What's your flavor? Part II

I love good inspiration, and I'm a sucker for good quotes. But I also really appreciate bitter and sarcastic humor, and so this site is fantastic for a laugh. While I wouldn't call it overly clever, the humor is definitely outright, its still pretty funny.

I've found that the worst pitfalls come when you take yourself too seriously. There's just no need for it, and everyone else around probably thinks you're a stuck-up idiot. Which, to be honest, you probably are. I've heard sarcasm called the "tool of the weak," but I'd like to make a case for it, and instead call it the tool of the non-serious potentially intelligent being. If you're being sarcastic you're poking fun at a situation and thus are most definitely not being serious. Since you've taken the time to come up with a sarcastic comment, one that not everyone will necessarily pick up on, you've put some thought into the situation and can therefore be classified as potentially intelligent. Ergo, I would like to designate myself as a "non-serious potentially intelligent" being.

Sarcasm shouldn't be written off. You can get away with making fun of things that other people might not pick up on, I recently finished reading the classic novel "Catch-22" which highlights the craziness of the world through the frame of World War II, a pretty important event that I think most people would probably call fairly serious. But I would opine that the point Heller is making is that you can't take anything too seriously, every event, not matter how large or how small, is at least somewhat ludicrous.

Catch-22 is awesome because it teaches without being preachy. It's clever humor-my favorite type. You have to both pay attention and understand that you have no idea what's going on in order to fully appreciate the book. I read it right before snowmaggedon hit the DC area, and it kind of fit with the situation. People who took life and their jobs so seriously weren't able to work for a week. They were forced to do all sorts of terrible things like embrace week-day bar specials not because work had got them down, but because they had nothing better to do. A city usually engulfed in go-go-goers was suddenly filled with people starting huge snowball fights and sledding in the streets. Of course, I'm sure there were those dedicated workers being productive, but sometimes, you just have to embrace chaos.

So the wisdom I will impart upon you this Valentine's Day-another crazy holiday-keep your head in the game, but in reality, you've only got so much control. And when all else fails, make fun of yourself. The smart people will get it.

Holla,
Thing Two

I dedicate this post to judging myself.

I tend think of myself as a pretty smart person. Generally, I'm not an idiot, and I try and not engage in idiotic actions. Crazy, maybe. Slightly reckless, sometimes. Idiotic? I truly hate that feeling and because I utterly loathe feeling incapable, I tend to be pretty quick on the uptake.

Enter Sunday afternoon. The sun is shining, the birds are tweeting...and there's a healthy 2.5-3 feet of snow on the ground in the DC area. In an effort to stay in shape, I've hyped up the runs lately. The past two were done inside on a treadmill, which I typically dislike, so today I had the *bright* idea to run outside. Why not, right? Right????

In case you've been living under a rock, this is what DC looked like Saturday afternoon:

Yes, folks, that's right. I decided to run outside. For your enjoyment, I will now document my attempted 5 miles of idiocy.

Mile 1, Arlington: Some of the sidewalks were shoveled, some were snowy. The sun was shining, I was feeling good. I slipped and fell on some snow-covered steps, but I enjoyed myself. It really wasn't so cold out, and I was jammin' to my tunes. I was feeling pretty hardcore, there were people sledding out and I was running.

Mile 2, Memorial Bridge: This is basically where the run went to shit. I grabbed my run of this site that has a ton of runs. I was running on a 12-inch wide snow tread with at least a foot high on either side of me. At one point, I decided to make a break for the road: I plunged into snow that was higher than me knee. Yeah, you heard me right. Six steps of this and I had to stop and scrape snow out of my shoe tops. Then I started running on the bridge, which was akin to running on a beach, not the part packed down by water either.

<- An illustration of my annoyance.

Halfway over the bridge, I knew my run was being cut short. I just wasn't going the entire way. While it was still sunny, the whole situation was starting to become ridiculous. One thing was for sure: I was NOT turning back and running over the damn bridge again. I decided to run over the Highway 50 bridge near the Kennedy Center, I would be able to keep going at a more manageable distance and hopefully get home much sooner that if I had continued all the way to Georgetown and over the Key Bridge.

This idea soon turned to be so terrible that the following events can only be countered as utterly ridiculous:

1. Running near the Kennedy Center is a maze of roads, and I have yet to correctly locate the (plowed) sidewalk entrance to the Route 50 bridge. This proved to be problematic. I ran down highway entrances three separate times and eventually scaled a 4 foot wall (with the help of the snow and my ninja-like skills) in order to land on the sidewalk.
2. The streets of DC may be passable (in some places), but the sidewalks are not. After scaling said wall Bond-style, I landed on three feet of snow. Luckily, most of it was packed down, so I picked my way through icy piles of snow to...
3. Three feet of snow covering most of the bridge. I tried to run for a bit, really I did. I had mostly given up after Memorial Bridge. It was at this point where I started thinking, Is this seriously happening? and I want to be home so bad, basically on repeat.
4. I started running on top of the guardrail. This elicited 3 dump truck and at least 4 car honks. Whatev peeps, there was no snow on top of the guardrail and a four feet buffer zone between the real bridge edge and the road. I was freezing, it was windy, and my nose was drippy but this was also by far the best idea I had all run (or should I say walk at this point) until...
5. The guard rail became covered with snow and I was forced back onto the side walk. Official "eff" moment of the run.

The remaining distance was pretty much pure misery. As you may have noticed, I've stopped counting miles because I stopped caring and, mostly, running. I was cold, I was wet, I wanted to be at home. I vowed not to run again outside until I knew of a clear path and would have sworn off running for a week (at least a couple of days) if not for my pure stupidity.

I'm sure I'll be back out there tomorrow, seeing as the Federal Government and most of the city (except for bars and restaurants) is still closed. So when you see a runner out scaling walls, jumping through snow banks and looking throughly miserable yep, that's probably me.

Peace out cub scouts,

The brilliant Thing Two