Monday, May 23, 2011
Lance
No, not Lance Bass, Lance Armstrong. A doper? Looks like it. It's pretty hard to believe he didn't dope if everyone he beat was also doping, but one thing to think about in this whole sad episode is why we were all so inclined to trust him, so inclined to want to believe he was clean. There's a good article in the New Yorker that's apposite. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2011/05/say-it-aint-so-lance-armstrong.html
Sunday, May 22, 2011
opinions: we all have them, just as we all have navels
I'm writing a lot about Charlotte Perkins Gilman these days. She's the author most known for writing The Yellow Wallpaper, but I'm writing about her short fiction, much of which is concerned to challenge the conventional idea that motherhood is natural and a practice that cannot be improved upon through the genius of modern social science. In her fiction and non-fiction alike, she's quick to point out how contradictory it is that people champion motherhood as completely natural on the one hand, but worry incredibly about doing it wrong on the other. If it were natural, she reasons, there wouldn't be room to screw it up. Therefore, we either have to stop worrying about child rearing or else be more methodical and rational about it.
I feel bad for new moms, because motherhood is one of those subjects everyone thinks they're entitled to have an opinion about. This sense of entitlement to an opinion ends up extending to the mom herself, who becomes a depersonalized case about which everyone feels free to conjecture. What's especially violative about this is how the pregnant woman's body becomes a subject for discussion, and all the various details of gestation, lactation, dilation that have to do with private parts become public where babies are concerned. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone seems entitled to supervise.
I'd like to know more about why this is. Maybe it's because motherhood is a place where highly charged personal and highly charged social issues meet. To raise a child is to stake out allegiance to a number of different social positions, some intersecting and converging, others conflicting: class, race, religion, region, ethnicity, region, nationality, family, ancestry, history. At stake in motherhood is how and whether each of these is going to be reproduced, and it's understandable, if not fair to mothers, that people have opinions. But people who have opinions about motherhood ought to be self-conscious about their personal stakes in their own opinions, which require scrunity and introspection of their often sub-conscious origins. Motherhood turns an individual mom into a vector for everyone to have opinions about, and this isn't at all fair. So everyone should shut the f--- up about motherhood.
What all this goes to show is how right Gilman was to distinguish motherhood from reproduction, or bare nature; after all, reproduction is "natural," but motherhood is a vexed issue around which "culture" and the social most actively swirl. Motherhood is above all a cultural expression par excellence.
Tammi and I are fans of the crime show "Bones," and if you watched recently, you'll know in the last episode Angela gave birth, and Bones is pregnant by Booth. If you saw the birth scene, you'll remember that during labor Angela was skyping into the lab through a computer placed at the foot of the hospital bed. It's not clear that the lab could see her lady parts, but the implication was that there's nothing private about delivery, that, in fact, it's a moment when the normally concealed lady parts come into view (literally and metaphorically) for anyone concerned. Can't find a clip on YouTube, but maybe I'll post one later.
I feel bad for new moms, because motherhood is one of those subjects everyone thinks they're entitled to have an opinion about. This sense of entitlement to an opinion ends up extending to the mom herself, who becomes a depersonalized case about which everyone feels free to conjecture. What's especially violative about this is how the pregnant woman's body becomes a subject for discussion, and all the various details of gestation, lactation, dilation that have to do with private parts become public where babies are concerned. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone seems entitled to supervise.
I'd like to know more about why this is. Maybe it's because motherhood is a place where highly charged personal and highly charged social issues meet. To raise a child is to stake out allegiance to a number of different social positions, some intersecting and converging, others conflicting: class, race, religion, region, ethnicity, region, nationality, family, ancestry, history. At stake in motherhood is how and whether each of these is going to be reproduced, and it's understandable, if not fair to mothers, that people have opinions. But people who have opinions about motherhood ought to be self-conscious about their personal stakes in their own opinions, which require scrunity and introspection of their often sub-conscious origins. Motherhood turns an individual mom into a vector for everyone to have opinions about, and this isn't at all fair. So everyone should shut the f--- up about motherhood.
What all this goes to show is how right Gilman was to distinguish motherhood from reproduction, or bare nature; after all, reproduction is "natural," but motherhood is a vexed issue around which "culture" and the social most actively swirl. Motherhood is above all a cultural expression par excellence.
Tammi and I are fans of the crime show "Bones," and if you watched recently, you'll know in the last episode Angela gave birth, and Bones is pregnant by Booth. If you saw the birth scene, you'll remember that during labor Angela was skyping into the lab through a computer placed at the foot of the hospital bed. It's not clear that the lab could see her lady parts, but the implication was that there's nothing private about delivery, that, in fact, it's a moment when the normally concealed lady parts come into view (literally and metaphorically) for anyone concerned. Can't find a clip on YouTube, but maybe I'll post one later.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
diet
Tammi and I were going to run a local 5k today, but at a $25 sign-up fee we decided against it. For a local race in a local office park, with no bells and whistles and no technical T-shirt, it wasn't worth the price of half a week's groceries. So I did a 20 miler instead, and for the first time in a while, felt great. I credit the extra sleep this last week, the improved diet, and last Monday's trip to the gym.
My body beat and my mind frayed from a bunch of conference-related activities, the weather cloudy and rainy and dark, I shifted my running to the evening last week and slept in. I also ran less. I needed the break. Avoiding baked goods, sweets, and refined grains over the past four weeks has also improved my running, keeping my energy levels even, and leading me to replace those empty calories with whole grain bread, lots of potatoes (but pasta, because it's refined and becauase we're still pasta'ed out, is out), more fruit, and more protein. Nutrition matters, I guess. Finally, I went to the gym Monday for lifting and stretching, and after I got over the initial soreness, it made me more limber and made me feel like I had more control of my body when running.
The diet control and supplementary work is a big step for me and frankly, I'm proud that I've been able to do it. For so long, I didn't want to think about diet or any supplementary fitness; I just wanted to run and get it out of the way, and continue to believe that running was self-care enough, or that running allowed me to get away with ignoring other aspects of health. Yes, you can run well on a crappy diet, but if you have a good diet you can run better.
My body beat and my mind frayed from a bunch of conference-related activities, the weather cloudy and rainy and dark, I shifted my running to the evening last week and slept in. I also ran less. I needed the break. Avoiding baked goods, sweets, and refined grains over the past four weeks has also improved my running, keeping my energy levels even, and leading me to replace those empty calories with whole grain bread, lots of potatoes (but pasta, because it's refined and becauase we're still pasta'ed out, is out), more fruit, and more protein. Nutrition matters, I guess. Finally, I went to the gym Monday for lifting and stretching, and after I got over the initial soreness, it made me more limber and made me feel like I had more control of my body when running.
The diet control and supplementary work is a big step for me and frankly, I'm proud that I've been able to do it. For so long, I didn't want to think about diet or any supplementary fitness; I just wanted to run and get it out of the way, and continue to believe that running was self-care enough, or that running allowed me to get away with ignoring other aspects of health. Yes, you can run well on a crappy diet, but if you have a good diet you can run better.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
felt blah today
Only went for a little run today, a little over a half hour--felt kind of blah. It's cloudy and rainy here and I couldn't really muster the energy to do any more. I went to the gym for some cross training yesterday and am sore in a whole bunch of new places. My legs felt like they were disconnected from my body and nothing was working right. I still have faith that cross training's going to benefit me in the end, but today feels like the day after beginning a new exercise program. In the end this will make me a better athlete and a better runner, but in the meantime, I feel beat up.
Tammi got supplies today to start her new hobby, gardening. With a garden plot in our apartment complext, and some seeds and fencing, she's ready to go.
Tammi got supplies today to start her new hobby, gardening. With a garden plot in our apartment complext, and some seeds and fencing, she's ready to go.
Friday, May 13, 2011
imbalance
My left knee hurt on my run today, so did my left IT band, and my left hip. My left hip/butt area is the weak spot in my body, where all my running injuries tend to originate. The knee pain is caused by a tight IT band, which itself is caused by a lack of strength and flexibility in my left hip flexor. I can feel on my runs lately that my gait is becoming a little lopsided and right-leg dominant.
My aversion to stretching originates in a feeling that when the run ends, I should turn my attention to more important matters. My aversion to cross training is that I'd rather run, because after all, I think, you get better at running by running. Tammi warns that this attitude leads to injury and diminishing returns on training. I cut my run short by 20 mins today to focus on stretching and strengthening, which I'll turn to after I blog. My left-side weakness figuratively bit me in the ass when I first started back into serious running a little less than four years ago, with a nasty case of piriformis syndrome, and while I've been lucky to have more or less avoided being sidelined with injury since, if I don't attend to this my neglect of stretching will once again figuratively bite me in the ass. There's a lesson in all of this anatomy, somewhere, about our character flaws.
My aversion to stretching originates in a feeling that when the run ends, I should turn my attention to more important matters. My aversion to cross training is that I'd rather run, because after all, I think, you get better at running by running. Tammi warns that this attitude leads to injury and diminishing returns on training. I cut my run short by 20 mins today to focus on stretching and strengthening, which I'll turn to after I blog. My left-side weakness figuratively bit me in the ass when I first started back into serious running a little less than four years ago, with a nasty case of piriformis syndrome, and while I've been lucky to have more or less avoided being sidelined with injury since, if I don't attend to this my neglect of stretching will once again figuratively bite me in the ass. There's a lesson in all of this anatomy, somewhere, about our character flaws.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
refined grains
One day, someone's going to write a memior with the corny title, Refined Grains. Grains is a word that goes in many different directions. We say against the grain, talk about the grain of wood, or the grain in the field, whole grains, or we refer to film, a carrier of memory, as grainy. There are many different senses of the word. I have given up sugar and, to the extent possible, refined grains in order to stay trim for running but also to keep my energy levels even at a time when I'm not getting too much sleep, as now.
We've been getting to bed early enough to get a solid seven hours, but I keep waking up around two, maybe as a result of lingering jetlag, but it was also a very busy week, one in which the conference I've been helping to plan was finally and successfully staged. So, glad that's over with. It went really well. I gave a paper that was well received (and maybe the dread of giving a talk was part of what bolting me upright at 2am all last week, our subconsious works in strange ways) and the invited speaker seemed to enjoy herself.
It's funny how European aristorcrats used to refine grain as a sign of their distance from the whole-grain eating plebes; how different things are now. I ran twenty this morning and then with Tammi went to Whole Foods for a few items, including a recovery breakfast burrito. One thing I'll say about Whole Foods: They signify authenticity or wholeness to their customers by postering the place with images of third-world women sitting or standing next to bags of coffee beans or rice, but you never see images of third-world men. Why is this? Despite all the self-congratulatory progressivism of many of their customers, the third-world man still poses a sort of existential threat that interrupts the equaniminy of the shopping experience, insofar as he is associated more with terrorism (or with the sordid poverty of the new immigrant) than with feeling good about food. Certainly, there is a hidden continuity between the war on terror and eating organic or buying expensive produce. Both are, in a sense, protective measures that aim to keep contaminants out, or to keep the interior free from invasion from the exterior.
We've been getting to bed early enough to get a solid seven hours, but I keep waking up around two, maybe as a result of lingering jetlag, but it was also a very busy week, one in which the conference I've been helping to plan was finally and successfully staged. So, glad that's over with. It went really well. I gave a paper that was well received (and maybe the dread of giving a talk was part of what bolting me upright at 2am all last week, our subconsious works in strange ways) and the invited speaker seemed to enjoy herself.
It's funny how European aristorcrats used to refine grain as a sign of their distance from the whole-grain eating plebes; how different things are now. I ran twenty this morning and then with Tammi went to Whole Foods for a few items, including a recovery breakfast burrito. One thing I'll say about Whole Foods: They signify authenticity or wholeness to their customers by postering the place with images of third-world women sitting or standing next to bags of coffee beans or rice, but you never see images of third-world men. Why is this? Despite all the self-congratulatory progressivism of many of their customers, the third-world man still poses a sort of existential threat that interrupts the equaniminy of the shopping experience, insofar as he is associated more with terrorism (or with the sordid poverty of the new immigrant) than with feeling good about food. Certainly, there is a hidden continuity between the war on terror and eating organic or buying expensive produce. Both are, in a sense, protective measures that aim to keep contaminants out, or to keep the interior free from invasion from the exterior.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
perfect run
This morning's satisfying, memorable workout reminded me of why I love pre-dawn long runs. Out the door by 5:45, I followed a course that more or less draws a square with four ~five-mile sides, north to east to south to west. The college town where I live sits at the base of the pre-foothills of the Appalachian Range--to the South and East is a coastal plane; run just a mile North and the roads begin to undulate; five miles north, you gain about 300 ft. of elevation.
Forty minutes into my run I was northbound on a rolling rural road that wound through woodsy tree cover before, at the top of a high hill, splilling out into the middle of a broad meadow. The sun was shining bright over distant hills and coloring everything verdant. The long shadow of my stride fell on late April grass, marking the contrast with the intense green, and the spreading sky was as big as I've ever seen it here.
I generally hate to wax sentimental about running and unity with nature but today I can't resist; the dawn, the view, the perfect damp cool--almost transcendental. The workout itself was a hard 21 with lots of hills. My legs are fried, but afterwards I went to Whole Foods and treated myself to three of their breakfast burritos: uno bacon, and dos huevos rancheros. Indeed, I do love the Whole Foods weigh-and-pay-buffet--the latent white-trashiness ot it (pardon the classist phrase) kind of warms my heart, as it is essentially a bourgie McDonalds: fast food for the Prius set.
But back to running and nature. I've been getting out the door by 5:40 lately, not because I'm especially ambitious but because I've been jetlagged and numbingly tired by 8:30. Dawn in springtime energizes you, and it allows you to see the full spectrum of light that a day can bring, and even to observe how different light can be, and how different the most familiar of places, the most familiar running routes, appear depending on time and the seasons. Two days ago I felt like I was in a Disney cartoon about the first Thanksgiving. Every mile or so I seemed to startle a different group of deer; the sparrows were out in force; and a pair of wild turkeys, puffed out with their multicolored tails spread, fiercely warned me off as they fed on someone's lawn. Wild turkeys are big, fast, and agressive, and I can see why Ben Franklin wanted them to be the national symbol.
Forty minutes into my run I was northbound on a rolling rural road that wound through woodsy tree cover before, at the top of a high hill, splilling out into the middle of a broad meadow. The sun was shining bright over distant hills and coloring everything verdant. The long shadow of my stride fell on late April grass, marking the contrast with the intense green, and the spreading sky was as big as I've ever seen it here.
I generally hate to wax sentimental about running and unity with nature but today I can't resist; the dawn, the view, the perfect damp cool--almost transcendental. The workout itself was a hard 21 with lots of hills. My legs are fried, but afterwards I went to Whole Foods and treated myself to three of their breakfast burritos: uno bacon, and dos huevos rancheros. Indeed, I do love the Whole Foods weigh-and-pay-buffet--the latent white-trashiness ot it (pardon the classist phrase) kind of warms my heart, as it is essentially a bourgie McDonalds: fast food for the Prius set.
But back to running and nature. I've been getting out the door by 5:40 lately, not because I'm especially ambitious but because I've been jetlagged and numbingly tired by 8:30. Dawn in springtime energizes you, and it allows you to see the full spectrum of light that a day can bring, and even to observe how different light can be, and how different the most familiar of places, the most familiar running routes, appear depending on time and the seasons. Two days ago I felt like I was in a Disney cartoon about the first Thanksgiving. Every mile or so I seemed to startle a different group of deer; the sparrows were out in force; and a pair of wild turkeys, puffed out with their multicolored tails spread, fiercely warned me off as they fed on someone's lawn. Wild turkeys are big, fast, and agressive, and I can see why Ben Franklin wanted them to be the national symbol.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Theodore Roosevelt and inspirational quotes
Sports comes equipped with handy, inspiration sayings and motivational cliches, usually dismissed by the students aware enough to pay attention to them and altogether ignored by the rest. Because they're cliches that all more or less reinforce variations on a lesson about the value of effort over the ultimate result, and because they're directed at an age group prone to scoffing at nostrums, an injunction like "leave it all on the course" raises a perenniel issue: what do we do with received wisdom? Ignoring it usually brings some combination of liberating joy and unforeseen loss (which can easily be viewed as a punishment). The consequences of ignoring wisdom to follow one's bliss: this is Philip Roth's great theme. To hew close to wisdom keeps you out of trouble and enables you to reproduce your traditions with all their good and all their bad. You know intellectually why you do what you do, but the lessons land in the heart only when you're old enough to be the coach.
It's not strange how much our culture invests in the figure of the coach--especially the high school coach, on whom the expectations of character building that implicitly weigh on all high school teachers fall hardest. The best coaches assume that responsibility (which is all about teaching the value of responsibility) and understand their role in the formation of students. Friday Night Lights captures perfectly the dynamics of coaches, community, and character formation, responsibility for which places the Taylor family at the nexus of Dillon's many conflicts, which all converge on the high-gravity space of the football field.
TR said that, versus the mollycoddle critic, the doer of deeds is someone "who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." The reasons why it's better to try and fail (and then, knowing you tried, own that failure as possibly personal lack--though you are advived always to try, try again) than not to try at all aren't that clear upon examination. What does defeat bring you except genuine diminishment and the cold comfort of self-knowledge? TR's consolatory "at least you suited up" mentality doesn't go far enough to countenance the genuine pain of losing.
More later...and more pictures later--there are some good ones coming very soon!
It's not strange how much our culture invests in the figure of the coach--especially the high school coach, on whom the expectations of character building that implicitly weigh on all high school teachers fall hardest. The best coaches assume that responsibility (which is all about teaching the value of responsibility) and understand their role in the formation of students. Friday Night Lights captures perfectly the dynamics of coaches, community, and character formation, responsibility for which places the Taylor family at the nexus of Dillon's many conflicts, which all converge on the high-gravity space of the football field.
TR said that, versus the mollycoddle critic, the doer of deeds is someone "who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." The reasons why it's better to try and fail (and then, knowing you tried, own that failure as possibly personal lack--though you are advived always to try, try again) than not to try at all aren't that clear upon examination. What does defeat bring you except genuine diminishment and the cold comfort of self-knowledge? TR's consolatory "at least you suited up" mentality doesn't go far enough to countenance the genuine pain of losing.
More later...and more pictures later--there are some good ones coming very soon!
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