Author Archives → Jen

I am a marathon runner.

In 2012, I ran the Chevron Houston Marathon – my third marathon – hoping to qualify under new requirements for the April 2013 Boston Marathon.  I fell short by approximately 2 minutes – had I not stopped to go to the bathroom, slowed down for a cup of water, or stretched my legs in the last few miles, I would be in Boston today running with the legions of dedicated athletes.  I thought of this particular race today as I read about the tragedies unfolding at the finish line of the world’s most famous long-distance rate – not because I think of my story as one of coincidences and close calls, but as a narrative of why I run and will continue to run.

By the tenth mile of my first marathon in San Francisco, I was absolutely captivated by the sport.  I continued to run races in Houston and San Francisco not because of clocks, or times, or medals, but because I could find no atmosphere like the final two miles of a marathon.  I want to tell you what happens in the final stretch of an officiated long-distance race because it is so beautiful – so beautiful that I simply refuse to let the circumstances of Boston today become the predominant narrative of marathon running.

When the crux of an activity is pure endurance and resiliency – a test of mental and physical rigor as you attempt to traverse a 26.2-mile course – it becomes irrelevant if you finish the race in 2 hours, 4 hours, or 6 hours.  The crowd will cheer for you whether you are an elite, world-class runner, a 101-year-old man, or a first-time competitor in your mid-twenties.  The noise is a raucous blend of cheering, music, clapping, loud speakers, and noisemakers that resonates for all competitors.  When a runner falls, there is a collective level of concern – I have witnessed men and women literally stop in the middle of their strides and let time slip away to help their colleagues continue the course.  This is the splendor of long-distance running:  we are not a community that awards medals solely on time, but on finish.  In the eyes of the sport, a race is a race, and a finish, with very little exception, is a finish.

When an activity values endurance over time, it fosters a level of camaraderie, energy, and exhilaration that I have yet to feel in spaces other than starting and finish lines.  When I stand at the starting block anticipating a long and inevitably excruciating run, I also stand in solidarity with the thousands of runners who will do the same.  I will place my hand over my heart to listen to the National Anthem echo into the morning air.  I will, as the sun rises, bow my head for the Morning Prayer.  I will start and finish this race with everyone else – place and pace at the whim of my own body alone.

Thus a finish is almost indescribable – you and your fellow runners have endured over two-dozen miles of terrain.  Everything is counterintuitive.  Your body tells you to stop, yet you override the pain because your mother is waiting with a sign, ready to hug you as you stumble to the finish.  You want to scream in anguish, but you continue ever so slowly because a stranger has caught glimpse of your name printed across your bib and is screaming it in encouragement.  You want to collapse in the moment, but there are colorful, outlandish signs telling you how crazy, ridiculous, wonderful, and incredible you are.  There are countless faces of people you have never met who are cheering for you, for him, for her, for everyone.

And just as you feel that you should give up, you see it – the finish line, where the crowd roars in such excitement that it drowns out every doubt of falling short.  There are children screaming for their mothers.  There are lovers waiting on the sidelines with rings and proposals (as it has happened each time I have run a race).  There are teenagers – twice my students – who give back to their community by volunteering at the finish line, handing out bagels and bananas to eager finishers.  There are reporters and photographers capturing it all for the small news article that will be clipped by thousands as memory of this beautiful occasion.  There are runners embracing each other for the feat that they just accomplished.  The finish line is a tapestry of all there is to love about the sport, the participants, and the throngs of supporters.

When a person decides to set off a bomb in the final few miles of a marathon, it is a moral transgression that I cannot begin to articulate nor understand.  Such a horrific event targets not just a race or a crowd, but an embodiment of resiliency and triumph.  Although I cannot comprehend the events of today, this much I know – I need to keep running.  Run for the athletes and the spectators we have lost.  Run to preserve the finish lines of future races.  Run because it is the embodiment of the sport itself – to continue in spite of a difficult, inconceivable stretch.

We need to keep running.

I am thinking the Shoe Horn is going to win it all.

In honor of the apathy I feel about the final game in the 2013 NCAA basketball tournament between Michigan and Louisville (and my thorough disappointment in Georgetown’s consistent first and second-round bow outs in the past seven years that I have been a Hoya), the following is a bracket I drew simulating a tournament between random and popularized inanimate objects:

tour2

Click Image to Enlarge.

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In watching and reading about college sports, I have noticed that the activity is a very particular narrative written by commentators like Dick Vitale and, most recently, a supposedly sober Charles Barkley.  The language of the commentary attempts to elevate the sport to an inspirational tale through poorly constructed analogies like “Cinderella” (which I won’t believe unless the game magically becomes an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race) or establish something as worth watching like a “classic” rivalry.

Nevertheless, here are match highlights:

Freddie Prinze Jr. vs. Lumiere, the flirtatious candlestick from Beauty and the Beast: Lumiere has mad game (zing!) and has excellent chemistry with the Angela Lansbury-voiced teapot, which will make for a formidable team.  Meanwhile, I remember very little about She’s All That other than the fact that Usher will DJ my prom-themed wedding.

John Boehner vs. Inanimate Carbon Rod: A close match, but the Inanimate Carbon Rod has won employee of the month at least once.  The same cannot be said about the House Speaker.

Spoon vs. Knife: Although the Knife has the edge (ROTFL) in this match, I pick the Spoon because of its history of rough and licentious play.

Monocle vs. Cane: A classic, vintage rivalry between two solid opponents (LOL).  I pick the Monocle as this tournament’s “Cinderella” story.

16” Dubs vs. Ice from Jacob the Jeweler: I predict that the Dubs will steamroll this matchup because wheels and cars are fully capable of doing this.

Madonna’s “GHV2” vs. Mariah Carey’s “#1”: An even match that will be close to the very end, but this gay believes in the second half surge of “Take a Bow,” “What It Feels Like For a Girl,” “Ray of Light,” and “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina.

I am thinking that this is my kind of art.

For a class in which I am learning about literary depictions of war and violence, I have been watching clips from Iraqi American artist Wafaa Bilal’s interactive installation, Domestic Tension.  In 2007, after losing both his brother and father to war-related violence in Iraq and in response to the act of shooting missiles remotely, Bilal confined himself to a small space in a Chicago art gallery.  For a month, he lived in a room consisting of a bed, a computer, a table, a lamp, a plant, and a robotic paintball gun that internet users could control, aim and shoot at all hours of the day.  Over 60,000 people from 130 countries shot at him as he slept, worked, read, and maintained his space.  He was never warned of a single shot.

As the experiment transpired, daily video updates captured a fatigued, tense, and lonely Bilal.  He vomits from anxiety and develops abdominal pain.  He experiences bouts of depression.  He gains 15 pounds, eating uncontrollably to cope with his circumstances.  He sleeps erratically – sometimes going 48 hours without rest.

He tries to control his environment yet, no matter how often he cleans his space, the shrapnel left from the shattered paintballs cut his fingers and trails of yellow paint spread across the floor, leaving precarious puddles around his bed and computer.  The walls begin to degrade from impact and even the lone plant decorating his room is destroyed from multiple shots.  Self-portraits taped on a glass shield are particularly popular targets.

By Day 26, a curious thing happens: a few online followers have figured out that by continuously holding the gun to the far left, other users become incapable of aiming and shooting the gun at Bilal – a so-called “virtual human shield.”  Bilal chooses not to intervene, allowing for a natural evolution of events – the human shield versus the shooters – to unfold.  Later on Day 26, a woman stops by the studio housing Bilal’s installation to drop off new socks after noticing that he had wore a mismatched pair to bed.  On Day 27, a couple sends him a plant to replace the dead one.  Overwhelmed by the gesture, he tearfully embraces the plant, vowing, “I’m not going to let anyone shoot it.”

By Day 30, energetic to be nearing the end, Bilal begins to reflect on the process of being shot by remote users nearly every hour for 31 consecutive days while developing a fiercely loyal following of cyber humanitarians.  His reflections are about the human condition, yet they are also powerfully about art as well:

“That’s what art is supposed to do.  It’s supposed to inform.  It’s supposed to agitate.  And it’s supposed to be a part of life.  I have no resentment to the people who shot.  It’s an encounter; it’s not a didactic piece.  It’s an open narrative piece.  One we can all impose our own narrative on.”