A dream

There were two houses on opposite sides of a street, on a hillside, such that the house on the higher side of the hill had floors above the road, and the house across, on the bottom, had floors lower than its "ground floor" or street entrance. 

We were staying at the lower house, but attending a party or celebration of some kind at the upper house, which was superior in every way.  In fact, each floor of the house, ascending was more luxurious. The opposite occurred with the lower house.  The street entrance floor of the lower house represented something like basic common sense. The floor beneath it was at the cultural level of "Jesus saves!" and BBQ.  We felt inferior while we were in the upper house, with the elaborate fixtures and pretentious discourse. No other person in the dream had a clear identity, other than myself, but it was clear that some of us were from the "lower" house.  

The dream continued many hours, with many details I cannot recall. The upper house was more like the Ivy League, theoretical researchers. The two houses with their various levels represented the intellectual and cultural hierarchy in very concrete terms. As I was awakening I was also analyzing the dream as much as possible. 

 I noticed that there are several possibly *negative* components of running:  

Being hot / sweaty / thirsty. 

In cardio-vascular terms, breathing hard or having elevated heart rate. 

Feeling tiredness / soreness in the legs or pain in legs any part of the body. 

Being bored / unmotivated. "I'd rather be doing something else." 

The first two don't bother me (unless I were running outside in high heat).  

Usually, my legs will feel tired before my cardiovascular system.  I am not really tired in any meaningful sense. After the run, or next days, legs will feel sore, but a *good sore.* I don't mind sweating, because that is the body's system for cooling down. 

So the key is mental, receiving the signals from the body and processing them in the way I want to. It is a training of the mind. Now, since the weak part, as far as the body is concerned, are the legs, then I don't have to worry as much about other components. The weakest part of the mind is the part that wants to quit at a certain point, but then I can just slog through those parts. Presumably the muscles in the legs will get used to running and not protest as much.  

***

Back windshield shattered yesterday. Extreme cold temperature, and then heating up the back window with built-in heating coils to melt the ice, must have stressed the glass too much. The dog got sprayed by skunk; then I noticed she had peed in the bed at some point during the day. [I don't even own a dog!] 

Bad things happen in threes.  

Cognitive load and canine intelligence

 Running in the gym (because the ground is icy) requires a lot. I can lock up things in a small locker, but must remember a combination and which locker I have used. I have to have ear buds (they must be charged), the wallet containing id, the phone to play music in my earbuds, water. I must change clothes; make sure I am aware of the hours of the gym (not a problem usually but Sunday they open at 1). 

I set a running app to keep track of my miles, and select music on a play list. All these organizational tasks seem difficult, whereas the running itself is physically taxing but cognitively uncomplex.  

***

The cat was trying to get something from under (behind) an open door. Then the dog came along and tried for a few minutes with snout and paws. I got up and moved the door, and the dog retrieved its bone. The dog could have physically moved the door, as I had, with minimal effort, rather than trying to dig out the bone from underneath. I'm sure there are dogs or cats smart enough to do that; even a crow or squirrel.  

the gym paradox

 There is a cognitive bias, I will call the gym effect. At the gym, if I catch my reflection in the mirror, I see and old, weak-looking guy with five pounds extra body fat.  At home, in the mirror, on the other hand,I see a relatively young looking guy, with a decent physique for his age and not very much overweight.  

The gym is where the students work out, so I am going to be 45 years older than the average person there. The more out of shape students do not work out as much, so the typical person is a student with zero body fat. The substantial muscles on some are due to the fact that... it is the weight room.  

It is the same if I think about the fact that my 35 minute 5 kilometers is very slow. Yet some people cannot run that distance (or do not choose to run at all). 

My brother in law is in palliative care. He called me the other and the conversation turned sentimental; he was talking about how brilliant everyone in my family is (he is married to my sister, also in palliative care) and that he felt inferior. But in my family it is normal to have a PhD.  My dad, my brother and I, two uncles on my mom's side. For him, it is like being at the gym, intellectually speaking (and he is a very smart guy, just modest and very generous).   

I guess the point, in abstract terms, is that there are always multiple sets in which a potential comparison might take place. 

Writing as manual labor

 Murakami's book on running suggests that writing a novel is manual labor. It is just laborious work. He says that three things are required: talent, focus, and endurance. Talent is necessary but not sufficient. There has to be a way of grinding it out over the long haul.  

This makes perfect sense. The book itself, What I talk about when I talk about running, could be seen as a slight book, a mixture of travelogues and diaries. If you like Murakami and running, though, it is worth a look. The authorial persona is humble and realistic.  Failures and successes are both treated lightly.  

***

"Writing novels, to me, is basically a kind of manual labor. Writing itself is mental labor, but finishing an entire book is closer to manual labor. It doesn’t involve heavy lifting, running fast, or leaping high. Most people, though, only see the surface reality of writing and think of writers as involved in quiet, intellectual work done in their study. If you have the strength to lift a coffee cup, they figure, you can write a novel. But once you try your hand at it, you soon find that it isn’t as peaceful a job as it seems. The whole process—sitting at your desk, focusing your mind like a laser beam, imagining something out of a blank horizon, creating a story, selecting the right words, one by one, keeping the whole flow of the story on track—requires far more energy, over a long period, than most people ever imagine. You might not move your body around, but there’s grueling, dynamic labor going on inside you. Everybody uses their mind when they think. But a writer puts on an outfit called narrative and thinks with his entire being; and for the novelist that process requires putting into play all your physical reserve, often to the point of overexertion."

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Vintage International) (pp. 79-80). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

running

 It took only two months to reclaim most of my running fitness. I ran 5k in under 32 minutes, just three minutes faster than my record time of 29 something, when I was maybe 7 years younger than now.   

I started by running six minutes, walking three. Then 9 and 3... Then I did 8 and 4, 12 and 4, 16 and 4... until I got into a good alternation.  Soon, I could run 25 minutes without stopping, then 30.  I gradually left out the walking part. I set my app to measure in metric system, and usually decide in advance on a distance, between 1.5 and 8 kilometers. On days I run, which is not every day, I alternate between shorter and longer distances. Longer ones, I do as slowly as possible; shorter ones, at a brisk pace, and medium distances, at a steady pace only slightly slower than my "speed" runs. I only have about 3 gears: slow as possible (8,5 minute kilometers) and still be running, steady middle pace (6.40), and one slightly faster than that (6.30) Ideally, I should have four gears: slow, medium, medium fast, and all-out. 

The slow pace is actually the most powerful, because it permits more mileage and endurance. I can run a long time and then still be able to speed up at the very end.  I don't feel particularly tired after running. 20 minutes later, I feel as though I had not run at all.  

Dreams

 I felt I was dreaming all night.  1st, a love scene I don't care to describe in detail, but entirely soft-core. 

I was playing a game based on chess, but not exactly chess. I moved my queen to threaten opponent's rook, but of course their rook took my queen instead. This was agasint someone I know in real life to be a skilled chess player (as I am not). I resigned the game in disgust with myself.   

There was an altercation in front of our favorite bar, a mass brawl I witnessed from outside a circle of people.  Once in a while I got a glimpse. Then they were carrying people out and someone said, "Now, for some triage..."  The bar itself had emptied, and I had not paid my tab. 

I had moved my alarm clock to another room so I didn't see the time as I slept and woke. When I thought it was my normal time, 7ish, I got up, looked at my clock, and it was 7:09.  I had woken up between different phases of this night-long dream. 

***

I use some poems to fall asleep: 

Frost: the way a crow, silken tent, for once, then, something, a bird half woken in the lunar moon, never again would the bird's song be the same, design, acquainted with the night, nothing gold can stay.  

With WCW: I use, red wheelbarrow, this is just to say, iris, flowers by the sea, as the cat, to waken an old lady, complete destruction, the jungle. 

And then, Yeats: no second troy, when you are old and gray and full of sleep.