The artist is Deyber, who passed recently. He paints pictures of euphemisms. At the end I will tell you what this one says. Yes, I own the lithograph.
The Rona broke a lot of things. It isolated people and made each of us hermits. It allowed friendships and acquittances to die instead of growing and blossoming. People flocked to social media. Social media is not your friend. As humans we evolved to communicate face to face in the presence of the other person. Our eye sight is so good that from across a room we can tell where the other person is looking such as at our eyes or chin. Social media is poor at communicating tone and it encourages hyperbole. It discourages civil discourse. It hides all the facial features and body language. Vital for communication. We have gone to Zoom or similar technology to meet online. Yes, those technologies are very useful. But we lose a lot. In general, the meetings are voice only or voice with a presentation. There is little feedback that the presenter can glean from a meeting with a bunch of avatars. Smaller online meetings are even worse if it is avatar only. No facial cues or body language. Making it easier is not always good.
I had an event happen during the Rona that was difficult. Without getting into specifics I was faced with being further ostracized because it was vaccinated vs non-vaccinated. This was at the time where you could not get vaccinated until your turn came up. (my group had to wait. This was not a case of vaccinated vs “anti-vaxxers”. ) It was if you had not gotten it yet the group was saying people cannot exercise outside with us. It was already difficult to find someone to exercise with. (ultra running) Given the constant “the sky is falling” in exercise class I just could not continue the class. There was enough negativity in news I did not need it while I am doing exercise. Also at the time I had started a new job. I saw a lot of potential in the job, I was no longer a contractor, and so I withdrew from the negativity. I tried to keep in touch with people in the group but they had no interest in that. (and no I did not talk about the other issue; no spreading of that no negative talk about others. ) I figured I would find meaning in work and did to a degree.
I have spent a bunch of time since there realizing that I need a difficult physical challenge. It will mean I have to consistently exercise and follow my plan. It should help me to balance work/life. It should help with physical fitness or at least improve it. My goal is to do a self supported 75 mile ultra trail run in the first or second weekend of October. (they call that type of run a “fat ass” run ) Here is my 1st cut at a training – run weekends, run Monday, Wednesday, Friday and lift Tuesday and Thursday:
| Week | Weekly Distance | Weekend distance | Weekday Distance |
| 10/01/22 | 75.00 | self supported race | |
| 09/24/22 | 67.50 | 16.88 | 11.25 |
| 09/17/22 | 60.75 | 15.19 | 10.13 |
| 09/10/22 | 54.68 | 13.67 | 9.11 |
| 09/03/22 | 49.21 | 12.30 | 8.20 |
| 08/27/22 | 44.29 | 11.07 | 7.38 |
| 08/20/22 | 39.86 | 9.96 | 6.64 |
| 08/13/22 | 35.87 | 8.97 | 5.98 |
| 08/06/22 | 32.29 | 8.07 | 5.38 |
| 07/30/22 | 29.06 | 7.26 | 4.84 |
| 07/23/22 | 26.15 | 6.54 | 4.36 |
| 07/16/22 | 23.54 | 5.88 | 3.92 |
| 07/09/22 | 21.18 | 5.30 | 3.53 |
| 07/02/22 | 19.06 | 4.77 | 3.18 |
| 06/25/22 | 17.16 | 4.29 | 2.86 |
The most I have done is 66 miles; I can do this. Hopefully, by then I can arrange a pacer or pacers. The pacers are to help you keep going. Usually this is in the late evening and early morning. It is the early morning hours that are the most difficult. By then your feet have stopped hurting but your mind often goes to dark places. I assure you I will not be moving fast. lol.
I did the 24 hour Elija Bristow race a few times and at night the bats swoop down to get insects that your headlamp attracts.
Oh yes what is the phrase for the above picture? Get my ass in gear!
Chance Musings 