Why We Run

“Into the distance, a ribbon of black. Stretched to the point of no turning back. A flight of fancy on a windswept field, standing alone, my senses reel. Fatal attraction holding me fast, how can I escape it’s irresistible grasp. How can I keep my eyes from the circling sky, tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I.”

Pink Floyd, Learning To Fly

Why do those of us that run, run? As one gets older it doesn’t get any easier to drag your tired arse out of bed, and pound the pavement for an hour. Honestly, it would be much easier to lie on the couch, grab a beer, and watch television

Kick up your feet, and lose yourself for a few hours in the life of a stranger, familiar only through team statistics and other minutae you have absorbed like a sponge.

Though as far as I am concerned, few things as pure, as engaging, as a good run. When you’re running, and you get in your groove, nothing can touch you. The aches and pains don’t go away, but they recede to a very small place in the back of your mind.

Things that prior to the run perplexed and irritated, now seem manageable and barely worth the worry and stress that you put into them in the first place.

Then it’s all instinct. You can’t over-think a run (and if you have somehow managed to do so, stop it). The part of your mind that over-analyzes everything takes a much needed rest, as muscle-memory engages.

And for a little while, you’re flying. Scenery blurs as you pass, and you barely feel your feet strike the ground anymore.

Running isn’t easy, yet in essence it’s so sublimely simple; though perhaps it shouldn’t be because you run the risk of forgetting every foot-fall is a gift.

Commercial Obsessions

While lately I am not a big television watcher, when I do watch there are things I see that demand a response. The commercial from the Verizon Hub (a communications device that appears to have features that people didn’t even know that they needed) is one of them.

You’ve all probably seen this commercial for the Verizon Hub:



What bothers me most about this commercial is the son’s reaction to paella. Now, I understand that this is a commercial, but at the same time the kid is overplaying the rebellious son card a bit because my mother would have said that if I weren’t eating what she was preparing, I just wouldn’t be eating that night. There would be no pizza in my immediate future; though that is not to say that there were things that I wouldn’t eat.

Head cheese, for example. Too many varied animal parts for my liking. Perhaps if they stuck to just one I could manage to stomach it, but head cheese can contain, feet, tongues and hearts, which sounds more like an anatomy lesson than a meal.

I have also never been a fan of various condiments, such as ketchup (or catsup), because I have never quite understood the logic of it. I mean, aren’t tomatoes good enough for some people? Anywhere you can put ketchup, you can use a tomato, so why bother with a pale substitute?

For awhile I would not eat mayonnaise, though I would eat tuna (which my mom made with tuna, onions, and mayonnaise) so I couldn’t quite find the logic of that particular culinary decision.

Charlie Brown, Lucy and Footballs

Picture 15

I was watching television yesterday, and saw a commercial for MetLife insurance. For some reason the agency that does their advertising seems to have sold them on using the Peanuts characters–Snoopy most prominently–as their spokes characters. I suspect that this was done with the idea of making an insurance company seem less distant, and more accessible to people–most of whom I suspect would rather choose Darth Vader as better representing a large insurance corporation.

Here’s a YouTube clip of the Peanuts shilling for MetLife:




Perhaps the oddest thing about the commercial is that I could see such behavior from Charlie Brown and Snoopy, but Schroeder always seemed somehow above such antics.

The worse things is that, for me, the Peanuts were like comfort food for the brain. Their consistency (let’s be honest. When Charlie Brown finally kicked that football, didn’t your spirits soar as high as it did), is something that’s often missing from our hectic lives today.

As an aside, this is also probably why shows like Law & Order have lasted so long. It’s a reassuring despite the fact that it is a crime show and–essentially–is the same from one episode to the next.

If there was a holiday, there was a Charlie Brown special for it. When Halloween rolled around, so did ‘It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!’

As you ate turkey with your family during Thanksgiving, you probably watched ‘A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.’

Christmastime? Charlie has you covered with ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas.’

Even as a child, one subtly picked up on the fact that Charlie Brown was a bit morose, as well as somewhat of a loser. And as if that weren’t bad enough, his greatest dream, to kick that damn football, was for too many times literally pulled out from underneath him by Lucy van Pelt, who was as close to a nemesis any of the Peanuts gang could claim to have.

I submit as evidence this clip of Lucy, Charlie Brown and the Football, via YouTube:

Part of the charm of the Peanuts is that that they were not on all the time (as much as I liked the characters, I never got into their animated series when I was younger), so they never wore out their welcome like many other cartoons. This made them special.

They remind me of a friend that you see only a few times a year. When they appear you immediately recall the great time you had during their last visit. Strangely enough, because part of you knows that the visit will be relatively short, you take advantage of every moment you have.

Now, while I still enjoy seeing the Peanuts gang, and find the commercials interesting, I am wondering when this friend is going to wear out their welcome.

How To Save A Life

I am now going to tell you how to save the most important life of all: Your own.

Now, as much as I dig the idea of other people living peacefully to a ripe old age, that admiration is tempered somewhat by the fact that I too live out my years in a similar fashion.

Sometime, watch your loved one, or perhaps a loved-one-to-be, the next time you’re both walking through a crowd. Watch how they navigate, make their way from point to point. Do they cut people off? Do they move remarkably slow despite the fact that everyone around them is moving at a brisk clip?

Do they make directional changes seeming at random? On the way somewhere, again navigating a through a crowd, do they just stop, blissfully unaware that there is probably someone directly behind them not expecting them to do so?

Now visualize the that scenario at the wheel of a car.

If the one your care for does any these things listed in the paragraph prior on a consistent basis, DO NOT GET IN A CAR WITH THEM AT THE WHEEL because they have already proven that they have not mastered the idea behind walking amongst groups of people, never mind propelling 3000 pounds of steel, plastic and glass through rush hour traffic.

You’re welcome.

Matters of Faith

I wonder...would an atheist have anything to fear from a vampire? By this I mean the whole basis of the vampire myth is rooted in Christian mythology; otherwise a cross or holy water would have no effect on them. So, if a person doesn’t believe in Christianity, or any variation thereof, then could such a being as a vampire effect them or would the vampire react to such a person as if they were a religious icon personified? Or suppose you did believe in a religion, though not Christianity.

And most importantly, what if this religion had no basis for the vampire mythos.

Would the vampire simply not exist upon encountering such a person?

I think the answer is Yes, though there is an important caveat. That caveat is that the non-belief would have to reach a critical mass, and the more people that believed it, the weaker the vampire’s hold on this level of existence would be because change would come on a quantum level, which be very inhospitable for the vampire because not only would the creature itself be rejected, but the very notion of the thing’s existence would no longer be in effect.

Which leads to the question: Where do gods go when we no longer believe in them? Do they still occupy the same lofty firmament of their glory days, and their teeming legions of followers, or is their fate non-existence?

And No, because you have to be talking about the Christopher Lee era Dracula and vampires of that ilk because the portrayal of that character appears very much driven by Biblical aspects. In other words, that version of the vampire exists because it its opposition to all things Christian. Take those things away, and I think that it could be persuasively argued that the vampire itself would no longer exist, as if he were exposed to the light of day, because it exists only BECAUSE of its opposition to Christianity.

These vampires do not exist in and of themselves. Instead they are projections, manifestations, extensions of the contrary impulses in humanity.

Now, the vampire myth has changed to match the times, and the religious aspect in most cases are no longer necessary or secondary considerations. For example, if you were to run into the vampires of Near Dark or those of the Blade series (in which I somewhat reluctantly include the weakest film of the series, Blade: Trinity) of films then I suspect that they would care less what your beliefs were.

In fact, this theme–the moving away of the vampire from the religious to the secular–is portrayed in excellent fashion by the second film of the Blade trilogy: Blade II. Directed by Guillermo Del Toro, the new vampire is a result of the excesses of science, not God.

Then again, isn’t science simply the New Religion?

And our research centers and laboratories our new cathedrals.

Coming Home

The first title I had for this entry was ‘Always Coming Home.’ I don’t know who I stole that phrase from, but it’s safe to assume that I was not the first to use it. For some reason a Carly Simon concert that was broadcast on HBO sometime in the past comes to mind.

I also vaguely remember it being the title of a story from a comic, perhaps the X-Men.

Though I think that it’s safe to assume that it was used before Carly Simon and whomever happened to write that particular issue of the X-Men, so I think that I will be OK.

Though just saying it to myself a few times made me think that perhaps ‘Coming Home’ would be better.

Besides, I recall that being a title of a movie with Jon Voight, so perhaps I am moving up in the world, in that I am borrowing titles from quality entertainment now.

To Be

Let’s see...how do I begin. How about with my name. It’s Brian, and I am currently attending Graduate school at Georgetown University. I have no idea how I am going to pay my loans, or even if in today’s economically trying times going back to school is the best idea, though there is one thing that I do know.

And that is what would happen if I didn’t.

Which is that I would become a zombie, of sorts. I would shamble to work everyday, even enjoying myself for the most part, though I would not be truly content because I would see myself, in the distance of time, exactly where I am right now.

“Got no future, got no past. Here today, built to last.”
West End Boys, The Pet Shop Boys

It’s a terrible thing to see such a bleak vision of a possible future, never mind having to live with it like an old, too familiar friend.

Now, despite going to school, I could end up in the same place I am now, though it would be different in that at least I made the effort to learn new skills, and to better myself.

It’s not much, but sometimes you have to take whatever you can get.

Though that is not to say that I am implying that there is anything wrong with working for a living; but a job has to offer more than just a wage. Ideally there should be opportunities for growth, challenge, and advancement.

And it’s a major plus if you can find the job that enriches the soul while delivering those other very necessary things.

At my current job, before I moved on to a new position, that’s what I felt.

Now things are better, though I don’t think that it will last forever (I don’t like to use that phrase because the last time that I checked no one lived forever) so I have to prepare the groundwork for moving on.

It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, but it will have to be.

Writing Again

I am, for the moment at any rate, moved back to RapidWeaver after the traumatic iWeb Incident. I wish that I could still work with it, being an Apple product and all, but my priority is to get writing, and for that I need a venue.

RapidWeaver does that for me with a minimum of fuss. I think that I will go back to iWeb at some point in the future, if only because I like the versatility of the app; but for now it’s RapidWeaver.

I may even buy a plug-in or two for it.