The University Lakes figured prominently into the first 3 years that I have lived in Baton Rouge. I cut my running teeth on Lakeshore drive. At first just running half miles down it and turning back. I biked the smaller of the two lakes first, trying to get confidence to eventually run the three mile loop; this eventually became my home track. Lauren and I would walk from my tiny apartment on July street to the beach of the lake, bringing with us sacks of old heels of bread. Lauren would laugh as the geese came running at us. "I touched one!" she proclaimed as a silly bird wandered close to her outstretched hand. When we moved to Ovid Street, I still ran the lakes, this time more regularly and with better efficiency. Yesterday I ventured back to them on a nice 5.6 mile run. It had been a few weeks since I ran there and I still don't go with the frequency that I used to. The water was glass with the late sunset bouncing off of it with pinks and burnt oranges. I was about 20 minutes to late to get the full show. Under the bridge that I have biked and ran to so many time I saw a perfect inversion of the bottom in the darkening mirror. By the halfway point of my run it was dark. I played with running mantras ( breathe and light) but mostly just let my mind wander. I could just make out the top of tiger stadium's lights. If I had my glasses one I could have seen the top tier filled with people. When I lived nearer I could actually hear the roar of the crowd.

2.5

Only is the sake of staying consistent to I update to recall my 2.5 mile run today. Neither fast nor necessarily important from a thought perspective, this run came on a whim. I had decided to run the following day (Friday), but after checking the weather I said to hell with it. I put no pressure on this run and came home when I was ready. In a sense it was an extra run. I will still run tomorrow. Thoughts had during run in no particular order: 1. David Foster Wallace 2. My career as a librarian 3. Living in Baton Rouge 4. If I lived in Memphis 5. My wife, Lauren 6. DFW's writing style 7. The different between myself or any ordinary person, and a person of genius 8. My breathing 9. The different feeling between being in the shade and being in the sun (ideally, to run during the day, a person wakes early and gets out before the sun is striking down. Though it is certainly cooler right now than it has been all summer, I think it would be a mistake to go out in the middle of the day. I ran around 9:30. The temperature was around 80, and in the sun you could feel the rays begging you to give up on everything and lie still in cool grass. In the shade, you could feel whispers of cooler climates. The breeze was nice.) 10. There goes another runner! 11. There goes a biker! 12. 2 runners... 13. Another biker. One last note: I can honestly say that I am probably not that much a better runner than I was 5 years ago. But I do believe that if you stay at running, or biking, or anything with in sense of regularity, it takes on something new and becomes a part of you... That last part is bullshit.

Cooler evenings

I ran 3.5 miles tonight and practically none of my thoughts were on the run: none on breathing; none of my footwork; no mantras. I was basically going through my job and my career the entire run. Thinking about where I have lived, where I have come from, where I am going. The interesting thing about runs is the free flowing thoughts that can happen. Some runs are entirely a struggle. You are fighting your mind to keep going. You are fighting your breathing, your legs. Then there are runs where you aren't even in the run. You are somewhere else completely. I can tell you a route I run were several months ago the bells were chiming the 6 O'clock hour, and how I thought about poetry and weather and how good it always feels to hear church bells. I couldn't tell you much about this run. I went out and I came home. I would have liked to run 4 miles, but as with most runs I just pick random ways to go and then map them when I get back. I used to use Mapmyrun.com. After warning me for years to join then finally made it impossible to use without joining. Big problem there: I immediately starting using a site called Runningmap.com. Practically the same website, only instead of making you click through several pages saying "No, I don't want to join. Yes, I am sure. Yes." You just go straight to it and start plugging your run away. And, the cookies always save my address. I would like to get one of those bracelets that track your mileage. My only problem is when I know how slow I am going, or how (not) far, I tend to have bad runs. The weather is like this: highs of upper 80s. This is an enormous improvement to over the summer. I won't sit and pretend it won't get warm again, but I will enjoy it now. In the present.

Thoughts on running

I am going to start collecting thoughts on my running and thoughts had while running here. I am in the middle of a thought clearing mindset and I can find no better place to have those moments than while running. Yesterday I ran a quick two miles. My mileage has been increasing in the last month or so and my running has been feeling quicker and better. This is an up and down thing and could really mean nothing. After 5 years of running I have never really gotten THAT much faster and that much further. Lately,however, I find that I can go somewhat faster and have slowly been increasing my mileage. Regardless, I find that running is the one place where I can be somewhat meditative. I have an extremely difficult time keeping my thoughts still and in order. Over the weekend I started reading this blog (having a hard time posting link. it is zenhabits.net) Though I can easily call bullshit on a lot of the stuff written here, I can also take a moment and realize I call bullshit on everything and anything. I have a negative attitude on everything. This is not healthy. So, I am going to run. I am going to focus on breathing through out my days and I am really going to focus on making running a priority not just for my health but for my mind. So, yesterday's run. I know I was filled with anxiety most of yesterday. There are several dependencies I am trying to break and I believe that that is the cause for the late sleeplessness and anxiety felt yesterday. So throughout my run I focused on my breathing and that is all. I tried to visualize my self running through a path and that my thoughts were laid out on that path and I was running through them. Bad thoughts, good thoughts. I attempted to let them come and go through my head as the came...and then went. This sounds hokey but I am really trying here. So, look for more zen type bullshit to come. Really gonna try to keep this current.

crazy dream

A heavy rain kept my wife and my dog and myself in bed longer than I wanted to stay this morning, The comfort was something you can't buy in a gas station or on a shady street. On waking I put the necessary straps onto Walter and headed into to the weathered streets. I was worried about the long grass getting his under carriage wet, but I knew I could towel him off. At the street corner one house over I noticed the small "Garage Sale" sign posted to the light pole. The rain was still pounding the window pains when I was confronted by my closest friends: it was time for us to go down deep into the earth to regain control of our home. I stayed back with Lauren at first. What are they getting themselves into? I woke Lauren who like me seemed drugged. "We got to go," I said. She was quite but got up and followed me. I could see the last of my friends so I called out to them to wake up. We crossed the threshold into a dark basement, light flickered from flaming torches hung along the wall. We started our track down. What we entered was a kind of desolate farm. I was unclear what our mission was. Something involving sheep and the devil. Apparently this was some kind of home both the devil and the old Garden of Eden. Demons were crossing fields a half mile away amongst overgrown woods. I could see tigers battling lit figures. In a barn some of my friends were already there, cutting loose the sheep. These somehow represented peace up above us. Somehow alerted we ran from the barn having rescued the last of the sheep and made our way into an old farm house. Up the stairs we went. Out the window we could see heroes of old, in armor fighting but losing too different forces of evil. They were entering the house. All we could do was wait. I meditated on my end. I put my arm around Lauren to protect here and picked up an old chair. It was then I noticed my tiny pocket knife. Not the largest but only recently sharpened to a razor's edge. The first of these menacing creatures popped its head around the old door jam. A tiger's head, followed by an archer. He fired an arrow at us. I lifted the old chair I had and its arrow headed thwacked into the seat of the chair. Lauren was behind me. I ran up to the edge of the door. There was a small foyer before it opened into the room. My cousin was still by the window. I had my knife out. I would look at him to see how far into the room they were. For some reason they were cautious. I waited. As soon as he gave me the signal I drove my small knife blindly with all my force around the corner. Catching the archer in the eye. I pulled it out quickly and made short work of his neck, pulling it across fast and as deep as possible. He fell to the floor. I turned back around the corner and waited for more. I looked at my wife. She was cowered in fear.

Noonish in March.

Always tending to circle the weekend on my calendars. Will it rain? Will I be inside scratching my stomach? Been biking a lot. Easing back into running a lot. Changes abound.
Last night I had a long dream that changed from memories to dreams and back. A seamless interchange that I was completely unaware of:

Walking slowing down Westmoreland Dr. The church bells ringing. I love the sound of church bells; right away I feel at ease. I run down this street regularly, so it is impossible to tell if this is a dream or a distant memory. From there I turn west towards Acadian. The hycynths are blooming all over the place. People are stepping out of their homes to look at the sky. The color of wine is spilling behind the clouds. I remember an article I read that talked about the book of Revelations.
I am now sitting on my porch, drinking bourbon with a good friend. He has just played his songs to me, so i oblige with one or two of the songs i can play without fumbling too hard through the lyrics.
"You know, there is a place up ahead where the songs sounds..." His voice trails off. We knock back our glass and stair at the trees for a little while. My small jumps at a bumble bee and we laugh at friends.

Winter is not

All I could hear was the rushing of air. My hair blowing crazy, the girl in the front seats hair blowing crazy. You sensed the music more than you heard it. And the feeling of the crisp fresh air swirling around inside of the car. Someone was smoking cigarettes. That air was mostly being sucked out into the two lane road running Northeast/Southwest between Memphis, TN and a tiny town in southern Arkansas. We were out of town, on a trip, camping, seeing a friend, spending the night at our neighbors house, and simply "taking a drive," respectively; some of us had shiftier relationships with our parents than others.

The tip of my left index finger had a red blister on it due to what? Falling asleep smoking? Getting too close to the camp fire? It was impossible to say. It was 12:00, I had been awake for roughly 3 hours, and this was the first time I noticed it. Though certainly not an early riser, it was hard to sleep late in a tent with the sun pooling through the netted "window," and even in my painfully dehydrated state, I knew that the air would be even cooler down near the lake. And that as much pain as I was in metaphysically, that the cool air blowing around down there on my face would have a healing effect that I could not get in my parents house.

Nobody could talk. We had not learned anything valuable, or come to any conclusions about life. We had just gotten out of town for a weekend.