Listophilia

I may never got comfortable with blogging, because I feel the urge to apologize for anything excessively self-centered. So without any sort of self-consciously ironic introduction, I present you a list of 10 things I didn’t know I liked one year ago. I wrote the list itself in December, in the spirit of easonal/consumer guide retrospectives.

1. The National’s Boxer. Check out Apartment Story or Green Gloves.
2. The Wire. I finally gave in to all the hype. It’s less about gun battles than battles against Sartre’s mauvaise foi. The final season is currently ongoing.
3. Tryst. One of the few places in DC that lets you forget you’re no longer on the West Coast.
4. Barack Obama. Good policy. Good politics.
5. Nike Elite Running Socks. I haven’t had even the beginnings of a blister with these.
6. Polo Shirts. Like a mullet: business in front, party in the back. I bought my first two last year, but one was stolen by a drunk Russian.
7. Virgin America. You’ve heard about the mood lighting. But that’s not what makes it so great. They just make it easy on you, from booking to ordering food.
8. D.C. Despite number 3, life here isn’t the campaigning politicians’ favorite strawman.
9. Charles Cimicky 2005 Grenache/Shiraz Trumps (Barossa Valley). The half bottle I had bookended between a couple of liters of beer, wine, and a combination of the two, stands out as one of the most drinkable wines in recent memory. Watch this space for tasting notes once I open the one in my closet.
10. Blogging? Perdix and I are still trying to figure out a format for this thing. The most popular posts so far are Arnold and Inkblot. Is that the type of fare you are interested in?

Racing New York, New York

It’s been a week. Time to recap:

Short version: Last Sunday was a terrible race, but a wonderful day. I am annoyed enough with the way the marathon went (3:27:04) that I’ve already registered for the next one in late February in Gainesville HOME OF THE GATORS Florida.

Long version: Thanks to the generous hospitality of friends of Reuben, who was also running, we woke up bright and early on the mat of a dojo a little ways outside Jersey City. We got to the runners’ village around six and separated into our respective camps. Reuben and I had different colored starting numbers and were starting in different groups, which was odd because we both had indicated the same goal pace (3:20:00). I ended up in a corral with runners aiming for 3:40 and 3:50 and wouldn’t even be going over the top of the Verrazano bridge, which is where the race started. So instead of hearing the Howitzer, Tony Bennett’s New York, New York, and hanging out with Paula Radcliffe, I ran in the lower level in a single lane with a great view of the construction equipment.

Because it was such an enormous race, over 39,000 runners, it was nearly impossible to pass the slower runners for the first 18 miles. Whenever I spotted an opening I would sprint through as fast as I could. The cost of that sort of inefficient pacing became very apparent in the last four miles, which were surprisingly steep.

I was mostly focused on the runners in front of me and didn’t get to much time surveying the scenery. The atmosphere and the crowds were, except in Brooklyn, terrific.

You may notice that I’m dressed a little warmer than the rest of the runners. Everyone started off with several layers on and shed them during the first few miles. I was too cheap to discard my new gloves and hat and because I didn’t get too hot, drenched as I was in Gatorade, I just kept the ridiculous outfit.

Reuben beat me by 6 minutes, which cannot stand. We’re having a re-match in Gainesville in late February under more equal conditions and in the company of this blog’s loyal contributor perdixperdix. Bring it on.