Friday 11/8/24
On Monday I ran 3000 stairs at City Hall and then 5000 on Tuesday and walked five miles. Wednesday was very lackluster--I under-performed in every way. Technically ran stairs, but nothing worth noting. Yesterday I did five circuits in the Monument, walked ten miles, and did 300 push-ups so that was a bit better.
There are so many annoying kinds of people in the world but I think we can all agree that no one likes a fake tough guy. Other people like or don't mind other annoying kinds of people depending on who they are themselves and how annoying they happen to be or how oblivious.
Do fake tough guys, though, like other fake tough guys? I think fake tough guys try to surround themselves with people they feel tougher than, so contact between fake tough guys is actually limited. I also don't think fake tough guys have friends. I think they have women they bully and cower into silence and submission.
But a fake tough guy doesn't like to risk being out-toughed, if you know what I mean. They'll do a drive-by version of toughness. Shout something out of the car window, make the remark to someone's back as they're going in different directions, that kind of thing. And they'd never understand that being strong is so much more important than being tough.
I had another incident in the Monument yesterday with a fake tough guy. Here is how I conduct myself in the Monument: I mind my business. I stick to the right side. Going up, if someone is in front of me, I usually wait for them to realize I'm there and move aside on their own or pass them when they stop to rest, which usually happens soon enough.
Coming down, I say a very kind-sounding "Excuse me"--like that person is doing me a favor--to each adult I seek to pass. If it's a child, I say a bit more; I'll call them buddy or say, "Hi, can I squeeze by? Thank you so much!" (With kids going up the stairs I might say, "You are doing awesome! Wow!")
I never want confrontation in my life. In any part of it. I never instigate confrontation. I'll do whatever I have to do if I have no other choice (given that it's the right thing to do and to not to it would be to perpetuate something that is wrong). I never seek it out and I do everything I can to avoid it.
When someone is coming down and I'm going up, with me on the right side--which is the right side--I'll usually put my right shoulder against the wall while keeping moving, dragging that shoulder. I sort of flatten myself, like a flounder. There is room for people to pass anyway. Obviously. They wouldn't have made it so that people had to touch as they went in opposite directions. Yes, people were smaller back then in 1843 when the Monument opened to the public, and, yes, people are often obese now.
But even still, there's almost always space between me and someone else unless they have on a backpack and are acting as if they're not aware of the space it takes up when they angle themselves a certain way. And I make extra room. I don't want any of these people touching me. (Sometimes they touch me on purpose--both men and women. They'll put a hand on my shoulder or my back. I get that they're being friendly and expressing admiration, but I feel like I'd be arrested for doing this.) I don't want to be slowed down. And I should say, too, that I'm not some frantic storm of limbs coming up at you from below. I run the first 100 stairs each time, then I walk the rest, keeping a consistent pace. The key for me is not stopping at any point in these workouts.
There are people who will stop every time someone comes the other way. Do you know why they do this? They're in terrible shape and this allows them to pretend that they're not actually stopping because they're in such bad shape, which is the real reason they take fifteen "breathers" over the course of the 294 stairs. We can all fit which means we can all keep moving in our respective directions. That is, no one has to stand in place so that someone going in the other direction can pass before the person stand starts moving again.
People are rude, people are dumb. They don't care about someone else or someone falling. They're often on the wrong side of the stairs. There's one rail: It's on your left when you're going up. People will hold that rail while going up, and it will be theirs coming down, too. It's theirs. That side is theirs.
That's not how it works and that's not why the rail is on that side rather than the other side. If you fall going up, it's no big deal (unless you're running, and no one is, save me--and I'm by no means fast as a runner, so it's not like I'm this blazing comet that comes out of nowhere to startle you or explodes out of some turn and is right on your back). But if you fall going down, that's an issue. The stairs are narrower on the non-railing side, so it's easier to fall.
Nonetheless, there will be some human slug, holding that rail coming up, leaving you this tiny portion on the "wrong" side to get around them. If they stick out a foot, or swat you with a wave of ass fat, you can break your neck.
People don't care. They have this vacant look in the eyes like a cow chewing its cud. They don't cogitate. They're just dumb animals. You'll have one person holding that rail, and then three steps behind them, their wife or husband will be leaning against the other wall, so you have to weave between their giant bodies.
You think they're thinking about anyone else? You think people are smart enough to figure out any of this regarding why the rail is where it is? Hell no. I bet you could show 100 people the inside of the Monument, have them inspect the stairs, their shape, and all 100 wouldn't be able to tell you why the rail is on the side it's on. People are so stupid that many of them in the Monument--these are adults of all ages--will express legitimate and great surprise that it's easier going down the stairs than it is going up them. In other words, people have no idea about gravity.
Also: Do you know how many women, who are able-bodied, perfectly fit, think that railing is theirs both ways and you are a member of the evil patriarchy if you wait for them to move to the other side when you're coming down? The attitude they give you? The body language they serve up? The comments? Some of which actually use the word patriarchy? It's something else.
I don't do chit-chat with people in the Monument. I don't do that game of "This is so hard, we're all in the same boat, this is my workout for the week, I've really earned dessert today," etc., etc. etc. They do all of this stupid commiseration playing up how lazy, old (people love, love, love to say they're old, because it gives them an excuse, and people love excuses maybe more than they love anything), out of shape, they are. Cracking all of these jokes about there better be a bar at the top. They love that shit. They love when people share their shortcomings.
If someone asks me a question about what I'm doing, I'm usually super friendly in answering, no matter how many times I've answered that question over the years (or that day). Is this my workout, how many times do I go up and down, what number is this, that kind of thing.
I do not answer idiotic questions, though. For example: There are all of these signs that tell you how many stairs there are before you get in there. Then, the stairs are numbered every twenty-five stairs. The cud chewers will seriously ask you how many stairs they have left to go. Like they're too stupid to do basic math. They were probably too stupid to be able to read the signs.
That's how dumb Americans are. I'd say this is typical in the Monument. Then there are the people I've passed four times who will ask me, as I come down for the latest circuit, if it's worth it. They don't mean my workout. Plainly I think that's worth it and look that way, too, but they're only thinking about themselves. They can only think about themselves.
Again, it's the cow in the field. The cow isn't thinking about walking across the field to help out another cow. This is is America. This is how people in America are. No, this person means is the view worth it, because OMG, they had to, gasp, get off their ass and exert themselves a little, so it damn well better be a great view.
And it's like, look, Chunks, the view isn't the point anyway, not that you'd ever understand such a concept.
I'll just glare at these people with utter contempt if I so much as look at them, which I often don't. It can depend on how stupid what they say is. I'm about business, doing this, whatever that is, finishing it, moving on to the next. But that's how unobservant people are. I'm also dressed differently than everyone else. I'm in workout clothes. Yesterday, that was a T-shirt, shorts, Celtics headband. I'm not struggling. I'm breathing hard at points, but moving briskly all the same. You move through the hard breathing. That's the workout. Breathe deep. Breathe out. When you're breathing hard--but under control--and keeping that pace, that's the stuff.
Here's what happened yesterday, and I think it was a reaction to the election. I don't know that for sure, but if I had to go with a reason, that'd be it, or a big part of it.
I went past this miserable, angry-looking guy who was with his wife or his girlfriend. They were probably in their early thirties. She looked quiet and reserved. The person who did far less of the talking. He had a hipster beard. Some form of hipster hat. He was wearing a flannel but in the indoor way. Do you know what I mean? You see some people with a flannel and you think it's because it's colder outside but they don't want to wear a jacket, so that's why they went with the flannel. Then you have the Brooklyn hipster type for whom the flannel is part of their indoor costume. That was this guy.
I was going down, they were going up. Nothing occurred. We passed. Then I hear this guy swearing about me. How rude I am. I was no more rude than if we'd passed on the street. There was no rudeness to do, if you will. We passed. Nothing else happened. At all.
I knew that this was someone who went around looking for confrontation. You could tell by looking at him how he voted. I don't vote. I don't believe in either party. I think politicians are unintelligent and unethical. Or at least all of the ones that I see. I think each party has it equally wrong and I stand with neither. The United States is where I live. My country is not this country. My country is ideas and art and doing the right thing for the right reasons and striving to help people and authenticity and value and depth. I am not with the left, I'm not with the right. My beliefs are very clear from these pages. But what I would say is this: To a man like this one swearing about me in the Monument, he probably saw what to him was this symbolic materialization of the alpha white male jock type and thought, "Republican! Look at him going about his life like he's unaffected by this tragedy and is in here like he owns when anyone who is not a Fascist should be crying. His kind is the reason for Trump. Sports are bad! I went to graduate school!"
Imagine if he knew who I am?
All I want to do is get to the Monument--which is a mile and a half away--and go through my circuits, and leave. The Monument opens at 1 now, which is a pain for me because it's so late. I wasn't done, so I was going to have to deal with this guy again, but you have these fake tough guys who will say something for no reason at all--just to be a fake tough guy--as you pass them, thinking they'll never see you again, but unfortunately, they're going to see me again in like three minutes.
Cut to three minutes later--I'm well on my way back to the top, and they're coming down, and he starts going off. Swearing. "Show some fucking respect for people." Some respect? You want a bow? This was no more sensical than if someone just started yelling this about someone passing them on Boylston Street.
His girlfriend, wife, whatever she was, looked...like someone who is abused, frankly. Beaten down. Lives in fear.
Now, what can I do here? What's it worth doing? I have this friend who knows--because he knows me--that I could, as he said that other time a little while ago, paint the brains of a guy like this all over the walls. All you'd have to do is stand next to me to think, "Okay, this isn't a guy to try and screw with."
I could say something, but I also don't want this man taking it out on this woman later. Because it's not like he'd be smart enough to say something back to me. He'll look stupid.
So I just ignored him. I have a lot to deal with. Obviously. Eyes on the prize. This is a small thing in my day which features a lot of things that are much worse. I have to keep moving. And he kept swearing as he went down. I would bet that in his mind, he was this upholder of justice and morality, and I was a representative of the Republican patriarchy. I know, I'm theorizing. The same as he might have done about me. I could definitely be wrong. But I don't think I am.
Funny thing was--I got the top, I started back down--this was my last circuit--and I passed a bunch of people coming down, all of whom were nice about it, or just got out of the way on their own with a smile, or an affable, "You should go ahead," because they'd seen me a bunch of times now and they knew what I was doing and thought it was cool.
This fake tough guy and his put-upon wife or girlfriend still weren't at the bottom when I came up behind them. There were only twenty-five stairs or so to go. The woman I had just passed started asking me how many times I did this, if I was done now for the day, and I'm answering her as sweetly as possible, within this guy's hearing. The guy who was just frothing at the mouth over this other person who did nothing, said nothing to him, who was now patiently and politely answering questions he's gotten asked hundreds of times.
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