This Rogue’s Town . . .

So, yes, if the little giftbox beneath my pic (ironically taken exactly a year ago today) hasn’t yet given it away, today is my 27th birthday.  As I’ve told many of you in person, I’m not planning any official observance for this occasion on account of the fact that: A) I haven’t had time this year (an admittedly strange excuse for someone who does not have a job) B) I’m in the throes of both my job hunt and the Marathon (which dovetails nicely with subpoint A)) and C) GODDAMNIT, HOW DID I WIND UP BEING 27?!! How? It seems like it was just three years ago that I was a young, virile, pop culturally-possessed 24; at the peak of my sexual energies and taking names along the way.  Of course, it was also my first year of law school: a period of time best exemplified at the time by my Dean’s words of advice to me: "I realize it’s shattering, but you’ve done the right thing".  Nice fence.  And that’s some grass you got there too!

I recall at the time asking a friend of mine if there was any cosmological significance to turning 24 on October 24th.  He replied something to the effect of "I dunno, your Golden Birthday? If there is such a thing, mine passed when I was eight".  But, October 24th is generally a fine day for a birthday at any age, least of all that it’s the first day of Scorpio; a sign which, as many of you know, tends to scare the shit out of people.  In this regard, I seem to have lived up to my billing. 

And thus far this year has been no exception.  How so, only so many hours in? I logged in my final long training run today before the Marathon; about a week behind schedule to boot.  No sense waiting for the weather anymore, I figured; not when we’ve resorted to the Greek alphabet for naming hurricanes.  And so it was off to Central Park; sweet 72nd, as I’ve come to call it.  Near Bethesda Terrace.  Laced up, with a few six ouncers of Gatorade and a pouch of Enervitine stuffed in my crotch, I would replicate the final two miles of the Marathon; Through Engineer’s Gate down along the East Side past the Hansome Cabs and Horse Manure down to CPS across towards Columbus Circle through Merchant’s Gate and up past Tavern on the Green.  Adding to this the reminder of the "Outer Loop" of Central Park, and repeating this process four times, I have today run 24 miles. 

And today is the 24th, hehe. It’s always good for something. 

But alas, I’m spending the next couple of weeks in a place far far away from times and splits and champion chips.  I’ve effectively ended my training for the NYC Marathon.  And all that’s left to do is wait, and be happy in my persistance, whatever the aim.  But I won’t be 27 while I do it.  I won’t be.  Not yet.  26 and I have some unfinished business.  And it bears mentioning, that a marathon is 26.2 miles long. 

26.2.  Maybe that could be my new age? That is what I’ll be for now, Friendster be damned! It seems like a fair compromise.  27 can wait until after the finish line. 

. . . Four seconds . . . FOUR BLOODY SECONDS . . . that’s by how much I missed besting my previous five-mile record at the race this morning. BALLS! . . .  as my brother would say . . . BIG SWEATY BALLS! And for THIS my knee is messed up and both my feet feel all twisted up like cornrows? Four seconds.  Do you realize what that is? That is not even the slightest extra breath, the most insignificant iota of acceleration, one fleeting little glimpse on the roadway up ahead, impulses the each of which were probably wasted trying to toggle my iPod on the final . . . wait a minute, no . . .

I already wrote this post four months ago, didn’t I? The Run Hit Wonder.  You remember, it was a few days before the bar? You know who(1) was there and, it turns out, running a truly pathetic mile time.  I, on the other hand, fell one second short of my all-time best pace for a five miler back then.  The same thing happened this morning (the latter, thankfully, and not the former) . . . except that I was four seconds off from my five miler pace . . . and the race I was running today was THIRTEEN POINT ONE MILES LONG.  And you know what really burns? What really I mean just . . . it, it, the, it, flames, flames, flames . . . on the side of my face. Breathing, breathless, heaving breaths, heaving?! I placed 55 in my age group which, yes, I acknowledge is pretty MFBA but . . . but . . . I was FIVE slots away from finishing on the FIRST PAGE of finishers on the website.  The UPPER ECHELON.  The . . . the . . . shit, the MOTHERFUCKING FIRST PAGE!!

Ouch, baby . . . VERY ouch

Which, of course, goes to explaining why I didn’t break six minutes forty-eight, because after moving along very briskly and fairly comfortably across the hills and hairpins of Staten Island (surprisingly scenic this time around-apart from the gentleman on Fr. Capodonna Blvd. with the grotesquely-oversized goiter-albeit moving past few me at more rapid clip).  I got hit on the last mile . . . a truly gorgeous stretch overlooking the Upper Bay, with the skylines of Jersey, Manhattan, and Brooklyn sweeping across towards the Verrazano.  Beautiful.  And, more importantly, I was beating alot of people.  We were very very tired . . . We were very very merry.  Alas, I hit mile twelve and . . . BAM! Side stiches like you wouldn’t believe. 

Legs? Check. Knees? Check.  Calves? Check.  Shoulders? Check.  Whatever it is that causes your laterals to feel like they’re on fire? Notsomuch.  And it offered no opportunity to accelerate in the homestretch.  Predictably, that weird wind-up toy thingy I do on the final stretch got compromised by my aching right side. 

On the bright side, it looks like I’m in apparently fine shape for the marathon in three weeks.  I shouldn’t rest too easily though.  Got a 20-mile training run to work in in the next week.  But, shit, man! I mean . . .  fuck, Fuckety, FUCK FUCK FUCK!!

the good and bad kind, I guess . . . none of it literal, of course. 

(1) Yes, that’s right

(UPDATE: A conservative estimate of my pace time and how many seconds I probably lost due to my side stiches places me somewhere in the mid-40’s . . . where I should’ve edged out one Artemio Gonzalez, 26, of Manhattan . . .prime first page territory . . . not to put to fine a point on it but BLOODY BUGGERING BULLOCKS!!!)

. . . off by a few blocks there, Redman, but Brick City yes indeed; Halsey Street between Academy and Cedar the sames to be exact.  For an appointment that took me nearly two months to book, the actual taking of my fingerprints for the fine folks down in Trenton seemed to take no time at all.  And it certainly didn’t seem worth the slog through a torrential downpour . . . wearing DENIM at that.  It’s been a while since my last arraignment, and I have to say I am just amazed by the leeps and bounds that have been made with fingerprint-taking technology.  No ink these days BUT you do have to have your hand awkwardly caressed by a gentleman who lotions them up while wearing rubber gloves; he who would admonish me, as my fingerprints appeared on a screen enlarged to about the size of me head, to relax my wrists in exactly the same tone as my yoga instructor would.  Same as my masseur, a Russian who pronounces the k in "knees".  Apparently the consensus across the Tri-State area is that my joints are much too tense these days.  Sad fate for three weeks removed from a marathon.  Sad indeed. 

     But not much appears to have changed in Brick City anyhow.  House O’Weenies on Raymond and Halsey appears to have new owners, gone with the old ones the charming, if somewhat worrying, hand-drawn ghettofab marquee.  The Farmer’s Market on Military Park, on select Thursdays my only motivation for coming to class, was washed out, sparing me in this month of famish the temptation of Jersey Sweet kettle korn before sundown .  Another time.  Or never again.  I’ll be fine either way. 

     In unrelated trenchancy: Spike TV has followed up tonight’s showing of "The Warriors", with "Ultimate Fighter 2"(1).  Honestly, all they need is a "Beastmaster" marathon and they’ll have completed some sort of weird, inertly homoerotic trifecta for the evening. 

     I’m still damp after being at home for four hours. 

(1) ya, and what’s with the guy named Randy Couture?!

As I read of the catastrophic news coming from Kashmir, I’m left to wonder how eerily poignant it is to be stuck right now reading a book set in Kashmir, Midnight’s Children.   I point this out not to project any sort of false relevance on the mere happenstantial correlation between my reading list and a freak natural disaster, but simply because, well, I’m starting to see a pattern here.  And those ain’t happenstantial.  To wit, my reading list is LITERALLY killing people. 

I first noticed this somewhere around the timethat . . . oh . . . say . . . the entire city of New Orleans got COMPLETELY SUBMERGED just as I was finishing up A Confederacy of Dunces.  While it’s safe to exclude works of non-fiction from this generalization, and while it also cannot be extended to every last instance of my reading about any place depicted in a work of literature, I have to say these past two months have left me terribly concerned for some of the locales awaiting me as I plow further and further into my reading list.  In the face of such certain force majeur, I can do little but forewarn, in the hopes that my commonition will extend beyond my esoteric circle of Friendsters and mere well-wishers.  So, let the sky fall if it must, but when it does point no fingers my way.  I’ve done my bit:

1) Egypt: Now, Egypt, I know you’re probably all "Motherfucker, WTF?!" right now, being that you are my country of ethnic origin and the domicile of virtually my entire extended family.  I’m really sorry.  But I’ve been wanting to read The Map of Love for a while now, so it looks like your number’s up.  I mean, you’ve been around like, what 8,000 years? Earthquake, schmerthquake! All in a millennium’s work, as they’d say down in Thebes. 

2) Albany, NY: It’s true that certain of your citizens have been near the top of my real-life shitlist for quite some time, but that’s no reason to take my reading of Heir to the Glimmering World personally.  Remember, this is a warning post; you’re supposed to heed it and seek refuge someplace less-catastrophic or proseworthy, like North Dakota. 

3) Canada: Now don’t go lighting up just yet, Canada.  I’m aware that you’ve somehow achieved the breadth of an entire continent and that perhaps perhaps I ought be more specific.  Problem is, I didn’t really read Swann very closely in high school A.P. Lit (being the only brown kid in a class taught by a post-structuralist sex offender, I didn’t have to do much to get an "A"), and I can’t remember just where abouts in the True North Strong & Free you can expect to be visited by certain calamity.  Updates to follow. 

4) Colombia: I understand how you feel, Colombia.  You’ve got your own fair share of problems WITHOUT having to deal with mudslides, plagues, or the post-crossover Shakira on the side.  Moreover, if I had only just read 100 Years of Solitude in college like everyone else INSTEAD of . . . crikey, what oh what did I do with myself in college? Anyways, no matter.  Consider this fair warning.  Maybe whatever happens will put the kibosh on that civil war thing for a bit. 

5) Mississippi: It ain’t fair I know.  And a double-whammy to boot! Yes, Light in August and The Golden Apples are both redactive reading from high school (see item number three: "Canada") but look at it this way: you’ll save yourself alot more headaches by holding off on rebuilding those barrier island casinos for a little while longer. 

6) Oklahoma: I see you conspiring in the corner with Colombia, "Jesus fucking christ! You haven’t even read Paradise yet?!" No, motherfucker, I haven’t! Now, back the fuck off and learn to take a favor for once!!

7) Venice: We’ve had some great times, Venizia, and I always got your back.  But you must know that I’ve made it too far in life without reading Thomas Mann and, well, you’re sinking.  I mean, shit was gonna go down sooner or later.  Listen, I’ll meet you half way.  Even though, the book is called Death in Venice, I’ll also extend the warning to Munich, where the story begins.  So heads up, you kwazy kwauts!

(EDITOR’S NOTE: THE OPINIONS AND REDUCTIONS EXPRESSED ON THIS BLOG ARE THOSE OF MR. KHALIL SOLELY AND NOT OF . . . OH . . .BUGGER, THERE’S NO ONE ELSE HERE! UM . . . YA, NO DISRESPECT FOR THE KRAUTS.  I LOVE ‘EM ALL! EXCEPT THAT STUFF THEY PUT ON HOT DOGS OUT HERE.  NEVER DID WARM TO THAT.  APOLOGIES ALSO TO PEOPLE WHO DO THAT FUNNY THING WHERE THEY PRONOUNCE THEIR R’S LIKE W’S.  I’M SURE THEY HAVE A WORD FOR THAT, BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS.  IT’S FUNNY, THOUGH.  I MEAN, I’M STILL SORRY, BUT IT’S PRETTY FUNNY).

Australia: I really wanted to visit you before I die, but that now appears to be up in the air.  I mean, I didn’t mean it to be this way.  I thought J.M. Coetzee’s Slow Man was gonna be set in South Africa, like all his other stuff.  I mean, if we’re gonna start finger-pointing already (see here, we like to do our finger-pointing after our natural disaters.  You may do things differently down under, for all I know), shouldn’t you start with him on the principle of consistency? Or better yet, blame it on the ex who got me hooked on Coetzee.  Blame the Nobel Committee too, while you’re at it! I’m not the villian here.  I’m merely a harbinger of hard, but ultimately beneficial, tidings. 

9) England: As with Canada, I wish I could be a bit more specific.  But it appears that Zadie Smith pulled half the locations in On Beauty out of her arse (see, I’m on your side!).  Then again, you are just an island, with lots of ferry service and a chunnel.  It shouldn’t be that hard to evacuate.  I mean, people swim the English Channel all the time.  Or at least we always hear about it on this side of the pond.  Besides that, I’ve got a ways to go before I inadvertantly compel your ruin so you have plenty of time to plan accordingly.  You can always bring back the Concorde.  We’ve got one sitting on the Hudson doing practically nothing. 

10) Kerala, India: Consider this more of a catastrophe watch, than a warning for the southernost part of the subcontinent.  I’m not really sure I want to read the The God of Small Things, mostly because alot of the people who’ve recommended it to me either can’t get the title right or are only reading it because they feel compelled to sleep with the author.  While these are not per se invalid reasons to pick up a book, they rarely ever factor into mine.  Thus, Kerala may be off the hook after all.  But, as they used to say every night on New Jersey Transit, "Passengers are advised to remain vigilant". 

Words to live (or die) by, if there ever were.  You heard it here first, people.  That’s all I have to say. 

That’s three Nobel Prize Winners in Fifteen years for little old Egypt.  I, meanwhile, can’t even get a job interview to save my life . . .

3 g’s in the bank for my troubles . . . BOO-ya! (which, don’t forget, is "Ayoob" spelled backwards) 

The run somehow seems a little less invigorating.  Mind you, my frame of reference is from roughly seven years ago.  Back then, I’d get myself up at around 7:00 each morning and tred my way over to the Jefferson Memorial and back to Foggy Bottom.  Maybe it was something about the sunrise; I did carry on about that a few posts back.  Maybe it was another administration; post-blowjob, pre-Starr Report.  That intriguing sense that something was amiss, the stuff of high absurdity.  These days, that something amiss is of a decidely more sordid variety.  Maybe that’s why.  Or maybe it was a function of the years: back then I was nineteen, years away from even considering training for a marathon.  Now, well . . . let’s see, 14th Street to Constitution on down to the Lincoln across through the FDR memorial around to the Jefferson back up to the Capitol and . .  okay, okay, I get the picture.  That’s only five miles.  But you see, all of that is very very flat; absent the uphill slogs through Eastern Chinatown and the Hudson Yards. 

There are however, an awful lot of steps in this town.  Too goddamn many.  Fucking Pierre L’Enfant and his stupid . . . wtf, ANOTHER circle?

"Where’s the conference at?"

"The Hotel Washington . . ."

"You mean that dump right across from Treasury?!"

So, it’s no Hay-Adams.  But, it’s an impressive view from the roof bar.  There’s the White House, albeit turned on its side from the East.  It looks so insignificant, even overwhelmed, by all the buildings around it.  When the floodlights shut off after 11:00pm, it’s nearly invisible.  Then there’s the Washington Monument, a "fucking CN Tower wanna-be" as one particular vulgar Canadian acquaintance once called it.  The Jefferson Memorial, evoking its namesake’s Rotunda, the Lincoln Memorial drawing on the Temple of Solomon.  Beyond it, Virginia. The vast black expanse of Arlington Cemetary punctured delicately by the Custis-Lee mansion.  Behind all that is probably that town where you said you’re from.  I guess I no longer need to wonder what drew you to New York, especially since we’re no longer on speaking terms. 

"OMG, let’s go to Ben’s Chili Bowl!!!"

"Ya!!!!"

"Excuse me?"

"You have to go! We’re going!"

"And it is?"

"They’re Half-smokes!"

Sound’s very pork-intensive.  And, Allah!, I’m already drunk.  I’m so there!

Maybe that explains the run.  Though, that chili half-smoke was given more than enough time to . . . nudge-nudge, wink-wink.  Two nights ago that was. 

Oh, but let’s not forget the Jumbo Slice from last night.  Hell, what was that crust made of? Naan?! Maybe.  Maybe. 

Then again, it probably has to do with this Army Ten-Miler everybody else seems to be running in this town today.  I recall the really awful thing about being physically active in a town where roughly a third of the people around have been in the military is that you’re constantly being shown up by people who are professionally in-shape. 

Hmm . . . well, they’re all gone by now.  Down by the Potomac.   Far away from me and my run.  I passed the column on the south part of the Mall; the two-hour pace crowd whom I always view with a healthy, non-descending mix of pity and admiration.  They’re heading back to Virginia. 

I’m going in the opposite direction.  And I’m used to this now.  And maybe that’s why today feels like just another run. 

The remarkable thing about my tour of duty in New Jersey is that I never could avert my eyes from the place each morning heading into Newark.  Even on the days where the weather truly sucked, or I was unbelievably stressed out, or depressed enough to grab THREE Krispy Kremes from Penn Station. I couldn’t look away from the sublimely desolate landscape of marshlands and highway flyovers.  The sudden emergence of Bergen County from the dark of a train tunnel bored deep inside the Hudson Cliffs is the stuff of mawkish metaphors and cumbersome run-on sentences.  In a marsh near Kearney, egrets perch elegantly on abandoned tires, while . . . what is that, a swan? . . . well whatever it is a swan does, it’s doing it, right there, past the upended chassis of an abandoned Toyota minivan. 

I was recently telling Said, who’s been on some sort of weird tear lately about my relationship with NYC, about how the place feels when you take a few steps back from it.  Where he sees a city that’s constantly laughing at you, I see a place with which I’ve become very physically involved.  This is in stark contrast to Newark, a city who’s abandoned art deco shell of a skyline has always struck me as terribly functionary, indifferent, and ministerial; like a government desk worker, or a bank teller.  We haven’t so much as made eye contact in months now.  We still aren’t.  Moving right along. 

There’s not quite so many stops left between here and D.C.  Of course, I know every single one of them straight through to Trenton.  We, mercifully, won’t be making station stops at Elizabeth, Linden, Rahway, Metropark, Metuch . . . . oh wait, yes, we will be stopping in Metropark . . . Metuchen, Edison, New Brunswick, Princeton Junction, or Hamilton.  Relief.  Absolute Relief. 

I’ve crossed this way before to Philly before.  Past Trenton, a place which I’m told makes, whatever of which the world takes.  That bridge is a poem, it’s also a complaint. 

"Fine", it seems to say, "Just take.  Everybody else does! After all, i’m just Trenton.  Who cares how I feel? It’s not like I was planning on keeping anything for myself! Trenton makes . . . the world takes!!."

I tune out Trenton very easily.  Everybody else does.  The stretch between Jersey and Philly is almost gothically desolate: boarded up row-houses and woodframe duplexes mingle with abandoned grocery stores-turned-churches and the occasional WaWa.  In Philly, the Schuykill cuts majestically past the crew houses and . . . one moment

"Is anyone sitting here, sir?"

"Oh no, go right ahead"

"Now I just have to wait for my bag.  The man said he was going to come back with my bag.  And . . . oh no, now we’re leaving.  Where’s my bag?"

How old must this one be? 88?

"I don’t know what to do? The redcap didn’t come back with my bag.  Oh wait, here it is.  I’m sorry, sir, I must really be disturbing you . . .

"Oh no, no bother at all"

It’s not like I’m doing anything more than writing a blog in my head, but no matter

"Now where’s my ticket?"

Good lord.  I’ve been seated next to a clueless old bubby. 

"I’ve got cookies.  Would you like some cookies?"

Candy from strangers. Gimme . . .

"So where are you heading to, young man?"

Oh great, small talk time.  And here I was hoping to sleep off the rest of the way down.  And, what’s that now?

"Next station stop, Wilmington, DE"

Sigh . . .alright, do try not to nod off.  She did just give you cookies. 

"I’m going to Washington, D.C. to meet my parents and my brother.  Yourself?"