A Feathered Cap.
I just had a paper accepted to what is pretty inarguably the best journal ever to print my work. I’m second author, but corresponding author. A professor with a named appointment at the VFU medschool is the senior author. And I elected to let a colleague be first author. I wrote the paper, and we shared the work. But I’ve written lots of papers and been published a bunch of times, and my colleague, a youngish female engineer, has never been published at all.
This is a career-making kind of journal for her. It’s read by basically every senior hospital administrator in America, and we write about a very successful project. The reviewers and editors were all very impressed and eager to see it printed. It still took a long time. But we’re going to have the paper in a shiny, important, impactful journal. And my colleague is likely to see major results from it. I’m excited and proud.
I know we’re not supposed to care about glamour. And this journal isn’t “glamorous” in the traditional sense the way say, the New England Journal of Medicine is. But it’s at the top of its field, and it’s the flagship journal of a REALLY important organization in hospital administration. Probably the most important organization in hospital administration. When this group says, “this is a good way to do things”, every hospital in America pays attention.
So I’m happy and grateful. And I think I found the leak in my house, and fixed it. Caulk and paint and plastic shielding. Not carpentry and roofing. I don’t know what it will cost, but it’ll be a lot less than tearing up a roof deck and putting down a new roof and redoing a roof deck.
This past weekend BB and I ran a hard 12 miles at about a 9:25 pace. I’m very happy with that. I’ve ramped up my training a bit in anticipation of the Virginia Beach half marathon in March. I’m back up to about 22 miles a week, and have really added the bike to the mix. February was a good month, with 81.7 miles run, 70 miles on the bike, and 8 gym days.
Despite difficult challenges and frustrating issues, things seem to be progressing in life. They will, one way or another, no matter what. And I’m trying to face head on the problems I’ve encountered. That’s all I can ask of myself. And it’s all I can give.
Fixes and Progress.
Well, I think I found the source of the leak. I did a few invasive inspections to find where the subfloor/roof was wet, rather than the water just running along the bottom of the joists in the ceiling of the bedroom. I found the spot, and it was directly under a badly weathered old dryer vent that isn’t – I don’t think – hooked up to anything anymore. Certainly not to the dryer.
The vent penetrates the wall in exactly the right spot, and is tilted the wrong way so that if water were to intrude, it would be sucked right down to where I’m seeing the problem. The window above is also a bit weathered and there are places it could leak. I’m having it all caulked and painted and what-have-you tomorrow. Then I have to get the ceiling repaired from the water damage and the invasive inspections I did. My guess is it’ll all be about a thousand bucks.
But the good news is that when I took it off the market, my agent told me that she had a bunch of plaintive inquiries as to why, and was there a chance I’m still accepting offers. One person may, apparently, still want to make one. So hopefully the house can be sold anyway, and soon. And I felt male and competent for a few minutes while sawing through drywall. So that was nice.
Fitness-wise is was a pretty damn good weekend. BB and I ran a hard 12.2 miles on Saturday morning in the cold. We kept up a very even 9:25 pace per mile. This despite a twinge I’m fighting in my left glute/hamstring. My feet felt good, my calves, my other leg, everything was clicking. If we can do that on a training run, then in three weeks we’ll be up for a fast half-marathon. I’m sure of it.
Will we break our 2 hours goal? Maybe. Maybe not. That doesn’t truly matter. All that matters is that we’re fit and excited and ready to go run like hell, and see what we can do.
Sunday we went to the gym and while BB was doing a hard 5K on the treadmill I decided to get on the rowing machine. I want to build up some upper body endurance, because I have it in my head that that will help with my “don’t get diabetes” plan. And it probably will, maybe not specifically, but generally. Fitness is good medicine. Then, after BB got back on her train, I rode 15 miles on my bike at a nice steady pace. I forgot my heart-rate monitor, but I wasn’t going hard. Steady 15 miles in 71 minutes.
So I’m making progress. I think. House, work, love, health, life. Things will be ok. Probably.
So Frustrated and Anxious.
We had a huge, violent storm roll through Wednesday night, and my house leaked again. This means I have to take it off the market, of course, until I figure out what’s wrong and fix it and have a few storms roll through without a problem. It’s super frustrating because it doesn’t leak every rain. Hell, it hadn’t leaked since APRIL, when I had the last repairs done. But leak it did, and pretty badly. I would estimate around a gallon of water came through the ceiling of my back bedroom.
So I’m having the roofer recaulk everything and we’ll see how it goes. I’m very very sad and angry and frustrated and I don’t know what to do.
Still Not Diabetic.
Well, my lifestyle interventions appear to be holding the line. I had my employee health screen today. I was basically pleased with the results. The good: BP was 110/70, A1c was 5.5. My HDL cholesterol was 68, and the LDL and triglycerides were each below the threshold detection levels of the machine. That’s a good set of healthy metabolic numbers. But it wasn’t all roses.
My total cholesterol was 208, which is a little high. Though the nurse told me with an HDL as high as mine, I shouldn’t worry about it. And that echos what my MD has told me in the past. My weight was 185ish giving me a BMI of about 26. Still overweight. The most worrying number was my fasting glucose. It was 109. That’s about where it’s been for the past 10 years. Too high, prediabetic but still non-diabetic. But with a normal A1c, clearly I’m not having too much trouble maintaining blood sugar control.
Overall, though, I should consider these to be pretty good numbers, and a good bill of health. But it is worth noting how hard I have to work to keep this slate. This is one of the ways I was not born privileged. I have to work out something like 6 hours a week, hard, to maintain normal blood numbers. I won’t be able to keep that up as I get older. It’s just not possible.
Diabetes is definitely in my future. But with apologies to George RR Martin,
“What do we tell the god of diabetes?”
“Not today.”
The longer I delay the onset, and the harder I work now, the lesser the complications will be when I inevitably develop metabolic disease. The consequences my father has suffered for his unwillingness to confront his disease aggressively will not be the same ones I suffer. Not while I can run. Not while I can fight.
It is interesting the different approaches I have to take to confront alcoholism versus diabetes. I don’t surrender to diabetes. I don’t give up, like I did with alcoholism. Diabetes I fight. I run. I lift. I try to make better food choices. And I’ll keep it up. I’ve learned to love where my fitness exploits have taken me. I’m excited to keep going. And determined to stay healthy.
Defeatism.
I hope I never come to understand the attitude of feeling completely thwarted by forces beyond my control, to the end of despair and resignation. Now, to be certain: I am thwarted in some ways by forces beyond my control. I cannot drink alcohol safely no matter what I decide to try to do about it. I am defeated, there. Defeated and battle never to be rejoined.
But that isn’t the whole of me. Despite the limitations placed on me by circumstance and biology (I suffer from mental illnesses that kill many – in combination, probably most – of the sufferers therefrom.) I have found ways to survive and flourish. This has involved some luck, and a lot of hard work.
I am told repeatedly that it is my privilege that allows this. Lesser privileged people do not have options, and thus cannot flourish. And there’s no doubt that I have many privileges associated with my gender, my race, and upbringing. They have decidedly helped me in many cases.
But it is absolute nonsense that people with less privilege cannot flourish. In my meetings, I mingle with people from as low as exists on the socioeconomic ladder. As we say of our groups: we are people who would normally not mix. And I see people who climb from the lowest possible position to positions of respect, comfort, and dignity.
I know people who were imprisoned, who are minorities in the LGBT community, who suffer from worse mental illness than I, who were born impoverished, who were never educated. I know people from all these backgrounds who have come to be flourishing, productive, effective, economically secure, happy members of their communities and of society at large. Regardless of our privilege, we all have the ability to do the best we can with what we have.
Slinging accusations of being privileged or ignoring privilege is used in the academic community as a tactic to silence dissent from what is, to me, a peculiar kind of indulgent defeatism. It is an apostasy to say that people can change their own circumstances. It violates orthodoxy to believe in the capability of all individuals to better themselves and their prospects. I don’t know why, exactly. I don’t know why I’m supposed to agree that everyone without maximal privilege is helpless.
Privilege is real, and makes things easier for some people. It’s unfair, and we should work to ameliorate it wherever it occurs. People should have similar opportunities for education, employment, and identical civil rights and freedoms regardless of the circumstances of their birth. But to declare entire swaths of humanity helpless and hopeless simply because of their comparatively reduced privilege strikes me as both false and dehumanizing.
Shifting Back to the Run.
Well, BB and I have finally decided to do an obstacle course run. We’re joining another friend of ours and doing a 5K “Mud Run” in Maryland in the Spring. This doesn’t really count as race miles, because it’s not individually timed, but since time is never really my end-goal anyway, I’m not worried about that. It’s going to be exciting to see how it goes. I’m hoping all the gym work will pay off. They don’t give details about the obstacles, but I hope they’re fun and challenging without being impossible.
I’ve dropped back from going to the gym three days a week to two, starting this week. I need to be running fit again. I did a hard 6.1 miles yesterday, at a 9:16 pace. It was too hard. My legs felt dead, and I didn’t handle the hills well. Don’t get me wrong! It’s thrilling just to be able to run for an hour without stopping. To go six miles and never break stride is incredible to me, even though it’s not anywhere near my peak. I’m grateful and excited.
But the physical fact is, I’m not in as good running-shape as I was in the late fall, when I ran an entire half marathon at a 9:17 pace. I’ve got a month to get into shape for Virginia Beach. Which means I’ve got to run harder and get in enough of my short runs that my long runs can build fitness without risking injury. I have been able to run 10Ks at a sub-9 minute pace before. I’d like to again.
My goal of the 2 hour half marathon is definitely ambitious for me. I like setting ambitious goals. But as I’ve written many times, if I never reach this one, I never do. I’ll still love where running has taken me. But boy would I be happy to see it fall. I think it’s partly mental: 2 hours is a long time. Running faster than that big round number feels very difficult. But if I just put down the timers and don’t look at the clocks and run like I can, I think there’s a chance I’ll make it. Ten seconds a mile doesn’t sound like much. Two minutes and 16 seconds doesn’t sound like much. But it’s a log time when you’re running hard.
I’m never going to be fast. But I’m damned proud of being mediocre. Slightly better than average. I’ll feel fabulous if I can break this barrier. But you know what? I’ll feel fabulous if I can’t too. Because I can run a long time. I’m healthy and I’m happy and I’m fulfilled in my relationship by running. That’s what matters to me.
Spring Race Plans.
I’m getting excited for my spring races. BB and I have three half marathons already on the docket. The Virginia Beach half, The Philly Love Run, and a trail half-marathon in rural Pennsylvania. That one each in March, April, and May. The trail half will be our first, and I’m excited for it. I expect that last to be a difficult 3-4 hour run through rivers and hills and swamps. Trail running is difficult both physically and mentally, but I’m excited to give it a shot. We’ll probably mix the trail run with a weekend away, since it’s over Memorial Day.
Additionally, I’m running the Cherry Blossom 10-miler in Washington DC in April. BB can’t run that one, but we have a bunch of friends who are. I’m going to try to really push and see how hard I can go. I think I can break 90 minutes. We’ll see. It’ll be after the Virginia Beach half where we’re hoping to break two hours, which is a 9:07 pace. That is crazy fast for me. I’m incredibly excited about giving it a shot.
I won’t be unhappy if I miss it though. Just means more to shoot for as time goes by. I’m lucky to run. I’m lucky to be fit enough to do anything. I’m lucky to be alive. I feel so much gratitude just to have the opportunity do go and do these exciting things with someone I love. To have a purpose that goes along with all the work I do to stay fit these days. It means a lot to me to keep trying.
Today the weather is perfect for running: cool, overcast, low humidity. I have my AA men’s meeting tonight, where I’ll get my 8 year coin. But first I’m going to run. I feel like 10K is in order, maybe even a fast 10K. I’ve been running fewer miles this winter, compared with summer and fall, and it’s time to get back into the thick of it. My gym work has me strong, but I need the running to stay fit and (my version of) lean.
So off I go. Time to get in to those 25 mile weeks again. Time to run.
Eight Years Sober.
I should get my coin tomorrow. February 16th, 2008, was the first day I didn’t drink in more than ten years. At least, the first day I didn’t drink without being angry and miserable and entitled and furious about it, intending to get another drink as soon as I could. The first day in a long, long time that I felt I was healing instead of dying. I spent most of it unconscious, dosed with Ativan.
I haven’t taken any alcohol, or drugs recreationally since. I haven’t taken pain killers other than NSAIDs (though I might, if prescribed and needed, and I’d have a plan for their management and disposal). When I checked myself into that rehab, 8 years ago, I felt done. Defeated, sick, and ready to stop fighting. I still feel that way, but in a much happier and healthier way.
I am defeated. I am sick. I am not fighting. That’s why I’m still alive. That’s why I’m flourishing.
The Thirsty Years.
Eight years ago today I woke up in a hotel room. I had a backpack and a plane ticket. I drove to the airport and parked my car in the long term parking. It was snowy and cold. I was depressed, and afraid. I was tired. I’d been tired for a long time. As long as I could remember. I sat at a bar at the airport and I had a beer. Then another. Then two shots of Knob Creek Bourbon. Then I got on the plane. I haven’t had a drink since.
Tomorrow will, unless I do something spectacularly stupid today, be my eight-years sober anniversary. Today is the anniversary of my last drink.
If you’ve been reading my blog for long, you know how much has changed. I’m sober, stronger, saner, fitter, healthier, happier, and more productive. By working the steps of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I have regained a life that I once thought completely lost to me. Through the daily maintenance of my spiritual condition, I have achieved a remission from the mental illnesses that I have that would like to kill me.
If you go to a room where we congregate, especially a larger room with many of us, and if you could see the time each of us have in sobriety, you might notice a worrying trend. Lots of us have a few months, lots of us have a few years. And there are always a fair number of older folks who have a few decades. But there is a swoon in our numbers. Starting round about eight years.
Some of us, sober and confident and healthy, simply leave the rooms. And we never really know what happens. I think lots of us are out there living happy, fruitful, sober lives without attending meetings anymore. I know at least one man like that. But that’s not the only path we take. And I don’t even know if it’s the common one.
For a lot of us, somewhere between eight and twelve years, we relapse. We become complacent and foolish. We think we’ve beaten the beast. We know what we’re doing and we’re capable and strong and we’ve survived so much. And so we let go of the ropes that have been pulling us forward. And we relapse. Because there is no beating this beast.
It’s easy to become confused. People congratulate me all the time on beating alcoholism. I’ve stopped correcting them. I know what they mean. It’s kind. I appreciate the admiration. I enjoy it. It’s easy to let the perspective shift, and see myself as a victor in a battle against a foe. It’s easy to soak up those congratulations and offer myself as an authority on recovery. To be self-aggrandizing.
But I haven’t beaten alcoholism. I am as alcoholic as I was on the 15th of February, 2008. As susceptible to my own lies and cravings, my rationalizations and my selfishness. I can never beat alcoholism. I cannot defeat the beast, because I am the beast. My alcoholism is woven into the code that makes my body mine. I am never relieved of it.
There are always challenges in sobriety. These thirsty years are the next one. Enough time has gone by for me to forget the miseries of daily drinking. The annihilation of it. The need to be silent and alone and to hate everything that stands between myself and alcohol. That hate is so exhausting. But we can forget. I’ve known so many who have. Some come back. Some die. Sometimes of the drink, sometimes of the exhaustion of it all.
When we think we’ve earned more time than today, that’s when we fall. No matter how well I work my program, the reprieve from my alcoholic hell never lasts more than a day. For 2922 days, I’ve had that reprieve. All that work, all that effort, all that surrender, day upon day upon day, has earned me only this. Only now. Only today. Tomorrow will have to look after itself.
For a lot of us, we seem to think that after eight or ten or twelve years that we’ve earned a lifetime of sobriety. We haven’t. We can’t. I haven’t.
My favorite opening line in all of literature is this: “I am a sick man, I am a wicked man. I think my liver hurts.” I awoke that way every day for a decade. More. For the past eight years, I’ve awoken differently. And if I hope that that gentle waking is to last the rest of my life then I cannot focus on it lasting the rest of my life. I only have tomorrow’s dawn to consider.
Tonight, I will go to bed sober again. And tomorrow, well, I’ll face tomorrow when tomorrow comes.
Leap.
I’ve caught my chin on stones from foolish steps,
and bled and been ashamed of clumsy feet.
I’ve challenged daunting chasms, run and lept,
and fallen when the rift outclassed my reach.
A thousand thousand times I’ve knelt defeated.
I’ve lost and blundered every chance I’ve earned.
But from all my stupidities repeated,
I pray you’ll let me tell what I have learned:
Endured defeat is victory’s other guise.
And all the ways I’ve lost have led me here.
Though broken, bloodied – Love, for you I rise,
Though lost, the road we travel next is clear.
Alone I fall and fail and bleed and weep,
For you, I dream and rise and stand and leap.
Infactorium 