Grand Theft Life 1.2.3 videobook

Grand Theft Life 1.2.2 videobook

well wishes. 2017

new  years  i wish you

new friends 

"knitted toques"

fresh laughs

stunners

forgivenesses

colors

doing the work you love 

triumphs

family

good books 

(the kind with pages between covers)

eurekas

records on vinyl

honesty

companionship 

deep breathing in wild forests

fresh visions

clean linens

ATTITUDE

starched shirts

gratitude

loyal pets

fanatics

blizzards

warm memories

warm blankets

rejuvenations

enduring friendships

courage

solitude

resilience

(and above all)

- spirit -

sugar

K in Tahoe. pic by K's brother

These are the holidays and sugar runs high and mighty in the bloodstream. I wanna get back to baseline

back to water
back to coffee

rivers
and the sea

avoid the fake
and real news, too


back to books
and Tetley's tea

all my old friends
and me

savage

i like to bring a 20 oz genuine thermos to work with me, full of coffee or tea. i like to bring an genuine awakened consciousness, too, as this can be helpful in tricky situations. one goes with the other; if i go without coffee, i may not be completely with you there, and you may need to tell me things twice or knock on my skull and ask  hello? katya? anyone home? please gimme a reprieve! i am in my forties now and have lived through a lot of bullshit. i know nobody hardly respects their elders anymore, true, but aren't i cute and nice enough to be an exception? if you decide not to show me leniency, okay, that's what my nieces would call  SAVAGE! and then when my sleeping consciousness gets properly plied by your orange roughy, well, the savage will awaken in me from any depth of slumber and i will stand on my hind legs and make myself bigger than your ego and we can go UFC - MMA fighting where i shall take your ass properly to ground.

future mma star?

in my twenties and thirties

i was the kind who got kicked out of bars for mouthing off, demanding attention, who wandered off and misplaced myself in different American cities, found myself thirsty, dazed and alone some afternoons, in alleyways woke by the sun, after nights i would rather have forgotten but stand in my memory still ... yet i could always find refuge in the nearest public library or local reading room where the silence could be so loud, you could even hear fingertips striking keystrokes to the tune of the turning of pages, and there in the warmth of centuries of collective wisdom could i manage to wonder how am i alive? there must be a God or the spirits of my predecessors looking out for me, i am so blessed and cursed, i am ... my twenties and thirties were absurd at times, my natural privilege did not always work for me because i convinced myself i oughta earn anything. of course i held a job down most of the time and was responsible about rent and stayed mostly out of jail. i was neither thief nor leech on to another's good fortune; i mean i made and paid my own way. i was often in a relationship. i thought i was in love a couple of times but in the end i wouldn't work for it, i wouldn't make the sacrifices and maybe, just maybe, i did not want to be loved. i was critically self-centered and bursting with pride as i walked solemnly toward my next humiliation. i think i wanted to be punished. back then, i was not interested in god.

Shine cafe in Sacramento. photo by K

Journal # 12.25.16

Into the snow and nowhere to go, good times with the family. Cell phone short circuits in the frosty air, Santa Claus is up there, keep the dog close so coyotes don't get him. I have no idea how the day will play out, just gonna go with it. This is not my territory, exactly, but I feel loved. Live life without limits. You can do anything -- so dream big!

circa 09.01.2011

09.01.11

Posted on September 2, 2011 by KatYa

The truth is confusing, the confusion is disturbing, and reality does not give a damn. My heart holds vacancy for the life of them. and you. Still to attend to the sky in its entirety.                          Sea. The depths grow green to Royal blue. Where all lies over exposeD in a happy residue. Off center in allostasis. From the residual, extract the amplification. Subtract from that all that you already know or believe.  The tattooed kneecap. the hair weave. The eyes tell of suffering behind capri ankles. The wrist-roll up to three quarters a sleeve.                The honesty cannot be found from infusion thereafter. She was left to floats on water boiling. Like a poached egg. Then arises Thick, like crisis in love. Then arises as vapor- Clear

sacrilege

Tonight i have little to say. i am very tired and need sleep. so i am sending you a video my boyfriend made a few weeks ago when he spotted me @ mile 25. i ran past him because i was in my rhythm and meditation, and i had thought about breaking stride but to do so was sacrilege... 

after Tosh stopped filming, i surprised him by coming around the other side of the police car, where we had a sweet embrace. see how the heart prevails over that which is sacred? sometimes nothing can get between the love we have for one another.

Journal # 12.23.16

I met a friend for coffee this morning, I was not on much sleep, my days have been busy with writing,  work, finding gifts, reading, planning, talking, dreaming, walking. We caught up on our lives and he invited me back to his place to look at some original artwork of his, colorful and imaginative paintings, oils on canvas dating back fifteen years or more. He let me pick out seven of them, and the rest he says he is going to destroy. I gathered they served their purpose. I know better than to try and talk another creative soul out of destruction. I thanked him profusely as he rolled up the canvases and placed them in my arms. When I got home, I tacked every one to the white walls of my apartment, many of which needed some meaning. The counters and floors are now cluttered with holiday gifts which need be wrapped. The air smells of Sumatra I have been roasting for my brother and sister. Why would I call her a sister-in-law, when I can simply call her my sister? 

sunset at Walmart 

A storm is coming and the rain here will turn to snow in the Sierras, and I will be following its tail to Lake Tahoe, with all of these gifts for my nieces and nephew. Star Wars watches and piggy banks, Hard Candy makeup and alphabet stickers and bling, jump ropes and soccer balls, silly Xmas tee shirts. I really had fun shopping for the kids. Tomorrow I will remember how to wrap a gift properly. Today I will get on my bike, in the rain, and ride up north on the river. I am making a couple hours a day for my novel. I take my chances for naps, and find myself waking from strange dreams to my cats and the sound of the heater. The cats they curl up on the bed, and listen to me recount the stories of my dreams. Or else I stretch and I sing to them. I will kiss them and get out of bed. I cherish the lives alongside my own. 

the resolute kindness

Readers
Friends
Family
Comrades

I wish you all a bright season, and thank you for camaraderie and for showing interest in my work. For the first time in many years, since 2005 to be exact, I will be spending this holiday with family. I am excited. It was a long and painful separation, yet in that empty space my family once filled,  I developed a lot --what Jung would call individuation -- and, up against the painful silence of a careless world, I drew close to the warmth of the fire in my heart, and somewhere there located the elements of my survival. You may have noticed my tools. Writing. Running. Counseling. Reading. Mindfulness and meditation. Guitar. Your life can be what you make of it. Isn't that freedom? I feel fortunate for my small freedoms in our world of power struggles and abuses. Yet the resolute kindness had to be gifted to myself, and still does. There was a time when I was a child then an adolescent and a teenager, and the many kindnesses were insinuated toward me. I believe the most kind among them, lovers and family and lifetime friends, were the ones who knew me best. And I felt insulted. For I knew they knew I was some walking contradiction, that somehow I was an act, and could betray myself in an instant! The ones who knew me, knew I was not kind to myself at all. I treated them poorly and almost as poorly as I experienced myself. I was a classless example on a long and endless tour. I was Keith Richards meets Brian Jones for a swim. I was a party of one, divisible by all. I had to be alone, in order to patiently await the resolute kindness within me. Otherwise, I risked the endless incinerations, and being reduced to a fraction of myself.

2016 K 

This is my confession to you. I know my writings tend to give only a glimpse of who I am and what I have been through. It is only through the greater whole of this website, and through the books that I write (yes, I am a novelist), you may know me more intimately. And you may also see my play and foreplay with the resolute kindness, within and without. I am the filter, and I attempt to surface and demystify the demons, to spin them around like a top and turn them. Turn them into friends and allies, within and without. I consider it some kinda alchemical process going on. I don't create it, I just reflect it. When I am lucky, coal turns to silver and wine, into water. But I want to be honest with the process, and if all that turns up out the topsoil is a demon, well, there you have it, I will share a demon with the world and let the world handle it... I love it more when I can grow the kindness and press it out to you like a flower! This is (and was) my dream in twenty sixteen. And I will exercise a lien on twenty seventeen, and release more of this lovely, tangy stuff to you when i can, so we can share the resolute kindness.

we will know who we are

indie author K

Dress yourself up a little different this holiday season. Streak your hair with pink or blues. Be completely proud of yourself; you are a flawed wonder of the universe. And by the way, you don't have to be married to your mobile phone anymore. Massage the attention span with inaction, try and go tech-free for a day, go full force family breakfast! Try not to give in to the vibration. Stop your finger from swiping the screen. Your children need you. They have no milk in their cereal. Nobody taught them how to soften up a situation. Knead the hard candy of routine, until it softens into taffy. Stretch to the sky without a gps signal. Your brother and sister will soon follow. It's okay to concede you got lost, we all did! I swear we will know who we are.

GWB 2.4.1 video book

GWB 2.3.2 video book

GWB 2.3.1 video book

snow me over a lather of denial

There is always me and my mindbodyspirit. The spirit cannot be touched nor seen, yet is the cornerstone of the experiment that is me... this truth left the subunified districting in the hands of the mindbody to battle it out for supremacy. The mindbody was not unlike (me) at all, and so much the same it made my mind a furious, raging llama, so furious I decided one day to call the stumbling, hulking mass of idiot flesh and networks of tubes full of bloody hell, something other than what it truly was. A vivid space I typed between the subunified essence of me, smiling when the typewriter rang its little bell. The angels are calling, the angels are calling! The message is here.

A pond of correction fluid grew larger as time (another construct of mind yet several epochs before, the mind says with conviction) went on. The result was the contemptuous subdistricting between which a fence then wall was constructed to keep the obviously related, deep-rooted elements, superficially apart. The divisions grew stronger and the roots were cut off, and soon the sea of humanity institutionalized the damn thing. Children like me were encouraged at a terribly young age (despite our knowing better) about the mind and the body, distinct from the spirit. Groupings of disparate parts could then be made possible for the sake of fun and games. Mindbody. Mind-body-spirit. Psychosocial. Bio-psycho-social-spiritual. Each part could be ritually washed and cleaned and manipulated per se.

My mind had me over the ropes, snowed over a lather of denial, in a plate glass window of time. It was truly obscene! Which I only realized when I finally woke up to the truth.

Book Review

Indestructible & Other Poems by Kristy Rulebreaker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Indestructible is Kristy's sophomore effort as an indie author and poet. She is beloved for her contributions to social media circles, particularly the poets of 'G+' If you follow closely, you can see her evolution. She is experimenting with form and verse in interesting ways. I feel as though I am walking through life with her, and it is not sugar-coated. I appreciate her honesty. "The sun is posing but I don't have enough tears to cry for a sunny day that does not warm the heart" she says. In other verses, she gives us a fresh take on the gap between rich and poor. You almost feel as though justice has already been served: "I couldn't buy calm nights with my soul bright as lighter, I couldn't buy clean days with my heart as cotton tender." There is exciting talk about nature, and dreaming about nature overrunning the unnatural world and reclaiming it. In her poem "The wind has lost his mind" she personifies nature well to describe her grief. Her expressions are often spare and crystal clear. She opens windows into relationships and little loves of her life. I really love her work. She beckons me to the living of an authentic sorta life. The one and only way to live.


View all my reviews

Book Review

The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Get a vivid picture of the work camp life in Siberia from a great author who was sent there and subjected to horrors most people could not survive. Solzhenitsyn's triumph over his bitter and cruel life circumstance gave him a second lease on life, as he made he way to New England and lived out the remainder of his life in respectable fashion, known the world over and cherished for his spirit and writings. The story and history of Russia and Russian literature cannot be whole without mentioning the tragedy of the hundreds of thousands of intellectuals, activists, artists, citizens, and poets who were 'disappeared' by an authoritarian regime. This resounding text, The Gulag Archipelago, is a must read to round out the picture - the reality - and honor those who suffered and never made it home. Solzhenitsyn lived to tell, and became not only author but historian. Hopefully after reading this work, you will become excited (as I was) to locate the many other great works of his contemporaries. There is a treasure chest of art, poetry and literature. Brilliant lives, abbreviated and extinguished. One quality will surely be enhanced by reading Solzhenitsyn: a deeper appreciation for the great freedoms of speech and expression!


View all my reviews

lady of the table grapes

You were an endangered species, out of it, staring into your bowl of green seedless table grapes. And the weather outside was frightful. I asked you again about the backyard, and you said that you didn't grow up there, your eyelashes were too long. Nat King Cole came on the radio and I suddenly felt safer than I really was. You took out your personal fork and stabbed a grape dead. I could not make sense of you, all I knew was you had no manners and a predilection for round juicy fruits. I picked up my pen and wrote a letter to the devil, carefully, on a soft cotton sheet of medicated Kleenex... dear Satan, could you please make a home for our homicidal lady of the table grapes?

k when k was k circa 2012

get used to it

Get used to it....
you may not have a choice

Get used to indifference to your causes. Only a few will care about you, so get down on your knees and show them some deference. Take them to coffee if your knees have bummed out. Get used to relocating, if your bank accounts aren't impenetrable. If you have enough money for food and shelter, you can still survive. Relocate your spirit toward adventure. Nesting is for the birds! Get used to tornadoes or find a stronger vine and hang on for dear life. Some of us like to spin around for dear life! Unless our homes are anchored, man, we gotta keep flapping our wings and be ready. Get used to extremity. A good way to start is in the shower. Turn hot to cold and back to hot. This is good for your chakras. This is good, the shock. Get used to it.

two clicks and a book

I do not write mysteries. Writing is the mystery and a book, a puzzle piece, a small part of being solved. I am wondering if I have what I need to do what I wish to now do? The magic number, I make it fourteen. Two weeks, to get back to you. To immerse myself in the colorful cove of creative process, and finish what I started a little over a year ago. There is a battle on our screens, online, for our eyes, our attention, our desires. When we are tired, they win. I go to do something creative and if I make one mistake, chasing down an email or a tweet - any packet of information - I may be sucked to the bottom of a sloping hill of mud, two clicks away, marching my way up and back to reclaim my sacred land... but always two clicks away. I wonder if I have what it takes to stand my ground? I have all my rations, all my munitions, and all my comrades around me. I have my health and my family, and my faith. I can easily recall when the world came over me, a long shadow before a setting sun. I plodded my way through the deepest night. Lost, I surrendered; and they had mercy on me. I don't know how or why. I was a pitiful starved creature, lunatic raving and howling, chained to an iron post on a cracked island of asphalt. I was the one who broke dumb from the pack. Now they saw I was no threat and marched me through a wasted land of drought. I focused on the stars of windless night until I was one, too, the smallest and farthest away. And brighter grew. I stretched for the sun out of a cold, dark place only I inhabited. Not at first, but soon I was touched. I found something there I cannot describe. In the poverty of speech one may call it 'god' - if only to relate. The thing which keeps me bright. This thing which can keep me up all night. That which helps me shine through darkness. Immerses me in sacred process, helps me hold my ground. In fourteen days or not, two clicks away and shot, from the bottoms ever climbing... I wonder will I find my way, and back to you? Otherwise, this book may live a lonely life in my heart.

in memoriam - Jennifer M.

You were my friend. You had reached out to me in January of this year, randomly, and I was so glad to hear from you, I don't know why I did not follow the way to see if we could hook up for a moment in this life, one last time? Life gets chaotic and there's nothing much you can do. Suddenly starts, suddenly ends, and gradually you realize you never know when. We can try, though, and that's exactly what I forgot to do, about you. Jennifer Mendiola aka Alana Kane. I will miss your enduring smile. I cried very hard tonight when I discovered you sailed out on a Ghost Ship and never to return. The clock struck midnight and you and your lover, you were dancing, you were gone. I remember back in 2009 when I met you South of Market, San Francisco. We were counselors at a painful place. Sixteen beds for sixteen lost and homeless souls. I brought my desire to help. You brought your presence and your smile. We got along easily, though the work we had to do was hard and brutal. Just outside those double locked doors in this sanctuary city, people were driven to desperate intoxication and suicidal panic, and all the time. I could not believe you at first, I wondered how could you smile all day long like that? From dawn to 3pm when we got out. There were times I thought you must be faking it, I confess. All the methadone nods of sixteen souls all around us? The cutting scars and track marks? The lonely vacant stares, up and down the carpet stairs. But we knew we could make a small difference in a semi-safe space. Listen to them tell us their stories. Hold them if they cried. Teach them simple skills if they wanted to learn. Laugh like we were family, and for a time we were. Everything about it could be cold, day by day. Yet you smiled. I guess you had just recently been married around then, I didn't really know or maybe I forgot. All I know is we worked well together and kept the place running, which was the best we could do with phones ringing, doors buzzing, and sixteen souls in need of something all the time. I really admired you. I knew I could trust you, you worked real hard and really cared. If I walked in the door and saw you, those early foggy San Francisco mornings, some of that tension, that burden a social worker experiences inside, fell off of me immediately. I could take my earbuds out, warm my hands with breath, take a deep breath and look to you. Talk to you. Get willing with you toward the day ahead of us. I will miss you my friend. I will think upon you when the work gets brutal, and try and smile through.

how to run a marathon - part 3

Nutrition. I decided on an ideal race weight based on my build, by comparing against a professional runner of similar build. Taking off pounds is important because it eases the incredible impact of your weight on your legs. I lost about 10lbs in 2 months and though it's not much, it made a really big difference. Gravity didn't hurt so bad.

My staple diet for the 4 months of training consisted of oatmeal, peanut butter & jelly, pan-fried tilapia in olive oil, garlic, shrimp, tunafish, honey, granola, fruit, fruit juice, wheat bread and pasta, lots of tomatoes, cup of noodles, all the V8 juice combinations, bananas, oranges, muscle milk (which i found tasted pretty good mixed with hot coffee), tea, broiled turkey/chicken with veggies, jamba juice, spinach, eggplant, salad, almonds, quinoa, almond milk, salads, eggs, sweet potatoes, soups. On weekends after long runs I often treated myself to the stuff I cut out: pizza (cheese), chicken wings, hamburgers, steak, butter, bacon. So I could get the cravings out of my system once in a while. I also took B-complex and multivitamins every single day, and sometimes those green tea extract pills.

I usually start my day with some oatmeal/granola and honey and fruit, maybe some brown sugar. And a thermos of coffee/tea mixed with almond milk. Then I will snack while I'm at work on apples and oranges and granola/protein bars. After work (I work a nightshift) I will fry eggs, sometimes a whole wheat muffin, garlic, onion, ketchup (sandwich). Rest for an hour or two before my daily run (unless it's summer when I have to get on the road/river early. After my run it's a good idea to have some protein of some kind within the first half hour, otherwise hydrate through the day, fruit juices, water, granola bar, jamba juice. When I wake up at night before work, I might broil chicken or fish with veggies, or pan fry in olive oil. I rarely do both the big breakfast (eggs) and the big dinner (fish/meat/pasta) on the same day when I am training. I don't need that much food unless I ran for over a couple of hours. I substitute something smaller, soup/salad/oatmeal/tunafish/pb&j, in lieu of one of those meals. This is what works for me.

The week leading up to a race, you wanna hydrate and carb-load religiously if you can. Meaning small meals several times a day, keep drinking water. I found that eating well makes me feel good, running makes me feel good, yoga makes me feel good, so I would just remind myself of this! It makes sacrifice and effort a whole lot easier when you see the bigger picture. You are a star! You are so healthy! You are the lean, mean, running machine!

GWB 2.2.1 a videobook

GWB 2.1.2 a videobook

how to run a marathon - part 2

Learning to run great distances is a -DIY- do it yourself adventure. Meaning have fun and experiment with options. You will learn not only about your body and mind and spirit, but also open yourself up to a whole new universe of extreme sports. Every time I thought I had nothing more to learn, some challenge arose which caused me to discover more. Not only do you get to be outdoors in nature for hours at a time (i did exactly zero minutes zero hours in the gym), but you get to experience deeper breathing, the runner's high, and comradery with fellow runners. There's a lot of physical pain that accompanies extreme sports, so it takes a certain kinda person to subject themselves voluntarily to running a marathon. And many people think we are crazy 'cause we don't get paid. We have to cover the costs of entrance fees, shoes and equipment, yes. I had at least a half dozen perfect strangers over the past 6 months tell me I must be crazy. Haha-ha!

All I can say is I am 43 years old and probably in the best shape of my life. I rocked 26.2 miles and got a ton of love from spectators, family, friends, and other runners. I spend countless hours along the most beautiful river in northern California, which I otherwise might have wasted online staring at a computer or worse. And I have a huge sense of accomplishment which carries over to confidence I have in everything I do. Now if that's 'crazy' - please - make me insane!

I try and keep things simple or minimalist: no watch, no headphones, no camelbacks while running. Garmin makes watches which track your pace and heartbeat and distance and many runners have them, but you don't need them if you're concerned only with having fun and finishing, not with racing. It's all up to you. A flipbelt will hold up to 10 GU gels around your waist, which is all the energy you need for 26.2! You can keep stuff in a wristband, too, including S-caps and even powdered supplement mix or gatorade in a plastic baggie for when you find a water fountain. I used GU Roctane during the marathon, which has sodium, caffeine, and extra amino acids. I also took S-Caps (salt and potassium pills) to keep safe from dehydration. My method was 1 GU every 40 minutes, 1 S-Cap every hour, for 5 hours. Just before my long runs, I drank a bottle of water mixed with Apex pre-workout mix (1 scoop) and Old School's 'Vintage Blast' pre-workout (1 scoop) in lieu of GU. During the marathon I drank water and/or gatorade/nuun at every aid station, approx every 3 miles. When training on your own, you must find water fountains or hide a water bottle ahead of time, if you do not carry water. Don't go more than 6 miles without fluids! Bananas and oranges were offered along the CIM course and I always took them.

Your energy level will go in waves! When tired, shorten your stride and ease back on your pace. When energized, I say go for it and pick up the pace. Listen to your body. If you suffer runner's knee or other joint pain: KT-Tape is the bomb! Use it. Carry it. Negative splits are better than positive splits! Meaning run the first half slower than the second. I hit a wall hard after running 10min miles for the first half of my first race, which was a 20 miler one month before the marathon. My natural pace is 11 min/mile, but I had a lot of adrenaline and was pushing hard. I learned quickly the dangers of the positive split. My legs were so tired by mile 16 I could hardly continue on. But experiencing this wall over the next 4 miles was probably good for me, because I learned how to run on tired legs and finish.

You can discover your pace by knowing your distance and time, checking the clock before you set out and after you return.  Just subtract any time you took for water/bathroom breaks. You can easily map out your route distance beforehand by going to google maps, right clicking your mouse and selecting 'measure distance'. Then you divide your total minutes ran by total distance ran, to get your pace. It's that simple. I found that I consistently ran a natural pace and could chip away at it on shorter runs.

how to run a marathon - part 1

Having run the CIM 2016 (my first marathon) in 4:58, I wanna to show some love and share my experience with any runners who wish to take on the challenge. I got so much wonderful and free advice online from so many bloggers along the way! I am so grateful. Here are some things that worked for me in my adventure. I hope they work for you, too...

If you are starting from scratch, give it a 4-6 month training window. Go ahead and find a tried and true schedule and post it on your wall. I used Hal Higdon's 16 week intermediate marathon training schedule. Let yourself stray from the schedule based on your instincts. Everyone has their own personal challenges which will impact daily life. Just know that if you keep running, your legs will get stronger. 10% increases in mileage per week is considered the gold standard. Many runners alternate weeks increasing their sunday long runs to new distances, then falling back to rest the legs. I started out running totals of 15-20 miles a week, then worked my way up to 50-60 miles (with a 20 mile longest sunday run) in 12 weeks, then used the last 4 weeks to taper back down to 20-30 range, letting the legs recover before the big one. Cross-training is essential. I chose cycling and hiking. If I felt I needed a day off, I took it. If I could run 5 days straight, I did. The back-2-back concept is very helpful for learning/feeling how to run on tired legs. Hitting a wall here and there is good for you to experience the pain and try and run through it. Psychological/mental conditioning.

There is such a thing as over-training and it's dangerous! Keep to the schedule if you can. You could injure yourself. New runners can be prone to injuries because your body is still adjusting to the high impact sport of long distance running. What happens with a new runner is your body tries to acclimate to the stress of impact, and often expends energy trying to stabilize/protect your legs. Experienced runners will find that, once acclimated, the body will be able to use those energy channels towards forward momentum.

Buy quality running shoes that are made for long distances. My personal favorite shoe and the one that got me through: Brooks' Launch 3! A 'neutral trainer' that is very supportive but not too heavy, and has the kind of midsole cushioning which pushes back to help your forward momentum. Be aware of 'pronation' and have someone check your stride. Shoes wear out in 300-500 miles. Have an alternate pair and keep track. Faster runners tend to run on different shoes than they train on. Hokas are cushiony and good for recovery runs. The Pegasus 33 Nikes are good but a bit heavy. There are tons of useful shoe and product reviews all over the internet. Use them.

Use anti-chafing sticks like 'Body Glide' for surfers. Long runs will rub raw your arms, feet, inside of your thighs, anywhere there's friction. Experiment with socks. They do make socks these days which prevent blisters, but moleskin helps, too. I experienced a knee injury while breaking in my Hokas which caused me to need new shoes only days before my race, and the 'Swiftwick' socks I was offered kept the blisters at bay. If you do get blisters while training, there are safe ways to pop and bandage them and keep running without delay. Don't forget suntan lotion if you are fair-skinned. Nobody loves skin cancer and you may be out running for 3-4 hours at a time...

permanently pressed

today i am light
i am even
grown up
from the nitro
blackish wet
soil

i am liking to work
with the life
i have
left

with what i have left of life
not like before
when

permanently pressed
into residual urban
cold cascade of landscapes

i was doomed
blunted
and dark and
that

was then

CIM - '26.2 or nothing!'

finish line!

I am thrilled to have finished the California International Marathon yesterday in just under 5 hours, running from Folsom to Sacramento @ dawn to noon! I could not have made it without all of the support I got from friends and family, fellow runners and spectators, and volunteers cheering us along throughout the course. I stayed on pace this time, focusing on a negative split, and finished really strong without a whole lotta suffering like last month when I hit that proverbial wall.

kiss the sky

This was truly one of the best days of my life! The dream I had to run -- when I was just a kid watching and cheering and giving cups of water to the runners @ the Boston Marathon -- finally became a reality. I wanna give a shout out to those of you who have been following my 6 month journey, and provided me with so much encouragement. I am grateful to you! Look out for 2017: I may move into the ULTRA-marathon with an attempt at the Gold Rush 50 kilometre trail run which also starts in Folsom, in May. Sky = the limit.

cim or nothing

upcycled blue

Decisively you stood up for me. The sun was nowhere to be seen, bright was the sky had been vacated, so clear you could see the stars embedded in blue. Decisive it was you. The blue was of the freshest upcycled hard knock gel you coulda thought it was original and might even say american, which was upcycled, too, and swell. I was a dangling participle, left hanging like an pomegranate swollen on the bush late in summer. The bush wanted rid of me but I would not fall, and they wanted to pick me off anyway. Decisively you stopped them when they tried to pick me off. I couldn't even see them as you know. We want some seeds, they said, and all they were was mouths watering. You surged with a dry wry unflinching certainty: "and what of the rest of her, discard her, would you?"  They quivered and wavered and blinked their mouths. Innocently suggesting only this little part of me was useful. It was then you hedged them out of the yard with the clippers. My seeds were glowing inside me like jelly, like wax, like embers, like fireflies, like rain at night in the light. The sun came out of the blue and reappeared in the sky. It was so nice and warm, I could modify you for days and days. And days and days and days. Modifying you. Days and days and days and days and days.

CIM - countdown! (part 2)

With less than one week to go before my first ever marathon, I am running out of time to train let alone play with options. Two weeks of cold symptoms and bronchitis had destroyed my running schedule before the fated long run where I injured/strained my knee only 10 days before the race. And though I was really happy with my 10:39 pace on Nov 5th when I finished the Run the Parkway 20, I really didn't want 6 months of hard training to end without 'the big one'.

I took a deep breath and recovered some hope after talking with friends and family, and kept on. I bought a compression sleeve for my knee and did a couple of short (2-3mile) runs over the weekend in my Adidas Pureboost X's, and I did still feel a dull pain in the knee but not too bad. Running fast on a downhill did not seem to aggravate it, and there was no swelling or bruising afterward. This convinced me it was the proverbial 'runner's knee' people talk about.  I began to wonder if I might forsake the Nikes for the Pureboost X's but nowhere online could I find anyone who ever ran an entire marathon in these shoes! I just didn't want to wear the Pegasus again, due to their weight and something about them just did not feel right toward the end of my first race. The Pureboost X is a lightweight shoe which is incredibly comfortable and is mostly reviewed online as a 10k or less trainer with floating arches, and good for the road. So I decided to run a counterintuitive 9 miles yesterday with only 6 days to go, just to see if the Pureboosts (and my knee) could handle long distance.

These are the final variables for my race preparation. I have brought my weight down to 169lbs (i am 5' 11" tall) by eating mostly tilapia, pasta, oatmeal, cup of noodles, and drinking Jamba juice, muscle milks, tea, water, and V-8. I take B-complex and multivitamins and green tea extract pills daily. I am happy with my in-run energy plan which consists of Roctane (higher amino acid levels) GU gels every 45 minutes, and S-caps (salt pills with potassium) every hour. And of course water/gatorade provided on the course. Needless to say, shoes and a knee injury are 2 very critical variables to have at such a late stage in training. Up until I got sick and subsequently injured, my training regimen (Hal Higden's intermediate schedule) went perfectly well, too.

How did yesterday's run feel? Pretty good. The Pureboost X's felt fantastic all 9 miles, so I think I will go against the grain and run the marathon in these beauties! Maybe I will be the first one ever to do so? I think they can go the distance. As for me, well, my knee got a little funky after I took a bathroom break midway through the run. It began to hurt in mile 5 and I really thought my plans to run the marathon were about to come crashing down. But I decided to try and run through it, and this time -- miracle of miracles -- it worked! By the end of the run it was feeling quite good and so was I. My plan is to stay off my legs as much as possible the next 5 days, do a lot of yoga and quad stretching, buy some glucosamine supplement and KT tape (kinesiology) -- which seems to have worked wonders for other runners in trouble with runner's knee -- and keep my head up and heart skipping beats as Sunday fast approaches.

CIM - marathon countdown!

Countdown to the California International Marathon = 5 days! Wow. I am excited but nervous. I sustained an injury of some kind -- probably 'runner's knee' -- on my belated long run last Thursday (postponed due to bronchitis). I had reached the 14 mile mark on the Hoka Bondi's I have been breaking in, and I was feeling great physically but got blisters. I had never run far on the Hokas so I had planned for problems, and asked my boyfriend to carry my tried and true Nikes (Pegasus 33) in his backpack as he rode his bike alongside me. These were the ones that I wore when I raced the 20 mile Run-The-Parkway. So he helped me stop and switch out, and I got back on the river trail near Sacramento State. Within a mile I somehow developed a throbbing pain on the outside of my right leg just below the knee. I thought it might be a cramp and tried to run through it from mile 14-16 (on an 18 mile run), but I began limping and could not go further without risk of further injury. I walked the last 2 miles alongside Tosh, who was kind enough to stay with me even though he had places to be and it was approaching 4 hours since we set off up the river. Sunrise when we started had been quite cold @ 36 degrees F but now the skies were sunny and it was a perfect fall day, lots of foliage to see.

I was concerned about the knee. I was gonna wait a couple of days before freaking out about the situation. I had a bad feeling that I caused the injury by switching shoes mid-run like that, because the Hokas are heel strikers and much different from any other shoes I have worn. They have a strange way of changing the impact points on your legs. Though they provide more cushion than the Nikes (the very reason I decided to buy them), I could feel great stress in my hips and inner thighs after running a half marathon. Still, I love the shoes for the way they push back and give me an effortless feeling, seem to help set a nice rhythm in the stride...    (see part 2)

Book Review: The Outsiders

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ponyboy narrates the story of his teenage life within a sewn together band of brothers and young 'greasers' in small town America (reminiscent of American Graffiti) who include working class orphans, school dropouts, criminals, athletes. He provides an emotionally-centered account of these trying circumstances for kids on the back side of the mainstream. Desperate times give rise to fierce loyalties, and it's easy (as a reader) to love Ponyboy and root for him and his friends as they fight the rich kids and steal the hearts of their girls. The action includes drive-ins, cars, turf wars, switchblades, leather, cars, hair, grease, cocacola, madras, cops, heaters, music, 'weeds' (smokes), denim, runaways, sunsets, vacant lots. A whole lot of fun as you get to know some of the characters on deeper and deeper levels. Ponyboy's not afraid to give you his opinion on people and things, and he's not cool with all the greasers, either, but he sees the good in people when he can. It's a sweet and tragic story and you might feel it all ends too soon.


View all my reviews

GRAND THEFT LIFE BOOK 1.2

GRAND THEFT LIFE BOOK 1.1

precipice

There he was, alone in the room. There was the light and him and the dust and the sound of the keys striking, and the strings being struck all alone in the room, and more than a sensation an emotion joined them, he and the light and the keys making chords, the emotion barely registered on his face and one could catch it at the upturned edge of an eyelash, and only for a fraction of a second. Balancing there. Causing the edge to collapse. He promised himself he would not think upon her again. It was not safe.

bygone euphoria

You may be on the road for years and years before you get off the road and keep to one region, one state, one county, one neighborhood, one single home, one room inside one single home, one single chair inside one room, rocking away the rest of your days. Hopefully, all those years on the road you gathered enough memories to fill up your basket. So you can rock the days away with wild visions of bygone euphoria.

katya

thanksgiving

If life has worn you out, be worn out for a while and let yourself surrender. Try and be grateful. For only can you be tired by living if you have truly lived, and it is the living that you did that made you feel the way you feel now. Some don't get the chance to feel beat down by a hard day's work because for some reason they are not living like you are, maybe they are not now capable of really letting themselves go and get carried away. May today be a day to give thanks for the life that beats us up and wears us out, working, raising kids, building something, caring for someone, devotion, fighting for something, loving someone, learning our lessons, taking our licks, falling, getting up, pulling ourselves together, asking for help, succeeding, failing, crying, laughing, running, shouting, breathless, dreaming, getting quiet again... and looking back we would do it all over again.

creative confidence

can be elusive. good thing is you (the artist) will know when you have it. all the rules they ever taught you, muted. taking risks does not feel so scary. nobody knows what you are doing more than you.    the work is mutable not sacred. you can see the whole thing moving through the smallest fragment. it is alive and tugs at all your pulses.

Journal # 11.21.16

You and me, we coexist. Can I describe for you the life you have not lived? Buttons where there were zippers, snow where there was rain, silence where there were people. The television set. But we have so much in common. That's so very nice I could squeeze you like a teddy bear, then fall back asleep. If I see you in the park and study you like a painting, if I read you like a magazine, in joyful discovery, may I fall in love with the complexity of you. Between two points you travel, on lunch break, switching lines on your cell phone, waiting in line at the café, removing your glove so your device can recognize you, swiping screens to get to the mapping application and plot out your next move. I will embody your background the best that I can. I make for pleasant scenery, they say. I understand how it is to be so busy in the life. I am honored in your presence. Not to have time to peel an orange, or a sunset. One day this careless wandering of mine may end, too.

m by memory -xi (fin)

Yes, being WIRED had coalesced cultures all across the earth, simply the most powerful force in the paradigm shift. What normally took the flash of a couple hundred years in the pan, took only a hundred plus, facilitated by the mighty conveyance of internet connection. Many subcultures rebelled against the seated powers once they became aware (almost instantaneously for common citizens, dependent only on the functionality of a modem in an electric grid) of the relative freedoms other cultures and countries had which they had not and wanted. They got restless under the thumbs of a ruling class they had limited stake in appointing. None of these performances on the dramatic stage of sentient theatre had the innocence of virgin material, there would be no immaculate conception by so and so producer, writer, director, star, or egocentric asshole. There would be no trailblazing invention at all. It became clear that you go with what you have, your essential ingredients, and make something more of it. Make a clearing and let it grow. Any farmer could rule the day. Meanwhile the old controllers and their desperate need for control would be stripped to the wire,  primitive and unworthy looking, and frayed. Easily spotted for removal by the arbitrators of theatre in whatever form they chose to express: tv, movie, made for tv movie, short in some indy festival, drawing on some ipad, page in some kid's sketchpad. It didn't matter! Just as the tarnishing of heart and soul, in a rusty mechanical sort of perfectionism, could be caught on an intellectual hook and pulled up and out of the path of vital life,  so could the real, unblemished heart and soul of common decency be ever sparkling for us to see and believe. And so we would have cause to celebrate again. Love was out in the open. Then back to work again.

m x memory -x

Some of the worlds future sentient leaders were highly unpopular and broadcast to greater and greater audiences, as things go. They were encumbered by their attachments to suffix  -ism. This negative attention, when laid on the predominant power brokers of the world, led only to a bookmark and GPS tracking of said leaders' activity. In cases where philosophies clashed severely, and the fingered one's ideas were one-up on the current laws....well, such a threat had to be diminished or concealed, for the fair sake of not allowing culture to regress to old, unevolved, dangerous world orders that could threaten if not topple the current oceanic centered calmness of semi-conducted experience.

Controlled violent force was given the go ahead to help deter the practice of uncontrolled violent force. The former could have been demonized for its inherent unnaturalness and malevolence, but it was not. Something had to carry the agenda. When they could no longer protest in the streets, the people filed suit against different aspects of the hidden agenda, determined to take it apart piece by piece.  In 2021, there was the case of the people versus non-acceptance. Followed in 2022 by the case of the people versus fear-based  reaction. In 2023, a brilliant public defender came out of nowhere to lead the charge of the people versus judgment (the case had been subject to a continuance, however, as the first stenographer mistyped 'judgement' with the gratuitous -e). The powers-that-be consulted with the powers-that-would-be and made plans to stall the accusatory suits in ineffectual administrative law courts all over the world.

Still, diversion of matters dear to sentients -- culture formation and process, length of time standing in lines, availability of redskin potatoes and jasmine rice -- could not hold long, and it was inevitable that the parties involved would be located via electronic footprint and held accountable for their wrongful insertion of old morality plays into further advanced cultural norms, and the harsh treatment against common citizens everywhere embracing the here and now, thrown into confusion by an outdated system which caught them up in an eddy on the stream of otherwise wonderful and vibrant, open diversity of life and light, awareness, energy, and empathic love and compassion never before realized by any species anywhere. This very moment had become so valuable to so many who laid their lives down to resist the confused minority with its majority power still (financial, real estate still held) influencing and disorienting the natural way.

m x memory -ix

The true pioneers of mindful presence were now emblazoned in lifesize advertisements so real you thought they were meditating on you. Commuters dropped coin at their feet, which was quickly swept up by the children of atheists. Advertising for anything other than recreational weed had fallen out of fashion in 2023. Along with work. Working a steady forty, monday through friday, was now punishable by dominatrix for up to one month of nonconsensual slavery. Attaching ones org to a mission was also considered a violation of collective liberties, as the future was to be revered for all and not limited possibility. Proselytizing the sentients into a limited potential future based on some dreamers special mission was considered a flagrant and intentional crime, and prosecuted under the diversion clause. You could not go herding people into some other container, when they had already been successfully contained by strategic water cannon placement and acupressure machines. All individuality had to be compressed and pasteurized, homogenized, so to be useful to the state's personality packet program. The American dollar was of no value to China anymore. Their ports only accepted freight containing the balanced personalities of America. Global trade was mostly information these days. China in 2023 was the forefront global exporter of eastern solution to the world paradigm in similar packets which could be easily decompressed with a modern day can opener any toddler could figure out. A great demand for the nutrients in a non-violent and benevolent product, the wisdoms inherent in confucianism, buddhism, taoism, communism, sufism, among other subscribed philosophies which had evolved the eastern world into its current selfless, rugged, dialectic nature. Sentients efforted and fought over it as usual, but reverence was placed so much differently and more carefully in the world 2023, the landscapes of the last century's ruling global authority had become relics and often been archived, as interest fell mostly on the new world order, which struck most sentients as highly advantageous and useful to the species and collective inclination toward healthy unbiased purpose wherever possible... all the way to the ends of the earth, which were not ends after all, as awareness now informed us of non-finite individuation. this was accepted as practical science, contemporary thought-feeling-knowing. Yet still they go unnoticed, the silent ones. Love was underwater, perhaps devalued or defaced, below the heavy freight of packaged information and pasteurized personalities. This is as it is.

Journal # 11.19.16 'the surest of sure things'

the nights are cold now in northern california and i love it. the trees all showing their true colors. i think i am falling in love with him, who else do you call when you have nothing particular to say? tonight the rains will come for us. i will be with you tomorrow and what will we do? it doesn't matter, just to be with you, to be with you. i have a cold and, for one week now, my great plans to end the year strong have been held up and what can i do? i just wanna be faithful and devoted to these causes, and come back to them when i can, when i feel better. i don't do well when sick. the marathon is in two weeks and sadly is now up in the air, i just lost a critical week of training and maybe more. my novel is waiting on me to come finish her, and this will be the peak experience to cap off a great year, i am sure. my friends, may you find your 'cause' and devote yourself to it! with whatever free time you may find for yourself! your industriousness there in that spot -- no matter the whirlwind of your life around it -- circle it with water and fire, protect it, hold it close to your heart, my dear, get close and open your veins to the earth there, give yourself all! and you may find it sustains you, blossoms and enfolds you, and will carry you through the darkest of days, the bleakest of nights! i promise you. it is the surest of sure things!  - KatYa

laid out on oxys dodging commercials for a living

this one dove into his work and was never seen again. that one raised a family and moved to more affordable real estate outside of town.  i made my salad to define me. the bacon bits were fakers, everything else about it was real. it was colorful and the greens they bordered on iceberg always, cut toward the base of the stalk where the water really filled them. i am always thirsty.  a protective splash of oils with some herbs and salt and pepper. vinegar in just the right amount, the same amount they baptize with... i miss my old friends. the silly things we did in the middle of the night. the funny conversations. i like to reach out to them but they don't always respond. i'm sure i'm the same. not always responsive. this one shadowed their partner's career trajectory. that one got injured on the job and is laid out on oxys dodging commercials for a living. no one even knows about that one but i know they are out there, in a different kinda pain. listen. i love you too. i've been there. i know. some want a life that keeps pushing in one direction. me, i like to land on a mushroom and hide out there for a while, regroup before i walk the shredded carrots to a crouton. but you can bet your ringing telethon i will leave this bowl empty with a tangy memory in my mouth, i will take what defines me and devour it whole and live again. redemption can happen several times a day for those of us who have the nerve to put ourselves out there unreservedly. this one learned a language and moved where they speak it. that one made a soft space to lie in, free from any sensation of the city. you have your mind to contend with. you have me and i can be quiet. when i'm not saying anything they love me more.

dally into dream. wild who we are

We began by recalling the sea. which was not hard to do, for the sea faithfully came back from far places with green bottles and messages inside, wrapped in the trendiest of weeds. the sea happily let us believe, then to lull us asleep to the tune of the tides. i dallied into a dream i had when i was younger, back then a stronger version of itself. i recalled it sadly now for now it could not capture me like those days back after a war, before a war. sadly like a strong figure, man or woman, who meant something to me looking up, looking up to as a child. or some strong oak tree now dying, now slowly. now drawn up in my drifting mind, as i intend to open my eyes unblinking upon it, as though i may recall it so well it's not called recalling. where my memory ends it begins. the path made purely of small sea shells, both of my hands they were held. sweet talk of summer evenings and what ever to do. sounds and warm light spilling out of small houses. side by side. rolling granny applecores away beyond which wild flowers nobody need bother. leaving orange peels for a trail... wild is how i remember us then, and here, the foot of snail and sand, where our memories began.

the reunification

When i dream i dream of loving you through it all and you loving me, cause the world can be processed cheese and nothing nice on a sesame roll of dice. i still want you maybe five or ten times a day while you're away, you call me and i call you and we find ourselves free and working citizens, no game, no fame, just sunning on the ordinary sands, paid in sand dollars and buttering the skin with oils. i got afraid when you wanted to move in with me. i am so used to living alone and rather like it. but last night when reading a story about some fugitives in Germany, i realized that behind the heinous crime spree were people in desperate need to be loved. they found one another in that predicament i suppose. broken families, broken economies. a good deal of sadness turned to hate in the heart of a child who knows not what to do with it. violence comes of a hateful heart if you do not learn the alchemy. nothing excuses the criminals their crimes. i saw a window into their lives as they borrowed identities from friends and secured small apartments for the three of them to live. they played video games and the woman had a cat. they had romances between them and accepted it. they drank wine and read indoctrinating books. they took holiday on the Baltic Sea. for whatever intention people come together, good or bad, ideological or not, the deeper intention seems to me to be the coming together itself, in a world which has crumbled around them. the Berlin Wall went down not long before them, and they were seeing the West with fresh eyes, while the West was seeing them for profit in a market. clearly reunification was gonna be arduous and exciting. if only we all could come together around a good cause. but it cannot be. the point is the coming together, the bond. life energy and life's fulfillment circulate through the bond, the comradery. the intention matters less. such is the way of the world. the crime spree went on the better part of a decade, the National Socialist Underground. they didn't always take credit for their atrocities but they were a known terrorist cell and informants (they call 'assets') all around. but the intel was weak and the investigation poor. the families of the victims, victimized. finally the two men were dead in the back of a camper, after robbing a bank. the woman would be hunted and turn herself in. she is imprisoned to this day. Beate. she is alone again. i am so used to living alone and rather like it. i got afraid when you said you wanted to move in with me. but after i saw the movie and read the book, i really cannot stop thinking about you and me, coming together for all time, as time passes away from us.

indie author

Katya W. Mills is an Independent Author from California. She writes literary fiction with a free and lyrical style. In 2013 she self-published her first novel, Girl Without Borders, about a love triangle gone bad in Chicago. She is currently hard at work on an urban fantasy series, Daughter Of Darkness, about a girl with psychic powers. In 2015, she released both Grand Theft Life (Book#1) and Maze (Book#2).  Katya received her BA in Literature from Northwestern University, and has a Master's degree in Psychology. Her preferred tools of the trade are Scrivener, coffee and a Chromebook. At night she morphs into a social worker.

martial arts mixed with supermodel moon

Good morning world, today it will be partly hysterical with scattered tear gas and a good chance of healing the narcissistic wound, by appearances, anti-Trump and replete with overenforcement of law, and disorder. the wild-eyed tatted up boy from Dublin will enter the Octagon in the square, Madison Garden, while a New Yorker agent of real estate assets makes moves on the Oval, the Office, bearing fruits of the violence of free speech, talking of violence and violence of talking, while the political correct find themselves bundled and floating, sucked slowly into space, drawn to the supermodel moon. the lights of civil rights are mostly white wandering place to place, eye for eye, martial arts mixed and in danger of falling from grace.

my marathon month - aka - a super special mindfuck

This has become my marathon month and despite all my other obligations i have to say it's been a joy to have been mostly devoted to running for the last six months. in 3 weeks i plan to run the Cali International, and last week's twenty mile 'Run The Parkway' race gave me a sweet shot of confidence. it was my first ever real live race, and 10 minute 39 second miles was my best pace ever, 20 miles my longest distance ever. i met some cool new friends on the run who i hope to see at the CIM. the morning was simply beautiful as we followed the American River up then downstream, and got a good dose of singing birds, rising sun, cheering fans and morning mist.

#246. post-race with medal

this was an inaugural race which is selling itself as the official CIM training run and will in fact be getting in bed with the marathon for a package deal savings for 2017. my boyfriend has a bum knee but already decided he's gonna try and also 'get in bed' with me so we can run the parkway next year together. (we'll just have to see how that goes - wink wink) anyway, my brother was a sweetheart and just bought me my first pair of maximum cushion Hoka One One Bondi 4's. thanks bro!

my super max comfort runners

 i broke them in a little with recovery runs - 14 miles - on the streets and the american river the last couple of days and so far they feel spectacular. the 'rocker' effect really helps setup a rhythm and yes, they offer good pushback with every stride, creating a forward momentum for you. dam, i felt the road so hard in the race last week. around mile fifteen my Nike Pegasus 33's could not save my legs from the pavement and it's a solid shoe but i guess i am used to more trail running. i was able to run the border of the parkway on the dirt for several miles though, so it may have been more to do with my decision to keep unusual pace. for the first half marathon i was runnin ten minute miles versus my usual eleven. quite a leap of faith in myself and mostly adrenaline i suppose. also i met some people i enjoyed talking to and was trying to keep up with them, too. a real friendly crowd overall, just over a thousand strong. anyway, the life of shoes log about 4-600 miles and mine are close to dead. and what with the dead legs feeling i had by mile 18, i decided i wanted to try for a pair with max cushion so i don't have to feel the road. in the future (if i race) i plan to go for trail race events like the AR50 (American River 50 mile ultra). that full day hike up to Auburn really makes my mouth water!

cool metallic bling!

what i love about running and training are all the factors at play and how it becomes a genuine laboratory experiment on yourself with so many variables: shoes, posture, nutrition, energy, pace, weather, distance, surface, time of day, hydration, pre-workout rituals, yoga, sleep, stretching, comradery, audio, mantra, visualization, adrenaline, topography, comradery, location, gels, s-caps (salt pills), amino acids, recovery rituals, ice baths, epsom salt, protein shakes, shedules, titrating, tapering, comradery, consistency, constancy, technique, anti-blister, anti-chafing, injury prevention, pre-race ritual, wildlife sightings, sprints, hills, post-race ritual, education,  (did i say?) comradery, effort, breath, rhythm... honestly i think Einstein would be scratching his head!

the American River

during the race i overheard someone say how they told a friend, who then asked them how much they're getting paid to run? people do look at us crazy when we tell them we actually pay entrance fees for these killer events. you probably need to be running 6 minute miles to get sponsored, idk. all i think you need to understand, though, is how you get a better you out of this deal. truly! a bioaffective-psychosocial-spiritual new you. that's my take. i am in the greatest shape of my life (bio). i am quicker to calm, if not emotionally sound (affective). my psychology is a real mindfuck (in the best sense of the word), as i am exceeding the limits of what i thought i was capable of. this part is particularly super special because it means i'm breakin on through and out! i am shattering formerly solid personal belief walls and opening up a new world where what i may have thought improbable is suddenly alive. in process. someone once said 'dare to fail' and it's true. i wouldn't now be busting my ass for Folsom on december 4th, if i felt i had to finish. it's exactly knowing that i never have but maybe could run 26.2 that has me surging and thrilled to try. and that, my friends, is the what and why.

marathoner?!

GWB 2.1.1 a videobook

GWB 1.22.2 a videobook

m x memory -viii

By the year twenty twenty-three, 99% of microscopes were melted down and recycled, whereas bifocals and bottle glasses had come back in fashion. And it was decreed that all laboratories be replaced with ashrams, following in the footsteps of a decentralization trend. Anyone caught with space foam running shoes and acoustic instruments got a one way ticket to the primeval forest being cultivated on Mars. These items became highly sought after. The principal objective was not to have one.

There were some (in the future) who could not hope to walk unseen down city streets. A loosely affiliated group of citizens who did not so much ask for the kind of attention they were given, collectively or individually.Which was a suitable regimentality for twenty twenty-four. Legend has them born of loose-fisted, assymetrical, left-handed, lipton teaheads just shy of true north. The truth was something else.

They tend to make a lot of noise without speaking, and move like waves.  Everyone else wanted to tell them what to do, and they wouldn't do anything other than what they were told if they were to do what was expected, so atypically they defied expectations. Otherwise they wouldn't really exist, would they. Ice water was in their throats, not their veins.

You cannot know them in traditional forms of knowing. They have something more intentional or focused, it seems, or something less violent-by-association. Anyone is guessing. They congregate in the shiny bars of the fringe-mainstream. On bicycle hill perhaps. Or in bookstores off the beaten path in the Mission. They have an aversion to snapping turtles and judgments and extemporaneous litigation.

Along with us, they envision a society where the only records are vinyl and photographic memories are stripped and laid out in the sun. But only visions are envisioned. Nothing has been empirically correlated and nothing ever will. The principal objective was not to have one.

Journal # 11.09.16

The map of the states, the topography of the election was blood red and rising last night. I thought it looked prettier with the interstitial lakes of blue we saw in 2008 and 2012. In Manhattan there was a glass ceiling, unbroken, and through it one could see the many dejected faces below, their leader missing in action. Somewhere deep in the everglades she lost, by a fraction. Today the proper treatment is falling in line. Come together and act united, the states. I know where I'm gonna start... I will be heading over to Susan B. Anthony's grave with my wire brush, to remove all those - I VOTED! - stickers from her tombstone.

m x memory -vii

The leaders of the silent majority were, in this case, unrecognized; the best intel found them having just departed around the time you wondered aloud where they were. This brought tears to the loyalists eyes, although it may have been the preponderance of onions. You knew they had been there by the discarded skins rustling around your feet... everyone deserves a moment with those who wrote the principles they chose to live by - 4 seconds of fame - such an act of devotion impels unity and the kinda nonlocal intimacy comes of hearts and minds in alignment.

K after a 20-mile race!

Yet the antagonists are always gathering like clouds and forcing the separations - an end to to the aforementioned sunshine - and the fading vibrations become absorbed in rugs beaten over handrails in city streets and back alleyways. Rugs are beaten publicly, of course, as they are well known to be taken out upon, in these lands.

vote

ONE of them gets to feel loved by the entire country. one of them will feel loved by me and you. we can only hope that they didn't use all their life up to now, positioning themselves to be loved like this. i wanna choose the one who wakes up every morning and already feels loved. the one i cannot take that feeling away from, no matter

why
or when
or where
or how i cast my vote...

even if the only one they know who truly loves them
thick or thin
is themselves

prefab ona freeway

I was driving up the grapevine out of los angeles when traffic came to a dead stop, near the top. we were all clocking about 80 miles an hour before it turned into a parking lot. ahead of me was a prefab house tipped off a truck bed on the freeway.  i wanted to stop and give the poor trucker the down on his lucker, a hug. he likely lost his job today. maybe they will let him move his family into the new lot he created. rent should be nothing if he sets it up for some tolls, his kids can take turns in the booth making change. governor jerry brown can stop in for dinner once a month and his cut. sure they will have to soundproof the walls and string up some blinking lights. no back yard and no neighbors and the air quality will suffer from the constant emissions. none of it will be legal but they'll be roping so much cash they can buy the courts off. the only great obstacle will be the haunting. the ghost of the family who once lived where the freeway now runs had something to do with this, for sure, a spiritual reclamation of material space. a frontier family gone west and staked a claim long ago. only to be ousted by the D.O.T. commission lobbied hard by big business. no more day hikes to pyramid lake. no more immaculate alta vistas. just a small payoff and a bus to LA, and a new life sucking fumes in carson city. the patriarch promised vengeance. he was the one, long long forgotten, who jumped the trucker's nerves and caused him to jack knife that day. the matriarch got ahold of his wife. you can see the translucence deep into the night when you drive up there and wait for your toll. the kids are all demons possessed.

envy of a ghost

Would the soul cry out if it were being hurt, or would it take its licks salty dead silent? I don't know but the operation went smooth (they say) and they removed the organ intact and placed it in the care of a preservation society. I don't feel any different, except that I have no soul. I have found myself out politicking and bloodsucking, which were never part of my M.O. in the past, but seem to fit my personality so perfectly now. I think I may write myself in for president next Tuesday. Such are the ways of a woman - sans soul.  Trying to compensate for the loss, I mean, though again I say I never felt better in my life, and shook hands with several doctors and a nurse. They even allowed me to put my palms up against the glass and peer in upon the many incubating souls in one dedicated room leased out by the chairman of some board, and I tried to locate mine and yes, I believe I found it! calling for me from one far sanitary corner. My breath steamed the glass and condensed. I stiffened up to suddenly realize a part of me was gone, and no small part indeed. But I comfort myself with my hand in my pocket wrapped around the thick fold of bills. I can properly say farewell and shout through the long empty echo chambers of my heart: "IT WAS WORTH IT!" Today I shall go and have myself fitted by my personal shopper, with all the fineries of a twenty-first century lady. By noon I can see myself peering into the floor to ceiling mirror, in the deep fault of re-cognition. An extravagant and spacious feeling, I am sure! But an envy of a ghost.

Journal # 11.02.16

She wore a suit to the convention, she always wore suits nowadays even if she was walking the mojave desert barefoot. Something inside her had switched, proprioceptively, and all those free spirits baring skin through broken fabrics she once identified with, no longer appealed to her sense of herself. She even began to part her hair definitely and not in one place all the time, but it was a true part - i mean linear - so anyone could follow the line to its natural conclusion, wherever it happened to run that day. The change was neither accidental nor superficial. A vertical adjustment in the makeup of her personality took the horizontal carelessly. Like if you had a birthday party on the ninth moon of Jupiter, and you only served monochrome helium balloons with astronaut ice cream.

vitamin k

the art of the state of the art

You want to slow down the ball so your eyes can ride the seams in and out of the station, otherwise life goes by so fast you die as soon as you're born. There's no contact. I learned it from the black cat. Which only means you have to wait for the next pitch; good adwords catch phrases. Then accept it like a child. Or a sentence. Already there are so many possible contexts to the story, you're not sure which way to go and getting anxious. You might be locked up again. Walk your worries home to the heart of it, and we can hang up our coats and our hats and the art of the state of the art, sit down together and listen to it. I mean talk. In about five seconds time, everything... now pass the first tension and back to what we live for.

The magnus.

The opus.