Early this morning I did a 3/1 for 6 miles in 55:09. Felt very slow, could have kept going at same pace for a few more miles. But felt like if I speeded up just a bit I would very quickly crash and burn. Which is to say I was trying to keep under control/keep good form. A bit faster and my form would have started getting sloppy today. Although I was faster that first run (5 days ago 2/1 for 6 miles) with very good form.

Childhood, in the last instant.

Love that frog. But also yesterday saw three baby fish. Which is nice. Although before after a few years it started getting crowded...

Got an adjustable cello chair. Finally my 6'5" frame fits comfortably. Thanks to this chair and removing the pegs on the left. Which, BTW, today I measured myself and I seem to have grown another half inch in the last couple years. Two years ago I went to my cousin's wedding. He's a few years younger than me and I hadn't seen him in maybe 5 years. Previously he had been taller. But at the wedding he was now shorter than me. I then went home and measured myself and found that I was still growing in my mid 30's. At 36 I was up to 6' 4" and 5/8th inches.

Now at 38 I'm 6'5" and 1/4th inches.

Perhaps that's not normal. Certainly would not seem to be normal. And certainly seems in general that I'm really not normal in so many ways. By some miracle I haven't been burned at the stake. I've even been allowed to have a job and so on, with money left over for things beyond mere survival. But what I've been through, who I've been, what I think = not normal. How it relates to still growing in my late 30's I couldn't say. Perhaps that is normal for a vegan? Perhaps the acidity of meat causes continous leaching of calcium from bones and otherwise growing a bit in to one's late 30's would be normal.

But I can think of another possibility that there's no point really in writing down.

Bought a silky shirt for running and this morning's six mile 2/1 interval run didn't hurt my nipples at all. Did run it 40 seconds slower (57:25). But that was expected. Body will have to adjust to increased mileage.

love this frog

Frog.















(Bad lighting)

They delivered 12 foot long 4x4's instead of 10 foot. I'm thinking I might just use the extra two feet.

Last night in a thunderstorm Loki came in like a wet rat to go hide under the bed.
















This is a water plant that was actually utilized, papyrus. I bought it in such a small container that upon replanting I thought it might just float away through lack of adequate roots. So I kept it out of the pond. The roots have grown profusely, more than halfway to each end of this planter in about two weeks. Maybe three? Not sure.

There must be something beyond mere survival. But not just art in the form of movies, books, music, etc. Something that is a part of one's personal living space.
















I love pond plants. Love that they grow so fast. It's the miracle of life on fast forward. These started five weeks ago as three hyacinths and two water lettuces. You can almost see them grow. And although it's been very hot, we've had a lot of rain as opposed to sun. If only some use could be found for these plants. I wonder if they're edible. They grow like crazy. It's pratically like food growing on trees. Imagine what a heaven such a world would be as that.

Reading short stories of Hobb/Lindholm. Funny mention of both a cello and being too poor to afford a synthesizer, right as once again I'm looking at old analog hardware synths on ebay. I'm going to regret it my whole life if I don't get one. Just the not knowing.... Although it would have been damm nice if I could have just played around with one that someone else owned somewhere at some point in my life. But nope, literally decades without that ever happening. Right now looking at the roland juno-6. Not the 60 because without patches maybe I'll really get good at making sounds. And not the 106 because I'm doing this for ultimate sound and the 106 is said to not sound as good. The 106 does have midi while the 6 and 60 don't... I may have to cover the walls of my "music studio" in foam.

Really like Hobb/Lindholm as I've already mentioned. So far a story about an alien that can make any sound and generally sounded like a cello that turned a kids mom into a hopeless junkie, then got killed, then his little sister gets stolen. Secondly a story about a fortyish man named Merlin. Hobb spends a lot of time talking about her own life between stories, which I would think I'd really dislike but find myself not minding. Maybe since she's female???? (Along with intelligent and 'nice'.)

I also didn't mind seeing/hearing JV Jones. But then she's british and really good looking.

Further August Strindberg. From this must admit:
http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/
Finally actually reading him thanks to kindle. Read the play Comrades so far, which is about two married painters, ending with the husband divorcing the shitty wife. They say Strindberg hated women. This play certainly looks that way. But they say he simply used the people around him and this is just what was around him.

And continuing Lovecraft. Now starting the Call of Cthulu. Lovecraft is just this haze. It's not a given story. It's the overall feel. Like with Jack Vance actually to a large extent. I picture Mr. Lovecraft himself as the main character in each story. Usually alone, in the dark, and walking through these passageways to the eldritch.

Using the reading function on kindle a lot. All those words spoken outloud that no one in my real world will ever say.

Ran 4 days in a row and 5 out of 7. Not much mileage but very fast with lots of intensity. At first felt great but then I crashed and burned. Now I'm exhausted. Playing the cello for an hour today was an ordeal. Just want to do absolutely nothing. Also my joints hurt, knees and hips. Although they feel better today. Definitely take it back down to 2 or 3 days a week. And perhaps not quite so much speed work. Ran through the tunnel 6 times at an average of 1:20. Need to bring back 3 minute runs, which I did manage a 3/1 for a mile in 7:48. Quarters or tunnel or 1 minute runs should be done just once a week I think. So effing tired right now.

Ran four days in a row. Normally I only run 2 or 3 days a week with at least one day of rest in between.

Had been thinking more frequency might be a good idea. From past experience and reading this article:
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0058.htm
Yet running stops being fun then and I get kind of tired for other things in life. Anyway, this fourth day just ran one mile in 3/1 intervals (as I have to work 14+ hours next three days) and I'm getting pretty tired. At the track did it in 7:48 which isn't bad at all. One short term goal is to run 3 miles in 3/1's in under 24 minutes. Not to that yet but improving. Doing all intervals of 1 to 3 minutes.

I have a relatively flat side yard that is roughly 100 by 60 feet. I'm really not a fan of mowing the lawn. I find it:
1. a wasteful use of fossil fuel.
2. land upon which you could instead have food bearing plants.
3. land which could instead be a habitat for wildlife.
4. Fascist? What exactly is so nice about having each blade of grass exactly the same height anyway? It's almost like a pseudo-moon landscape. I find it creepy. Like from a wrinkle in time when each boy stands in the driveway of each house bouncing a ball in time with each other. Much creepier are all the old lawn nazis who seem to go around at night with a tape measure into their neighbor's yards. And personally a field just of tall grass looks far nicer to me.

I had further read a book saying that replacing your grass with a garden (preferably right there in the front yard) was a sort of revolutionary action at the local level, (which is the only place where you can do anything worthwhile thanks to corporate news media.) (Except you can't ever do anything worthwhile.)

Occasionally I've pointed these things out to the potato people and they scream, "Snakes!" It's very hard to believe that's really why they're so militant about their grass, and the idea that they would lie and give that as the reason when it's really... what? Kind of pisses me off...

Anwyay, my wife unfortunately is somewhat the same and so it's been somewhat of a battle to try to put stuff in place of this vast expanse of grass. So far though I've cut out a 15 by 25 foot section with a pond. Which, for all her past arguing, she certainly likes to go out to it multiple times per day to feed the fish.

Secondly I've planted 5 trees. The deer destroyed the japanese maple. Half the kwanzan has been eaten by the deer. The apple tree is mostly eaten and looks to just be barely hanging on. The ten foot tall red maple doesn't look as good this year as last. Not sure why. Possibly because the soil doesn't drain well here. The weeping willow... I should have learned about the different types of willows. The trunk of this one is almost like bamboo, which wasn't what I wanted. I thought that was just how they look when young, but no. Also the wind, (even with staking it) is really pushing it. And willows fall over easily. I did fence in the willow as otherwise I'm sure it'd be dead. Still the deer have repeatedly destroyed parts of the fencing, despite using very strong metal stakes.

Finally I went and bought a red maple that's more than 15 feet tall. I'm worried though the awful drainage will cause the roots to rot. But I do have a really nice large red maple on the other side of the house. Which Asplund is planning to take a large chunk out of because it's close to power lines and the potato people lawn nazis next door complained to the power company because of some fight they're having with other neighbors about leaves blowing into their yard.

Gee, it's kind of annoying if I write it all down at once and I even left some stuff out.

But now I'm taking another chunk out of this massive useless yard. I'm putting up a 20 by 18 foot section raised bed garden section. With deer fence around it. Raised because the soil acidity isn't quite right for blueberry bushes. Fence because the entire thing would otherwise be gone by the very next morning. Two 12x4 foot raised beds in the middle and a two feet wide one all around the outer perimeter. Probably will mostly be perennials/berry bushes as I don't actually like gardening quite all that much. But, happy today to be getting rid of more useless lawn.

The Terror by Dan Simmons
Based on actual events with some fantasy thrown in. 1845 expedition trying to find the North West Passage near the North Pole. Enjoyed this quite a bit, although felt like the ending was a let down somehow. No idea though what other ending could have been done. It was ultimately moored to reality. Loved the bit about Sophia Cracroft. Had some social norms nuance. Had a ton of technical knowledge. Simmons in fact cites 30 or so books, etc he read for research in writing this. The mystery surrounding the monster had to finally be revealed in some way. Didn't like the way in which it was done. I guess more of a telling than a showing.

At parts fell into formula a bit much. Hickey seemed slapped in there somehow... As if more than halfway into the book Simmons realized he needed more than extremely cold weather as an adversity. Then it seemed like he threw in a good gay man rather late exactly to counter Hickey being so evil along with being up to that point the only character that was gay.

No heroes with aces here. Liked how depressed Crozier was. Life is nasty, brutish, and short.

Checked out a sample of Simmons' Hyperion series. I suppose I liked that the character was playing Rachmaninov's Prelude in C sharp minor to start (was my favorite to play back when I had a piano.) But so quickly the plot seems extremely contrived and also space fiction just doesn't work for me so well (unless it's Jack Vance.) Immediately get mired in so many technical things that are all invented and irrelevant, perhaps.

I listened to this cd often while amongst a particularly bloodthirsty bunch of ..."academic" demons in Minneapolis. I remember I lived in someone's attic in isolation. College roommates who had nothing to do with one another. The owner of the house lived in the basement and took issue with my wife once coming to visit me from Los Alamos. Very strange. Those few days with her were the only thing worth remembering of the 8 months there. Otherwise it was dark and cold and I got to meet many, many demons. And I was worked endlessly and have less than nothing to show for it. Also I herniated a disc in my back and couldn't stand up straight about half the time. Took many years to truly heal from that. Actually the sprinting of a few days ago may have been a first in 5 years. Had to slowly carefully work my way back over the course of years.

It's nice to have pieces of music to bring back a time.

It's amazing the hell I was put through. I'm so far from that now.

Not that Minneapolis was really that bad. It was that on top of the previous 20 years, many of which were far worse.

So far from that now, but it's still the exact same world. And a large part of me will always be disconnected from the personal, instead tapped into the bigger picture. It's a deeply ingrained neural pathway not easily overcome. I forget it's something to overcome, mainly. The last instant, who cares about the big picture?

With myopia, now is heaven, after so, so many years of true hell.

Gave up having one to two alcoholic drinks per day. Was trying to do that primarily because studies have definitively shown it's better for one's health.

So I tried. My mind felt dulled but I soldiered on. Finally gave up because I was getting some insomnia. I'd much rather die 20 years younger then have insomnia. Really the mind dulling was getting bad enough on it's own. I figured I'd develop a tolerance and manage to think through the fog, but it didn't seem to be happening.

Did first 100 meter interval session at the track. Walking 100 meters in between. Did 30x100meters or 15 laps. Don't feel too bad. Slightly ravenous.

I knew a guy in the military who says he got down to a 4:05 mile, then just quit running because of money issues. His training was to run 100 meters, walk 100 meters forty times in a row M,W,F. Then jog 5 miles on Tue,Thurs. He didn't seem a braggart. I tried the interval part a few times more than 15 years ago but wasn't able to do it. I would get a sharp pain in my chest. I thought perhaps such exercise was just too much for my bicuspid aortic valve. In retrospect it appears that the combination of heavy bench presses plus such extreme running caused some sort of pleurisy-like issue that cropped up now and then.

Now I don't lift weights though and I managed this run today pretty well. Aiming for the full 40x100 once a week.

Men who read a lot have a more sensitive disposition. ...Maybe reading is a sort of curse is all I mean. Maybe it's better for a man to stay inside his own mind.

It takes about 10 minutes to play through the romberg c manjor sonata (for me anyway). Then also I'm working on Squire's Tarantella + songs from suzuki book 2. I still need to improve a lot at just the romberg but simply playing through the whole thing twice plus spending similar time on the others is all the time I've got. Decided it's better to focus on particularly troublesome spots in the romberg, etc on an almost daily basis (almost because I work exhausting 14, 15 hour days) and just go many days where certain parts aren't played at all. I think in the long term I'll improve more this way. I won't quite try to bother to explain why. It's almost obvious, yet I've practiced partially wrong for the last few months.

pro-plodding along
http://www.time-to-run.com/training/methods/intervals/intensity.htm

pro-interval
http://www.dragondoor.com/articles/endurance-training-intervals-vs-long-slow/steady-distance/

http://www.ultralegends.com/interval-versus-tempo-training/

http://blog.nutribodies.com/15/interval-training-for-improved-sports-performance

http://www.jeffgalloway.com/

http://mikesworkout.blogspot.com/2009/09/interval-training-vs-long-slow-part-1.html

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0004.htm
But then why the unsupported assertion slapped on the end to only spend 10% on intervals??

Dr. Norrell and Jonathan Strange by Susanna Clarke

You just know that nothing really really bad is going to happen to anybody who is really talked about much. Plenty of people die but never anyone personalized. This makes the reading somewhat light. A lighthearted, cute story that I consider somewhat unambitious. You're never drawn in deep. Of course if you were, then the author must find a way to bring you back out. Which many fail at. Steven King in The Talisman and The Stand for example being such failures. Hobb's Fitz being a success.
G. Martin being an example of someone who really draws you in, really makes it real and does kill off main characters but whom instead of eventually failing to pull the reader back out appropriately seems to have decided to just never finish.

Clarke takes what I consider a far less ambitious route.

Yet I imagine there are reviews that gush about how original her story is, largely in part to the footnotes which are used to make this fantasy alternate history seem rich. It is inventive and enjoyable to read but nothing quite that outstanding. Ultimately an unambitious book.

The alternate fantasy history makes it much easier to have nuance in social interactions. It may not be impossible to have great nuance in social interactions in an utterly alien world but no good example comes to mind.

Bits of hero with an ace, I suppose it could be said to depend upon such. A hero who slowly develops his ace....

What I get here is alternate history of earth for easier high degree of nuance in social interactions and make sure to kill people that appear to be main characters. Along of course with injustice, and hero with an ace that is slowly developed.

Done but for the dying. There's nothing to say as there's no one to say it to.

Really there isn't. I had already searched for so many years. Last night myopia departed for a short awful time. Did the necessary thinking to get it back.

...in other news I got a papyrus plant. Curious to see how fast it grows. If it grows fast I may eventually try to make some paper or something with it. Just curious to experience how life was once lived.

Really love my pond. Only negative is the bit of liner which is visibile along the edges. That stops me from bothering much with pictures. It's water, fish, all kinds of pretty plants and just a little bit of something that looks like a plastic garbage bag. Would have been so much more work to avoid that and maybe eventually will try to find the perfect stones to overlap the edges and hide it. Not really a big deal.

Planning on just running 1/1 intervals for a while. (Run fast or walk!) Probably just twice a week and until I hopefully manage 3 miles in 24 minutes, although not sure if I ever will. Currently manage around 27 minutes. Another way to think of it is managing an entire lap at the track every two minutes. The negative is it makes me want to lay around more. Not such a good thing for work. So, I might change my mind.

Now off for cello lesson. Then a dinner with parents of spinach, lentils and lemon missippi(sp) mud pie.

New PR of 3:16 for the half mile. Then still had enough in the tank to run a 3:19 and 3:25. In order to run a six minute mile though, I'll probably have to get that down to 2:45. Progress really has been somewhat slow, considering how slow this is to begin with. But I feel it within my stride that there's plenty of progress still to come.

The imagery I conjure doesn't make total sense but then it's just symbolic. I vaguely imagine a massive wave falling upon all, and/or the entire planet somehow falling. The last instant; partying your ass off as the bubonic plague sweeps across the land.

Immediately, life is so much better.

And it's not a short term solution. It's worked smoothly for like a year now, except for a very few short bits where I forgot...