I’ll build a house inside of you
Sometimes when I think of a certain thing, a sense of nervous anticipation seizes my thorax. My throat tightens and I salivate.
That thing is running.
Usually it happens a few minutes before climbing on ye olde treadmille. But today at lunch I got it just thinking about how I was going to run after work.
I suppose that sense of nervous excitement is normalish since for a long time, running meant racing. But that was years and years and years and years and years ago, and you’d think such an autonomic response would have faded away.
Back in the day I had a love/hate with racing. The problem was a voice in my head that always appeared as I was tearing down a hill or someshit, about to overtake the leaders:
Hey, Left Hook, you’re not supposed to win.
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
Tricked you! You didn’t think I was serious, did you? What is this, Dr. Phil?
Not that it’s not all true. Everything I write is 100% true, whatever that means.
Another fact: sometimes when I write an e-mail, I leave in an uncapitalized “i” to make it look more unstudied, even if I’ve agonized over the wording for twenty minutes.
A voice in my head tells me to do it!
By the way: Donald Barthelme knows from voices. Besides that, reading him is like doing every possible injectable drug all at once–a speedcrawlweepball. You never know exactly how it’s going to go, but some portion of your tiny, tiny mind will be blown wide open.
Heroin makes the voices shut the fuck up.
Q: Why do I have to have a love/hate with everything?
A: Because mediocrity is detrimental to survival of the fittest.
Q: I secretly don’t want to survive.
A: But your DNA wants you to?
This is horrible. A train wreck. A baby bird spattered on the sidewalk. [’tis soon the season–ed.] Quit while you’re ahead, n’est-ce pas? That’s just an expression. You’ll never get ahead. It’s better to live in dreams.
But my DNA. What about my DNA?
Forget about that. You re-programmed it. You’re never going to race again, right? So why do you care?
I can’t be the only person who feels this way! I’ll join a support group! I’ll talk it out! Try hypnosis! Race for a cure!
It’s a beautiful day and I haven’t gone outside yet. You’ll have to come up with your own snappy closing line.
Or borrow one from Barthelme. Ready?
Wait for it– [deleted for banality–ed.]
Here it comes, right down the pike… Looks like a beaut.
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“Etc.”
4 Responses to “I’ll build a house inside of you”
1 Pistol Whip 20 March 2007 @ 9:32 pm
My DNA is awesome but apparently not everybody thinks so, according to recent events.
Anyway, your DNA only cares about your DNA, right? You’re just a fucking vessel.
Fuck that! (AKA I don’t like that.)
Earlier today I got such a hard-on to go running. It was some spring fever stiffdick or whatever. (Why come all my sexual arousal metaphors are male? I guess because I’m squeamish and repressed re the the dark continent. Plus a cocklover?)
Have I ever mentioned that I’m the star of my gym? If by star one means air-drums and a lot of singing?
I am such a phenomenal asshole.
It was a good run, though. My motto is, when it gets hard (as in DIFFICULT–get your mind outta the gutter), run faster!!! Plus, the Shangri-Las.
2 Pistol Whip 20 March 2007 @ 9:37 pm
P.S. I’m drunk and Lefty and Mr. Pistol are very busy with official business.
3 Firecracker 21 March 2007 @ 2:10 pm
I hate running.
4 Firecracker 21 March 2007 @ 3:56 pm
I want to love it, but one runner told me I never will, because I’m too extroverted. That just made me want to love it more. But I still hate it. I like dancing like a stripper though, right?
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