see me isn't the point. I can see them. I look into their eyes as I pass them on my bike, even though they didn't realize I was there.
That's the obvious part. The part that's not so obvious is that whatever I'm doing, in the water or on land, my thoughts and actions are not visible but so apparent to me. It's a private place. The same place I went to under my bed or curled up behind the tree. And I like it there.
"Oh, it must be a 'runner's high'." No. How to categorize a feeling this personal without falling into the trap of that overused phrase? I could have all the journalism degrees that I want but still not be able to spell it out.
My goal while I'm racing is to stay there. When I hurt and I'm aware of it, when I'm breathing hard and feeling sorry for myself, I'm not invisible anymore. My goal is to get back to where I'm comfortable and stay there until about 50 feet from the finish line when that glorious, deafening cheering and hand slapping show me that I can pass the torch to my everyday, visible side.
And the rush. Oh, the rush.
Nothing does this to me beside triathlon. It's why I won't give up.
I cried like a little girl yesterday when I found out. I cried for a long time. But now it's over. It's a fact now. When the cannon goes off for Longhorn in two weeks, I will not be in the water.
My mom is taking me to New York the week after the race. I thought about going to her house early but I won't. That would be defeat. I want to be here. This is acceptance.
As for the future, well, I will still be the polar opposite of where I was in 1991. This is not the last race of my life. My back will be better, even if I have to have surgery. I learned to walk. I learned to talk. I did not accept defeat even though I was told I was going to have to. I will not accept it now.
There's more reasons but I've used enough space for now. Bring me Kona.
It's this simple: An entrapped nerve in my back = no Longhorn 1/2 Ironman.
Coach asked me why I do triathlon. And not in a rhetorical sense. He means, "What do I get out of it? What are my reasons?"
My first thoughts are what they always are: Triathlon is the polar opposite of where I was in 1991. And this is true.
Why else?
Here's where the possibility of melodrama presents itself but disregard that sentence and give me this.
Unless I'm in the middle of a workout it's impossible to put this reason into words.
I disappear. But not in a bad, psychologist's dream-client kind of way.
My whole life disappearing has been my superhero talent. I don't literally disappear (that would be a psychologist's dream client) but I can be silent beyond silent and be so still that it's a long time before anybody sees me and then they jump. "Oh! You scared me! I didn't see you there!"
I used to escape parental punishment this way. Not forever. I knew it would come but it would come on my terms, when I was ready. Sometimes they were so surprised to see me standing right behind them that the punishment was forgetten. And yet, they looked under the bed, in the closet against a wall but they didn't see me. I was an Olympic champ at hide and seek.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that this is a major reason I race. I like that I can wrap myself around where I am inside and I race on my terms. Whether anyone can physcially see me isn't the point. I can see them. I look into their eyes as I pass them on my bike, even though they didn't realize I was there.
That's the obvious part. The part that's not so obvious is that whatever I'm doing, in the water or on land, my thoughts and actions are not visible but so apparent to me. It's a private place. The same place I went to under my bed or curled up behind the tree. And I like it there.
"Oh, it must be a 'runner's high'." No. How to categorize a feeling this personal without falling into the trap of that overused phrase? I could have all the journalism degrees that I want but still not be able to spell it out.
My goal while I'm racing is to stay there. When I hurt and I'm aware of it, when I'm breathing hard and feeling sorry for myself, I'm not invisible anymore. My goal is to get back to where I'm comfortable and stay there until about 50 feet from the finish line when that glorious, deafening cheering and hand slapping show me that I can pass the torch to my everyday, visible side.
And the rush. Oh, the rush.
Nothing does this to me beside triathlon. It's why I won't give up.
I cried like a little girl yesterday when I found out. I cried for a long time. But now it's over. It's a fact now. When the cannon goes off for Longhorn in two weeks, I will not be in the water.
My mom is taking me to New York the week after the race. I thought about going to her house early but I won't. That would be defeat. I want to be here. This is acceptance.
As for the future, well, I will still be the polar opposite of where I was in 1991. This is not the last race of my life. My back will be better, even if I have to have surgery. I learned to walk. I learned to talk. I did not accept defeat even though I was told I was going to have to. I will not accept it now.
There's more reasons but I've used enough space for now. Bring me Kona.
Friday, September 12, 2008
It's come down to this
As much as I complain about the lack of originality on the part of the people who are *ahem* sensitive about bikes on their precious roadways?
Today I flipped off a redneck.
He was totally asking for it and I'm afraid I went primal. He was behind me (and I'm talking he could've taken a sip from my water bottle) in his Ford F2000432 Hemi Elephantine Gas Waster and he honked for, I'm not kidding, 90 seconds.
As he wooshed around me - there it went. A mind of its own, my middle finger had. How base. How unoriginal.
It reminds of something a police officer told me when I was 16 and sitting in my friend's backseat after getting pulled over - "And YOU. . .Keep your little fingers to yourself."
Today I flipped off a redneck.
He was totally asking for it and I'm afraid I went primal. He was behind me (and I'm talking he could've taken a sip from my water bottle) in his Ford F2000432 Hemi Elephantine Gas Waster and he honked for, I'm not kidding, 90 seconds.
As he wooshed around me - there it went. A mind of its own, my middle finger had. How base. How unoriginal.
It reminds of something a police officer told me when I was 16 and sitting in my friend's backseat after getting pulled over - "And YOU. . .Keep your little fingers to yourself."
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Where were you?
I wouldn't normally write about this. It's too sensitive, too real.
Except as I woke up and walked out into the living room, I had this eerie, scared, feral feeling/memory of the Twin Towers coming down.
I felt my face go pale and my hands shake. A sudden fear that this could happen again and a burst of anger that we cannot predict the future.
I didn't realize it is September 11 until I logged on to the computer.
So where were you? Where was I?
Everyone who remembers this was somewhere. At work, in the grocery, walking somewhere, stuck in traffic, out for their swim, bike or run. I was getting my masters in journalism in Chicago at the time. The photo teacher often hired me to help a visiting artist or photographer set up their work in the art gallery on the first floor of the campus building.
The photographer I assisted that day was an older Jewish man. He did a series about concentration camps and how it seems that a modern society has settled in around them - the camps simply a place for tourists to visit. For example, one photo was of teenagers laughing and waiting for a train. The station name above them read "Auschwitz".
As expected of someone with an old soul, he was quiet and contemplative. We weren't overly chatty but neither were we silent. Sometimes we talked about his photo essay sometimes we simply discussed camera equipment and sometimes we talked about journalism.
As we were carefully placing the photos where he wanted them (and giving me the honor of helping him to decide), the receptionist located in the lobby outside the gallery leaned around the corner and said, "A plane just collided into a building in New York."
I could feel the fear pass between me and this man who had seen so much. Somehow we knew this was not the error of air traffic gone awry. After exchanging a look that said so many words, we continued to lay the photos out with shaking hands.
Concentration camp after concentration camp. Although the photos featured none of the horrible, heart shattering images of what humans can do to other humans, the ghosts screamed in terror from the dilapidated buildings.
The receptionist came out again and said, "It's terrorists."
The photographer's eyes, the ones who looked through a viewfinder and saw a melange of daisies growing from former terror factories, met mine. He whispered, "It's happening again."
So now along with memories of finishing Ironman, struggling against epilepsy and winning, hugging, loving, lives a polar opposite - a chunk of an atrophied heart.
Let's do ourselves a favor and never forget where we were.
Except as I woke up and walked out into the living room, I had this eerie, scared, feral feeling/memory of the Twin Towers coming down.
I felt my face go pale and my hands shake. A sudden fear that this could happen again and a burst of anger that we cannot predict the future.
I didn't realize it is September 11 until I logged on to the computer.
So where were you? Where was I?
Everyone who remembers this was somewhere. At work, in the grocery, walking somewhere, stuck in traffic, out for their swim, bike or run. I was getting my masters in journalism in Chicago at the time. The photo teacher often hired me to help a visiting artist or photographer set up their work in the art gallery on the first floor of the campus building.
The photographer I assisted that day was an older Jewish man. He did a series about concentration camps and how it seems that a modern society has settled in around them - the camps simply a place for tourists to visit. For example, one photo was of teenagers laughing and waiting for a train. The station name above them read "Auschwitz".
As expected of someone with an old soul, he was quiet and contemplative. We weren't overly chatty but neither were we silent. Sometimes we talked about his photo essay sometimes we simply discussed camera equipment and sometimes we talked about journalism.
As we were carefully placing the photos where he wanted them (and giving me the honor of helping him to decide), the receptionist located in the lobby outside the gallery leaned around the corner and said, "A plane just collided into a building in New York."
I could feel the fear pass between me and this man who had seen so much. Somehow we knew this was not the error of air traffic gone awry. After exchanging a look that said so many words, we continued to lay the photos out with shaking hands.
Concentration camp after concentration camp. Although the photos featured none of the horrible, heart shattering images of what humans can do to other humans, the ghosts screamed in terror from the dilapidated buildings.
The receptionist came out again and said, "It's terrorists."
The photographer's eyes, the ones who looked through a viewfinder and saw a melange of daisies growing from former terror factories, met mine. He whispered, "It's happening again."
So now along with memories of finishing Ironman, struggling against epilepsy and winning, hugging, loving, lives a polar opposite - a chunk of an atrophied heart.
Let's do ourselves a favor and never forget where we were.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Cockroaches and roller coasters
Things I'm deathly afraid of (no particular order - they're just popping into my head this way):
1. Cockroaches/scorpions
I really can't separate these two in terms of ooky-ness. Granted, the scorpions in Texas do not look like pictures of them in the Middle East or a rainforest somewhere. The Austin ones are only about two inches long. But they freak the crap out of me. I check my shoes all the time by turning them upside down and yelling into them to scare the scorpion. This is because I remember those cowboy stories of putting their feet in their boots prior to wrastlin' dogies and getting painfully killed by a scorpion because of lack of diligance.
2. Roller coasters
I know. I know. But I do not like being spun around nor upside down unless it's from my own doing. How can people like this? I'm high strung enough - why would I wait in line for like two hours so I can be forced to scream or barf from fear. I know physics dictates that being spun and dropped will not always result in certain death but I don't want to push the envelope. I like my role as "purse watcher" as long as people leave me alone about not wanting to die and provided I bring a book to read.
3. Walking in a room without first turning on the lights
No, I don't think there's a boogie man in there. This reasoning is as undefinable and mysterious as whether there's life on other planets. You might be confused as to my method. I see a dark room, reach my arm around and send my hand on a exploratory mission, then flip swtich. This is a challenge when I'm at someone's house I don't know or a public restroom built for one. When the light is located at points unknown, I have to hold the door open with my foot, sight the lightswitch and leap for it before the door closes. God bless the bathrooms where the light automatically flips on when I walk in the door. My closet is like this but as soon as it detects a lack of movement for about five seconds, such as bending down and tying my shoe, it shuts off. Then I grab the nearest piece of clothing or available body part and wave it like Old Glory.
4. Lightning
When I'm outside working out and I hear the slightest crash of thunder I scream like a little girl. And I have a deep voice so it comes out weird and un-squealish. Like a failed gargling of mouthwash. Anyway, it does wonders for my mile pace and bike cadence. But if I'm inside and it's outside, no WAY am I even going to set foot on the porch. I know all the hardcore pros and non-pros race no matter what. And I guess after paying $550 for Ironman and whatever other godawful hotel/travel price, I'd still race. But not without making a lot of gargling noises.
5. Goats' eyes
They simply go the wrong way. It's not that I'm afraid of the goat itself. If it had a blindfold on, I would definitely pet it. And certainly from a distance, the babies are cute. But if I look them in the eyes, I feel my irises trying to turn themselves horizontally because they are confused.
Ok, enough.
1. Cockroaches/scorpions
I really can't separate these two in terms of ooky-ness. Granted, the scorpions in Texas do not look like pictures of them in the Middle East or a rainforest somewhere. The Austin ones are only about two inches long. But they freak the crap out of me. I check my shoes all the time by turning them upside down and yelling into them to scare the scorpion. This is because I remember those cowboy stories of putting their feet in their boots prior to wrastlin' dogies and getting painfully killed by a scorpion because of lack of diligance.
2. Roller coasters
I know. I know. But I do not like being spun around nor upside down unless it's from my own doing. How can people like this? I'm high strung enough - why would I wait in line for like two hours so I can be forced to scream or barf from fear. I know physics dictates that being spun and dropped will not always result in certain death but I don't want to push the envelope. I like my role as "purse watcher" as long as people leave me alone about not wanting to die and provided I bring a book to read.
3. Walking in a room without first turning on the lights
No, I don't think there's a boogie man in there. This reasoning is as undefinable and mysterious as whether there's life on other planets. You might be confused as to my method. I see a dark room, reach my arm around and send my hand on a exploratory mission, then flip swtich. This is a challenge when I'm at someone's house I don't know or a public restroom built for one. When the light is located at points unknown, I have to hold the door open with my foot, sight the lightswitch and leap for it before the door closes. God bless the bathrooms where the light automatically flips on when I walk in the door. My closet is like this but as soon as it detects a lack of movement for about five seconds, such as bending down and tying my shoe, it shuts off. Then I grab the nearest piece of clothing or available body part and wave it like Old Glory.
4. Lightning
When I'm outside working out and I hear the slightest crash of thunder I scream like a little girl. And I have a deep voice so it comes out weird and un-squealish. Like a failed gargling of mouthwash. Anyway, it does wonders for my mile pace and bike cadence. But if I'm inside and it's outside, no WAY am I even going to set foot on the porch. I know all the hardcore pros and non-pros race no matter what. And I guess after paying $550 for Ironman and whatever other godawful hotel/travel price, I'd still race. But not without making a lot of gargling noises.
5. Goats' eyes
They simply go the wrong way. It's not that I'm afraid of the goat itself. If it had a blindfold on, I would definitely pet it. And certainly from a distance, the babies are cute. But if I look them in the eyes, I feel my irises trying to turn themselves horizontally because they are confused.
Ok, enough.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
You've been warned. . .
To whatever gnarly, creepy, fast-moving bug-creepy thing that just skittered across the bedroom carpet:
YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED.
Tomorrow death arrives for you in the form of a man bearing a tank filled with stinky stuff, which will cost you your life.
You will pay for keeping me awake all night, psychotically scratching myself because I think your ooky legs are crawling on me. You will pay for me having to spray my horse's anti-insect spray all over me.
You may have eluded my detective work, which consisted of squealing and kicking every piece of furniture to see if you'll run out with your 500 legs BUT you will. not. escape. the. Orkin man.
So party it up tonight (just not anywhere on my body or within 20 feet of me) because tomorrow? YOU WILL DIE.
YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED.
Tomorrow death arrives for you in the form of a man bearing a tank filled with stinky stuff, which will cost you your life.
You will pay for keeping me awake all night, psychotically scratching myself because I think your ooky legs are crawling on me. You will pay for me having to spray my horse's anti-insect spray all over me.
You may have eluded my detective work, which consisted of squealing and kicking every piece of furniture to see if you'll run out with your 500 legs BUT you will. not. escape. the. Orkin man.
So party it up tonight (just not anywhere on my body or within 20 feet of me) because tomorrow? YOU WILL DIE.
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