I’m still recuperating from a cold-type bug, but on the offensive.  Although is was hotter today (90 or +) and more humid than yesterday, I ran the same distance but with less stress and anguish.  Perhaps I ran slower, but then again, perhaps I’m on the mend.

Some of you may wonder why I run in the cemetery.  Oh, there are many reasons.  It’s gorgeous here.  It’s less dangerous than running on the streets.  And there’s the desirable solitude and sometimes the inspiration afterwards to write, if so moved.  But another reason I often end up here is that I fail to get connected-up in the world of the living on a daily basis.  The contacts, the friends, the relationships I so often seek just never quite materialize.  So failing to keep my high amongst the living, I plan-b to cultivate a high amongst the dead.

A ‘high’ you wonder?  What constitutes a ‘high’ amongst the dead? 

Well, one gets high with the dead by getting lower than almost all the living—without dying!  Call it a state of mind that’s one notch above the hereafter.  The critical aspect of such low-dom is that it always changes you.  Always.  If only by a nudge.  But it makes you better.  It prepares you, as so many native Indian warriors prepared themselves for, to die a good death.

So perhaps I will someday die the good death!

Meanwhile, here’s a cemetery-fresh thought:  What if the only bodily pleasure/satisfaction that the dead miss,  once separated from the flesh, is the satisfaction of farting? 

Make sure while you’re still alive to fart the good fart.

A solitary point of view:

It was self-savage, cruel, and nearly bestial.  But it was very good.

Hovering just short of 90 degrees with high humidity on a sunny ‘ozone awareness day' yesterday, I re-emerged, somewhat prematurely, from the slimy cocoon that my snotty sinuses had drowned me in to bang out a five mile run in Dreamland (Lake View Cemetery).

head cold? check.  stuffy nose? check.  rubber legs? check.  ok—all’s a go.  5 miles that felt like a marathon.  5 miles that had me midpoint wondering whose grave I’d collapse on.  5 miles that, if nothing else, confirmed the fact that I’m one tenacious drippy-nosed motherfucker. 

Scream like a warrior (within)—and like a deer shot in the heart with an arrow, run till you drop.

Then done with the run, I collapsed against an obelisk, sprawled in the sun, and sweat purely, purely and profusely, for 15 minutes.  My body was literally showering itself in its own ‘precious bodily fluids’ (anyone remember Dr. Strangelove?). 

And finally, coolness ensued as the threat of heat stroke subsided.  (Or was it the cool dampness of heat stroke ultimately taking grip?)  And I proceeded to broadcast on my mobile cam from Dreamland.

Did anyone witness the broadcast?   Many ghosts.  Some were thrilled.  Others were mortified, which isn't surprising since they've had so much practice at it.  And, yes, several Xangans stopped by—thank you all for your company! 

For me, it served primarily as a mobile blogging challenge.  And since it is one I surmounted, a very small self-victory. (And, um, a little more material for, um, a book on…?)  However, technically it required so much attention that it stifled my creative writing mindset.  I didn’t feel free to mingle with passing numinous notions and drift through the fields of literary self-discovery.   Hence, it will not be a regular feature!  At least, not until it becomes as strange as wearing shoes.

So tonight I shall attempt to run and write thereafter instead.  And then allow my words to haunt me as I lay my head to bed.