Long Train Running: A Chicago Marathon Story | Chapter 9 — The Unfinished Line
By the time this is published, the Chicago Endurance Sports (CES) training group I’d been running with this summer will be gathering at the Ben Franklin statue in Lincoln Park getting ready to have their last long-ish training run before Race Day. I will be asleep. Or maybe I’ll have dragged my fickle body out of bed to bang out some work before the kid wakes up and the dog needs to be taken out and the wife needs her coffee. The point is that I won’t be at the Ben Franklin statue in Lincoln Park getting ready to have a run. Because I’m not running the Chicago Marathon.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 29, 2019
I am limping proof that hopes, prayers, and positive thinking are no match for reality and action.
Nothing
Louise walked out into the waking morning with an ache in her throat and neck she identified as the desire to cry.
Hope Idiotic | Part X
Two days later, Lehman Brothers Holdings collapsed, causing a massive wave of panic throughout the financial world. The Great Recession had begun. That day, with no companies to call on, Lou’s entire team was glued to streaming videos and news stories about the collapse. Lou played online Tetris.
The Minutes of Our Last Meeting | Trump Fortifies The Wall
Dr. Evil: We fill the alligators with scorpions and replace their teeth with fruit-flavored vape cartridges.
Problematic Movies of the 80s | Trading Places (1983)
If you can get past Justin Trudeau in blackface, then you can probably get over Dan Akroyd in blackface but, if not, that’s definitely a jarring moment in the endgame of Winthorpe and Billy Ray executing the switcheroo on the Duke brothers in the last thirty minutes.
The Artist’s Cross to Bear in an Increasingly Strident AntiArt Paradigm
Currently, the artistic form most under fire is comedy. Oh...and movies. And theater, fashion design, television, museum art, and knitting. Yes. Knitting is under fire for not being appropriately woke in the wake of the Great Over Corrective Wokeness Patrol.
![I Believe... [Probst for President]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/579fa3912994ca0eff850271/1569176209425-GF60B7YHEL2RRTU4193X/chimpballs.jpg)
I Believe... [Probst for President]
…that if I really wanted a reality TV star to be president, it would be Jeff Probst of Survivor.
Hope Idiotic | Part IX
Chuck regularly passed out wearing his glasses and just as regularly would lose them in the middle of the night. He’d either pull them off his face and throw them across the room or lose them in the pillows and sheets of his bed or cushions of a couch. But they weren’t in the cushions.
Be Your Own Snopes: When Everyone Has a Megaphone, the Truth Matters Even More
With the digital world, however, the speed and frequency of baseless accusations and confirmed ideas with no foundation is overwhelming. The addition of memes has exacerbated the difficulty of separating fact from fiction. Without hours of time to research every claim, we tend to allow the propagandized messages to go unchallenged.
A “Be Best” Experience
It seems to me, anything that can happen in real life social situations can now happen in digital social situations. This proves to be a good thing when it’s time to celebrate. But when it comes to sexual humiliation, you just want it to go away.
Long Train Running: A Chicago Marathon Story | Chapter 8 — Broken Down?
At the end was when something hurt. This was new. This wasn’t sore. This was different. Yet, I chocked it up to, well, just having run twenty glorious, goddamn miles. I guzzled water, I stretched, I ate a banana, I rode my bike home. At home, I stretched, I took an ice bath for ten minutes, took a nap. Katie and I hung out at the 312 Block Party at Goose Island for a bit before calling it a night at nine. All day, my right leg would blast with pain at every step.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 22, 2019
I respect the guy, but Malcolm Gladwell is not a genius. He’s not even that interesting. He’s perceived that way because he’s a well-spoken black guy. Yeah, I said it. And you’re all racists.
The Last Generation
I don’t want this. I’m too afraid. I don’t think this is the answer for the human race. I don’t want us all to suffer and die, but it is our fault we live in a destroyed world.
Hope Idiotic | Part VIII
Lou finally began making a little bit of money when he broke through to the Chi Star, a free daily paper owned by the Franklin News. It was designed to be a newspaper with training wheels in hopes that as the young readers aged, they would make the switch from the free commuter rag to a more mature newspaper subscription. It was the struggling newspaper business’ effort to survive by adapting the drug trade’s tactics; get ’em hooked for free when they’re young.
The Minutes of Our Last Meeting | Trump Shoots Person on 5th Avenue!
Lindsay Graham says, “It’s unusual, but that’s Trump style.”
Nanny Fire
When I was three years old my mom said, “If you don't start shaping up we're going to have to let you go.”
The Inevitability of the House Winning (If the House is the Earth and We're Just Playing Penny Slots)
We know we aren’t going to reduce carbon emissions by 70 percent. Ever. We know it and yet we keep barking and marching and lobbying for substantive change while driving to the marches, using paper to print the pamphlets while drinking out of plastic bottles filled with water stolen by Nestlé and grabbing a Hot Pocket or packaged bowl of yogurt.
![I Believe... [Packers vs Joe Biden]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/579fa3912994ca0eff850271/1568479643736-I4MCM4M8D72HB5ET8AB8/chimpballs.jpg)
I Believe... [Packers vs Joe Biden]
…that there is almost no substantive distinction between a rabid sports fan and someone on either side of the political fringe.
Hope Idiotic | Part VII
By mid-November, Lou had been living with Michelle for two months. She provided half of the dresser for him and cleared out space in the bathroom cabinets and her closets for him in an effort to make her place his place, too. But she refused to let him hang any photos of his friends or family. And there was no way he was putting his film trophy on display anywhere.
How do you want to be defined? By one action? By some opinion that could evolve? By a mistake, regrettable only with hindsight? Or by the sum of your parts? Okay, do that for other people. Start the trend.