Harvey's Law
Nov. 15th, 2009 10:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqThere's a chain of restaurants in Canada called Harvey's. Every couple of years I go there and order a burger. I always regret it (YMMV - I have friends who are OK with it, but I don't know anyone for whom it's their favorite). Returning again and again is the triumph of hope over experience - that or it's a measure of how long it takes us to forget the pain of a painful experience. Some women have multiple children, despite labour pains. I get a really sub-standard burger every once in awhile.
Anyway, the point is that I've slowly learned over the years. The amount of time between Harvey visits has been going up as I slowly learn not to eat there.
Another thing that fucks me up year after year is the Taboo Naughty But Nice show. It's basically a trade show for adult products. This means better then half the vendors are selling sex toys and the rest are for fashion, singles vacations and energy drinks. There's also seminars, some stage shows (KGB performs every year) and generally just a great opportunity to people watch. I have fun there every year. It's entertaining and fun and a wonderful change of pace, even if it is really just a sex toy mall.
And then I go home alone. It just reinforces all the bad things in my life. Like gorging on chocolate because it tastes so good, but then feeling sick and guilty and awful afterwards.
I'll probably go again next year, because I'm dumb that way. And I'll get a metaphorical cock-punch to the old self-esteem again.
So I woke up today feeling kind of down. Lacking anything else to do I decided to go down to the river valley and do an extra-long run. I want to be better prepared for next year's half-marathon, so that means staying in practice and that means doing an extra-long run about once a month (in addition to my normal thrice-weekly runs).
So I drove down to Edworthy park, ran to the south side of the river heading east. I turned around at the Louise bridge, running back west along the north side of the river. It took 83 minutes. I ran non-stop for a total of 13,200 steps. Normally I'd say that was 13.2 km, but there are reference markers along the river and what I thought was a pace of almost exactly 1m was actually in the neighborhood of 0.9m. So not only has my pace time gone down, but my stride length has gone down too. This explains why I underestimated my half-marathon finishing time so badly. It also means I'm stupidly out of shape, but then I am carrying three frozen turkeys around my stomach.
Normally running cheers me up. Running over 80 minutes non-stop should have really cheered me up. Cold hard facts made me feel worse. Also sore, but that has nothing to do with my self-esteem.
Anyway, I ended up having breakfast at a restaurant (alone), then going home (alone), then off to Taboo again (alone, and it wasn't even for me this time).
So I figured, Ok, you've been trying to convince people to go to Banff for a couple of weeks now. Just fucking go, since this is clearly an "alone" day anyway. Not that I didn't have one alternate offer, but by this time I was getting pretty toxic to be around and I don't need to be alienating my friends any more than normal.
So I got into the car a little before 5 and tore off for Banff. I got there a little after 6, without really speeding because traffic was very light. Grabbed a bearclaw, had supper at a fancy restaurant (alone) and then went up to the hot springs.
The hot springs were the whole point to the trip really. I was stiff and sore and had really exerted myself. Normal bathtubs don't fit my Jabba-like physique, so soaking at home isn't really an option. I was really looking forward to just finding a corner of the pool, closing my eyes and turning into a prune for an hour.
The hot springs were closed for maintenance. Until November 17th. Fuck.
So I drove back. Again, hardly any traffic, but the trip to and from Banff was very gusty (There's a Chinook blowing into town right now, giving me a headache on top of everything else - I'm treating it with beer as I write this) so it wasn't what you'd call a relaxing drive. I'm back and every muscle in my neck, shoulders and back is complaining. Nothing spasm-ing or strained, thank heavens, but still not how I wanted to feel at this point in the day.
So now I'm sore, depressed (for no real good reason other then normal ones) and generally cranky and the weekend is almost over. At least work has been going reasonably well (I'm within spitting distance of finishing an important project and have a lot of cool things lined up for the near future).
Anyway, the point is that I've slowly learned over the years. The amount of time between Harvey visits has been going up as I slowly learn not to eat there.
Another thing that fucks me up year after year is the Taboo Naughty But Nice show. It's basically a trade show for adult products. This means better then half the vendors are selling sex toys and the rest are for fashion, singles vacations and energy drinks. There's also seminars, some stage shows (KGB performs every year) and generally just a great opportunity to people watch. I have fun there every year. It's entertaining and fun and a wonderful change of pace, even if it is really just a sex toy mall.
And then I go home alone. It just reinforces all the bad things in my life. Like gorging on chocolate because it tastes so good, but then feeling sick and guilty and awful afterwards.
I'll probably go again next year, because I'm dumb that way. And I'll get a metaphorical cock-punch to the old self-esteem again.
So I woke up today feeling kind of down. Lacking anything else to do I decided to go down to the river valley and do an extra-long run. I want to be better prepared for next year's half-marathon, so that means staying in practice and that means doing an extra-long run about once a month (in addition to my normal thrice-weekly runs).
So I drove down to Edworthy park, ran to the south side of the river heading east. I turned around at the Louise bridge, running back west along the north side of the river. It took 83 minutes. I ran non-stop for a total of 13,200 steps. Normally I'd say that was 13.2 km, but there are reference markers along the river and what I thought was a pace of almost exactly 1m was actually in the neighborhood of 0.9m. So not only has my pace time gone down, but my stride length has gone down too. This explains why I underestimated my half-marathon finishing time so badly. It also means I'm stupidly out of shape, but then I am carrying three frozen turkeys around my stomach.
Normally running cheers me up. Running over 80 minutes non-stop should have really cheered me up. Cold hard facts made me feel worse. Also sore, but that has nothing to do with my self-esteem.
Anyway, I ended up having breakfast at a restaurant (alone), then going home (alone), then off to Taboo again (alone, and it wasn't even for me this time).
So I figured, Ok, you've been trying to convince people to go to Banff for a couple of weeks now. Just fucking go, since this is clearly an "alone" day anyway. Not that I didn't have one alternate offer, but by this time I was getting pretty toxic to be around and I don't need to be alienating my friends any more than normal.
So I got into the car a little before 5 and tore off for Banff. I got there a little after 6, without really speeding because traffic was very light. Grabbed a bearclaw, had supper at a fancy restaurant (alone) and then went up to the hot springs.
The hot springs were the whole point to the trip really. I was stiff and sore and had really exerted myself. Normal bathtubs don't fit my Jabba-like physique, so soaking at home isn't really an option. I was really looking forward to just finding a corner of the pool, closing my eyes and turning into a prune for an hour.
The hot springs were closed for maintenance. Until November 17th. Fuck.
So I drove back. Again, hardly any traffic, but the trip to and from Banff was very gusty (There's a Chinook blowing into town right now, giving me a headache on top of everything else - I'm treating it with beer as I write this) so it wasn't what you'd call a relaxing drive. I'm back and every muscle in my neck, shoulders and back is complaining. Nothing spasm-ing or strained, thank heavens, but still not how I wanted to feel at this point in the day.
So now I'm sore, depressed (for no real good reason other then normal ones) and generally cranky and the weekend is almost over. At least work has been going reasonably well (I'm within spitting distance of finishing an important project and have a lot of cool things lined up for the near future).
