Tuesday, October 31, 2006

This Halloween, I will go as the human I most despise...

..all of them.

Wait. That's not me. I know times can get tough, but I can't stay bitter. Sure, between the marathon, job, house hunt and caring for a wife and two cats, I never had time to make a costume for Brandi, but there's always next year. That's also what we're telling ourselves about National Novel Writing Month. We want to convince a bunch of our friends to do it in February. If you're reading this, you're a target. I know February is shorter than the traditional November, but one thing it does not have: Thanksgiving. And since most of America north of Louisville is going to experience 35 minutes of sunlight a day for the next couple of months, you have no excuse but to sit down and work on that Programmer's tan in front of a CRT or LCD. That's the kind of tan that browns the skin around the eyes and makes the middle larger.

Don't make me start cold calling.

Lifesource won't leave me alone. When we move to our apartment about a year and a half ago, I put us on the Do Not Call list, which I think telesales folks just made up as a prank. I can't measure the success or failure of it, though. Maybe if I hadn't signed up for it, I would never have gotten off the phone with the telemarketers, instead of having time to brush at least the top half of my teeth between calls. Lifesource calls the most. Technically not a sales call, they're still plenty aggressive about trying to extract my blood. During the nine months of marathon training, I was afraid of the performance hit I would take and I fell far short of my all-time high of four donations in one year. I hope people really do need my blood. It would be a shame to discover it was being used to feed legions of the undead. I wonder how they feel about the citrate used to keep the blood from clotting. On the one hand, it's hardly naturally found in the undead food chain. On the other hand, neither is yoghurt in ours. Whenever Lifesource calls and Brandi answers, she asks who is calling and hands the phone over, saying, "It's the vampires." Shh! I know that and you know that and but they don't know I know, and I'd rather they took a little bit at a time than all at once. Having to wear a crucifix to the donation center would just suck, no pun intended.

Monday, October 30, 2006

World's Worst / World's Best

World's Worst Supervillainess:
"Why, when Mr. Bond tries my new ultraviolet lipstick he'll just think I'm the bee's knees."

World's Best Supervillainess:
"Why, when Mr. Bond tries to escape, he'll find my new ultraviolet lipstick will bring even the bees to their knees."

Friday, October 27, 2006

My name is Matt Larsen and...

...every time my wife sees Sam Waterston on TV, she sighs. "Poor man," she says.

Then I remind her that it was Jerry Orbach who died.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The Marathon

The Chicago Marathon came and went on Sunday and I ran it. It took me four hours, fifty-nine minutes and thirty-three seconds. That's a lot slower than I wanted, but, to quote some of our country's current leaders, you don't run the marathon with the legs you want but the legs you have. And so I did.

My dad and stepmom flew out for the experience. Let me amend that: they flew out to watch me run a marathon and buy an Apple computer. I've finally turned my parents into Switchers. Mom, you're next. We bought the Macbook on Saturday and spent a little time installing software and familiarizing them with the little marvel, then went to carbo-load at our favorite neighborhood Turkish restaurant. Free bread plus delicious gorgonzola chicken (times seared ahi tuna salad and mujver, or fried zucchini pancakes) divided by the amount of time we had to wait (about thirty minutes, which seemed longer because people were jostling us most of that thirty minutes) equals happy tummy. Dad and Deb appreciated the experience and, tired, went to bed early while Brandi made signs and put temporary red mousse dye in my hair. It was a busy day and a tense night. Both of us had dreams about the marathon. In mine, ten minutes before the start, I was just crossing State Street, shoeless for some reason, and trailed by a lackadaisical family unconcerned about my potential tardiness. Brandi had about the same dream. What would Freud make of that? Dreaming about a marathon before the marathon. Clearly, we're all in love with our mothers.

I should not have worried. I woke up with the alarm, strapped on my sneakers and ChampionChip (to record my race time separate from the start time; crucial when the start horn goes off and you don't even get to the starting line for another twenty minutes), pinned on my number and stretched a bit. I had run a couple miles the night before just to remind my legs what they were there for and had to account for that soreness. We got out of the apartment at about 6:45 AM, plenty of time to cue up for a race that didn't start until 8:00... that is, in an ideal world where the CTA doesn't decide to close tracks for construction, during the weekend when 1.5 million people would line up to show their support for 40,000 runners. We waited on the Brown Line track for about fifteen minutes. It doesn't sound like much now, but I was so full of adrenaline that any delay left me wanting to punch walls or CTA administrators. Neither were handy, so I just sat. You could tell the other runners immediately. Some, like me, dressed in winter gear except for the legs - I wore shorts - while others compensated for the cold snap by wearing what looked like snow camouflage suits, pants and jacket made of plasticized white paper almost entirely like FedEx envelopes, designed to be worn once and then thrown away mid-course if necessary. Boy, did I wish I had thought of that by run's end. As Dad, Deb and Brandi bravely said, the cold wasn't that bad if you dressed right. Truthfully, I was grateful for the chilly weather at first. I had trained in such ungodly hot weather over the summer that I thought any break in it was going to improve my race. I was wrong. We'll get to that in a moment.

The race started in Millennium Park, next to Buckingham Fountain. You may remember this bit of architecture as the chief visual at the start of Fox's long-running hit, "Married... With Children", jets spewing while "Love and Marriage" played over it. The jets were turned off. It's too cold now and the danger of freezing too high. Another clue. Brandi, Dad and Deb walked with me along Columbus Drive until they ran into a line: nobody allowed past without a number. We said our goodbyes. Brandi kissed me... on the lips! I walked forward, trying to find my way to the proper pacing group. New Balance had runners with signs going back to 5:00. I figured I was more of a 4:00 and tried to wade through people but it was a system of diminishing rewards. Eventually, you found yourself people aside, only to realize you were maybe three people in front of them. I make it a point not to honk someone off if they're going to be in kicking distance for the next three miles. I cooled my jets at the 5:00's.

One funny thing about marathons as opposed to 10Ks in my experience is the clothing. Marathon runners (except for me, I guess) tend to be a little bonier than the spectrum of more casual 10Kers. They get cold faster. So, like the FedEx snowsuit folks, they put on disposable clothing to stay warm until they don't need it any more. Relative to the value of the race - for some, a once-in-a-lifetime run - even a nice set of sweats becomes disposable. So you see clothes popping up like popcorn before the horn goes off, more and more afterwards. People would take off sweatshirts, garbage bags, snowsuits and throw them towards the edge of the corral. It didn't matter much whether they made it or not or if anyone was waiting to play catch on the other side. This brings to mind an opportunity for the bargain-inclined, since you could comfortably attire a family of thousands (and use the leftover bags to throw the useless stuff away) from marathon castoffs. But that's neither here nor there.

Eventually, the airhorn blew. After the wheelchair racers' start, and about ten minutes after the lead runners took off, the pack started to shuffle forward. My jokes, "Well, maybe we're making better time than we think we are..." and "Tag, you're all it," were met with silence, except for one woman in yellow, who said, "I don't get it." Okay, Ms. No-Fun. As we moved inexorably closer to the start, accelerating ever so slowly like a reverse Xeno's Paradox, I was amazed at the piles of clothes along the way. Not everyone had triumphantly cast off their cool weather gear. Some deposited them quietly on the ground, perhaps hoping to sabotage the five-hour runners and guarantee marathon's return to the elite sport it once was, perhaps unacquainted with the Nelly song that kept going through my head as clothing flew like disembodied witches over our heads, "It's getting hot in here... So take off all your clothes." A joke formed in my mind about witches, water and a well-intentioned Kansas girl, but with nobody to tell it to, it kind of died.

Eventually, we reached the starting line. Then we were off, if not like a shot, at least we were off.

Brandi and I had loosely planned a route for her, Dad and Deb. Let me amend that: I had recommended a route based on the marathon info in the Thursday Redeye paper, a route that would amount to non-marathoners taking the train to four different stops around Chicagoland. Brandi took that in and never exactly said "no", but it was clear from the get-go that she wanted more than four stops. The marathon guide listed all of the spectator spots along the way - I think there were twelve - and you could tell by the way her eyes lit up that her ambition was to hit all twelve, turning her, dad and Deb into the scrolling scenery you see in Flintstone's cartoons. So immediately, I felt a friendly paranoia, the inverse of a soldier in enemy territory after a shot rings out. Where did it come from? Anywhere. Could it be around this corner? Or this one? How do I separate the friendly faces from the even-friendlier?

As it turns out, the gang would see me at mile two and seven, miss me at seventeen because my pace had slowed so much and catch back up with me about 200 meters from the Finish line. As it also turns out, while it's hard to pick your loved one out of a crowd of 33,000, it's even harder to do the reverse, especially when team Larsen took off the special red caps I bought to help them stand out. I never saw them until the end. I wound up seeing two improv friends before I saw my family (TJ, in Chinatown, as I run by: "Matt!" Me: "TJ! How *are* you?" TJ: "Fine! How are you?" Matt, now nearly out of earshot: "Running!"). I was kind of bummed, because after mile eleven, all I wanted to do was hang off of my wife and sob. But maybe it's better I didn't. Sometimes the harder thing is for the best.

Brandi explained afterwards that, knowing the CTA's irksome work schedule and the trouble the gang had to go through to zip between miles two and seven, they retired to McDonald's for breakfast to plot their more leisurely route. They did see me at mile seven and thought I saw them. They shouted my name and I turned and waved. Brandi snapped off some photos. I ran on. I didn't see them, though, and it's not that I'm suffering from a hazy recollection. I waved at everyone. Several times along the course, I saw signs for "Free High 5's". I took advantage as much as I could. Ordinarily, I'm comfortable in my technological nest, my poly-cyber-womb, a bevy of computers arrayed around me at each of my three offices, places where I prefer not to be disturbed by social callers. Not Sunday. I wanted to cheer back for everyone cheering me on. I needed them, not least because I had no clear clue what had happened to my family. Several times, I thought, "I hope they're okay."

I ran on. I had a pretty full bladder at the start and was grossed out / envious of the runners who peeled away at the start of Lincoln Park to pee on the trees. One woman running next to me said in a weird accent, "No picnics today," which I thought was apropos. I skipped the Gatorade/water breaks until hunger started to gnaw at me at mile seven. By that time, I was starting to feel it. My knee, which at times in the past gets tricky, was starting to ache. When the wind blew, it went right through my light, artificial fiber shirts and shorts, and about thirty seconds later it felt like each step on my right knee someone was rubbing tacks against the outside. It hurt. All I could do was run forward, though, and count on my legs warming up enough for it to go away. Around mile eleven, I nearly collapsed. My pace, which had been around 9:40, dropped massively. I slowed to a walk, cursing. Had I not run my way up through the pack, past the 4:45 pacers? Had I caught up with the 4:30s and passed them in vain? Did I have a prayer of catching the 4:15s now?

In a word, no. No, I did not. Just walking was painful and I wasn't sure I was going to make it to mile 12, much less 26.2. If Brandi had been around the corner, she would have had a tough time talking me into staying in the race. But Brandi was not around the corner, and the only way I was ever going to meet her was by moving forward, taking advantage of everything the race course offered to get me to that finish line, because I had made a promise not only to myself, but to everyone who RSVP'd to the "Matt's Running the Chicago Marathon" party we'd arranged later in the day. How could I meet their eyes and say I'd run 11/26th of a marathon? How would I feel when they said, "Well, at least you tried. And it's longer than I can run..." That's the bummer of running your second marathon. You know it's not longer than you can run, and some part of you just hates yourself for being so much more petty than you were before.

So, I took Gatorade at every stop, knowing it would make my bladder less comfortable but keep my energy up. I lurched into a jog, using my arms for momentum, quietly thankful for the cross-training I'd done in the pool. I counted the miles down to Taylor Street, where I knew they had PowerBar PowerGel, basically sugar packs with the consistency of shampoo and the flavor of coffee-flavored fruit. At mile 15, I waited in line for the stalls, not so much because I feared an accident on the course but because I knew I would feel an iota better with just one pain to focus on. I was lucky. One man in line said he'd stopped three times during the race. Three! I would hate to have been part of his training runs, no pun intended.

If the mechanics of running were pretty simple, the course was even more so. I was never far enough behind that I didn't have people around me, though after mile 3 the density dropped to slightly less than an average day at the airport. We ran north, turned around 180 degrees almost to our starting point, then west a few miles, turned around, south, west again to the PowerGel break, east (and by this time, every turn I mentally screamed, "Get to the END, already!), south a while, east some more, north, south and north for the final stretch. Having two marathons in two cities to compare, I can say that Chicago's goes through slightly less-sketchy neighborhoods at the end, but not by a lot. I still can't decide whether it's good to be so much more familiar with the expanse of Chicago than I was with Cleveland's course. I guess it will take more marathons to figure it out.

Another unexpected bonus of the course this year was the foliage. Chicago has been lucky this year to have an extended fall. When the leaves started turning almost immediately after Labor Day - they change faster after a hot summer - I thought we were in for a brutal winter right away. I was pleasantly shocked. I had also done a lot of training runs at night, so not having to stop for stop lights and enjoying nature's fireworks along the way really was a boon.

What can I say about the finish line? By now, all of Chicago is talking about the winner of this year's race, who crossed it, keeled over, bled in his brain and went to the hospital. He's recovering now, but there are ominous rumors of someone's misplaced banana peel. I kid. Regardless, by the time I crossed, three hours after the winner, there was no sign of that particular drama, just a big green "Finish" stretched across Columbus Drive. I said to a guy with the name "Billy" written on his shirt (neat trick: then strangers can root for you along the way), "Come on, Billy, let's finish this." He thanked me for the encouraging words and we ran for it, as best we could.

Afterwards, I was more grateful than words can describe, for the support of my friends, my family, the city, the thousands of volunteers, bananas, my wife, my wife for being my wife, and to all the other runners. I was also very, very grateful not to be running. And so I am still.

Friday, October 13, 2006

What the DICKENS?!

I snapped this on the way to work yesterday. Looks like all the weather people were right and summer has to come to an end. Pity that Chicago experiences only two seasons, though. I was looking forward to at least a little fall. Now I'm not just wearing my lined pants because I need to do laundry. I really want to stay warm.

I think it stinks that hot summers here are typically followed by cold winters. You'd think we could come up with some kind of weather karma, but, no, it's air. It obeys its own rules (see: tornados, hurricanes, other violent but non-spinny currents that still hurt people and property). As I've gotten older, I've stopped looking forward to all of the things I can make with snow and started realizing that, hey, that guy digging his car out of the snow in all the towing commercials is going to be me very, very shortly. I wonder if I should invest in snow tires.

Monday, October 09, 2006

The Coffee Controversy

The change in weather surprised me. Summer passed faster than the Indy 500, though with less repetition. I knew intellectually that Chicago's summer more or less dies after Labor Day. I knew that Brandi and I would go to New York City a hair before Labor Day and return a few days after. I somehow could not reconcile that emotionally with the cold weather. I'm no atomic clock, but it feels like we should just be easing into July. Halloween slapping us in the face is kind of a slap. In the face.

I'm glad it's here, though. Autumn is for me what breakfast is to a lot of people. I can enjoy it any time. I love the look and the smell, the crunch of leaves under my feet, fireplaces burning just enough wood to melt the ice caps another 10 million tons. My new Canon DSLR takes great foliage pictures and I'm blessed to work on a campus with lots of colorful trees. Getting out of work at the golden hour doesn't hurt, either. I caught myself thinking how much I loved the smell of this time of year as I left work when I suddenly realized that it wasn't just rotting leaves and crisp weather, but the velvety fallout from the Blommer Chocolate Factory. I miss living closer to that.

Autumn also takes a lot of pressure off my wardrobe. Summers like our last stink for exercise. When going outside for exercise is like going to a loan shark for credit consolidation, you can kiss your six pack goodbye. In the fall, I can wear long sleeve shirts and pants, and they look good on me. My big legs look best under a bit of fabric. Last year for Christmas, Mom got me lined pants, and three seasons of the year they feel smashing (the fourth feels like a rainforest, sticky, hot and with its own microclimate). In the fall, there's no shame for wanting cool weather. We call it "enjoying nature".

The downside of all this joy is that sometimes I freeze my skin off. Our office manager puts the air conditioning on when temperatures rise above 65 degrees (F). Everyone else has space heaters. I work with computers, and if I had a proper server room, I probably wouldn't complain, but thanks to a spate of hiring, we have a housing crunch at one of my offices. Our backbone computers and network gear are scattered across several cubicles, protected from theft or damage only by luck and ignorance, of which we have a good deal. The waste heat will not keep me warm. I've resorted to drinking hot beverages: tea, broth, and yes, even coffee.

I never used to like the taste of coffee. Tea I found passable, if you steep it overnight and add lots of sweetener, it's like hot gatorade. Coffee is harder to disguise. Like beer, most of the grownups who drank it while I was growing up said I would learn to like it in college. I didn't drink alcohol until two years after I graduated Miami, and I still don't particularly like beer. Coffee eluded me even longer. I get enough pep from soda and a good night's sleep. I am no stranger to the nap. The bitterness turned me off for a long time, until I discovered creamer, or, as it is sometimes called, whitener.

Adding cream, milk or those weird powders that sit next to sugar in pretty much every office in the western world changes everything. Bitter coffee turns into something like coffee ice cream. I can drink it without trying to scrape my tongue out with a fork. My stomach forgives me and all the artificial sweeteners I cram in. I feel more satisfied with something warm inside of me, and I no longer have to wear seven sweaters to work.

Caffeine? What was that? I can't hear you over the sound of my gnawing my nails down to nubbins. Yeah, there's some caffeine in coffee. Once, I saw a chart comparing beverages for caffeine content. Mountain Dew has something like two cups of regular Folgers coffee's worth of caffeine in it. Chocolate has caffeine, but it probably won't keep you up all night. The big surprise comes from Starbucks. They way over-caffeinate. If you've ever stood behind someone in a Starbucks line complaining about the need to get his/her fix, you're not far away from truth. Starbucks decaf has more caffeine than regular coffee. I don't even want to think about their regular. I've heard even visualizing the venti size can cause chest pains.

Funny enough, I only think about this after I've consumed my fifth or sixth cup of decaf and feel like pain cannot affect me. Why even bother calling it "decaf" if you're going to fall that far short? That's like saying, "We're sending the Apollo astronauts to the Moon or Australia, whichever. Heads it's Australia." I get nervous, sleep-phobic, and all of the typical traits of your average overcaffeinated wage earner. Perhaps one of the reasons coffee keeps me warm is the way it ramps up my metabolism.

I don't like the idea of being dependent on a drug for my energy. Vacations past, I have returned to see my folks or other essential familial event, having recently completed some large project. I head to bed early and sleep in late. Withdrawal makes me boring.

What's to do? I'll probably take some good Knorr vegetable bouillon cubes to work for a salty pick-me-up. I may have to lay off the coffee for a while. Every health expert tells you to get more sleep. Perhaps my seasonally affected disorder will fall in line when I move somewhere sunnier. In any case, like many, many people, I will endeavor to drink less coffee, get more exercise, and enjoy life a lot more. Even if it's not too beautiful to ignore doesn't mean it's not beautiful enough to appreciate.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Apple Pick-tures

Here are some pictures of what the Chicago Larsens and the Clairmont-Wilsons did this Saturday. Mainly: pick apples. No, times are not that difficult for either household. We did it for pleasure, mostly, although if apple farms really wanted to please us they would build themselves a bit closer to Chicago. But that's neither here nor there. In the shot above, Shane Wilson, like the apocryphal Newton before him, studies an apple. In a baseball cap.

In the picture below, Brandi and I are posing like a modern "American Gothic", with Brandi in her M*A*S*H t-shirt playing the role of "wife" and me in the "Just be glad I'm not your kid" t-shirt playing the role of "twit with pitchfork". Though we bear little resemblance to the models of the original painting, we are clearly dressed in the colors the artist intended.



Ah, the joy of apples! Brandi shows off her latest pick with a girly grin while fashionista Clair
shows she's got what it takes to triumph on "America's Next Top Corn Model". Other pictures I should probably include but did not include: Brandi with Bunny, the Great Corn Relay, Pumpkins!, and my personal favorite, Creepy Dried Gords on the Ceiling of a Barn for No Reason I Can Understand.

Sunset, UIC Campus, Friday


I shot these on the way to meet Brandi for dinner. Golden hour + autumn + manicured university field = heavenly.

Of course, Brandi and I crossed signals as to which restaurant we were meeting. I wound up making her drive an extra twenty minutes, effectively cutting down our together time to about nine minutes. So the mood didn't last. But that's why we have cameras.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

World's Worst / World's Best

I'm two days late for my second posting of this, so I'll try to snazz it up some.

World's Worst Hairdresser:
"I find I do all my best work with sheep shears and Nair."

World's Best Hairdresser:
"I styled your beehive tall enough to plug the hole in the ozone layer I made creating it."

- and another -

World's Worst Online Poker Player:
"I really love the feeling of having four aces and no pants. Fold."

World's Best Online Poker Player:
"I can tell you're sweating, ncc1701_4eva. Your IP just blinked."

- and -

A shout out to my Columbus connection, Dave and Karen Maxwell, who have contributed marvelous comments to my first "World's Worst / World's Best" post, and who are just awesome in general. Good luck with Maxwell 1.4!

Here is my favorite of Dave's comments:

World's Best Pirate:
"Arr, me harties!"

World's Worst Pirate:
"Me heart! Me arteries!" *thunk*

Also, because I think I made this exceptionally unclear in my first "World's Worst / World's Best" entry, please do not feel that you *have* to submit a full entry to join in the fun. I would love it if you would send me even careers you would like to see spoofed, which I will turn around and add whatever spin I can dig up in a week or less. Thanks for your comments so far (Maxwells, I'm looking at you) and I look forward to hearing from you again.

Sunday, October 01, 2006