Monthly Archives: October 2012

Wow, I’m feeling really great today

I’m feeling great today. I’m feeling super energetic. Everything’s just on. Does that make any sense? Like a switch. Like there are a bunch of switches and all of them are in the on position. I’m just going with it. I’m just going in general. I’ve never felt better. I’ve never felt more capable of doing anything. Seriously.

I feel like I could climb a mountain. I’d just get to the base and start climbing. And I’d keep going and I’d get to the top and I’d look around at everything and say to myself, “That was it?” because I’ll still be so pumped, that climbing a mountain wouldn’t have even made a dent in my energy reserves. You might be saying to yourself, well, maybe it wasn’t that big of a mountain. Rob, don’t you live in New York? Even if you go upstate, it’s not like the mountains are that big. And so I would say to that, touché, bring me a bigger mountain. Let’s go to the Rockies. Let’s go to Katmandu. Is that a mountain? I don’t think so but, whatever, I didn’t want to say Kilimanjaro or Everest, because they both sound too cliché. But I’ll climb all of them, one stacked on top of the next. Make a ladder out of mountains so I can climb all the way to those super mountains on Mars. I can’t be stopped. Not today.

I feel like I’ve been struck by lightning. But instead of simply coursing through my body for merely a fraction of a second, this lighting bolt is constant, like it’s just going up and down my spine, trillions upon gajillions of gigawatts of energy. Yeah, I know, lightning bolts are really hot, like surface of the sun hot. But for some reason the energy isn’t melting the flesh off of my bones. It’s like I’ve harnessed it, I’m somehow in control of it. And my hair isn’t singeing either. And my clothes are fine too. It’s not real fire is what I’m trying to say. But that’s what it feels like.

It feels like I can run an ultra-marathon. It feels like I could swim down the eastern seaboard to Florida. It feels like I could write a whole novel in a day. But it wouldn’t just be words, not merely length. It would be quality work. Like masterpiece caliber material. And it would make all other writing seem terrible by comparison. Which maybe I don’t actually want to do because, should the bar really be set that high? Isn’t that kind of too high?

But then again I’m feeling so energetic, so full of just, everything, that I’m seeing that bar, like I’m visualizing an actual bar that I’ve actually set so high, like I reached as deep as could to set it that high, and then I come back down and I look at that bar and I’m like, wait a second, that doesn’t seem too high. I don’t feel like I even used any energy at all. I’m still so jazzed up and jacked up and I dig even deeper and I reset the bar, even higher than before, and it makes the first setting seem like I didn’t even bother to pick the bar up off the ground, and then I come back down and repeat the same process over and over again, so the bar just keeps getting set exponentially higher and higher each time, and then I say to myself, wow Rob, it must be getting pretty late, all of this bar setting must have taken a while, but I look at my watch and I’m shocked, just floored, because all of this will have been done in like ten seconds, I’m moving so fast, over the top energy just pouring out of the core of my very being, and it’s all working up an incredibly oversized appetite.

Yeah, I didn’t even realize it, but I’m starving. I’m hungrier than I’ve ever been in my life. I feel like I could eat a whole steak, a giant porterhouse, two perfectly cooked roast prime ribs, a whole cow, really every single fiber of meat, I could lick it clean off the bone, washing it all down with gallons and gallons of water, so refreshing, I could drink an entire ocean, obviously it would have to be desalinated, I didn’t mean actual ocean water, I was talking about volume, just trying to give you an idea of what it would take to quench my thirst, and now that I’m thinking about it, one cow wouldn’t be enough, especially compared with a whole ocean of water, and while I’m waxing aquatic, I think I could eat a whole whale, a whole family of whales, a giant plate of whale T-bone steaks, and I wouldn’t even need a fork or a knife, I’m just that hungry.

I could do anything right now. I think I could run a two minute mile. I feel like I could uproot a tree right out of the ground with my bare hands. My fists are telling me that I’d have no problem punching multiple holes right through the walls. Right through the sidewalk. That barbwire fence doesn’t look so dangerous. Why shouldn’t I be able to touch those livewires? How much you want to bet I could throw this football over them mountains?

Seriously, you can’t stop me. I can do anything. I could solve the world’s energy problem, just hook me into the system, jack me in, put me on a treadmill, attach the treadmill to some generators, call up the President, tell him the energy crisis is over, tell him not to thank me, there’s no time for me to say you’re welcome, I’m too busy, I’m too going, I’m too on, I’m just, way too on.

Can I have your shirt?

No, I’m not being sarcastic. I really like that shirt. Can I borrow it? Can I keep it? Can you give it to me right now? I love it. I wish that you had bought two when you bought it for yourself. I wish that you bought eight, and that way you could give me seven of them, one for every day of the week. If only I could open my closet and see a whole wardrobe, just of that shirt, over and over and over again, man, my life would be set. Because I really love that shirt. And I’m not being sarcastic. Seriously, can I have it? I want to take it to a tailor. I want to take it to China and have them set up a whole factory dedicated to mass producing that shirt, thousands of copies, but only for me, just in my size. That way I’ll get to wear a brand new shirt every single day, and then I can just throw it out. Maybe I’ll wear two every day, like if I go running midday, I’ll take a shower after I get back from my run, and I’ll wear a brand new one for the afternoon. Scratch that, that’ll be three a day, because if I have that many shirts, of course I’m going to wear one while I’m working out. I told you how much I love the shirt, right? And now that I’m thinking about it, it’s actually four shirts a day, because I’ll want to wear one in the shower. And you know what? Make it a lot more shirts, because instead of pants, I’m thinking that I’m just going to wrap one shirt around each leg, and then another shirt around my waist. Well, maybe I can just have my Chinese garment factory use the same shirt material to make pants … no. No, then it wouldn’t be that shirt. It would be something else. It would be pants.

Of course I’m not being sarcastic. Haven’t I made it clear enough already how much I absolutely love that shirt? I’m obsessed with it. In fact, I don’t think it would be fair to mass-market that shirt, even if it were only for me. Because all of those shirts wouldn’t be that shirt, that very shirt that you’re wearing right now. I think that it’s something not about the style, not about the make or material, but there’s something special about that specific shirt. Like even if you bought two like I had mentioned earlier, or eight, the other ones wouldn’t do it for me in the same way that that shirt is doing it for me. Can you please take it off right now and hand it over to me? I’m begging you, sincerely. Although, if I were in your position, I would understand exactly what you’re going through. People must come up to you all the time, pleading with you, demanding to have the shirt. I wouldn’t give it up. But I can’t stop asking. Just please give it to me.

I’ll never take it off. I’m really serious here. I’d just leave it on for the rest of my life. Sure, it would get dirty, and start to fall apart, holes and stains and everything. But that would just add extra layers to its uniqueness. It would grow old with me. And finally, someday, I’d be laid down to rest with the shirt still on, threadbare by that point, maybe it would be so faded and torn that I’d have to tie it together at certain spots to keep it from sliding off of my body. Spending my whole life in that shirt would have had obvious consequences on my professional and social life. Nobody would want to live with me, because they’d be too jealous of the shirt, and I wouldn’t be able to live with anybody either, because I’d be too worried that they’d wait until I fall asleep to steal the shirt and take off in the middle of the night. And holding down a job would be impossible, because you’re supposed to wear nice clothes to work, like a suit and tie. And then obviously everybody at work would be jealous of the shirt also.

And so, please, don’t make me beg any more, just give me the shirt. Let me live my life in your shirt. Let me be buried with that shirt. I’ll need to be buried in concrete, obviously, deep down in a really state of the art high-security mausoleum, because as soon as I die everybody’s going to be thinking that they can just grave rob me. I won’t let it happen. I want to be in that shirt for all of eternity.

What? I’m serious! No I’m not being sarcastic. You pick out the best shirts, what can I say? And look at those sneakers. Wow! What a great pair of kicks. Can I have them? Those are the coolest sneakers I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ll trade you my car for just one of them, just the left one. Come on, I’m totally serious. I’m not being sarcastic at all. I just … I just love your sense of style.

I’m running a little late here

As I’m writing this, it’s raining so hard outside. I woke up this morning and I couldn’t even tell it was morning, because the sky was so black. And it was just coming down in sheets. It had the effect of keeping me glued to my bed, the no sunlight, the soothing sounds of rain. I feel like I’m falling asleep as I write this, trying to pound a few cups of coffee and write a whole blog post before I have to get to work.

I always commute by bike, seeing as how I live three miles away from the restaurant where I work. And so I have my morning planned out down to the minute. I know exactly when I have to leave the house. And I’m still hoping that the rain is going to clear up. I have like half an hour, so, you know, it can’t rain forever. All I do is wrap a few garbage bags around my waist and I won’t get any of that splashback, as the back tire sprays water up my back.

But I don’t know, this is getting heavier and heavier. The problem lies in the fact that it only takes me about fifteen minutes to get to work by bike. If I don’t ride my bike though, I have to walk seven blocks to the subway, wait for a train, and then walk another seven blocks from the subway to the restaurant. Who knows how long that takes? Half an hour? And it’s never consistent, because the trains are never really consistent.

So I could sit here and wait for the rain to clear up which, as I’m writing this sentence, I think it actually is clearing up, not all the way, but the sun looks like it’s trying to break through the thick clouds above. So maybe I can wait here, follow my regular schedule. The problem is, if I take the subway, I have to leave earlier than usual, to allow myself all of that extra time for walking and waiting. Right now it looks like I’m going to bike. But what happens if, right as I’m out the door with my bike, it starts coming down hard again? I’ll be so screwed, because there’s no way I can make it to work in fifteen minutes via public transportation.

And I just started at this restaurant like two months ago. So far, I haven’t had to take the subway, not even once. I’m just picturing everybody standing around, getting ready to get to work, and my boss is like, “Where’s that new guy?” and then ten or fifteen minutes later I run in and I’m all soaked and out of breath, “Listen! I can explain!” but all I can see is my boss just arms folded across his chest, shaking his head back and forth in disappointment.

So I guess, what, if it really got that bad, if it really started to rain right as I left, I’d just have to go for it. If I show up to work drenched, but on time, isn’t that a lot better than showing up ten minutes late, but significantly less soaked? If I were the boss, personally, I would prefer that my employees take their time, especially on days with inclement weather. I’m putting myself at significant jeopardy, riding my bike as fast as I can, in the pouring rain. Is it really that important to be exactly on time?

I never really understood punctuality. Like, I get it in terms of if you’re meeting up with somebody outside of work. Nobody likes to stand around waiting. But at a job? At a restaurant? Lunch doesn’t start until noon. I have to be at work at eleven-fifteen. Why forty-five minutes? Shouldn’t there be, built into those forty-five minutes, ten or fifteen minutes to be late? Do you know how stressful it is to try and get up at the same exact minute every morning, to leave the house at the very same second, regardless of how much you’d just like another five minutes with your cup of coffee, or another ten minutes just laying in bed listening to the rain outside?

Of course you do. Everybody has to get up for work. Everybody has to make it into the office by eleven-fifteen. It’s called being an adult. And I get it. Responsibility. Money. Time. I just think that we all should chill out a little bit. Everything’s by the minute, by the very second. Don’t we all just want to relax a little bit more? Do we really have to be racing to work everyday?

Me and my leather jacket

I have this great leather jacket. When I was living in Ecuador I came across this tiny little town that specialized in leather. Literally, every single house had a leather goods store attached to it. Bags and jackets and belts hanging everywhere. I didn’t travel there with the intention of buying a leather jacket. In fact, up until that day, I was strictly anti-leather jackets.

Why? Because when I was eighteen I thought it would be really cool to have a leather jacket. So I went out and bought one. But I had no idea how to buy clothes and I bought what wound up looking like a stupid leather poncho. This thing was gigantic. It’s partly my body type. I’m really tall and have really long arms. Usually I just buy everything cotton, and then stretch out the sleeves.

Anyway, everything in this leathertropolis was dirt cheap. Like I’d start listing prices but you wouldn’t believe them. You’d think to yourself, “Same old Rob G. bullshit.” But it’s not. OK, I’ll give you one price, just to put things into perspective. I got a solid leather black belt. Something that would have cost me maybe sixty bucks at a department store. Easily a hundred at Banana or J. Crew. I got it here for three dollars. I’m not even kidding. If I only knew at the time how good of a deal that was, I would have bought like a hundred.

But leather jackets. I was just walking around, not at all interested in buying a leather jacket, but this one lady got really pushy, talking about me giving her money for a leather jacket. And finally, after all of my protests about awkward sizes and trying to tell her in Spanish about how one time I bought a leather poncho, she’s just like, “We’ll make you one right here. Custom.”

And I’m like, “Go on.” And she did. She made me a custom leather jacket. Did I mention how sick it is? It fits me perfectly. It’s brown, but not regular leather jacket brown. It’s like Grand Canyon at sunset brown. It’s amazing. I feel like the Fonz. Scratch that. I feel like if I were standing next to the Fonz, I’d take one look at him and tell him to sit on it. And he’d do it, because he’d know that he’d been out-Fonzed.

I wish I could wear it every single day. Unfortunately, I can’t. The only problem with this jacket is, due to Northeast climate, there’s a very short window where I can actually put it on. Once it gets warm, the thing turns into a sweat machine. Leather isn’t breathable at all. Conversely, it’s absolutely useless come winter. Wintertime you need a big jacket, something you can wear a sweatshirt under, something that can withstand a bus passing by and splashing you with a nasty puddle of black, salty street slush.

So yeah, I can only wear it a handful of times every year. Luckily, it’s fall right now. I just went to my friends Ben and Jill’s wedding up in Buffalo. I’m pretty sure that one of the reasons God put me on this planet was so that I could be up in Buffalo wearing this leather jacket for three days straight.

I saw a bunch of friends that I hadn’t seen in forever. All of them kept telling me about how much they admired it. “Sick jacket!” “Awesome jacket!” “Great jacket!” I loved it. The complements. The attention. The vindication. Do you know how much I got made fun of for that giant leather jacket I bought ten years ago? Seriously, a lot. Everybody in my family. All of my friends. It was horrible. I stuck it out for the year, just because I spent like actual money on it, just because I thought that if I stuck it out people would eventually stop teasing. But nobody did.

And finally, here I was, me, all of my friends, Buffalo. It was the leather jacket comeback story of the century. But then the complements started to transition into requests. Like, “Killer jacket! Can I try it on?” What was I going to say, no? I don’t want you to ruin it? It’s mine, don’t even think about it? Of course I couldn’t say anything like that. So I let on friend try it on. And then somebody saw my friend trying it on and asked me if he could try it on next. Then people I didn’t even know started going up to whoever might be trying it on at that moment and asking him, “Hey, can I try it on too?” and I waited for that person to say something like, “I don’t know, it’s not mine, it belongs to Rob G. right here, let me ask,” but instead it was like, “Sure here you go guy!”

And I had to sit there and smile and pretend not to look so worried, squirming, trying to pretend like I wasn’t staring at the jacket, can’t take my eyes off the jacket, totally obsessed with the jacket. One guy made a joke that it fit everybody perfectly, just like in the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. “Maybe we should all send it around and we can all take turns with it for a month each!” That’s not true. It only looked good on me. Please, OK, fun’s over, just give me back the jacket. “My turn!” Oh my God, that guy just got some ketchup on the sleeve. And not even on the leather, on the cloth part. Is that going to stain? Jesus, I need to get out of here.

You know what? I’m tired. I gotta run. Yeah, sorry guys. I’ll see you tomorrow. Yeah, so, just, if I could just get my jacket, and I’ll be going. So, yeah, just, OK, just take it off. Yeah, it’s my jacket. Just, no not like that. One arm at a time. Easy. You’re going to stretch it out! You’re going to ruin it! Give it to me! Right now! OK right this second! Sorry. Sorry I don’t mean to get bent out of shape, it’s just. This jacket, it’s mine it’s … it’s just such a sick jacket. It’s great.

Twenty-Six Point Two

I like to run, but I really don’t like contemporary running culture. Part of this, I’m sure, has to be due to the fact that I’m a real dick, that I just have to find some way to make myself feel better than everybody else. But even when I take this into consideration, I still find that many aspects of running should probably be eliminated. But let me focus on one in particular.

Twenty-six point two. I’m referring, obviously, to the length of a marathon. Twenty-six point two miles. Isn’t that such a stupid thing to say? And yet marathoners can’t stop saying it. Twenty-six point two. Over and over again. Whenever somebody asks me how long a marathon is, the first thing that pops in my head is, OK, obviously this person doesn’t know much about marathons. Won’t it come across as really over-the-top to give the exact length, down to the point two? If I started a book club, and I picked some really long book to read, and somebody asked me how many pages the book is, wouldn’t it be a little crazy to be like, “Oh Moby Dick? Yeah, no big deal, it’s just five thousand four hundred and twenty six point two pages.”

How old are you Rob? Oh I’m twenty-eight point five years old. Just round down. Seriously. It’s still an accomplishment, running that many miles. Just because the extra point two miles are there doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to include them when talking about the marathon to every single person that makes the mistake of asking you about running. Think about it, we’re like one of four nations on the entire planet that measure marathons, or anything really, in the science-unfriendly non-metric standard system. You know how long a marathon is in Canada? Forty-two kilometers. Flat.

When else is anything ever measured in point twos? Not with money. “That’ll be ten point two dollars sir.” What is point two of a mile? I’m doing some basic arithmetic in my head and it’s what, two tenths? So it’s one fifth? Why not twenty-six and a fifth? I guess it doesn’t roll off the tongue like point two. In Star Trek sometimes they’d announce that they’d be at, “warp nine and rising. Nine point one. Nine point two,” before someone in engineering would yell up, “We’re pushing her as fast as she’s going to go Captain!”

The whole length of the race is totally arbitrary anyway. Some say it’s because of a long run some ancient Greek guy did to warn his king about an invading army. I read another claim a while back stating the reason for the point two was a little less glorious, something about the royal family of the UK wanting to get a better view of the finish line during the Olympic games a long time ago. Either way, it’s a long race. Why complicate matters by keeping the point two around? I think it should be a solid twenty-six. A bonus is that it’ll be a lot easier for someone to finally break that sub-two hour marathon.

But unfortunately, this will never happen. Why? Because if you get rid of the point two, running stores and running web sites are going to lose a ton of money selling t-shirts and bumper stickers that say nothing but “26.2.” If you see some dude walking around with a shirt that just says 26, you’re going to be like, what is that, is that from a sports team? Is that one of those Abercrombie & Fitch shirts with a printed random number? Nobody would get it. Similarly, if you see a Subaru sport utility wagon with an oval shaped 26 bumper sticker, you’ll be like, huh? Is that some sort of a parking decal? It loses a lot of its specialness.

There are a lot of things that bug me about running. There are the running utility belts, to which runners can attach several tiny squirt bottles to decorate their waists. I’m sure they’re super practical. There are the runners who do practice laps before a race. A big race, a very, very small race, it doesn’t matter. You’ll see people jogging, warming up. You going to win this time buddy? There are those jerks that, and this is one of my pet peeves here, after they cross the finish line, they start running backwards, back into the race, applauding those still yet to finish, encouraging everyone along, “Come on! You’re almost there!” But what they’re really doing, I can just tell, they’re thinking to themselves, “Wow, I can’t believe I beat all of these people!”

There’s a lot for me to get annoyed at. But nothing really gets under my skin the way twenty-six point two does. When runners say twenty-six point two, they slow down, make sure they’re enunciating really carefully. “Did you hear what I said? Twenty. Six. Wait for it. Point. Two.” It’s like all I can see is a close up of a mouth, really stressing the distance, and the point two. It’s a long race. Such a huge accomplishment. No, you don’t understand. It’s even longer. It’s point two longer than you thought.