I am working out again, trying not to stare at the TVs overhead, looking down or up or anywhere but at the TVs. The African American man running on the treadmill next to me says, Look, you're missing the ladies who are LOVING THEIR SELFIES. He points at the screen showing a parade of women of all sizes and shapes, striding up and down a catwalk, including two big women in bras, XL undies and pink robes. I ask is he thinks men will ever be loving their selflies like that. Damn. I sure hope not, he laughs.
I begin watching the sports news, but then Le Bron appears in a batman mask. Does he think he's the new superhero? the man next to me asks. Next thing you know he'll be thinking he's Jesus. Le Bron isn't anyone's favorite in Ohio, not since he left Cleveland.
But then I look at the news on a different screen and see Charles Kupchan-- yes, Charles Kupchan talking about what's happening in Crimea. The close-captioning below his face says he's an advisor to the President on Ukraine. Charles Kupchan-- I remember him from sixth grade when he was the new boy in school. Short and wary, he sat in the quiet section of the room, between Edwin Parker and Nelson Kane next to the window. I still see him as that boy, but now, at least in my mind, he has to decide what will happen in Ukraine.
April 27: Fireside Poetry Festival in Chagrin Falls
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From our friends at Fireside Book Shop:
More info:
https://www.firesidebookshop.com/events/2024/4/27/fireside-book-shop-poetry-festival.
Fireside Boo...
15 hours ago
3 comments:
OMG, working out.
I may have I already told you this, Nin -- it was the sort of event that tends to form a temporary rut in the elderly dementia craw -- but seeing a 23 year old Chinese male die, on a treadmill, five weeks ago, kid you not, gave me a whole new understanding of the seriousness of a treadmill.
Best I've ever managed in pursuit of workout are a hip dislocation (rowing machine), compound fracture of fibula (pedestrian fall onto anti vehicle spikes in rain), fracture of patella -- but the details are odious etc.
I've now given up working out in favour of the slower form of death.
As a youth in Chicago I worked as a municipal employee with an immigrant from the Ukraine who was the most gung-ho America-phile I have ever met.
Everything about America, he loved. Everything about Russia, he hated.
But not until I proceeded along the crooked roads of life to northern Ohio, where after World War II the Cossacks had migrated -- no, not until I arrived in the northern Ohio industrial belt did I understand the full meaning of the Ukraine.
The CIA's original rich Cold war recruiting pool.
On the other hand... LeBron probably isn't Jesus.
A few weeks ago LeBron daggered in a wicked last second 3 to whip the locals, and in the wake of his shot he pantomimed a man violently breaking a log over his knee.
Jesus would NEVER have done such a rude thing as that.
I am not a treadmill fan, but the doctor wants me to start walking and maybe running again, and the treadmill is the simplest way to do it. I can stop and get off the minute it hurts as opposed to walking/jogging outside. So twice a week, I do the treadmill. That's about my limit. And I've never really watched morning TV. I am completely amazed at how awful it is.
Maybe ear buds filled with silence and a blindfold could help keep the toxic TV away during workout sessions but then again it might feel strange in the presence of others. How about discreet earplugs, and closed eyes?
You could say, I have to, I get migraines. . . from TV screens or something like that.
Open your own soothing meditations gym. I'd go! (laugh)
Emily
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