Jingle All the Way 10K

UPDATE: The race folks sent me pics.



I finished my first 10K this morning!

Acumen Solutions Jingle All The Way 10K
Washington, DC December 10, 2006
Official Men's Results

Place Div/Tot Num Name Age Hometown Gun T Net T Pace
317 61/138 851 Jomo Graham 33 WASHINGTON DC 51:20 51:07 8:14

Talking Truth to Power

On the day the Iraq Study Group report came out, I feel like there's a new strain in the national dialogue.

1. Al Gore(from Think Progress)

2. Barbara Boxer (from AP)

I could go on. The point is, I feel less insane to hear something akin to reason and accountability returning to the discussion of the mess we're all in.

A poet I heard about and want to read

Two weeks ago, my poetry workshop at All Souls Church ended. Chris Nealon, a professor at UC Berkeley, introduced us to a number of poets during the five-week course.

Here's one: Nathaniel Mackey.

Mackey recently won the National Book Award for Splay Anthem.

Tuesday Morning: Brookland, USA

I started today with a bagel and a muffin. A bit much, but the belly's full. Now it's time for lists and tasks and measurables. Phone calls and e-mails. W-o-r-k.

Where's the poetry in that?

Just for fun, I browsed my Bookmarks for inspiration; procrastination, whatever...

Eureka! Now I'm ready for the mundane. Work, here I come :)

No Joke

Now, I could be snarky about this... but why bother?

The story speaks for itself.

(h/t to Crooks and Liars)

Flavor Flav wasn't always on VH1, clownin'

I only have a sec, but I want to get this off my chest.

Flavor Flav wasn't always on VH1, clownin'. As a charter member of Public Enemy, Flav's role was to give the masses someone to identify with while Chuck D was droppin' knowledge.

Before there was Ol' Dirty, there was Flav. Good, bad, ugly, and magnetic.

Check his style and flow on "Too Much Posse" and "Cold Lampin with Flavor" and you'll see what I mean.

Back in Cali

It's nice to be back in the Bay Area. My wife and I came out to attend a gala for her organization - which, coincidentally, doubled as her last day working for those folks.

As the Gap Band says, "Celebrate".

We're here for a few more days, then back to DC. Lots of chill time, reading a nice serial novel in Harper's Magazine, digging the in-laws.

Life is good.

My mother-in-law's nice with the digital photos. Tonight she made us some bookmarks with a Thoreau quote ("Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined") laid over a cropped, enlarged flower petal she shot.

Say word.

Do you know what today is?

It's our anniversary!

Yeah, I ate some swine.

Drummed a little bit, too...

Not much to report. Just another day. Alive and well.

It's gotta be the hat...

Just in time for the heat up, I got a Panama Hat. How does it look?

Soy sano

UPDATE: I'm been informed that Babel Fish misinformed me about translating "I'm healthy" into Spanish. Here's what I should have called this post from the start:

Estoy sano

Aah, blessed knowledge. I learned from an invasive, and admittedly not too painful, procedure this morning that I'm in good health. The recent bout with hematuria was likely the result of passing a kidney stone. Dr. Engel performed a cystourethroscopy and assured me that it's okay to get back to life as usual.

Most pressing for me was getting the Diet Coke ban lifted. I was told by the folks at Sibley to stop drinking carbonated drinks until the cause of the hematuria was determined* . I've got 32 12oz. cans of decaffeinated ambrosia from Costco sitting in my Florida den. Say, "Word!" Word, I'm sayin'...

Since I'm happy about my health, I'll try to let go of the irk-edness of missing my first 10K.

*I had a list of no-no's from the Sibley ER experience. Dr. Engel pooh-poohed them as ridiculous and unnecessary. My man! "You need to [go jogging] for your mental health, right?" he asked. Claro que si. "I'm addicted to Diet Coke," he said. Yo, tambien.

My Inner Twenty Year-old

I read Matt Bai's article in yesterday's Sunday Times magazine about the YearlyKos conference. While I read a number of lefty blogs daily, I haven't really contemplated taking my online interest offline.

It's an interesting phenomenon to have a daily "interaction" without ever actually meeting folks. What's the equivalent of "all politics is local" for the blogosphere? How do I make more of my thoughts than comments left anonymously on someone's blog? I spent years doing front-line community work driven by all my political notions, and now that I don't do that work, where do I put my notions into practice?

I want to be an engaged citizen in the enterprise of making society more just and equitable, locally and globally. I'm starting to take an active role in neighborhood dialogues, which feels pretty good. At the same time, I want to look at the broader city (DC's a beautiful, complicated mess) and world (likewise beautiful, complicated, messy) and get in the game.

One of my personal barriers to break through is an overriding cynicism. It's a way to justify apathy and keep disappointment at bay when my utopian sentiments don't win out. Maybe if I start connecting my ideals and action, from the neighborhood to city-wide to global spheres, I'll meet like-minded people and in the process let myself be vulnerable and naive enough to resuscitate my inner twenty year-old.

Updated 05.30.06

Blessed Oblivion

Apparently, I'm pretty damn lucky if in fact I passed a kidney stone obliviously. I was talking to someone this morning whose mother passed three kidney stones while she (my friend, not the mother) was in utero-- possibly a contributing factor to their fractious relationship since her mom had to bear the pain sans drugs.

I'll never know the pains of childbirth. Maybe I've been spared the 3-4 week pain of passing a kidney stone, too.

Books

I've been trying to read The Known World, by Edward P. Jones, for some time. I'm finding it hard to commit the requisite time and energy to follow a complex narrative these days. Crosswords, the "express" version of the Washignton Post, and the occasional SI or Harper's article are about as much as I can handle.

One day, I hope to get through some of these.

Yeah, right

Dr. Engel says it won't hurt.

I beg to differ. I'll find out on May 30th.

democracy at the end of a barrel
(draft)

let's riddle democracy with bullets
and arm election monitors with geiger

counters to gauge the half-life
of liberty depleted by uranium-coated

ballot boxes. absentee voters still
breathing after the primary assault

can canvass for candidates under
established rules of engagement in

the door to door war to win
the hearts and minds of the people

So I've signed up for my first 10K.

Yesterday, I was thinking I'd run it in about an hour, at about a 9:30min/mile pace. Today, I just want to have fun running with my friend, Elissa. Clearly, I'm a smarter man today than I was yesterday.

Oh, in order to lower expectations of a quick finish even further, I'm ditching my Kenyan name during the event and temporarily re-dubbing myself "Bob".

Off to Rally

Off to meet up with my wife and hopefully hundreds of thousands of folks in support of a sane and just (and honest) U.S. immigration policy.

Kismet

I've taken to sitting in a little coffee/cafe spot on U Street, NW. Me and the other self-employed, wi-fi wanderers park ourselves at the few tables near electrical outlets and shamelessly don't buy much more than coffee or a nibbleable morsel in the span of up to six/eight hours.

My "m.o." is to get a Diet Coke and chocolate muffin at about hour number three. The staff doesn't seem to mind. They accomodate us right along with the paying customers. In a way, we're part of the decor, adding a certain digerati quotient that dovetails nicely with the nouveau soul soundscape, passable artwork, and an unrepentant menu that includes pig slicings, grits and chicken-n-waffles prepared by Salvadoran cooks.

Some days are just work. Other days, people drop in and break up the monotony. Last week my brother-in-law posted up for lunch. Today, an acquaintance dropped by and hipped me to the latest issue of Beltway . Lo and behold, after I finished clicking around the site, in walked E. Ethelbert Miller, whose poem I had just finished reading. Kismet. I dig kismet. Especially after a long day at the "office".

The National Debt Clock

So we're reaching a y2k-type situation with the debt clock in NYC. The deal is this.

I was worrying about the national debt a few years back, but I never imagined things would get to this point-- especially with so many so-called budget hawks controlling the executive and legislative branches of government for the past six years. Silly me (scroll down to #2).

ear music

poppin my lolli
See's candy jolly

vanilla flavor to savor

anxious no more
Dr. Goldsmith's sure

the vertebrae are okay

God bless orthopedic surgeons. My wife is no longer pained by herniated discs, and her recovery is going well.

I don't have anything to write today that won't be a lie.

Today's Fortune Cookie

"When you begin to coast, you're on the downgrade."
Luncky numbers: 20, 34, 22, 13,48, 9