A short history of the past three years, centered on me
Thursday, Dec. 04, 2008 - 20:21

When Hurricane Katrina pummeled an American city, I was preoccupied with a beautiful little love affair between myself and a coworker. When thousands of people turned into a racist mob in Australia, I was preoccupied with the demise of that little love affair. When roofs began collapsing on people around the world, I flitted off to Costa Rica amid worries that the person I was in love with was interested in someone else. During a series of bomb attacks on commuter trains in Mumbay, I drove away from Seattle and retreated into the wilderness. People escaped their kidnappers, paintings were stolen, a man went to a schoolhouse and killed five little girls, and I sat quietly in a little cottage surrounded by bears and rivers and mountains. When Mexico got a new president I finally got up and decided on two things: run a half marathon and DJ at the college radio station. Saddam Hussein was quickly hung and I felt sick. I stopped eating, drank wine and smoked potent pot (and barfed), and listened to "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead", realizing that I was killing myself over nothing. When the U.S. got its first female Speaker of the House, I went to California for a few days. There was a lunar eclipse and I started running races. Someone killed people at a university in Virginia and I was running races. A space shuttle launched and I was running races. The longest twin suspension bridge in the world opened and I ran that half marathon. Four days later I defended my thesis, and two days after that the last Harry Potter book arrived in my mailbox. For the next two weeks I read and I wrote, I read and I wrote. There were chaotic floods in Britain but it was hot and smoky and otherworldly where I was. I did a graveyard shift at the radio station and a bridge collapsed in Minnesota. Mines collapsed, bombers suicided, the earth quaked, and I said fuck it and went home for a while. And came back, and had no job, and had no health insurance, and didn't know what to do. I hurt my foot and couldn't run. I waited and waited. I went to bars. People protested, fires burned, I made new friends. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated and I found a full-time job. Oil prices hit $100 a barrel for the first time and I joined a running group. I ran and ran, that's what I did, I worked, and ran, and did my radio show, and went to basketball games, and went to trivia night. Food prices rose, fuel prices rose, and another racing season started. There were more bombs and earthquakes, and I ran a lot of races. My exbestfriend was on TV, my sister came to town, we went to a bar for a couple drinks one night. Bill Gates retired. I did another half marathon and got my best time yet, but then two weeks later ran another and did even better - and during a fit of runner's high that lasted two days I proclaimed my undying love for half marathons and vowed to keep doing them always and forever. I went to a concert and someone got my phone number. Bombs went off in India and we went out for the first time. We sat in the hot afternoon and I got a strange feeling in my stomach when I looked at his eyes. I went home amid bombs and stampedes. On hot summer nights we rode around town, in the sunny mornings we woke up and he would say "Hi".

When America elected a new president I was in my kitchen. I did not go out to march in the streets. A school collapsed in Haiti and a meteoroid fell over Canada. My car died, I found a new place to live but no roommate, and the stars aligned into a frowny face, just in case I hadn't gotten the hint.