A Distorted Reality Is Now a Necessity to Be Free

You could say of course that it was all a dream. And maybe that’s true. I at least prefer to not think of it as reality. There’s too great a sense of finality associated with reality. Dreams though are open to interpretation, changes in direction, focus. Anyway, they’re more fickle, and I like ‘em for it. That’s too easy though. Let me begin again.

You could say of course that it was all a dream. And no one would blame you. But then, you’d be missing the point. Sometimes, what we dream seems unreal, and sometimes, equally, what we live seems unreal. Maybe, maybe they are. Maybe that’s the point. What is reality anyway, but the lowest common denominator? The one thing in a million that we all happen to see together. Where our separate realities meet and become one, and we think that’s it. That’s reality. Well. It’s not my reality. And it’s not yours either, but have you realized it?

I’ve always liked this town.

You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You...

But I can run like the wind blows. I just suffer for it afterwards. I'm going to make a request that my sister, the trained massage therapist, fly over from Texas to meet me at the finish line in three weeks. If 17, 18, or 20 miles hurts this much, 26.2 is gonna be agony. Now, the reason I'm not sure whether it's 17, 18, or 20 that hurts this much, is that I got mildly lost on my run today. With incredible levels of forethought and planning, I mapped out a route Thursday night online, in preparation for being out of town and disconnected for the weekend. Nineteen miles through the Cotswolds, Childswickham to Little Buckland, to Aston Somerville, Wormington, Dumbleton, Ashton-under-Hill, Kersow, Elmlea Castle, and Hinton-on-Green. The clever plan being to run my scheduled 17, and then walk the last two back to Gran's. All brilliant, and all went accordingly. For the first five miles. Then I made a wrong turn, or rather, didn't make a right turn, or rather, didn't make a left turn, as I came out of Dumbleton. And I ended stalled at a gate stating 'Private, No Entrance.' But undaunted, and unwilling to run back the half mile since I went wrong, I skirted a fence and followed, or tried to follow a public bridleway.

But it didn't go the way I wanted it to go. So I had to strike out cross country. I just had to. Note that dried, ploughed fields are bloody treacherous running. But, after startling a white-tailed dear in the hedgerow, I finally came to the right road again and carried on. Or so I thought. A mile long stumble along the motorway, two wrong turns off it, and I found myself cross country again, seeing Breedon's Hill and Ashton ahead of me, but unsure how to get to them. I'm yet to find how many extra miles I ran over fields, rather than the easy roads I'd planned, but I'm kinda curious.

The moral of this story, is that perhaps it's not the best idea to base your route solely on the memory of an aerial photo you saw online. For one thing, they don't show you hills, of which there were a lot, and for another, memory always seems to fail one at the worst times. Next time I have to run 17 miles, which is hopefully never, I'm going to drive it first.

That's a tip kids. Write it down.

Half a Chance

She says, 'I swear the sun rises
Every morning in the West
And I wake up every morning
Wondering why...'
And I thought of all the lies
That she could have said instead
She still swears the moon is dead

She said, 'I've seen your God
And he's just like other men
But he let the world slip through his hands
Now he wanders it wondering why
And if it could have been saved
And he slips beneath the waves...'

And she would follow if I gave her half a chance.

The Once Beautiful Game

Something about sport seems to bring out the best, and worst, in people. And I'm not sure if it really is worse, or if I just notice it more in football (soccer). As if, even at an amateur level, people feel obliged to cheat to get ahead. Like the player in the match just after us, who the ball blatantly deflected off of before going out for what should have been a corner kick. And he collected it, only to pass it to his keeper for a goalkick, leaving the attacking player dumbfounded. But then the goalie went ahead and took the kick!

Or worse the player on my own team who lost the ball and then fouled the opponent with a very late kick. Only to end up on the ground himself, rolling around in apparent agony. And he limped off to stretch and walk up and down the sideline, a brave grimace on his face. We were already down a man, and he goes off. Then reappears a couple minutes later, absolutely fine. I would wager anything that some other people took worse knocks during the game, and played on. But it's like to be serious about the sport, you have to play it that way. This same guy also blocked the ball with his arm and played on as if no one had noticed the handball. The point though, is that you always know. The player always knows if they've handballed it, or if they were the last to touch it before going out. Why can't we just admit it? Why can't playing the sport be enough? Or winning because you deserved to win?

And why do I get so upset by this?