The long run is an exercise in endurance, the goal not being quickness but steadiness. It teaches patience and conservation, with the goal of maintaining energy reserves for the the end of the road. Still, weariness sets in and the last mile or two is run with the mind overriding the body.

Fourteen and three-quarter miles into my fifteen mile run I faced the crossing of Massachusetts Avenue. On a Saturday morning the road is not all that busy, but as it is good practice I slowed to look both ways before crossing the street.

As I turned my head to the right I tripped, perhaps due to uneven sidewalk, perhaps a misstep. Regardless, I quickly found myself sprawled on the ground, dazed. I picked myself off the sidewalk, checked for damage, and finding myself in relatively good shape, completed the last few minutes of my expedition.

It could have been much worse. I scraped up the palm of my left hand as well as my right elbow and shoulder. The last is a bit stiff, but I have every hope that it will be ship-shape in a day or two. The lesson seems to be that as the run progresses even the simplest of actions requires ferocious concentration.

Madam X, and her display, is back home. A week’s worth of thorough testing at the Apple Store turned up nothing, and I can’t really expect them to do more than that, knowing what I would do in similar situations if a problem of a similar nature arose in one of my applications.

So far there have no problems. I’ll continue to keep tabs on everything, but it is my fervent hope that this particular saga is at an end.

On a day such as today, I can close my eyes and hear countless teachers speak to me. This is their lesson: pay attention to the spaces between the notes, bars, and phrases. Music lives in these spaces. Awareness and execution of the notes themselves is of course important, but true artistry blossoms in the transitions.

The subway is empty, downtown quiet, the office quieter still. It is the Friday of labor day weekend and the bustle that inundates the city on weekdays is nowhere to be found. Many people have taken the day off; those who haven’t are at their desks going through the motion with all the enthusiasm a student has for his lessons hours before term holiday. One can see in every eye the glint of a vacation already underway. At work but not working.

Management realizes this. Our company tradition of beer, snacks, and conversation which survived the merger, though in less sumptuous form, traditionally takes place at four; it has been given the three o’clock time slot today. Once the first beer is open, even the pretense of work will stop.

It is a transition. A day like this hold no prize, but is rich with its scent, so close as to be maddening. They must exist because there will always be the moments between work and rest, where the taste of the future spills into the present. If today were a holiday, yesterday would have undoubtedly had the same feel as today.

The limen or threshold is a metaphor I hold dear. Neither inside nor outside, it stands between the two, at once both and neither. The liminal days are holidays, feasts, rituals, and festivals, days where the routine is broken. The liminal moments are moments of creativity and uncertainty, fear and promise. Time in-between, time in transition, time between point A and point B.

These are days which awaken the dreamer.

As I’ve been running more and more, I’ve spent more time wearing the high-tech breathable fabrics. The simple cotton t-shirt has been replaced by CoolMax, Dri-Fit, and a host of other thrice patented stuff. Besides being functional, the clothes are also amazingly comfortable; I wish someone would make non-athletic clothing with them.

I inflicted Waterworld on Varia this evening. A decade of nostalgia seems to have scrubbed away the numerous imperfections like so many barnacles. I am infuriated because as disappointing as the film is, bits of a magnificent concept shine through. If the budget had been cut by about 80% and given to the French it would have had a bright future, perhaps as an intense psychological tale of futuristic survival and adaptation in adverse conditions.

O, ponderous, plodding day! Sliding between irritable and melancholy has been the order of things; mayhap I will have a mood swing-set installed in the imaginary backyard.

My current reading material is The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. It is making me feel much more focused on issues of grammar and usage; at the same time it feeds the flames of my everlasting love for commas and semicolons. This follows the first two novels in Herbert’s Dune series, which I haven’t read for over a decade. There is some juxtaposition between macro-galactic politics and minutiae of grammar.

As all trips must, mother’s has finished and she has returned home to Texas. It was a delightful visit, and makes me wish I could see her (and my father) more often. Ah, the woes of modern living. In any case the house is ours again and I am free to, if I am so inclined, engage in a host of unsavory activities such as stomping around in my underwear and drinking milk straight from the carton.

Returning to work, I’ve found myself struggling to get into the proper head-space. I’m sure that a few more applications of nose to grindstone will clear that up.

Those who have been out with me know that when I say that something is only a “couple of blocks” away, they had best break out the hiking boots and lace up. That being said, there was lots of walking today; enough at least to make me wish I had worn some more substantial shoes than my Birkenstocks. Fortunately, mom is still in one piece and I should be able to deposit her at the airport tomorrow, secure with the knowledge that she will be able to make it to the gate on steady (but well exercised) feet.

I blame the weather and a lack of a strict itinerary. With such glorious weather outside it was very easy to go just a little bit farther to show her this building or that shop. After three or four hours of wandering we returned home, well fed and laden with various odds and ends.

My mother is here for the weekend, which is a rare treat. Today found us traipsing about Boston, walking and eating and talking. It was a beautiful day to be out, sunny and breezy, just warm enough. Showing the city off causes me to see it anew and makes me appreciate it all the more.

We were rather taken by a work of art near the Boston Public Library. The piece consisted of a number of huge vertical canvas rectangles, each one depicting a various mythological/religious symbol or figure. What was striking was that not only were the Big Religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism) represented, but a vast number of older, darker ones. I was especially delighted by a rather grim painting of Chernobog, black god of the Slavs, standing on a mountain of skulls with a sacrificial victim.

Our building has eleven floors.

Today, on the elevator, one of my co-workers said to me “are you going all the way up to eleven?”

“Yes,” I said, “I am going all way up to eleven.”

The PowerMac has rejoined the studio display at the Apple Store for extended testing. Despite the fact that I reproduced the error in front of the Apple tech, the monitor was returned from the factory with no problem found. Apparently the problem only manifests after 48-72 hours of operation, which makes 24 hour tests decidedly not useful.

If these tests fail to reproduce the problem… well, I don’t want to think about it quite yet. Besides this increasingly bizarre monitor issue the computer works well.

I do wonder if my probability gnome has moved from the ambient music profession into the exciting field of technology.

I spent quite a bit of today listening to the audiobook of Xenophon’s Anabasis. It is enthralling, packed to the brim with wit, action and intrigue. It makes me feel soft and decadent listening to the exploits of hard and courageous men who lived and died by their arms over two thousand years ago.

When the narrator reaches a passage that I had translated for Ancient Greek class at university, my eyes light up with glee. I must have translated dozens upon dozens of passages from this book, but never have I taken in the work in its entirety.

The first few chapters of my introductory Greek text taught us not to say things like “Which way to the acropolis?” or “My name is Clearchus and I am from Sparta. Which city-state are you from?” but rather “They pillaged and burnt the wagons of the queen” and “The general ordered his men to cross the river.” Having now listened to over five hours of Achaean hijinks and hearing how many times words in the Chapter 1 vocabulary list are represented, I can see the wisdom in it after all these years.

An exercise in silliness from 1996, rescued from my ancient Geocities website, tags and all.

The original version was a poster I plastered all over campus, and was created in 1994 or 1995.

Because I could not stop for bread,
it kindly stopped for me.
Au Bon Pain held but just ourselves
And a cashier named Marie.

Ahem. Is this muse on? tap tap.

Good night, folks. I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your cow.

Cleaned pantry!

Converted Box Room into Storage Room With Scads Of Printed Material by removing the boxes (folded up and put into other boxes)! Have scads of printed material to sift through tomorrow night!

Enjoyed best milkshake of my entire life thanks to lovely wife!

Moisturized head!

Used up quota of exclamation points for the week!

I ran fourteen miles this morning, a personal record. It was, until the last few minutes, a glorious experience. The passage of time has a strange pattern on a run over two hours; some minutes drag on forever, but miles can also pass under your feet seemingly instantly. My mind, not having to concentrate on any complex task (the act of running is not all that hard) , is free to wander off into the ether.

Of course, once I stop moving, things change dramatically. For the rest of the day my legs enter the state of righteously (and mildly) sore, and my body is basks in an extended bout of extreme mellowness. I feel good but spent.

So, a Saturday afternoon spent both cooling my heels and preparing for the arrival of my very own mother next weekend.