Racing Central Park (Recaps)

03/04/2023

Racing Central Park (Recaps)

I made it to Central Park not long after the sunrise. The race wasn’t slated to begin until 8:30 but I needed to pick up my bib by 7:30.

I knew I was in the right spot when I saw the train of portable toilets. #dread

After I got my bib, I had to wait for an hour. It was cold and windy, but at least it wasn’t snowing. I tried to savor the slow movement of time.

The leaves of this tree rattled in the wind like a tambourine, which is why it is commonly called a ‘tambourine tree.’

Other runners were also milling around. Not too many people were talking, because we’re all used to living in our heads.

I took a ‘before’ picture and then removed my outer four layers and hat and put everything (including my phone!) into the bag check.

The race started on time and we all set out, probably a little too fast as always. But it felt good to be running instead of standing around in the cold. Here’s a picture of me trying to reel in a much younger runner who earlier in the race had irritated me by holding a conversation with her friend as if they were having tea (they both had British accents) while I was using every bit of breath just trying (and failing) to hang on. When I saw her again around Mile 8 or so, I thought ‘well well well, if it isn’t Miss Chatterbox’ and took some satisfaction in passing her. But when I finished, I saw her lounging around with a hot chocolate and bagel, so she must have re-passed me without my noticing it. This is what competition looks like at my age!

This shot is about fifty yards from the finish. I wish I could say that I blew past this guy, but as soon as he saw me on his shoulder, he just skipped ahead and left me in the dust. I need to work on my finishing kick. (Among other things.)

Overall, my time wasn’t too bad, considering that I’m officially old I’ve just started racing again, and it was a cold and very hilly course.

Here’s me, happy that the race is over and oblivious to the poppy seed in the middle of my teeth that I picked up with a bagel and hot chocolate at the finish line.

Posted at 03:58 PM in Expression, Science Projects | Permalink

#gods

ORDER HERE

A RADICAL NEW MYTH ABOUT SEX, FAITH, AND THOSE OF US WHO WILL NEVER DIE

A young boy wanders into the woods of Harlem and witnesses the abduction of his sister by a glowing creature. Forty years later, now working as a New York City homicide detective, Gus is assigned to a case in which he unexpectedly succumbs to a vision that Helen is still alive. To find her, he embarks on an uorthodox investigation that leads to an ancient civilization of gods and the people determined to bring them back.

In this colossal new novel from the author of The Metropolis Case, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice collides with a new religion founded by three corporate office workers, creating something beautiful, illogical, and overwhelming. Part sex manifesto, part religious text, part Manhattan noir—with a dose of deadly serious, internet inspired satire—#gods is a sprawling inquest into the nature of faith and resistance in the modern world. With each turn of the page, #gods will leave you increasingly reborn.

Praise for #gods

“#gods is a mystery, an excavation of myths, an index of modern life, a gay coming-of-age story, an office satire, a lyrical fever dream, a conspiracy. One of the most ambitious novels in recent memory—and a wild, possibly transformative addition to the canon of gay literature—it contains multitudes, and seethes with brilliance.” —Mark Doten, author of The Infernal

“Matthew Gallaway’s #gods is a novel so brilliant, so funny, so full of strange and marvelous things, I couldn’t stop writing OMG WTF I <3 THIS SO MUCH in its margins. It’s rare to find a novel that so dazzlingly reinvigorates age-old meditations on faith and f&!*ing, art and eros. Luminous, enterprising, and sublimely cheeky, #gods tells the story, the myth, the dream of the human soul in all its glorious complexity.” —Suzanne Morrison, author of Yoga Bitch

“Matthew Gallaway’s storytelling manages to be both dreamy and serious; lean and luxurious. His words carry an incantatory power of mythic storytelling where beauty and savagery wrap around each other like bright threads in a gorgeous tapestry.” —Natasha Vargas-Cooper, author of Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America

“If the ancient gods were just like us, only more so, then the same could be said for this strange, wonderful book, in which the mundane sorrows and small triumphs of very ordinary lives glow ever so slightly around the edges, sometimes quite literally. At once an oddly romantic send-up of dead-end office culture and an offbeat supernatural procedural, #gods is terrifically weird, melancholy, sexy, and charming.” —Jacob Bacharach, author of The Bend of the World

The Metropolis Case

'It’s to the credit of Matthew Gallaway’s enchanting, often funny first novel that it doesn’t require a corresponding degree of obsession from readers, but may leave them similarly transported: the book is so well written — there’s hardly a lazy sentence here — and filled with such memorable lead and supporting players that it quickly absorbs you into its worlds.'

-- The New York Times

Music: Death Culture at Sea and Saturnine

Listen or download songs and records from my indie-rock past with Saturnine here and Death Culture at Sea here.

Music Video: Remembrance of Things Past

Watch the rock opera Remembrance of Things Past written and performed by Saturnine and Frances Gibson, starring Bennett Madison and Sheila McClear.

Video: The Chaos Detective

The Chaos Detective is a series about a man searching for 'identity' as he completes assignments from a mysterious organization. Watch the first episode (five parts) on YouTube.

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03/04/2023

Racing Central Park (Recaps)

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