it’s hard to write an AU when everything in canon is basically an AU
A couple of weeks ago, the Indigo Girls performed Rites of Passage in it’s entirely.
OMMFG
That album.
That motherfucking album.
R.E.M. might be the soundtrack of my life, but that album?
That album was my life for several years.
It was so weird to sit and listen to it performed live.
All those memories.
Fuck, man, the 1992 version of me was so fucking young. So fucking raw. So fucking hurt and angry.
And there’s not enough room in this world for my pain.
Signals cross, and love gets lost…
Forget about your ego.
Forget about your pride.
And you will never have to compromise
I left my anger in a river running Highway 5.
New Hampshire, Vermont, bordered by college farms, hubcaps, and falling rocks.
Voices in the woods and the mountaintops.
I’m not ready for the dead to show it’s face…
It’s so weird - that’s the year my mother died, that year was nothing but shitty experience after shitty experience - but this fucking album.
It’s still one of my favourites.
Which is odd considering my relationship with Bowie is much the same as my relationship with this album in it’s own kind of way.
I mentioned my interest in re-focussing on Ukrainian a couple of entries ago. I think - I remember talking about how much I hate Spanish, but I’m too lazy to go back into the archives.
Anyhoo.
I picked up Duolingo again. I don’t understand the point of using it as a type of formal language instruction. If you’re on the mobile version, it doesn’t seem to show you anything of value.I already had Ukrainian and Polish… and Spanish on there. I had used it to keep myself busy at BU hockey games and added Spanish for when I was super bored after we moved here.
The Ukrainian is easy, despite the fact that I haven’t seriously studied it in a long time. The Polish is OK, except for the fact that I can’t spell worth a damn. All those accents on the letters! Dangly bits! Lines through the L - which totally look like a T! It’s near impossible for someone with a shit memory like me.
But because I don’t torture myself enough, I added Russian. FUCKING RUSSIAN. Now, I have a complicated family history with Russian. Back in Ohio, after my dad died, when I was still speaking to THAT aunt, I’d mentioned wanting to learn Ukrainian, but I couldn’t find anything to use. The internet wasn’t what is is now, remember. This was 2001/2002. Napster was still around a little bit, and other file sharing services were popping up, but there wasn’t a Facebook. MySpace didn’t exist. There was literally nothing except Barnes and Noble. (I don’t even think Amazon was around then, but I’m too lazy to check.)
So, I casually said I was thinking about learning Russian because they’re similar.
Jesus Christ, did she tear into me. It was disrespectful. Did I know what the Russians put Ukrainians through? Did I know what they did to my family? (No. No I didn’t, I would find out years later. Long after we last spoke. Holodomor. Forced labor in Germany. Chornobyl.) So. Yeah. Fuck Russia and the language.
But, you know, fan fic demands that I learn some Russian in order to write about a Russian teenager, his Russian coach, and his Kazakh boyfriend (who also speaks Russian). I’d go as far as to play with Kazakh, but Duolingo doesn’t offer it.
All that to say, a few years ago, I bought a book titled “Get Started in Polish.” I have had this burning desire to actually crack it open and focus on Polish for a while.
There’s a 15 mile / day limit, unless you’re running a marathon or something else with ridiculous miles during the 10 days of Quidditch.
Some people cap every day, some people try to cap and fall short, some people will kill themselves trying, and some people know they can’t so they don’t push.
Then there’s me.
I pledge low miles because I only do my Quidditch miles after work. Work never seems to behave itself during that week - if I wasn’t kicked out every day at 5PM, I’d probably still be at my desk right now. (Woo! for not having a key yet!)
I fell short of miles Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. I took Friday off. I had a 7 day streak that I was so proud of, but when your body says “absolutely fucking not”, you don’t push. I may be stupid, but I’m not that stupid.
Last Saturday, I needed to get out of my head for a little bit. I don’t really recommend my favourite way to do that (eyes closed, death grip on the treadmill, getting lost in music that is way too loud), but it works. Then, I read for a little bit. I did intervals to the Hamilton soundtrack. Whatever it took to keep adding miles. It was my first cap in almost a year.
Then, I capped again yesterday. Granted, I couldn’t do all 15 in one sitting, but most people who cap do it in chunks, too.
I’ll be back on the treadmill soon, aiming for another cap. I’ve never attempted that many miles back to back, but it will be good training for both Wine and Dine and Dopey. W&D, I’m running the 5K, 10K, and half (22 miles / 3 days). Dopey, in case your memory sucks like mine, is the 5K, 10K, half, and full (48.6 / 4 days). Capping this weekend puts me at 30 miles for two days. I haven’t done the full 13.1 miles in any of my attempts at capping, but 8 miles isn’t so bad.
Let’s talk about Wine & Dine, because I’m sure that people are wondering why on earth I’d sign up for that since I am neither a winer nor a diner. RTI was named a charity partner and I wasn’t going to miss out on the opportunity to be there that weekend and meet all my online friends. We PHRC’d runDisney - they’d never gotten so many requests for charity bibs before! (Maybe because we didn’t have to fundraise to get a bib?) It was also awesome to sign up via them because the races sold out impossibly quick. I guess the Villains theme was a huge draw.
Of course, now I’m worried that we won’t have Wine and Dine - the registrations were open well before COVID-19 started to shut down the entire world. Will they be able to have that many runners on the course? What about the necessary number of health care folks / first responders? (I mean, that was the original reasoning behind cancelling Rival Run weekend.)
To make matters worse, Marathon weekend is selling out at an unprecedented rate, too. I’d been pushing off registering through a travel agent because of my employment situation and the fact that I needed to pay for Wine and Dine. I finally thought about it the same day the TA allotment sold out. Then, the early registration sold out. General registration is Tuesday and I’m trying to keep my hopes up that I’ll be able to get a bib, but… at least my TA put me on his list in case they get more bibs. He did tell me that, although it hasn’t been confirmed, runDisney is severely limiting the amounts of registrations just in case.
I get it - nobody’s been able to race IRL in a long time and A LOT of people look forward to Marathon Weekend. There’s a huge percentage of people who use this weekend as their vacation. There’s also a huge overseas contingent. (I kind of feel that, right now, maybe the races shouldn’t be open to international registrations. Bibs are non-refundable and non-transferrable and I wonder what that’s going to mean if there are still travel bans in place. Are they going to refund all the international runners and release the bibs? There’s just too much that’s unknown… and maybe I’m an asshole for even thinking it… but… )
I don’t know. I’m going to hope that I get a bib and if I don’t, there will be long distance races around here that I can run while I wait for my chance at 2021.
You can bet your ass though, that I’ll be getting my bibs through my TA from here on out since they get access to them so early.
