It’s too late to go
incognito now, after announcing in Facebook that I would be embarking on this
project of lunacy. Unless I discard this and create a new one under a different
name, I will have to watch what I write. You see, I can’t help it: when I write,
negative stuff comes out—it’s like opening a spigot of self-centeredness,
longing, resignation, anger, self-aggrandizement—my writing reeks of elitism, a
label that a professor long ago used in a critique of, and that my wife
discerns in my work. Elitism, though, I think is not quite the accurate word; I
am hardly elite in anything. What they mean I’m sure is this air of I’m-better-than-you
or at least I-have-better-taste-than-you that permeates my pieces (isn’t that
elitism?). Indeed, my general attitude towards everything is suffused with this
bitter flavor. In face to face dealings I am more or less able to keep this in
check, except in moments of drunkenness when my usual reserve breaks apart and
dissolves, and all the crap spews forth. But in writing? To write is to be
drunk. Tear down the fucking dam then.
Herein lies the problem: I have
a certain measure of respectability to maintain at work (as if!) and a mask of
domestication at home that I have to keep wearing—my writing will cut through
both like a scalpel.
Again, the question: should I
go incognito? The thinker in me says yes, protect at all cost the structure
that I have built up over the humdrum years. The feeler says no (Thinker? Feeler? Can you guys believe
that I’m using these terms? Told you I would cut.). Let everyone see you for
what you are: still not done being absorbed in himself (I doubt that this will
ever happen), seeking validation for what he feels he does well—to cut
with words dipped in what passes for him as wit.
I will defer answering until
the time that I find it necessary to make a truly deep incision, the type that
severs veins, tendon, connecting tissue. That day fills me with dread and
yearning.
Now, this is a blog on
running, so let’s move on to that piece ubiquitous in running blogs, the gear
review. After dawdling for over a year—hours and hours of tiring and lonesome
department store and online hunts for a bargain—I finally was able to buy a
backpack that I could use for running home from work (Read: it’s a pack that I could use for running, not one for running. Oh, the compromises that I have
no choice but to make.). I didn’t have the cash for it, so I maxed out my
credit card, got home, and showed the bag—my golden key to running a full
marathon—to my wife. She looked it over and said, in Waray (Waray translated
into English loses its corrosive bite), that it was an ugly piece of
low-quality crap that will make me look like a construction worker (I’m not the
only elitist in the family). I bristled at this but managed to summon enough
sense to display outward calm.
Anyway, this Saturday
morning after work, I ran home, the construction worker’s bag with my office
clothes packed in on my back for the first time. It was almost midday, the sun
high up stung my face and arms (I had found that I could tolerate running in
the sun when I’m wearing sunglasses; it’s not so much the heat that hurts but
the glare), and the bag strapped tight (via chest and waist straps) reduced
ventilation to my back. In no time at all I was dripping with sweat. Although it
is supposedly designed to not impede the flow of air around my back, I didn’t
really expect much of it, and, after some strap adjustments, I attained a
degree of comfort with it—my stuff didn’t bounce around, which was the
important thing—but, it didn’t really “disappear” on my back as I imagine
costlier and running-specialized packs would.
Now, now. After threats of
cuts and incisions writing about a backpack seems pretty lame. Some cutting, it
looks like, will have to be done though: the straps dangle and slap my arms as I
run. When you’re sweating like an animal and on the verge of having a heat
stroke, minor irritations are magnified tenfold, and you have to find a way to
get rid of them.
Well. That’s it for my first
ever gear review (of sorts). Next, I hope to find time to write about why I choose
to run home in the sweltering heat, after enduring nine or ten
migraine-inducing hours of graveyard shift work. Or perhaps the real question
is why do I have to endure work?
