I got away last week. Got a dog sitter and took off. Spent some time in solitude to clear my head. Long walks. A few dinners with friends. A couple really nice runs. Carried a notebook wherever I went so I could make notes for the eulogy. Then I wrote it in a single two-hour session, a few thousand words to define a life that deserves two thousand pages.
I called my sister Mary late last night. I was on the back porch drinking IPA and playing guitar. She couldn't talk. "I'm in a casino," she said, whispering as if no one speaks loudly in a casino. "I'm walking into a concert."
Before I could ask which band she was seeing, we said our goodbyes. I dearly love my baby sister. This morning she sent me a video from her seats, Chris Isaak singing "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You." Typing those words now, I feel the actual title should be tighter. I'd make it tighter. Too many words. Dilutes the impact. But you know the song. We all know that song.
Sunday morning in the backyard. Six weeks and two days until The Long Run hits stores. It's going to be 90 degrees today. Now might be the best time to hit the trails and log a few miles before it gets too hot. But I'll ride the Peloton instead. Weekends are when the electric bikers and horse people crowd O'Neill. The solitude I crave is nowhere to be found. Weekdays I have the place to myself but Saturday and Sunday is for the masses.
My barber made small talk during a recent haircut, asking me which sports I favor. We proceeded to talk about the end of football season, the sorry future of the Lakers and LeBron, and a little bit about the Angels just to agree that the owner sucks and needs to sell the team.
We did not talk about the Olympics — the best thing in the sports world for sixteen days every four years. Some people just don't watch the Olympics. To them I say: you don't know what you're missing.
I left the Christmas lights up on the back fence this year, for no other reason than because they looked good and I had defied the laws of nature and my own mechanical limitations by putting them on an automatic timer. Leave Christmas lights up on the front of the house and you get a sharply-worded letter from the HOA. Leave them up out back and you don't get anything but a label as someone who is either lazy or eccentric. I am not the first but I'm definitely the second. Most of all, however, I am a romantic.
Shortly after the 1908 London Olympics, gold medalist Johnny Hayes and would-be gold medalist (he collapsed and was disqualified for receiving assistance) Dorando Pietri engaged in a match race to settle the score. Just two men. Racing neck and neck for an entire marathon.
Inside Madison Square Garden.
