Thursday, August 18, 2005

How I spent my August vacation: thoughts on not running in Cairo and other miscellanea...


Lately, I look in the mirror and I think, “Hmm. Looking a bit…haggard.”

That’s just not good. When did I cross over from being young and cute to…haggard? Nobody like haggard. Sounds too much like haggis. And nobody likes haggis (no offense to any Scots or Scots-enthusiasts out there).

As many of you know, I have become, over the course of the past nearly ten years, a bit of a runner. Not because I like running, but because I find it so punishing that when running, I must fully concentrate all my faculties on putting one foot in front of the other and making sure to continue breathing in such a fashion that I do not collapse and die. The upside? I absolutely, positively cannot think about anything else other than running while running. It’s simply a way to escape the rest of life with the added benefit of burning off a few of those ill-thought Krispie Kremes.

I’m not a particularly disciplined runner, nor am I anything approaching “quick.” But I enjoy the challenge of pushing my body to do punishing things like running ten miles around Central Park in single digit temperatures (“What’s that fuzzy-looking white stuff all over your head? Oh, that’s frost…”). I also associate running with the change of seasons, which can be so remarkable on the east coast, particularly in New England. There’s no better way to discern the seasonal shift than stepping out for a run where you necessarily breathe the changing air in deep droughts. That brisk, spicy scent of fall. The clear, crisp whiteness of winter air. The sweet, earthy odor of early spring. The choking wet-blanket humidity of summer that tells me that it’s time to stop running for a few months.

Running outdoors is not really an option in Cairo. I mean, I remember thinking back in 1997 that running outdoors in Paris was absolutely, positively déclassé (“What does that stupid American think she is doing? Puh. Garçon! Another croissant!”), but that’s not even the issue in Cairo; it’s just physically impossible. The heat, humidity, pollution, death traffic and improbable masses of people would make mincemeat out of you within, I’d conservatively estimate, 1/8 of a mile.

So, instead, I languish here in my apartment, sitting in front of my laptop for 10-12 hours a day, picking at the internet, harassing my friends who have real jobs over IM and occasionally contemplating my directionless future. Every few hours, I turn on the television and imagine myself into one of the DIY shows on BBC, making idle chatter with elfin muscle-boy carpenters with spiky hair-do’s while I sew new bed cushions out of hideously rose-patterned curtain material. Because it’s just too fucking hot to venture out for real groceries, I rotate through the three or four restaurants who deliver in my neighborhood; they all know me now and seem continuously amused by my odd housebound bachelorette state (My neighbor came over last night, beer in hand, proclaiming, “What are you doing sitting around here? Don’t you have a boyfriend or something?” Something presumably meaning friends…).

Classes start again in two and a half weeks and I’m really not sure I will make it to September 6th with my sanity intact.

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