Make the Hydrant

I blame the guy with the parrot.

Months ago, he somehow got me to go along with his particular brand of crazy. “I’m starting a running club!” he'd said - with that altered mannerism common to all running enthusiasts. 

I’m gonna run in a circle so I can live longer!

Being me – I’d cut him off pretty abruptly.

“No. I don’t run. Don’t plan on starting."

Parrot guy was not one to be put off. He kept showing up with his bag of running stuff. Every time he’d set off to go he’d ask, “ya gonna bring y’stuff tamarrah?” (Parrot guy was Boston-born)

And then he’d set off and go running in the depths of winter weather. Four or five times a week. For weeks.

“Ya gonna bring y’stuff tamarrah?”

Yes. Alright goddammit, I’ll bring my stuff. Seriously, how much of that can you take?

As if that would satisfy Parrot guy. No, he wants me to run intervals, do serious distance. I am none of those people. Nor will I ever become those people. This was just to shake off the cobwebs - stave off total disaster.

And the routine falls into Parrot guy barking at me to pick up the pace until we get to a fixed marker and then he takes off for a real run while I keep plugging along. Deal is, once I see him coming back towards me – I can turn to go back to the office.

The first time we do this, I’m lumbering along with my glasses fogged over and I can barely make out Parrot guy on his way back. He’s actually waiting for me on the sidewalk, so I wave like “Hey, can we go back now?” Parrot guy doesn’t wave- so I yell at him.

No response. As I get closer, I realize why. Parrot guy’s nowhere in sight. Tired & fogged up as I was, I’d been trying to communicate with a fire hydrant.

- But that was months ago. Parrot guy’s been reassigned, so now it’s just me and the occasional co-worker plugging away out there when time permits.

I’ve discovered that landmarks are my thing. If I can run to a given spot once, I know I can do it again.

The last time Parrot guy and I went out running, he yelled at me to make it to the damn hydrant without stopping. I didn’t make it – but the time after he left, I found myself grooving along to the Beta Band realizing that I could actually make it there in one shot.

I met Parrot guy for a charity run a month after that and managed more distance that I’d ever done – nothing heroic, but enough to convince myself that my earlier limitations were all in my head.  I could write reams about my inner narrative of defeatism – but suffice it to say the first realization you have that you can tell your brain to STFU - it is a good moment.

So a few months later – I’m in surgery for an appendicitis, and then I’m off the wagon for weeks.

My first outing after I’m back on the trail was a total disappointment. I’m back to old habits – and I can barely make it to the signpost, which is about halfway to Parrot guy’s hydrant.

And my knees are killing me – and my side. And I succumb and turn around and walk.

But the landmarks are still out there, and my memory knows I can do it. So I get my gear and save up for another go round.

And then I just don’t go out. The weather’s too hot, or “I don’t run in the rain” or I’m just too busy over lunch…

Weeks of this.

Thankfully, I’d left my bag of gear at the office. A little reminder that I can go any day I choose.

I got my stuff today.

So I’m churning though a year’s worth of bad-news RSS – and I discover that the client has (again) changed the specification in a cosmetic way – so I will (again) have to update the prototype with pointless changes that will take longer to document than they will to actually code.

This will be my main accomplishment that I will report out to my team tomorrow. Thankfully nobody listens to anyone - otherwise it would be utterly humiliating. Today, I removed an asterisk from a prototype. Then I documented the fact that I'd done it for three hours.

It’s 11am.


F*%# it. 

I get the bag. I walk past the row of H1B developers, and they cheerfully wave as I go by. I wave back, knowing that the client is about to change the UI technology and that – very shortly – most of these wonderful folks will be looking for work.

One chats me up about where I’m going. He’s a great guy, and I’m not allowed to breathe a word about the impending change. All smiles, we finish some banter about the weather and I head for the stairs. I need to get out of here. 

I’ve gotten the gear down to the essentials. I blow too much money on hobbies as it is, so my running kit consists of a re-purposed Eddie Bauer diaper bag, New Balance shoes, a towel, and a change of clothes.

The locker room in CorpWorld is miniscule, but never crowded. The usual crowd is mercifully absent today. Which is good. I hate locker rooms.

Getting changed at work is odd enough, but the truly loathsome bit is the laddish locker room crowd who cope with stripping down in front of co-workers by loudly proclaiming their heterosexuality to all within earshot. Announcing every sexual conquest, speculating about the physical qualities of any mutually known prospect, and generally making it known to the world at large that the person speaking is among the manliest of manly men.

Dude, we get it. You’re a raving queen. Now STFU already. 

Gear on, and out.

Starting up is a bit like getting into a pool, the danger of the initial plunge vanishes as soon as you take it. The real battle is for the mind. My salvation has been earbuds and loud music, but today my brain is going 100 miles an hour – a sure sign I haven’t slept enough.

I fire up Florence + the Machine and try to ride the harp intro.

A slideshow of current events keeps drowning it out – a sure sign I haven’t had enough sleep. Fukushima-Daiichi - Once again, the official story of how bad it was has to be revised – because new and incontrovertible evidence has surfaced that proves the previous versionwas utter crap.

Happiness…hit her…like a train on a traaaaaack…

Oh. You know who’s corrupt and a total asshat to boot? FIFA’s Sepp Blatter. I mean the South Africans were reprehensible for bulldozing schools to build stadiums – but FIFA and co were only so happy to encourage this sort of thing. And if you think the IOC is a bunch of votes for sale, savor the description of the South American FIFA rep flat out asking England to give him a knighthood for his vote. Lovely.

Coming towards her, stock still, no turning baaaaaack..

I’m on the uptick towards the halfway post, feeling good, but I need a fresh distraction. Here’s one: The big banks – having brushed aside underwriting standards, good business sense, and oh-by-the-way THE LAW - now find themselves unable to document that they – in fact – own the loans they are attempting to foreclose on. “No one moved the paper”

This is a state law matter, so Congress can’t write them a sweetheart deal (and you know if they could the Washington lapdog crew would have already done so). No, what the banks are trying now is to get all 50 state attorneys general to agree to a settlement that would broadly protect the banks from liability and criminal consequences by paying between 8 or 20 billion to wash their hands of the problem.

Except they’ve caused a problem easily worth hundreds of billions of dollars and the banks think that $20 billion is far, far, too much to pay. They think perhaps $8 billion would work for them. Provided they are immunized from prosecution and liability - Oh, and they still want to take people’s houses without good documentation – because, y’know - they want that.

She hid around corners and she hid under beds She killed it with kisses and from it she fled...

The real winner, though? The 50 AG deal is on the rocks because some attorneys general are balking at it – y’know, because it sucks for everyone who doesn’t work at a bank. NY’s AG is actually suing to block the deal - and the NY Fed is leaning on him to get on board. Oh, and the Federal Department of Justice would like him to fall in line as well. Thanks for nothing, Obama administration. Way to be a complete tool.

With every bubble she sank with a drink And washed it away down the kitchen sink...

I hit the signpost, and it’s obvious that I’m going to do better than last time. The post is at an elevated fork where I can see the full length of the route. I get a good downhill spell across the road and then it’s a modest hill to the hydrant. So far, so good. I check my motivation:

 Banks? Suck

Run you bastard.  

Which brings me to perhaps the most disappointing bit of current events. A stray post on TPM references the fact that Jamie Leigh Jones is being counter-sued by her former employer, KBR. This would be the woman who claimed to be gang-raped by KBR firefighters, then confined by KBR, then prevented from suing due to the contract she’d signed saying all disputes would be handled by binding arbitration.

That woman.

I have to say “claimed to be gang-raped” because accordingto Mother Jones (about as left leaning a rag as you are likely to find) the media accounts and the trial evidence are very different things. So different, in fact, that Ms. Jones lost her civil case against KBR.

The dog days are over
The dog days are done

It’s difficult to describe how utterly demoralizing this is. First off, the indisputable fact is that KBR is an employer who wants its employees to sign away their legal rights even in cases of physical violence between its employees. That’s just sick. But there’s so much in the MJ account that makes you want to scream at someone.

As the Strauss-Kahn case has amply demonstrated, if you are victimized by a wealthy or well-connected person, you can expect your conduct to endure far more scrutiny than that of the accused. KBR’s pushback on Ms. Jones involved them somehow obtaining medical records of her as a minor. It’s difficult to know if this is just another well-financed demolition of a rape victim – or a failed attempt by a huckster seeking attention and personal enrichment. But either way, any future legitimate claim for a rape victim will be that much more difficult. A total, epic fail all around. 

The horses are coming
So you better run

Damn right. I’m past the downhill stretch, tooling uphill toward the Parrot guy’s hydrant – and this is typically the worst bit mentally. Because your brain keeps thinking “I’m pretty close – I can stop here.” The thought of stopping becomes a fixation, and pretty soon body and mind are working in tandem to lobby for a complete shutdown.


Don’t want to strain anything... what if you hurt yourself and had to hobble back? Or worse?

Looking back at anything I’ve wanted to do that I actually did is about as satisfying a feeling as I get these days. The patio actually got done. Little E’s room actually got done. I actually did run in a charity race – and I used to make it to the hydrant-

-that was before surgery.

And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had
And what was left after that too. oh.

Yes, dammit, that was before surgery, but surgery’s done now and you can take your raggity-@ss-wich self up the hill and do this for right goddamn now. Because last time was over a month ago and it flat out won’t matter unless you make it this time. What do you say, Florence?

Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can't carry it with you if you want to survive

Hell yeah. Melodrama? I’m good at that sh!t.

Move your damn feet so your kids don’t grow up with a tired old man. Or have to feel ashamed because dad just can’t keep up. Or can’t be bothered to. Would dad punk out on this? Hell, he’d be running back by now. He’d have never atrophied down to this potato-like existence you’ve managed. You gonna fail everyone? Walk your @ss back with a big “L” on your forehead for the rest of your life?

F*%# that.

Knees popping, red-faced and pathetic, you’re making this damn hydrant.

The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses
Because here they come