Sunny Weather

Spring has finally come to Seattle. For a second I was almost ready to revert to my pre-Seattle state of mind, ready to criticize everything about the city I now live in and start writing depressing songs about things that are gray and wet. Luckily, blue skies have destroyed the oppressive clouds and I’m back in paradise. It’s rare where you can live somewhere where little trips, like going up 65^th street reward you with breathtaking views of the Olympic Mountains. Where getting stuck in traffic on South-bound I-5 (a normally traumatic experience to me) will reward you with vistas the U-District and the Cascades. As one rapper put it at the Lupe Fiasco show on Friday, “ya’ll have a lot of trees!.” I like the green, the trees, and the flowers all around. I’m pretty happy with my choice in relocation, although the fact that I don’t have Sexy Pizza in my life anymore is pretty tragic. Now, you’re probably going “Nate, wasn’t this blog supposed to be about jogging/trying to get healthy?” Yep, on to that.

This week was a great one for me because I ran on three days averaging around 3.5 miles a run. It was also great because I didn’t go through my normal ritual of “don’t feel like, it not going.” Jilian takes a van pool to work every morning, and we usually get to the stop around 7:20 AM. Instead of doing the usual…drop her off, drive home, get to work…I drop her off, get out of the car, and go for a jog around Green Lake. I think I can live with this tradition…I’ve discovered a few things:

1. I jog much better in the morning. It may be attributed to the hell that was “zero period” back in high school when we would start class at 7:00 AM to do fitness drills and lift weights. I don’t remember much from those mornings, except that I naively thought that because I was used to waking up that early in high school, I could repeat that in college for an 8:00 AM “stretch and strength” class. I was mistaken, and “stretch and strength” which I thought would be a suitable substitute for the already full weight-lifting classes, turned out to be an introduction to Yoga. I was the only male in that class. I’m not good at Yoga. It was awk. (note: all the cool kids are now using “awk” as a shortened form of “awkward.” This has been added to my lexicon of annoying shortened words…along with “totes” (totally)).
2. I think the real reason I jog better in the morning, aside from a deeply buried conditioned response (above), is that my mind wanders far better in the morning. My beloved IPod Mini (circa 2003! I got made fun of in the San Francisco TFA office for it’s antique qualities…’A screen that doesn’t show the artist? Wha?”) was non-functional due to it’s battery having a life of around one hour…enough for a jog but not enough to leave it without a charge. I jogged just fine without it, instead establishing a pace and letting my thoughts wander. “Where do they go?” you ask? Usually to life-plans, politics, plans for the day. Only two things can disrupt my sort of zen-like wanderings: puppies and babies.

Yes. This is a purposeful tangent. I love puppies. They’re cute, they run, and they’re just fun. I’m sure I’ve creeped out 9 out of 10 dog owners I encountered on Friday because their dogs are just too damned cute. I stare, sometimes saying “hey puppy” while their owner, at a clip about twice mine, will quickly lock eyes with me, sneer, and then triple their pace while I quickly shift my thoughts back to the meal plan or grocery list for the week. You have to wonder what the dog actually thinks? Maybe they value the attention while they’re running along-side their over-active bicycle commuter? Maybe they’re thinking about the hydrant they wanted to top at but were urged ahead? I think that this show of affection on my part is a compliment: if I had a dog I’d want to hear that it was cute. Ah, well.

3. Music is “instrumental” (pun intended!!) to my jogging routine. I have a playlist, and the playlist helps me quite a bit. If I extrapolate further on this it will mean a longer post, but rest assured I will give you more context on my playlist as well as my air drumming tendencies while jogging. Yeah, this will definitely necessitate a different post…stay tuned. Jilian is even more religious about her playlist…she won’t run if her beloved IPod Nano is not working or the playlist is not updated.

My goal for this week?: Repeat performance. 4 days, nice jog, every time I head to the Park and Ride to drop Jilian off. My goal is also to call out every puppy I see on my jog to break me from my zen-like dream state. Watch out Green Lake dog owners! If your puppy is cute, you will know it!

I’m sorry to end this blog on a sad note, but an old staple of my Satori life recently passed. For those of you not familiar, Satori is a “summer experience for gifted high school and middle school students” that was absolutely instrumental to my intellectual comfort: if it weren’t for Satori, I wouldn’t have known that being smart is ok and likely wouldn’t have ended up at Whitman. Robert Harder was a fellow small-town, Eastern Washington boy (though you wouldn’t know it from the way he presented himself). When I met him, he was living in Kahlotus, which may be one of the few towns with the unique feature of being smaller than Harrington. While I didn’t know Rob well, what struck me (and still strikes me, reading through the memorial facebook page that was set up), is how truly comfortable Rob was with who he was. He liked to play World of Warcraft. He loved his coffee. He loved people who stimulated him intellectually. At camp, he stayed involved, proving an inspiration and a role model for kids who were struggling with their own intellectual identities. Rob would show up in chain mail on the day of the medieval feast, speaking in a British accent, and blowing every one away with his friendliness. I recommend you check out the Bone Marrow Registry to help those who face similar challenges that Rob did.