Novelist. Editor. Journalist. Business Writer.
OK, so maybe I ran BY Robin Williams on the Brooklyn Bridge while he was filming something. Didn’t see the starlet he was acting with as her back was turned to me and I was entirely too cool to turn around and stare.
But this run, though? I took this run, tossed it on the bed and had my way with it. It was that good.
Continue reading “Eighteen Miles With Robin Williams”
This morning I was excited to discover that Jane Austen invented the “humble brag.” Sitting there on the 4 Train into Manhattan, re-reading Pride & Prejudice (and by re-reading, I might mean reading for the first time ever. Pretty sure I only read the parts necessary to get me through undergrad and then watched a movie version), I stumbled upon this:
“Nothing is more deceitful,” said Darcy, “than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.”
“And which of the two do you call my little recent piece of modesty?”
“The indirect boast; for you are really proud of your defects…”
But, alas, a quick Google search tells me that I’m not the first to make this connection.
So I spotted this letter taped up on the subway platform Sunday morning.
Looks like Sofia-Sophia really made an impression on Joe. If you can’t read it, they met on a Fourth of July train and this poster, taped to a beam on the Atlantic Avenue (Barclays Center) platform, went up on Tuesday, August 28. More information — and a photo of Joe! — on this missed connection here.
Yesterday, ran the NYRR Bronx 10 Miler. Official time: 1:22:33
Not ideal, but I’m happy with it. I’d slacked off in Tampa two weeks ago and my 15 mile run last Sunday took it out of me. I’d been sick all week, so I took this one a little tentatively. Had gas left in the tank, so to speak. Which was surprising considering what I left in that porta-potty before the race!
Weather was great. And this was a pretty cool course, out and back, with only a few hills. And since I didn’t know where the hills were going to be, it wasn’t psychologically traumatic like running in Prospect Park, knowing you have to do the North Hill AGAIN.
Special note to the dude wearing Powered by Dim Sum shirt: SHUT UP! Jeebus M. Crow, can you just shut up for two minutes during a race? You know, you’d probably have finished a lot faster it you would have shut it with the mindless, inane chatter. I would rather have listened to an hour and 20 minutes of Ke$ha than you. I guess your friend was too polite to say anything to you, but the fact that he wasn’t talking back should have told you something. Oh, and you’re upset because that one woman yelled at you? You deserved it for cutting across an entire pack of runners to get to the water station.
Also: When I came back to the finish line to cheer for Cara, saw a guy trip on the finish pads and do a face plant on the asphalt. Blood everywhere. Pretty gross.
But other than that, it was a pretty good race.
1 8:03.1 1.00 8:03
2 8:13.3 1.00 8:13
3 8:12.3 1.00 8:12
4 7:56.5 1.00 7:57
5 8:21.6 1.00 8:22
6 8:05.5 1.00 8:05
7 8:25.0 1.00 8:25
8 8:28.6 1.00 8:29
9 8:12.7 1.00 8:13
10 8:03.9 1.00 8:04
So I’m at the Republican National Convention for work. Right now I’m sitting in the Tampa Bay Times Forum between speakers. An hour ago Romney was officially given the nomination, while Ron Paul supporters booed from the nose bleeds.
I’m here for work, so here’s some of the stuff I’m writing.
Last night, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States hosted a party at the Florida Aquarium. There, shrimp cocktail, raw oysters and fish tacos were served while the imprisoned fish watched with horror from behind thick glass. (Their trauma did not deter me.) National and international liquor brands poured gallons of free product to thirsty attendants. (And, boy, were they thirsty.) Cheerleaders from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers wandered through the crowd making small talk and posing for pictures.
If you see me out on a long-distance run–or even in some longer races–you’ll note that I’m running with what looks like a fanny pack. Non-runners may judge me for this. Non-runners can kiss my ass.
I used to mock these hydration belt setups. The first two times I trained for a marathon, I ran only with a handheld bottle. The first two times I trained for a marathon, I was an idiot. Not only did the bottle not hold enough water for any run longer than 10 miles, but as light as it was, it still tired out my arms. Seriously, even running with keys in your hands for more than six miles gets annoying pretty fast.
My first season with Team in Training, I picked up a Fuel Belt brand hydration belt. It had four bottles for fluid and a small pouch for money, credit card and, importantly, ID. Because if you’re out on a solo run and something lays you low — a heart-attack, a car, one of those little kids with those damned razor scooters — and you don’t have ID, then what?
Some people ask: “Hey, doesn’t that belt bother you?” Nope. Not really. I even ran with it in races because it was more convenient than dealing with the typical clusterfarg around the water tables.
But the Fuel Belt isn’t, shall we say, optimal. It rides sort of low, bounces around quite a bit and the pouch it comes with is pretty small. You can get additional pouches but they look goofier than the belt and none of them really seem big enough to hold a key item some folks like to run with — the modern smartphone, which has grown the size of a brick.
So Cara and I purchased the iFitness hydration belt (16 oz). I can’t say enough about this belt. It fits much better than the Fuel Belt — and this is for both men and women. (Cara had a Fuel Belt as well). This is partly due to material and partly due to construction. The waterproof pouch in front can hold everything you need–money, credit cards, i.d., keys, iPhone or HTC Evo-size phones and, quite possibly, a small child. It has two little loops built in for Gu packets (or whichever brand you prefer). And while I haven’t used it, it comes with a racing-bib holder that positions your bib right at crotch level.
All of this and the belt does not slip. It does not ride up. It does not ride down. It stays put. This is why we like it.
Beefs with the belt? The biggest beef is that it only comes with two eight-ounce water bottles. So I’m sort of back to not having as much hydration as I’d like. I’m going to order an additional bottle and clip and will report back to see if that bounces around or changes the performance of the belt. I’m also not crazy about the bottles themselves. Mine leak a little when I squeeze them. Cara’s bottles, however, don’t leak–so that might just be a fluke on my part. And it’s not like the Fuel Belt bottles never leaked either.
So I was halfway through my plate of Bucatini all’Amatriciana at Scottadito* in Park Slope when Cara, glancing out the window at the folks coming and going from the Park Slope Food Co-op next door, said something that reordered my world.
“That’s kind of a lame job,” she said, “walking people to their houses just so you can bring the shopping cart back to the store.”
I placed my fork on the table and tried not to choke. On my own laughter. At myself.
I’m sure my face turned red. Cara said, “What?”
I needed a moment.
“What?” she asked again.
“Woooooooooo, I’m a dumb-ass,” I said.
“What?”
So I explained. I’ve been living in Brooklyn for the better part of 12 years now and spent quite a bit of time in Park Slope. For the past year and a half, we’ve lived just a few blocks from the Park Slope Food Co-op and I’ve walked and run past the following scene: granola-yuppie-organo-hipster walking home with a shopping cart full of flax seed and hormone-free cabbages accompanied by an orange-vested co-op employee or volunteer or member or whatever the hell they are.
And until last Friday night, I could never figure out what the hell the employee was doing! True story.
I’d call it a blonde moment, but it would be an insult to blondes.
It bugged the shit out of me every single time. Why? Why two people? What was that volunteer doing? What did I think exactly was going on?
Numerous things.
At first, I thought it was a service for older folks. But then I noticed the employee rarely if ever was pushing the full cart of groceries. Old lady had to push it herself. I thought it was one of the weird, ridiculous rules they had: NO ONE SHALL WALK ALONE. I thought maybe they sent an employee to accompany you all the way home to make sure that you weren’t scalping free-range kale on the street or re-selling your quinoa to a guy who used to work for the Mossad.
I have a fertile imagination, I guess. Especially when it’s coupled with a big ripe target that I like to mock.
I’ve got a great joke for you: “Hey, how many Park Slope Food Co-op members does it take to push a shopping cart down the street?”
Two! Because Ken’s a dumbass. How else is that cart going to get back to the store?
*P.S. Go eat at Scottadito. That place is great.
Newsweek, so unoriginal it is recycling cover concepts from the Bush/Dukakis race, has a thumbsucker of a piece about Mitt Romney’s ‘wimp’ problem. I could go on about the convoluted pile of stupidity, but it’s so stupid that a) I’m not providing a link and b) I’ll let heavy-weight intellectual film “Billy Madison” handle the duties.
Two years ago, the night of July 16 and heading into July 17, I found myself in Grant Street Dance Hall in Lafayette, Louisiana. I was there to hang out with my friend Toby, who was working that night. But he was working that night, so I was sort of propping up the bar, listening to the music, when in walked this curly-haired blonde hottie and I thought to myself, “MINE!”
And the rest is history.
Okay, so it wasn’t THAT easy. Even after somehow negotiating one of the more awkward first hours of knowing each other (long story in and of itself), there was another big issue. She lived in Louisiana and I lived in New York. And while she was very, very impressed with my rental car — a very manly, bright red VW Beetle — she wasn’t the kind of woman who was just going to let some dude follow her home that night. So we started texting and emailing and writing — ink on paper. Really. There were some visits. And, while neither of us can remember if there was an actual discussion about it, last summer she packed up her things, left a job and family and her own three-bedroom, two-bathroom house with central air and heat and a washer and dryer and moved into my palatial digs in Brooklyn.
We’ve had a lot of cocktails and beer. Quite a bit of brisket (seriously, the secret to a strong relationship is smoked beef).
Run a few races, including Cara’s first half-marathon (and first 10K and first 15K and, coming this fall, her first marathon).
We even went on our first major vacation together — to Fiji. That didn’t suck. But it did set the bar rather high.
Happy Anniversary, Cara! Thanks for making the move. Love you.
(All together now: Awwwwwwwww.)
You wouldn’t be seen with a man sporting a mullet, why would you wear a skirt that has one?
I don’t care what the clerk in the store or the fashion magazines might say, but straight men don’t find these skirts attractive and other women are judging you. So just stop it.
Continue reading “Fashion Advice for Ladies”
KEN WHEATON 