The Dad We Wish We Had On Turkey Day

You know, we have so much to be thankful for, you and I.

If you’re reading this, you have access to the internet, which means you’re not spending you time hunting down raccoons for a meal. Likely you have a roof over your head, the ability to live outside of the yoke of an oppressive regime in the heat of the Middle East and enough money to buy that latte you’re drinking at Starbucks with your Power Mac laptop which is how you stumbled across this page.

As a cynical raconteur and avowed skeptic, I find it easy to take the “not only is the glass half empty, it’s cracked and leaking but I’m too lazy to do anything about it except complain to no one in particular” approach. On a related note, this is precisely why I’d make a crappy religious zealot; I wouldn’t believe myself most of the time. I could stand to be a little less jaded, I suppose, a little peppier when I get into a fender bender, a few more “woo-hoo’s” at CrossFit when I see someone skipping rope really, really fast. And truly, in this life, there is so much for which to be grateful.

• The unconditional love your children have for you (at least before their age gets into the double digits)
• The way in which your dog acts upon your return home, even if you were only gone for 5 minutes; the maniacal tail (or nub) wagging, the eyes, casting about wildly, the incessant pawing. You’ll always be the biggest celebrity in your dog’s world.
• Waking up in a country where you can be as free as you’d like. Free to be informed, free to be ignorant, but most importantly, free to be.
• Thermostats in the winter, and the ability to use them.
• Enough leisure time on our hands that we pay the Kardashians of this world exorbitant sums to basically live in front of cameras and date/marry professional athletes at their casual will.
• We can choose to run for health or sport as opposed to running for our lives from a pride of hungry lions with low blood-sugar issues.
• When Wall Street’s greediest chowderheads choose to abscond with others money, and our faith in man falters, we still forgive our neighbor for running over our garbage cans or that jerk who swiped your parking space….we forgive him too. Or we oughta.
• A well stocked liquor store on virtually every corner. Turns out, that’s quite handy.
• Family. Even the one’s you’re not talking to right now.
• Friends. Even the one’s who won’t talk to you right now.
• A house to clean. Laundry that needs to be done, because that means you’re still needed for more than just operating the dishwasher.
• Want bacon? Go buy bacon. Want a big-screen tv? Go buy one. Wanna meet a disease-infested tranny hooker in a park after hours? Go to Craigslist. My point? We don’t lack for much, except for an appreciation for what’s in front of us.

And I may well be the worst when it comes to a basic appreciation…..but not today. So thank you, one and all, for mostly just being you; friend or foe, you’re shaping the landscape of this life for me, and I’m grateful for the challenges and gifts of this life. I’ll get back to my regularly scheduled pessimism soon enough, but today, I’m just thankful.

I was runnnnning....

Pad, pad, pad, pad, pad, pad, gravel-crunching halt as I wait for the turkeys to pass, they who look at me as the fool for running in the rain. Pad, pad, pad, pad, a moment of self doubt as I painfully lurch up a hill, then careen down some slippery wet rocks, envisioning being found in a broken heap three days later, mostly eaten by gloating turkeys, pad pad, pad, pad, pad……….release.

Runners as a group intrigue and irritate me all at once. They are a cult of ghosts, sometimes whispering by you alone as you walk down a trail, sometimes loudly clanging cow bells at organized events, where despite truckloads of bagels and bananas, everyone looks emaciated. The purists look down their noses at everyone, the uninitiated have gaits that are apparently horrendous, and I still can’t get a read on why anyone thinks the actual running is “fun”. Here’s what I HAVE learned, though….running accomplishes two things for me:

1. If I ever want to cut weight, there’s no more surefire way than to take up running, preferably longer distances than from the kitchen table to the fire truck.
2. The release of endorphins, the purging of mental toxins, the ability to converse with the voices in my head, the mindless and fruitful flights of the creative side of life, all of these take place as I lumber through parks and trails and neighborhoods, one pathetic mile at a time.

I have no desire to run competitively in a long distance capacity. I’d like to try a half or whole marathon once, just so I can put a sticker on my car and act all elite and shit, but truth be told, competing in that arena requires a discipline and lack of body fat to which I’m not really ready to commit. So it’s like I casually date running, we hook up when it’s not hockey night or CrossFit isn’t happening, and while I always feel good afterwards, I’m still not in love enough to actually become a runner. The Wife, however, has; she completed a half-marathon this past weekend, an accomplishment for which I want to kill her out of envy and beam with pride, in equal amounts. She now subscribes to Running Runner or some other such magazine where I am to understand they tell the reader to run and rest and eat. In that order.

So as I went running by the turkeys the other morning, it served meaning for me. Running alone in the rain is an act of purification and rare joyous solitude. Scrambling over wet rocks and avoiding getting clubbed by bounding deer keeps me on my toes, a crossword puzzle of the legs and lungs. As well, there are people and events taking up space in my mind, squatters, really, who aren’t paying rent. They are of no consequence in the big picture, so of course, I give them way too much time and effort. Negative, hateful and judgmental as hell, I’d normally admire these qualities and insist that we be the best of friends, but such isn’t the case. No amount of staring at blank pieces of paper, willing art to come forth, or essays to be written can take place when I’m allowing the monkeys in my brain access to pipe wrenches and pots & pans. They, the events, the people, the mayhem, needed to be evicted. Right there on the trail.

That happens at mile #2. Mile 2 is where notice is served, and the mind begins to take back what belongs to it, the monkeys get crammed back into cages and mayhem is mitigated into controlled chaos…

Shit shouldn’t be happening to me like this, says the mayhem.

Sure it should, says the running mind. Life isn’t about being fair, or easy, or how YOU want it to turn out.

Mayhem says it doesn’t work like this.

Sure it does, say the miles. Your script matters not, but guess, what? THIS is life. It IS supposed to work out like this, and you’re just a bit player, a stand-in. Now, watch out for that branch, it’s gonna clean smack you in the face.

Mayhem begins to lose control of the conversation, and outwardly, I smile. Grinning like an idiot at the turkeys and the deer and the jittery squirrel, who eyes me uneasily, I smile. This is that moment. This is why some people run. In the confines of conversations of the mind, this is what I seek. Time to once again be landlord of my own mind. Running as church.

Balance will be restored. It may not be of your design, but you’ll survive. Life isn’t a sticom, nor a rom-com, nor a Shakespearean endeavor. It is what it is, and you’re a part of it. Open the door; let the assholes out and the sunshine in.

As rain and sweat and tears all mingled freely across my face and down the trail, I realized that despite low miles, a disparaging lack of consistency and a body more suited to hockey than distance mileage, I am, in fact, something of a runner.

"Dont Let The Bastards Grind You Down", permanently

“You can’t kill The Rooster” – D. Sedaris

As he got back up, complaining about how he’d been unfairly checked, the player on the opposing team failed to notice that his skate had taken the liberty of slicing up my hand, my own hockey glove long gone. I failed to notice it at first as well, picking up my stick and skating towards my wayward glove, blood streaming down my hand. The ache was replaced by the adrenaline of being knocked on my ass after the aforementioned player and one of my teammates collided. As soon as I noticed the bleeding, I headed to the locker room to try and tape off the flow, more angry than hurt. These guys were bringing a tough game; it was one in which I would continually get knocked down, hit by pucks and otherwise made to look the fool as our fire department hockey team attempted to keep the losing point spread to less than double digits. I came back out onto the rink and promptly took a high-speed shot to the thumb as well as a few more shoves, hits and wayward stick beatings. Into the third period, I wound up for a slap shot and was able to finally score. Shortly thereafter I collided with another player and I’m pretty sure I broke my lower face, as I couldn’t feel my jaw after my head hit the ice.

We lost 7-5.

And it’s exactly what I needed.

My friend Jake is one of the operators of the site LIVXFIT, a place where CrossFit mentality is applied to domains outside of the gym, utilizing positive values to approach life’s continual hurdles. We’ve been mind-bending ideas about his take on adversity, dealing with it, working through it, overcoming it. I recently threw my virtual hands in the air, signing off with the complaint of how I’m not exactly a good sounding board at this point. There is chaos o’plenty in my household, it’s not being helped in any way by the gossiping of people in my world and I’m feeling like a grade-A failure at so much right now; these aren’t exactly ingredients for overcoming your adversity with your head held high.

Then I took a look down at my leg. That’s my tattoo in the picture. It stems from a mock-Latin phrase made popular in World War II by General “Vinegar” Joe Stilwell and translates into “Don’t Let The Bastards Grind You Down” (I’ll leave you to decipher the red ink). A song by the same name was made popular by ska band The Toasters back in my younger years. I’d always liked that saying, and one day when a good friend closed our correspondence with that phrase, I knew immediately what my next tatt would be.

Funny thing about getting ground down by bastards and adversity in general: we usually don’t get the luxury of determining which adversity we’d like to embrace or which bastards will be attempting to grind us down. Places like CrossFit allow us to define our challenger (weights or times or strands of rope hanging from the rafters), and failure to overcome our self-imposed adversity can be conquered with the repetition, discipline and determination. I’d love to be able to choose which obstacles will be placed in my life’s path so that I could prepare, train and eventually, hopefully, triumph; to do this all while striking manly poses and giving off the scent of cool confidence would be even better, thank you very much. Even house fires and vehicle accidents, while chaotic in nature, can be mitigated with the application of training, knowledge and experience. When we successfully extinguish a fire, it’s not a triumph over adversity; it’s our job.

Unfortunately, our choices, both good and bad, dictate just how hard those bastards will come out swinging. Oftentimes those bastards turn out to be our own selves, and we’re left bloodied and battered and bruised by the struggle. Some turn to spiritual guidance for solace. Others, cynics and agnostics alike, often look down into the well of their own soul, searching for strength from within. Wherever it comes from, the ability to rise to the challenge of adversity boils down to survival. It’s easy to say you’d choose to be strong should the occasion demand it; I’d also like to say I’ll lift a car off of a baby if I have to, in spite of the fact that I wrenched my back trying to lift 315lbs. of non-screaming metal off of the ground a few months ago. Only actual experience will bear out whether we have the sand to make it in this tragic and beautiful life. I can only hope that turning towards whatever adversity that rolls my way gives me a chance to survive the impact and learn from the experience. It’s gotta beat curling up in a ball and screaming at the circumstances.

As we limped off of the ice, I noticed some of my best friends on our team were grinning like foxes in the henhouse. They knew, as did I, that despite getting the ever-loving shit kicked out of us, we brought a tough game right back to them. They were better players and the scoreboard showed that. Our ragtag band of hockey-illiterate firemen had somehow scraped a few points off a well-prepared challenger; at least we got to select the adversity in advance. But the spirit shown is the same that I’m finding necessary to endure the challenging times that lay ahead.

Our paths aren’t well lit, nor pre-determined, in this life. It’s time to take a puck to the face and realize that it won’t, after all, kill you. It’ll hurt like hell and if you’re lucky, the scar will be more of the “life of danger” type than the “I look like a serial killer” variety. But that’s not what matters. The struggle, however, does. Let’s make damn sure we’ve given it all that we’re capable of, even if at the end of the day, the scoreboard doesn’t declare us the victors. The victory lies within the effort.

Team CrossFit Springfield & Co. Photo by Molly White

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
-Theodore Roosevelt
“Citizenship in a Republic,”
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

This week, several athletes from our local gym, CrossFit Springfield, will head west to Los Angeles to compete in what is loosely referred to as “The Games”. The Games are, basically, the World Series of CrossFit (take a look here); this is where gyms (or Boxes) will be sending their best athletes to convene, compete and collectively throw up as they put their bodies through incredibly awful workouts designed, most likely, by disgruntled Navy SEAL’s strung out on boxed Chardonnay wine or the blood of their enemies.

To outsiders, this is gonna look like Jonestown, version 2011; people in the world of CrossFit speak their own dialect, spend ungodly amounts of money on supplements, “Paleo” foods (apparently we need to eat like cavemen, despite the lack of wooly mammoth meat), and workout clothing, which we immediately discard to the floor the moment the clock starts ticking down to the actual workout. Shirtless makes you faster AND stronger (why pay $64 for a shirt if you can’t throw it to the floor as soon as the clock starts ticking?). Unfortunately, like most cults and mega-churches, some people just won’t shut up about it, ever, thereby alienating co-workers, family and friends with stories that seemed seasoned with Amway-flavored enthusiastic sales tactics.

And that’s a shame, because CrossFit IS such a good thing.

It IS a community. It IS a family of encouragement and achievement. Most of the competitors representing Springfield are our coaches. To watch them put themselves through the grueling paces of what it takes to compete at this level is inspiration itself. There is a factor of discipline that eludes most of us when you play at that level. There is no room for a casual attitude. No room for excuses. I admire intensely the mental intensity these people have. They move through exercise movements with a fervor and pace that makes you think they’re relying on instinct and natural prowess, but to say that sells them short. Our friends are competing in this arena because they’ve worked countless hours on countless days, trudging through snowbanks in the dark of morning, sweating like the damned on the hot asphalt of a July in the Midwest. They deserve this shot because they’ve earned it.

There’s a part of me that would love to be out there, screaming like a maniac at the ThunderChicken, in exact inverse as to how he’s coached me over the past year. His style is to chew gum slowly, shake his head back and forth and mutter things like “put your hands on the bar, Gooley”. The other part would be driven nuts by the fact that I’ve never been much of a spectator of sports; I’d rather be in there trying to compete. Unfortunately, you need to be really, really athletic to compete, so there’s no threat of that happening any time soon. The last person CrossFit Springfield needs to be represented by is someone who’s only claim to competitiveness at the gym is in the arena of sweat production.

So I’ll wait back here, patiently. Twitter and Facebook and texts will feed and flood my mind as the Games take place. Life in Missouri will continue at the same pace, clogged by gravy and humidity. Several friends from our Box are headed out there to support our team in person, and, to experience that little bit of California heaven known as Compton after hours. I’ve recommended that they keep both red AND blue handkerchiefs on their persons, so that both The Bloods and The Crips will be confused and perhaps focus their hail of drive-by gunfire elsewhere.

So, coaches and friends…I want to wish you luck, but that’s not what you need. You already have what you need – a fierce will, strong bodies, stronger minds and the soul of a winner. I want to thank you for all you’ve done for us, and for all you’re doing for us; there is no better leadership than example. Where you place is up to you; no matter the numbers on the board, you’ve shown us all back here in Springfield what it takes to be winners. For a guy who will probably never take his shirt off in the gym, this means a lot. You’ve had our backs as we’ve struggled through each miserable workout; we’ve got yours.

Now, go kick some ass, already.

"Guess how many poods I'm hiding in my outfit?"

There is an old Russian proverb which, according to Wikipedia, goes “You never know a man until you have eaten a pood of salt with him.” Like all things Russian, especially the comments in my spam filter, this makes no sense to me. Wanna know why? Because, I don’t weigh things in terms of poods, I don’t don’t speak Russian, and as we all know, salt leads to chins multiplying like rabbits on Viagra, so I try and avoid it if I can.

Technically, a pood is 36.11 pounds. It was a unit in the Imperial Russian Weight measurement system, coming into play around the 12th century and officially abolished by the USSR in 1924, when they realized how ridiculous it seemed. Ridiculous, and probably just a little capitalistic. Either way it was abolished, and for the better, really, except in two arenas of life: obscure bulk grain & potato farmers and the world of weightlifting. This is based on the history of the traditional kettlebell, which was, apparently, cast in denominations of the pood. Great.  You know who uses kettlebells with a scary frequency? Mmm-hmm…Crossfitters.

To be fair, I’m a kool-aid consuming, card-carrying cult member of CrossFit Springfield, and I love it. We’ve gotten healthier because of it, met lots of great people and rediscovered the joys of lower back pain. And, honestly, I’m no xenophobe, but rather, I’m just truly bad at math and conversion tables.

So I think the pood is stupid.

Ounces to quarts to pints to gallons to litres, it’s all fine, but just MAKE UP YOUR DAMN MIND. We going metric? Then let’s do it. Sticking with ASE? Runes? Cubits? Let’s stick to a common language here so I don’t hurt myself trying to eat an entire pood of salt.

We have kettlebells in pounds and kilograms at the gym, and I can’t tell the difference, and they’re all heavy and I feel the fool swinging them back and forth, between my legs, always aware of the inherent danger to reproductive zones. But you know what we don’t have? Poods, dammit. And I’m proud of our coaches/owners for sticking to their guns. We ain’t living in a Cossack Time Zone, people.

This is not good enough for some elite-ish CrossFitters, my brother being one of them, who scoffs at the notion that I don’t bark out my pood weight when selecting kettlebells for random sessions of sweating kilos, or liters of liquid fat off. This is not that uncommon. It’s in the tone, really and here’s how I imagine it goes down all over CrossFit Affiliates the nation over:

“Well, yeah, that’s a good number of reps, but how many pood was it?”

“Excuse me? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Did you say ‘pood’? Cause that sounds like a gross bodily function-noise or something”

“Yeah, you’re not serious about CrossFit, obviously.”

“I’m sorry if my non-use of a long dead Russian unit of measurement is lacking. Clearly, I suck.”

“Yes, you do. Now, take your shirt off and show me you’re serious about elite fitness.”

“What?”

It’s as foolish to me as walking into the lumber yard and ordering framing materials in cubits, as though I was constructing an ark rather than a garden bench. They’d look at me with a vacant stare and hit that button under the counter that orders the cops. Same thing to me with weights. I know how much I weigh in pounds, so I can reference other things weight in comparison. I’m not a cocaine dealer, nor European, so kilos mean very little to me. When they start ordering us to run in terms of “clicks”, right after I’ve finally gotten used to “meters” (I just multiply by 3 and call it good, cause I’m casual like that), I may just lose it.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to revel in my non-elite status, happy to line things out in increments of 5, or 10, or 1. I’ll think up funny-to-me phrases for shirts I’ll never make that say things like “I just pood for a PR”.

And I might seriously consider seeing if Rosetta Stone offers language immersion courses in Ancient Russian, so my amigo Ashley & I can strut around the gym and bark out marching orders as though we were gonna launch the next Sputnik from the rowing machines.

Probably with our shirts on, too.

Rep Number 36 Goes Up / photo courtesy Christi Clark Photography

Three days ago, I participated in the CrossFit Springfield’s 2nd annual Guns & Hoses Team Competition a fund raising endeavor aimed at benefiting the Wistrom Family Foundation, a truly worthwhile cause aimed at helping children with cancer. ALMOST as important, though, was the chance for military service members, cops and firemen to compete against one another, a chaotic stew of testosterone and nerves and borderline projectile vomiting. At age 36 and years of bad choices behind me, the concept of competing in athletic endeavors (outside of ice hockey) holds little appeal; I’m too old, the NHL ain’t calling, I gotta work tomorrow, my kids have beaten the spirit out of me, the list of excuses goes on and on as to why I don’t take up the chance to compete in much of anything anymore, outside of an ongoing chess match with my liver.

So when I was approached by some younger firemen from Station 2 about putting together a team for this competition, my first instinct was to duck and cover and pretend I didn’t hear them. But there’s only so many hiding places in a firehouse. Eventually, I had to give them an answer, and after several rounds of me saying “really? What, you need a John Candy-type on your team?“, I relented and made them promise to give me a decent burial when I inevitably died on the competition floor. As the days ticked down to competition time, my nerves begin to fray and unravel at a record pace. I’m old, man, and there’s really no need to humiliate myself any further in a public forum, especially as I do it on a regular basis just fine.

And then it was time. This was the time where Rocky theme music was supposed to cue up in my mind, shadow boxing in the mirror as I took one final shower before the event, setting my mind right, right? No. Clearly, I’ve watched far too many movies, and the reality of the whole time leading up to the competition was absent of motivational music, save for the screaming torrents of Dropkick Murphy tunes cranking in the bathroom. It’s a quiet desperation of sorts, really. I’m not in the best shape in the gym, knowing that I’m a relatively weak link on the team, and about to risk some real injury, both to my body and what is left of my self esteem. That sets up a morose cloud of doubt lingering over your personal skies, but, then, what are ya gonna do? Backing out at this point is the equivalent of backing out of a house fire: that shit will follow you for the rest of time.

As the events were described and teams assigned heats, I began crawling out of my head with nervous energy. These guys were serious, Marine Corps guys strutting about, cops from different towns all giving the eye to one another, firemen nervously joking about needing an ambulance on standby (okay, that was me), and a general tension that always precedes competitions of strength and stamina. I just needed the thing to start, already. Get me in the game, and this sensation of dizzy nausea may pass. Too soon, the race had begun. I’d describe the various events, but if you’re not familiar with the CrossFit lingo it’s just gonna come across like the cult mumbo-jumbo that it is. The exercises consisted of lifting of heavy weights, swinging of other heavy things, jumping up and down and over, lunging with random heavy objects over your head and tossing heavy sandbags over tall bars. You know, stuff you might never, ever encounter in your life. Ever.

To sum it all up let me just say this: in all my life, in whatever endeavor I’ve ever undertaken, I’ve never been pushed so hard physically to the point of a breakdown. It was set up as a team effort, so to quit or give up was to force three other people into forfeiting all of their efforts. I can insert all types of trite, catchy athletic “dig deep”-style phrases here, and you know what? THEY WOULD ALL BE TRUE. To force yourself to continue when all logic and reason demands you give up defies the physical imperative of the body, and it becomes a war of wills. To confront that wall and slog through the marsh of oxygen deprivation robbing your body of rational thought is a scary, and emotionally draining experience. This competition demanded slamming into this wall repeatedly to the point of sheer exhaustion and near collapse.

It sucked. Plain and simple.

Each time I reached down to grab that bar for another lift, when my back and legs and arms and lungs screamed for sweet release, my teammates, the people who’d come to cheer people on and the sheer force of will were driving forces compelling me to continue. I wish I could say that I was mentally strong enough to conjure up images in my mind of continuing in honor of some hero, or a sick kid or that bully in third grade who pretty much ruined my grade school experience, but I’d be lying. At some point there was no more room for thought, no more room for cliched imagery to motivate. Nothing was left but that most basic of drivers: instinct. The voices in the background were muffled, eyesight was clouded by sweat and chalk, and it was a lonely place to be left. Instinct to finish what I’d started was the only push left. Ridiculous faces and ridiculous amounts of sweat and stupid grunts all in the name of instinct.

Countless hours (or, like, two) later we staggered across the finish line, somewhere in the bottom of the rankings of the ten teams that entered. That didn’t matter. Three friends and I finished. We went to the bottom of our wells of will and extracted every last bit. I’m so proud of them, so proud of us for laying our guts and souls out there on the floor. I’m thankful to the coaches and staff and volunteers from CrossFit Springfield who offered their free time to guide us through the pain. I’m grateful for ThunderChicken who had the dubious honor of being my assigned coach, dutifully counting out the reps, vocally shoving me further and further out of my comfort zone, just like he has since the first day I set foot in the box. These people showed us, showed me, what was possible if you push yourself over the edge.

It’s a hell of a place to find yourself, at the bottom of that tank.

It’s quite another to crawl back out of it.

The Voices In My Head Stopped Talking To Me

I’ve noticed when writer’s block hits, and I ask those around me for subjects, there’s a universal response: “You should write about ___(me)”.

Crosffitters want to hear about the slow deaths endured at the Box, firefighters want to hear about the camaraderie and shenanigans. People like the lists, as long as they stay focused on their interests. And The Wife is always quick to point out that I’ve not adored her enough in e-print, lately.

Now, as opposed to being a rant about the raving self-absorption we all engage in, this diatribe is one in which I praise you for it. Here’s why:

It means we’re connecting.

When I write it and you read it and you mutter to yourself  “hell yes, I hate how society rewards the Lindsay Lohans of this world, too!” or something like that, it is the very definition of success to me. Being the class clown is more than a pathetic cry for attention; we really want to amuse you, make you laugh at us and at yourselves and all the ridiculousness that comes with taking life too seriously. I imagine you somewhere, taking a moment away from looking up the ads soliciting parking lot encounters on Craigslist, and stumbling across this blog, this one right here, and chuckling for 10 seconds. Then you probably head to back to The Onion or porn or whatever, but in that moment? We connected, and that’s the name of this game.

Today a friend of mine turned 30, and when I visited her at the radio station, lottery tickets and coffee in hand, I told her of my dilemma about coming up with a good subject to write about. I was bouncing the idea around about how the doctor would likely confirm that I was pregnant at my appointment today, that it wasn’t the Guinness after all, when she says “you should write about turning 30. Like how much it sucked, or whatever.” I was thinking to myself, “hells bells, I’d love to turn 30 again.”

But, in retrospect, the pregnancy post really came across worse than it does right now, and I was back to considering her idea about birthdays, aging, bad hips, et al. And it struck me: she finds it funny enough when I throw my bullshit online that she’d like me to write about her turning 30. And I’m grateful for that.

So, in an effort to connect with her, too, here goes:

Turning 30 makes one feel really, really old, until it is viewed from the perspective of someone who is 36.

Now, back to my regularly scheduled writer’s block. We’ll talk some more about you, all of you, later.

ThunderChicken & The BabyClucker

To witness unconditional love is to witness grace itself. As fathers, when we hold our children for the first time, there’s a moment of immersion wherein our complete being becomes compromised and torn down and rebuilt. Our souls, our hearts and minds, everything we’ve ever known gets forever altered and intricately intertwined to 7lbs. 11ozs. of chaos. And we’re never the same for it.

To love like that, in that moment, so selflessly and overwhelmingly is a thing of relentless beauty. Few moments in life can rival this experience. It is a fleeting taste of unbound joy and desperate terror as we realize our every action from here on out will, in some odd way, impact the life of something so innocent and so pure. The birth of both of my boys rewired my heart forever.

Of course, being as how they are now 7 and 5, that innocence is melting like a glacier; we immerse ourselves not in swaddling and gentle stolen moments of holding the babies, but rather, in Transformers and fart references and the joy of cleaning up 7 million Lego pieces at a time. And that’s ok, too.

Thunderchicken became a father to a little boy yesterday. His daughter calls him her “Five Dollar Daddy”, a story that she’s concocted about how she “bought”  Thunderclucker for a half sawbuck way back when. Theirs is a wonderful relationship, but I don’t have female offspring, and girls and women scare me, so I don’t pretend to understand the dynamics of fathers and their daughters, not even a little. But a son, a son is a being I can comprehend.

I was at the firehouse when Thunder and his wife welcomed their boy into the world, and it wasn’t until this afternoon that I got to see the little dude. We’d exchanged texts, like the teenage girls we are, yesterday, when he announced the arrival. Unconditional love. Two words, a bond shared between man and son, and that life altering moment. When I walked into the room, his baby wasn’t in his arms, but the look on Thundercluckers face spoke the volumes he was feeling. All of them, mashed up into one overwhelming onslaught of unabashed joy. His lovely wife was recovering from the whole affair, tired and gracious as ever. That sort of energy is infectious, and when love fills the room, if that doesn’t bring a smile to your face and peace to your heart, then you’re one cold bastard. Their little man is safe and healthy and sleepy and for that briefest of moments, you believe in the triumph of the human spirit, despite all that is wrong and crazy and destructive in this world. This boy is hope, theirs and the rest of ours.

As people gleefully passed this baby around like the cheese plate at a cocktail party, I was overwhelmed with emotion towards this person I’d known for all of seven minutes. More than that, I saw the look on his old man’s face. This is a boy who will be loved, as a child deserves, unconditionally and forever. He’ll grow up and break his parents’ hearts, his siblings toys, several rules which will cause the Thunderchicken to lose what hair he’s hoarding on his skull. I’m so excited for him, for his family. The bond between father and son is unlike anything I’ve ever felt and commandeers the better part of your heart. Watching my friend establishing these bonds is a privilege, indeed.

Congratulations, Brian.

One of his latest posts on Facebook was congratulating a co-fighter of his from the Springfield Fight Club who had recently been cast on the Ultimate Fighter (like number 47 or something) television show. When asked, ThunderClucker had nothing but high praise for his friend who, in his words, possesses “a game day mentality. (He) gets thru practice, then kicks ass on game day”. My game day mentality consists nervously puking before hockey games of any consequence and fighting the urge to urinate every second I’m on the ice.

This got me to thinking: if I could be in any sort of confrontational sport (outside of hockey) and be even mildly successful, I think it would have to be one of my own invention – The Ultimate Slapper. The entire sport/television show theme would involve some trash talk (in the same style as mentioned at the beginning of this post) and then the players just getting up and slapping the ever loving bejeezus out of their opponent. Old school style, with gloves off and in one hand, or just with the back of the hand like a pimp from Pomona, there are infinite variations on the theme you could employ.

I told Thunderchicken of this bold idea, and he immediately threatened me. After he condescendingly stated he might watch such a show, I told him no, you’d be on the show, my first opponent. He said I’d be his first victim. Trash talk right out of the box….kid’s gonna be a star. I informed him that despite the threats, there’s no way he could withstand my blistering backhands and cat-like clawing. I would slap with passion. With verve. With hysterical screaming and wild gestures.

It must’ve worked, because his status immediately went from “chat” to “offline”. Round 1: Slaphappy Uli TKO over Muscled Chicken.

Round 2 promises to be a doozy, since I’m supposed to attend his class at 5am tomorrow. I can only hope he abides by the rules. My rules.

Smacking The Dirtbag

On September 12, 2010 two middle-aged heaping sacks of sluggishness will square off in Portland, Oregon for the Pints To Pasta 10k race. The Dirtbag and I are said heaping sacks of man-fat, and the event promises to be one in slow-motion, with me employing every dirty tactic I can come up with to sabotage my best friend. I’ll dump ExLax in his coffee, I’ll employ some kung-fu kicks to his throat at the starting line, I’ll get into his head by talking about how hot his wife is (he’s jealous and he hates it when I do this). He may be a man of honor and valor and Church and all that, but I’m a sneaky rat bastard. If I’m gonna fly all the way across the country, I’m gonna want to see blood.

Why bring this up?

Because along with being a sneaky rat bastard, I am also highly unmotivated. So unmotivated, I might try and weasel out of this commitment with sleazy tactics, like faking a pregnancy. I figure if I declare it publicly, I’ll have no choice but to enter or else face additional ridicule by you. And that won’t stand.

So, the training has begun in earnest. And by earnest, I mean I ran a mile today on a completely unrelated note. The crazy unhinged leader of CrossFit Springfield decided that a good way to end up the workout was to run 1.2 miles in conditions that rival the surface of the sun. With humidity. After getting tossed around the gym like a two-dollar hooker on dollar day, I stumbled outside, plugged in some kill-your-landlord Celticskapunk and began the plod.

It could have gone worse. No death, no near-death, and only mild heat stroke. If sweating truly is liquid fat leaving the body, then I should be looking a little less John Candy and a little more Jean-Claude Van Damme in no time. It’s as though gallons of Guinness and several hogs’ worth of bacon came cascading out today, even if the scale refuses to acknowledge it. 1.2 miles is a bit off from a 10k, but it’s all about baby steps.

And when the baby-steps mutate into awkward teenage lumbering? I’m coming after you, Dirtbag.

It’ll be ugly, it’ll be chaotic and it’ll be embarrassing on my part. But it’ll be ON!

Heart attack to follow.