01.29.10
A body in motion tends to stay in motion
NYC 1/2 Marathon, Jan 24, 2010
08.09.09
Make the SAGE frolic, and the serious smile.
Jeff and I attended and helped host one of the local fundraisers for SAGE (Service and Advocacy for GLBT Elders) last night. To be honest, I didn’t quite understand what “hosting” meant since we weren’t having it at our house but came to find out about half-way through the party that hosting meant we were supposed to give out our “list” being a list of names of contacts to help add to the head count. We didn’t know know anyone that wasn’t already invited or at the party so we kind of sucked on the hosting bit but it was a good party and I’m a member of SAGE now…at 39…which trumps getting the first AARP magazine at 50. So there is that.
But the funny part of the evening was when a friend who was also hosting came up to me after the speech part of the party and said, “It’s all well and good to be here trying to raise money for a good cause but I couldn’t stop looking at your nipples the whole time I was standing up there speaking.”
Apparently my nipples are now so constantly erect that unless I wear an under-shirt or put Band-aids® on them, I look like I’m standing in an Arctic wind during frost-bite season. In the pro column, It’s a ice-breaker.
04.22.09
Running again
Dookie
As I’ve beaten this horse to death weeks ago to anyone who will give me three seconds, I’ve was easily arm-twisted into putting my name in the lottery for running the NYC Marathon this coming November. I’ve been running on and off now for just a year and had no desire to run a marathon at all…not with all the stories of scabbed over nipples, lost toe-nails, and the very real-not-an-urban-legend about marathoners pooping themselves during the actual race. I am clear that having to pull off to the side to puke is one thing I can accept but making a dookie mid-stride for me is a big ol’ un-un. Just sayin.
Anywho, I’m in full force training, gleaning tips and advice from better men than myself and trying to figure out how this is actually going to happen and how I’m going to divert/trick/talk myself through those miles when I want to quit which right now is about mile one, three, and five.
Additionally, because it was such a hit last year, I’ve taken out my new video cam with me on a run this morning. Nice to see nothing has changed…I’m still running the same hills and still so out of breath you’d think I had emphysema and an impending heart attack. On the other hand, I have some new running threads that I think work for me.
Please do enjoy: Early Morning April Run..with hills! (Quicktime, 15.5MB / 3.5 min / music: “Running Up That Hill (Street 45 edit)” by Levy 9)
07.17.08
Me….running up the MF’er Hill
Just because I know there is general interest in my exercise habits, I provide for your amusement and entertainment, “Me…Running the MF’er Hill: The Video”. 10 minutes (Surrrrrrsly) of me yapping while I’m running, talking about nothing and giving you a blow by blow running commentary of my physical discomfort. The most amusing part? You can hear the slap-slap-slap of my size 12 clown feet the whole time! Enjoy.
UPDATE: Jeff says he’ll never get those ten minutes back so be warned.
Beau Takes on That MF’er Hill (Quicktime, 31MB)
06.17.08
The Face of 38
I turned 38 this past Sunday and though wishful thinking because of the potential hot twin boffing we could do and video for x-tube, I am not his twin. Though in general, I’d regard 38 as one of those birthdays that is a blurry slide into 40, this one is interesting to me for several reasons. First and foremost, my father, when he was this age, had a debilitating brain aneurysm that quite literally shattered and change irrevocably the lives of many, many people. I’m certainly not pointing this out because I’m all doom and gloom about the task of actually trying to live through 38 unscathed but rather, the stangeness of now being the age of my father and being able to see for the first time how much of his life he had in front of him.
At the time of his aneurysm, I was 14 and he was my parent so what did I know about it? Now I have a much different perspective. I’m just starting my life and finding it’s groove. The home life, the home, the man, the work, the friends…all things are really, really good and I can only see better days ahead and I’m sure that is how my Dad must have been too. His masonary business was taking off and he was venturing out into investing into finanicial partnerships that were going to make him even more successful than he had been. He was known for the quality of his work and the integrity of his work ethic. All this ended the moment he blacked out and came crashing down to the sidewalk where a stranger found him. And so there is some heaviness about being 38 that I didn’t quite grasp so fully before. I often think about all the things my Mom I and would talk about now if she was still alive and I think she’d be shocked and pleased at the understanding I’ve come into. I completely get how young they felt and how young at heart they were.
Related, but much more Me!Me!Me! is that idea that at 38, my parents had four sons, 19, 14, 10, and 9. I can’t even begin to fathom having kids and what it means at this age, let alone to have four, two of which were adolesents. Jeff and I are spoiled and rotten and if I don’t get my weekly comics, I’m grumpy and distressed so what did my parents give up so that we could be taken care of? The mind reels. I told Aunt Pam, who spent so much time with my parents along with all the cousins at that time, that the big secret I think I figured out is that not one of them had any clue about parenting and were really no different then I am now at this age…they just had to fake it and make it look like they knew what they were doing. They did a good job, by the way, in that we’re all still alive and kicking and generally happy and most of my cousins and brothers and their families are having their own babies and whatnot so what’s old is new again. Still, my mind reels.
And so 38! I actually had a hard time believing I wasn’t going to be 40 this year and a little disappointed too. I have a total hard-on for the 40+ crowd and don’t even get me started on the hotness of salt-n-pepper hair so to think I still have two years to go is just something else. I’m not the most patient of people but nothing I can do about it other than just continue to enjoy the good days and work on being better.
The whole sha-bang though, was clarified for me this morning, as I was running a practice 5K in the Central Park this morning, getting ready for the real deal NYC Corporate Challange coming up on Thursday. I’m in no way the hotness of him, or him, or him, or her, or the others who continually inspire and push me to pass on the bread at dinner and get up at 5:30 to go running but it’s a good first step for me to run the 5K. I’ve been on the treadmill for months but there isn’t anything like actually running outside and this morning was SPECTACULAR. Cool and low humidity, the sun was out, and I was reminded the very best of NYC is being able to run through Central Park, looking at the museums, and the Dakota, and the Bethesda Fountain and the Jackie O Resevoir, or finding a statue of a crouching panther hidden in the blossoming hydrangeas along the east side of the Met that I hadn’t ever seen before. I was just banging out a fantastic run when I totally got cruised by a hot bearded guy running the opposite direction. My gaydar pinged so hard I just HAD to turn and glance over my shoulder at him one more time and totally caught him doing the same thing! I’m 38 and I still get cruised. I mean, please. How much better could today have been? Perfection or endorphins, it totally doesn’t matter cause I’ll take the cloud I’m rocking on right now.
12.23.07
Me, Unemployed
Friday I ended my 12-year run at a large academic medical center in New York City. I started out as a nurse in the ER after moving into the city to live with Jeff and continued through the hospital as a nurse in the cath lab then a research coordinator and then slowly falling into more managerial and administrative jobs. I finished with three years of a directorship under my belt, an MBA, and some great experiences. The thought of leaving made me sick to my stomach…the idea of a sense of belonging, of knowing my environment, of the safety of where I was and what I knew.
But I need more and I need to see what is on the other side of the grassy hill. In my quest for being better this year, I’ve tried to embrace risk both personally and professionally and so I decided it was time to seek other adventures.
I’m taking two weeks off then jumping head-first into a corporate consulting gig that will have me whirling around the US most of the time. Something so completely different and foreign to anything I’ve know before but I’m not only thrilled and excited but strangely less anxious and panicked. I take this as a good sign that I’m on the right path.
12.06.07
Thank Zod, It’s off.
They cut the cast off today and while there were no maggots, there was a lot of grossness that a good couple days of exfoliating needs to work over. I’m also, for lack of a better term, limp-wristed as I’m simultaneously without any strength in my wrist as well as having frozen tendons from the non-use. I can mince around but I can’t let my wrist dangle ever so elegantly before me. It’s imposed butchness, I suspect.
What I just realized is that on my wrist now I have my very own lightening bolt scar, ala Harry Potter. Just not on my forehead (which is where my inverted ‘V’ resides denoting not so much a Muggle but neither a wizarding wizard of wizards.
The physical therapist cautioned me against using my right hand for any kind of activity when I left him this afternoon. “Any kind of activity,” I inquired. “Any kind,” he said with a knowing look. Sigh..Looks like Jeff isn’t off the hook yet, if you get what I’m sayin’.
The Cast Comes Off Today
The fading black cast I’ve been wearing on my right arm for the last three weeks is finally coming off today. I can admit as a health care professional that I VASTLY underestimated the impact this little surgery to repair some damaged cartilage in my hand would have on me and my day to day life. It was a much more painful recovery then I expected and the having a cast on for four weeks inhibiting simple things like typing, taking a shower, and other more intimate personal time really just annoyed the hell out of me.
Not one to let an opportunity for self-inflicted drama to go by, the impending removal of my cast unburied some old ER nursing days for me way back in the day when I was working at the city hospital in St. Louis. We had a homeless man come in who was wearing about seven pairs of thick cotton socks which probably had not been removed for months if not a year. They’d hardened into a close proximity of a plaster cast which forced us into using the cast saw to cut them off. The whole time the guy kept repeating “don’t take ‘em off, don’t take ‘em off” which is what I’d now term a red-flag and worth listening to.
With the sock cut, we literally cracked it open to reveal a foot that had been halfway eaten away by a writhing, slimy ball of maggots. From what we could piece together, the guy must have gotten some kind of wound and had flys on land and lay eggs on it. As bad as it sounds, he’s actually pretty lucky because the maggots did exactly what they were suppose to do which eat rotting meat so instead of him developing a deadly case of sepsis and gangrene, the maggots kept his wound cleaned and cleared of debris. There is even a controlled therapeutic intervention for similar problems used in hospitals using maggots.
This is not to say that several of us didn’t have to leave the room to puke on the ER floor. I’m just saying nature takes care of itself in strange and unusual ways. Of course he did loose his foot, tool, so that wasn’t really great.
So when my cast comes off, I’m hoping I don’t have any maggots in there. That is all I’m saying.
05.23.07
There is a choice in here somewhere
My first attempt at spin class which Jeff invited me to attend with him last week was, with my thinking at the time, going to be my first and last. It was horrible and trumped with me being lead through the spin by my peddles rather than by my legs. Nothing worse then feeling like you’re trussed into some kind of torture machine that is going to spin you right off the front because there are no damn brakes on the thing.
But I’m nothing if not a trooper so I went to Monday night’s spin class again because Jeff asked and thought I should give it a good second try…getting back on the horse and all that mishigas. That instructor, a tight knot of a UK chick named Jess was awesome. Great music and she came around and set me up correctly so that I was peddling the bike instead of it peddling me. I was able to stand in position two and three at all the right spots and put in the full workout. In fact, I worked out so hard, by the time we got done and I wobbled down to get my stuff from the locker, I thought I would puke. Which, while bad enough, was only outdone by me getting on the subway, still sure puking was eminent, with the additional feeling that I could very well crap myself before I got home. And when I got home, the urge to purge had subsided but the underwear didn’t make it. So essentially, I worked out so hard I partially lost bowel control. So, like, yay me again. Feh.
03.07.07
Sweat, blood, and tears
It’s unfortunate to report that I am that guy in the beginner yoga class I started last week. I wanted to be the A+ student, the one who, without any previous training, is able to do amazing poses and be in total sync with my body and breathing. I wanted to be that favorite pupil to the instructors; the no-bother, no-worry student. But no…I’m none of those things. I’m the class SWEATER. After the first ten minutes of our Sun Salutation, I look like I’ve been hosed down by the NYC Fire Department. Seriously, I’ve never thought of myself as an overtly persperate kind of guy but something is happening because I’m simply drenched by the end of class…and everyone notices!
When I mentioned to the instructor who walked by to re-pose me in Downward Dog that I was sweating like a pig and sliding all over the mat, he very kindly let me know that was just my body getting rid of all the unhealthy toxins and it was natural. Toxins, what? I’ve been on the most healthy diet for the past six weeks and haven’t put a scrap of crap in me since January and I’m detoxing from what, exactly? So I’m not liking the detox line, but I appreciated him not saying how gross I was.
This week was even worse then last week though I did manage to bring a towel with me that I used frequently. My Downward Dog is a bit better but my Warrior 1 needs some major work. I can’t be the bow and arrow when my inflexible, tight unworked 36-year old arms don’t bend like that, McFlexible. I know the other class members were still just agog at the river pouring off me but I felt a little more in control AND I did lose about two pounds of water weight by yesterday morning which I’ve since put right back on, so there is that. Hi, I’m Beau and I’m a sweater.