Nighthawk

                I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: 5:30am is an unholy hour. The season doesn’t really help matters. Autumn in Northern Illinois means running in the dark. Running in the dark is an added layer of bullshit. Ipso facto, a 5:30am run during Autumn is premium grade nope wrapped in tender strips of fuck this noise.

There are advantages to early morning autumn runs that nearly compensate. When you run tethered to a meaty little pit bull, running before the ass crack of dawn means few small and fuzzies are out to chase and kill. Not none, mind you. But few. And if you’ve ever had your arm nearly dislocated because a squirrel tried to commit suicide-by-dog, you’ll take what you can get, and you’ll be thankful.

Then there’s the air. When everything’s right, it’s so cool and dry this time of year, you can just run as fast as you want until hell freezes over or the sun comes up, and you’ll never, never overheat. It’s bracing but not so cold that you have to start worrying about frost bite or layering or any of that happy horseshit.

The stars are out still too. This time of year, you can see Orion, bright as fireworks in the West. The moon is nowhere close to setting. The sky is vast. You are miniscule.

Fifteen minutes of that, watching your breath fog out before you, feeling the blood course through your veins and lungs like liquid fire, it’s just about possible to forget that just about all the house lights around you are still out, and it’s because well-adjusted people are still sleeping. Also, the weather in Northern Illinois is usually overcast and/or drizzling steadily, so if you could see through your glasses, it would sort of just look like the back of your eyes anyway. And then there’s your body, which feels like it should be asleep still and not dealing with your particular brand of tomfuckery.

Do I like running before dawn? Umm, like may not be the right word. There’s a satisfaction to be had in mortifying that soft, comfortable side of my personality. When I do it I feel a little more present, a little less like those small, shivering things my dog likes to kill and a little more like, well, the creature preying on them. The world comes into sharp focus. That’s probably not something you wanted to hear, but it’s the truth.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like F*&$ This

For the past two months, it seems like I've been trying to do my best impersonation of a force-fed Christmas goose or perhaps a veal calf. Between the sedentary, candy fueled marathon of Nanowrimo, the post Nano blahs, and two major eating holidays, and a general aversion to going out in the dark and the bullshit winter weather, my pants zippers are just about screaming to be put out of their misery.

Like most of the lemmings, I have officially hit the end of my endurance for all manner of things that end with "olly," so of course I started back into running yesterday. And I can say that after nearly two full months of doing fuck-all, running two days back to back in the cold and the rain has all my bits hurting anew. In fact, I may have discovered entirely new bits to hurt. It makes me want to curl up around a computer and binge watch Netflix while I suck on my thumb.


My dog, on the other hand, couldn't be more thrilled.

Traitor.

It's not all a bunch of cold, damp bullshit. Running is the best thing out there that doesn't come in a bottle for boosting my super sunny disposition. The more I run, the longer my "fuck this" tether gets, and my "fuck this" tether has gotten really, really short of late. Short enough that I actually set my alarm clock for four a.m., an hour that shouldn't exist anywhere, so I could get a run in before the work week. That was before I found out we're supposed to be getting an all day ice storm starting in the wee hours.

Because of course we are.

What's Black And Blue And Pissed Off All Over

*This post first appeared at Tumblr. I am re-posting because I anticipate losing my soul to NaNoWriMo, and I want to try and stay consistent with this here blog.


I have a love hate relationship with going on long runs with my dog Buster. On the love side, he’s a great motivator. All I have to do when I’m on the fence about going on a run is pick up my running shoes, and that damn animal explodes with joy. It’s contagious. He’s even conned my husband, an avid and committed couch surfer into running a few times, and before Buster I was convinced nothing short of a velociraptor out for sweet, sweet white guy blood would do that.
On the hate side, there’s the pulling.

I don’t know if any of you has ever tried to train a Pitt Bull how not to pull like the little Goddamn engine that could, but it’s challenging.  It made me wonder at times: is trying to rip my spine out through my arm a life goal for my dog?

We’ve made some progress over the years. He mostly heels when we’re on a walk and he runs a few feet ahead of me. Normally, running with my dog is pretty enjoyable.

Normally.

There is one notable exception to the happy, well-mannered running rule. Critters. Man, you put a terrier… any terrier in front of a small and fluffy, and they will turn into laser guided killing machines. It doesn’t really matter much what kind of small fluffy it is: rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, whatever. If he sees it, he’s gone, and screw whoever happens to be holding the leash at the time.
That brings me to my tale of woe. Saturday morning I woke up early. The weather was fine, and I was feeling pretty good, so I decided to take his nibs out to the Great Western Trail for a long run. For those of you who don’t know it, the Great Western Trail is up in Northern Illinois. It’s about eighteen miles through farm and marsh land. Tall grasses and trees line the path. It’s a great place to go, and I tend to run at least ten miles. That day, my plan was to do about thirteen.

Well, about four miles in, I was feeling great, the dog was happy. All was right with the world. And then a fucking chipmunk darted out in front of us. And Buster gunned for it with every ounce of strength in his body.

Perhaps it might be helpful to note that while he is only 49 pounds, those 49 pounds are 100% lean muscle, and I was in mid stride.

Most people would just sort of instinctively let go of the leash at this point. Not me. Oh hell no. My reflex reaction to my dog tearing off like a bat out of hell is to form a death grip on the leash. My stubborn goes all the way down.

I sort of did a belly flop onto the gravel, and the dog proceeded to drag me three feet until he finally ripped the leash out of my hand.

I flailed on the ground for a few minutes, holding my gut and gasping for breath. TMI moment of the day: I have a fibroid tumor. It’s about the size of a grapefruit. When I was diagnosed, I joked with my husband that it’s really my twin that I ate in the womb. And I named him Eustace. Because he’s a painful asshole, and Eustace seems kind of like an asshole name. That’s why.

Guess who I landed on?

Oh yeah, that’s right. Eustace.

Instead of doing the sane thing and turning right the fuck back around and going home, where there are ice packs and heating pads, I was so mad that I ended up running ten miles.
Ten miles was how long it took me to stop chanting “Red Rum. Red Rum. Red Rum” in my head.
The dog was naturally perfectly oblivious to this fact. He’d chased a chipmunk AND gone on a run. Best Day Ever!

The next morning, I woke up bright and early, and because I am a total masochist, I went on a run again. This time sans dog.

Sweet saint fuck, was that ever a shitty idea.

It turns out Eustace really doesn’t like being dropped hard on a gravel trail and dragged three feet because the next day when I went running he felt sort of like he was trying to chew through my abdominal cavity. We already know who won that battle, so I kept running because if Caesar Milan has taught me anything, it’s important to assert your dominance.

Fortunately, that experience burned out all the pig headed I have in me for the week, and I won’t be running at least until tomorrow at the earliest.

So here I am again, dog sulking at the foot of the bed because I can’t run with him yet, cozied up to a heating pad, waiting for the swelling to go down.

Ain’t running grand?

Opening Salvo

OK, so this isn't so much a new blog as a change in venue. For a while, I've been blogging over at the Tumbr, which has plenty of lovely pictures to scroll through. That's the problem. The pictures.

You see, I'm fairly distractible, (No! Gasp!) and all of the lovely pictures tend to take me off in about ten dozen different tangents, which is fun but not so great for the old productivity. Also Tumblr isn't so great for the almost exclusively text-based blogs. So there's that.

Hopefully, this new platform will be a little more conducive to writing, but I'm not going to kid you. This blog is named The Shiny Squirrel Diaries for a goddamn good reason. I like doing new things. Recently, I have taken up computer coding, etching, and Spanish. Next month, I'll be participating in NaNoWriMo. I'm in a book club, and I game twice a month. And I'm a distance runner.

Because I live by the philosophy that sleep is for assholes, apparently. That's why.

Consistency isn't exactly my strong suit. Or it would be if I could get JK Rowling to send me one of those goddamn time necklaces.

But I'm going to try.

Because writing is fun, and because I like inflicting my crazy on the rest of the world.

You're welcome.