Saturday, May 29, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Werkin out
I started working in some of the old Body for Life techniques to the run. Which means horrible burn out. So now instead of just slowly plodding along and hating myself, I sometimes have to almost sprint and hate everything. For the grand finale I sprint up this 200 yard long 80 feet vertical stretch in the park. Death. I haven't been able to finish it yet. Only get about halfway. The depressing thing is I am a lot worse now than when we started the body for life thing so I have a ways to go before I even get to look like this...
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Taste
What is going with tasting? How can I do it? How is it that I can taste my knife and it never fades but gum taste goes away in 5 minutes? Does tasting absorb a partical or not?
Links of the Day
Martin actually came up with this theory on his own based on nothing more than his own experiences with every day jerks.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Horror in the Park
I have been trying to get out of the completely horrible shape I am in recently. I have been going for a jog in the park near my house everyday for 6 days now. It is wretched with no signs of getting more fun any time soon but I am trying to stick with it. Yesterday I was out at around 2 in the afternoon. It was perfect weather. Not too hot and as bright and sunny as it had been on 9-11. Not a cloud in the sky. It was actually pretty enjoyable apart from the unbearable jogging.
When I was done I started the walk home through the park. I wasn't entirely tired so when I passed by this area that said "Forever Wild, No Dogs off Leash EVER" I decided to go see what was going on in the gated off area on the other side. It was pretty much just thick woods with a little dirt path through it. I have recently watched David Attenborough's Life of Birds so I figured I would try my luck at seeing something weird.
No such luck. Only a few robins and a couple of starlings. See those every day. Only weird thing I did see was about 400 yards in were two gansta dudes hanging out along the path whispering to each other. I couldn't tell if they were Bloods or Crips or something else but they were nice enough to stop whispering and give me a nice little stare down as I passed. Like it was somehow strange that I was walking around in the woods.
I kept going for another half mile or so before I decided that I wasn't gonna see anything good and to head back. I was near the west side highway with nothing but a little bluff between me and Grant's Tomb. Rather than go back past the whispering G's I calculated I could do better by ascending the bluff and getting a pretty slick short cut. So, up I went.
It wasn't too steep so I made quick work of it. As I got about ten yards away from the iron fence that separated the woods from the manicured section I noticed a black duffel bag against one of the trees. Now who the hell would put a duffel bag out here? Of course I knew it was almost certainly full of filthy Hobo drawers but what if it turned out to be a bag of money? My life's ambition has always been to find a bag of money so why not take a quick peek? In fact, now that I was thinking about it it made perfect sense. Those two gansta dudes had been running from the cops or their rivals with a bag of money and threw it into the woods to pick up later and couldn't remember exactly where and that's why they were skulking around in the woods on a week day. Obviously.
I went over to the bag. It was unzipped. I could see something was wrapped up in a sheet of some sort. Bright yellow and pink cartoon animals on a backdrop of white. A baby crib sheet. Still well aware of the likelihood of discovering a mess of vagabond socks filled with diarrhea I gingerly grasped the cleanest part of one of the handles and gave it a little lift and shake. The bag was much heavier than I expected. Whatever was in there was pretty solid. The sheet fell away just enough for me to see a part of it. A round form. A round form with wavy locks of light brown hair.
The handle of the bag slipped through numb fingers. I scrambled away to the iron fence as a sick, hot wave of horror washed over me. I didn't need to see the rest cause I already knew exactly what it was. A head. A human head. Some maniac had put a severed human head into a bag and chucked it into the woods. Oh lord what do I do? I gotta get out of here before they come back. Maybe they are watching me now, (look around) don't see anyone, I am probably ok but no telling.
So now my thoughts turned to calling the police and telling them about the grisly find. I instantly realize how stupid I am gonna feel calling up the cops and saying I found a head. I also got over the original shock and started to convince myself it couldn't possibly be a real head and I would surely get in trouble for pranking the cops. They would easily trace my call if I tried to call anonymously and would want to know why they hell I wasted their time on a mannequin head in the park. There would probably even be a penalty or fine for a false 911.
So I guessed I would just go home and forget about it. But why was it so heavy? It was about 8-12 pounds. That's Human head weight right? If someone was going around satchel heading people I totally have to tell on them. I don't need some crazy Taliban or Imam getting away with murder on my watch. Only one thing to do. I had to go back and see for sure what I had there.
But ooooooh man did I ever not want to. I was so scared. Much more scared than when I got mugged. I had to psych myself into it. It was only a dummy head. Someone threw a dummy head into the woods. That's all. But why so heavy? Dummy heads are light. Ok, someone put a wig on a bowling ball and threw it into the woods. I couldn't think of any other good things it might be. I was drawing blanks on things that look like human hair as much as that thing did so it wasn't working so well.
As I approached the bag again I had kinda convinced myself that there wasn't anything horrible gonna be in there. There couldn't be. That would be ridiculous. But then I saw the flies. And the beetles. And the millipedes. And then, the stench. The horrible stench of rotting flesh. No mistaking that smell. I don't know how I didn't notice it before. It was putrid. Maybe it was pretty well contained till I stirred it up but was it ever NOT contained now. Holy Mercy. I gagged a little bit. No question now. It's a rotten human head. I am gonna die.
I knew what I had to do but I did NOT want to get any juice on me or have to get too close to the thing. I looked around on the ground till I found it. A sturdy stick. About 3 feet long. Both arms shaking like I had hypothermia I jabbed one end into the baby sheet and spun it around like a fork in spaghetti until it was pretty well secure. All that was left now was to lift it out of the bag and let the head fall out of the sheet so I can see.
But I couldn't do it. It would be impossible to overstate how terrified I was. The main thing I dreaded was if as it was revealed from the sheet it would roll over and look at me. Stupid of course, but at the time it seemed like an almost certain outcome. The second thing I kept thinking was I didn't want any loud screeching violins to start up on the big reveal. The Manhattan school of music is nearby so that was not entirely impossible. I also briefly considered that it would turn out to be my own head like Luke Skywalker but I was able to squash that one pretty quick.
I don't know how long it took me to work up the nerve. It seemed like hours. Certainly well over five minutes were spent crouched over that disgusting thing breathing in the vomit inducing fumes. Finally I got my nerve. With an eruptive plume of flies, beetles, millipedes and stench I hoisted the filthy bindle from the duffel. For an eternal second it hung in the air before slowly unrolling and landing on the forest floor with a sickening thud.
A dead Cocker Spaniel.
When I was done I started the walk home through the park. I wasn't entirely tired so when I passed by this area that said "Forever Wild, No Dogs off Leash EVER" I decided to go see what was going on in the gated off area on the other side. It was pretty much just thick woods with a little dirt path through it. I have recently watched David Attenborough's Life of Birds so I figured I would try my luck at seeing something weird.
No such luck. Only a few robins and a couple of starlings. See those every day. Only weird thing I did see was about 400 yards in were two gansta dudes hanging out along the path whispering to each other. I couldn't tell if they were Bloods or Crips or something else but they were nice enough to stop whispering and give me a nice little stare down as I passed. Like it was somehow strange that I was walking around in the woods.
I kept going for another half mile or so before I decided that I wasn't gonna see anything good and to head back. I was near the west side highway with nothing but a little bluff between me and Grant's Tomb. Rather than go back past the whispering G's I calculated I could do better by ascending the bluff and getting a pretty slick short cut. So, up I went.
It wasn't too steep so I made quick work of it. As I got about ten yards away from the iron fence that separated the woods from the manicured section I noticed a black duffel bag against one of the trees. Now who the hell would put a duffel bag out here? Of course I knew it was almost certainly full of filthy Hobo drawers but what if it turned out to be a bag of money? My life's ambition has always been to find a bag of money so why not take a quick peek? In fact, now that I was thinking about it it made perfect sense. Those two gansta dudes had been running from the cops or their rivals with a bag of money and threw it into the woods to pick up later and couldn't remember exactly where and that's why they were skulking around in the woods on a week day. Obviously.
I went over to the bag. It was unzipped. I could see something was wrapped up in a sheet of some sort. Bright yellow and pink cartoon animals on a backdrop of white. A baby crib sheet. Still well aware of the likelihood of discovering a mess of vagabond socks filled with diarrhea I gingerly grasped the cleanest part of one of the handles and gave it a little lift and shake. The bag was much heavier than I expected. Whatever was in there was pretty solid. The sheet fell away just enough for me to see a part of it. A round form. A round form with wavy locks of light brown hair.
The handle of the bag slipped through numb fingers. I scrambled away to the iron fence as a sick, hot wave of horror washed over me. I didn't need to see the rest cause I already knew exactly what it was. A head. A human head. Some maniac had put a severed human head into a bag and chucked it into the woods. Oh lord what do I do? I gotta get out of here before they come back. Maybe they are watching me now, (look around) don't see anyone, I am probably ok but no telling.
So now my thoughts turned to calling the police and telling them about the grisly find. I instantly realize how stupid I am gonna feel calling up the cops and saying I found a head. I also got over the original shock and started to convince myself it couldn't possibly be a real head and I would surely get in trouble for pranking the cops. They would easily trace my call if I tried to call anonymously and would want to know why they hell I wasted their time on a mannequin head in the park. There would probably even be a penalty or fine for a false 911.
So I guessed I would just go home and forget about it. But why was it so heavy? It was about 8-12 pounds. That's Human head weight right? If someone was going around satchel heading people I totally have to tell on them. I don't need some crazy Taliban or Imam getting away with murder on my watch. Only one thing to do. I had to go back and see for sure what I had there.
But ooooooh man did I ever not want to. I was so scared. Much more scared than when I got mugged. I had to psych myself into it. It was only a dummy head. Someone threw a dummy head into the woods. That's all. But why so heavy? Dummy heads are light. Ok, someone put a wig on a bowling ball and threw it into the woods. I couldn't think of any other good things it might be. I was drawing blanks on things that look like human hair as much as that thing did so it wasn't working so well.
As I approached the bag again I had kinda convinced myself that there wasn't anything horrible gonna be in there. There couldn't be. That would be ridiculous. But then I saw the flies. And the beetles. And the millipedes. And then, the stench. The horrible stench of rotting flesh. No mistaking that smell. I don't know how I didn't notice it before. It was putrid. Maybe it was pretty well contained till I stirred it up but was it ever NOT contained now. Holy Mercy. I gagged a little bit. No question now. It's a rotten human head. I am gonna die.
I knew what I had to do but I did NOT want to get any juice on me or have to get too close to the thing. I looked around on the ground till I found it. A sturdy stick. About 3 feet long. Both arms shaking like I had hypothermia I jabbed one end into the baby sheet and spun it around like a fork in spaghetti until it was pretty well secure. All that was left now was to lift it out of the bag and let the head fall out of the sheet so I can see.
But I couldn't do it. It would be impossible to overstate how terrified I was. The main thing I dreaded was if as it was revealed from the sheet it would roll over and look at me. Stupid of course, but at the time it seemed like an almost certain outcome. The second thing I kept thinking was I didn't want any loud screeching violins to start up on the big reveal. The Manhattan school of music is nearby so that was not entirely impossible. I also briefly considered that it would turn out to be my own head like Luke Skywalker but I was able to squash that one pretty quick.
I don't know how long it took me to work up the nerve. It seemed like hours. Certainly well over five minutes were spent crouched over that disgusting thing breathing in the vomit inducing fumes. Finally I got my nerve. With an eruptive plume of flies, beetles, millipedes and stench I hoisted the filthy bindle from the duffel. For an eternal second it hung in the air before slowly unrolling and landing on the forest floor with a sickening thud.
A dead Cocker Spaniel.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
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