Running Commentary

Have been out of town twice over the last two weeks, which has been a pleasure yet a challenge to my equilibrium. Was going to do a race today, which got scaled down to a run with Z, which dwindled to just another solitary lope along my same-old, same-old path north to Albany. What I saw: chickens on Acton Street. A flock of them, on the south side of the road, trying to cross over to the north side. I now know why the chickens crossed the road! To get to the hippie house, of course. Then I saw, I mean really saw, the new-ish temple on University Ave. It's a building that has been transformed from one kind of temple to another; it used to be a temple of forgetfulness (also known by the name of Jayvee Liquors, the biggest, most well-stocked boozetorium in Berkeley), but is now a temple serving a congregation of worshippers (it's known as Netivot Shalom). It's a striking building, one I've passed by but never really looked at. It has something of a tall ship about it, som...

I just checked my blog email in-box, and saw five comments. I've never gotten any comments before, and so just assumed I shouldn't bother looking. Thanks to all who commented on my post "Should I Stay or Should I Go." I published them all!

That would be me. Because I'm about to post something here that I actually wrote almost 10 years ago. I found it this morning when I opened some old disks containing back-up files from my last computer minus one. When I read this, I cracked myself up. I hope you will humor me and at least smile. At the time of writing, I titled this "Wacked." Oct. 29, 1996 So here it is another lovely morning in the hippest place on the whole planet. The Bay Area. Makes you think of an airplane hangar, the bay. Just pull 'er into the Bay, boys. Kind of a wet place for planes, though--would turn 'em plane silly. Anyway. The rain was coming down like bullets, or maybe pullets dropped from a plane, this morning. A beautiful day for a run. A run at my personal record for keeping a pillow over my head without suffocating, that is. So I called my Swedish running buddy Olga, who might be called the Swedish nightingale if not for her long, elegant, un-birdlike legs which carry...