Just noticed this in the month's NYT story: "The obvious touchstone is the mid-1970s period of Mr. Springsteen, who's become an admirer of the band, joining them onstage at the Glastonbury Festival last year, offering them an opening slot on his tour and providing counsel."
Good call not to do it. But I would've fought you for those tickets.
Act of rebellion #1: Lunch from the Rebel Heroes truck in Rosslyn.
Act of rebellion #2: Macho Meatball in the insurgent Temporary Plaza.
Act of rebellion #3: Walking home through elevated Freedom Park.
Act of rebellion #4: Photographing the Center without permission.
(Seriously? $600k townhouses and that's your office signage?)
In other news, the sandwich was amazing. So much flavor on a sunny day. Also, I found a road connected to a ramp where I could've taken a small shortcut to work the last five years. Will use it for other things.
Other, rebellious things.
My friend Jen is a sadist. I had no idea. For a year or so now, we've sat in her living room, drank bottles of wine, watched Grey's and Glee, and complained about journalism. It goes to show you never can tell. There were signs, of course. She talked about leading a class at a local gym.
Her friendly talk soon turned to trash talk. What if I came on a furlough or day off? Could I keep up? Nope, I told her, I couldn't keep up. I was more than willing to cede it. Let the 90-year-old lady from her class win this round. And I held this position for months until a blueberry vodka made me say stupid things. Like: "Sure, I'll come to class. Bring it on!"
So, I went to the Sport and Health this morning. Oriented myself. Did a little stretching. Asked Jen about the equipment in the room. Would I need any of this stuff? Nope, Jen said. But she's a sadist and — maybe paying me back for attending her surprise birthday party, at which, in shock, she amusingly told every one among us, "You're a liar" — a liar.
There would be hand weights. "No," Jen says, "those are too light for you. You need heavier ones." There would be a weight bar. "Oh," one of the nice older ladies in the class says, "that's too light for you. You want a heavier one." Everyone in the class besides me is a nice, older lady. There would also be a mat and a towel. And so, so much pain.
I found later the class was "Cardio C.S.I." for cardio strength intervals and presumably the Who scream. "This interval class combines cardio, strength, endurance, and balance training for a physical and mental challenge," the blurb said. They beat you then mess with your mind.
All I remember is the moving and the sweating. And key moments. A ways into the class, I was soaked and had twice nearly crashed into the equipment stacked in the back of the room. But it had to be nearly over, thank God. I looked at the clock. Only ten minutes had passed.
Jen yelled out steps and moves, and there was a big mirror and I was left-handed. It felt like learning square-dancing as a fourth grader. If I remember that day correctly, unable to move my feet the right way, I hyperventilated. That didn't happen this time. But only out of pride.
The motion continued. Kicking! Spinning! Waving our arms in the air, at which I was surprisingly not awesome. What I was good at: crunches. What I was not get at: everything else, but most particularly touching one foot to the other in time with the music (techno Counting Crows!). You know that scene in The Jerk when Navin learns to dance? Exactly.
Look at this man! He has just experienced a Cardio C.S.I. class. What a wreck. A destroyed, sweaty Colossus. Toppled, let the sand bury him and future generations forget his name. He survived the guns but not the aerobics, scribes would write. And nice older ladies ruled the land.
But I did keep up. I'm glad about that. No one died. I didn't crash into equipment or anyone else. I had even greater appreciation for Jen — who, despite being a sadist, is a good sadist — and my mom, who may or may not take a class like this regularly. I went home, drank all the water in Arlington and hoped, one day, my body would work again.
After the sunrise but before the gunfire, there was walking for fresh-squeezed orange juice and then egg and cheese on a raisin bagel.
There was meandering and stopping to smell the historical signage.
There was reading my book in the gas station shade, waiting for my car inspection, three months late. Italo Calvino writing on exactitude.
There was watching a machine smoothly rip up road and spit it out.
There was returning home to renew my car registration — two months early, so we're even, Virginia — and getting lunch down hill at Piola. At the table, I began Calvino's next lecture, on visibility. It starts: "There is a line in Dante (Purgatorio XVII.25) that reads: 'Poi piovve dentro a l'alta fantasia' (Then rained down into the high fantasy…). I will start out this evening with an assertion: fantasy is a place where it rains." He then works into Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises. A great read.
As gunshots crack on the range, the safety guy preps me and Monica. "Ever been here before?" Nope. "Ever shot before?" Nope. Not really. Monica resists telling him about her Texas upbringing and the time a friend's dad took her and her friend shooting as kids. "Ever spent any time around guns?" Nope! "Well, we'll start with the basics then…"
LivingSocial is, of course, responsible for this. When the website offers its buttoned-down, yoga-taking, happy-hour-drinking, Starbucks-and-the-Starbucks-and-the-Starbucks urbanite audience a chance to shoot a gun, who am I to decline? I live in America. We can debate if America is the land of the gun. But America is most surely the land of the deal.
My kind of joke: A sign about magazine loading on the magazine table. Shooting a gun turns out to be easier than I thought. Shooting safely also turns out to be easier than I thought. I'm a klutz, but the process makes not shooting yourself in the foot easy. Hooray! The deal gets us earmuffs, glasses, a box of ammo, and the gun — a Glock 19. (Counter guy: "What kind of gun do ya want?" Me: "What do you recommend?")
Barney Fife once told Andy what to do on time off: "Gardening? Andy, that's no vacation! What you oughta do is get your blue suit cleaned, pack your swimming trunks, catch the Sunburst Special to that Miami Beach. Get yourself a room and a bath in one of them beach cottages. And then all day long you lie out under the sun, eatin' salt water taffy with one of them cute blonde Miamians. Then at night you crank out the dark blue, put a little Windsor knot in the old striped tie and you take in one of them rabbit girl clubs. Va-va-va-voom!"
Woke up this way. Got more this way all day. Boom boom boom boom. Read a book? How can I read some book when I'm playing loud music? It's frustrating and the insomnia won't like it. Boom boom boom boom.
Was asked to post this. Okay.
There are about eight million things I want to say. My initial idea was to say one sentence thanking each person here. Then I realized that sentence would turn into a paragraph. A paragraph would turn into a story and so on.
Newspapers, USAT included, have a tradition of crafting a farewell front page for departing colleagues. A few years back, Randy and I took the tradition digital at USAT.com for Jody's send-off. The concept stuck for a while but lagged more recently. So, I loved it when Megan, Monica and Emily surprised me with a Homefront on Thursday. I heard Sergio was also an instigator, with contributions from many others. Big smile here.
Click for full size.
Buzzfeed pubs "What Your Choice of Super Soaker Says About You," a fun read. About the small "Hydro Fury" set of two, "You don't really like to fight or get soaked. Most days of the week, you are afraid to even leave your house. One of these water pistols is kept under your pillow while you sleep at night. The other is shared amongst your 14 cats."
I care not at all about the state of modern squirt guns, but I do like to reminisce — as you do — about childhood toys. So, Buzzfeed gets me thinking about my childhood Super Soaker gun, the Super Soaker 200.
Googled it. And–
Who knew? Who knew the Internet cared so much about squirt guns?
(Update: My dad sends along pix of the 200 and the smaller 60 from the deeper, dark reaches of the house. May need them one day!)
