“I took a walk on a Saturday night
Fog in the air, just to make my
mind seem clear
Where do I go from here?
Is it my fault? Is it my fault?”
● Imagine Dragons
There’s a tremendously cute
trainer at one of the gyms I frequent (seriously, reminds me of Mardy Fish.
Seems quite nice. Can keep up in banter and actually bests me on occasion,
which is tremendously appealing annoying impressive).
He’s rather incidental to the point here.; anyway, he inquired as to why I was
running indoors on a beautiful day. For all my stringent self-discipline and
ability to propel myself and adhere to a routine, I have never enjoyed running
outdoors by myself. Ever. One would think the scenery would propel me along or
keep me occupied… nope. Perhaps on some level it reminds me of attempting to do
so whilst cobbling along as a horrifically self-conscious, chubby teenager and
feeling slathered in mortification with every step? Or perhaps because I’m a
city mouse with access to cable television and it just seem profoundly foolish
to jog outdoors as a young female. I bike outdoors joyfully, and rollerblade,
and would probably engage in other similar activities like dry-skiing if ever the
opportunity presented itself. Just don’t care to run –
Wait, it just came to me: running
outdoors makes me lonely. Isn’t that peculiar? Wouldn’t you think the solace of
a treadmill and headphones would exacerbate that sentiment to greater extent?
Evidently not. When Montana and I were dating, we ran the trails at Kettle
Morraine, and I absolutely loved it. It’s a breathtakingly beautiful area, with
bridges and ponds and thickets; the entire experience just rocked. He brought
his dog Thor along and we traversed the quasi-wilderness. So I suppose it can
be done. And now it occurs to me that perhaps I ought to have mentioned that in
the course of the afore-mentioned conversation and could have made a running
buddy. But in the presence of a cute guy my mind kind of hazes to white and I
experience difficulty performing such tasks as linking words together and
devising complete thoughts to press through my vocal cords and these kinds of
concepts don’t occur to me until much later, which just annoys the living daylights
out of me. It’s so frustrating to find yourself stumbling over your words and
thoughts for the first few times you’re hanging out with someone because your
shyness just makes you feel as though you’re falling all over yourself with
every action, even though no one else perceives it. Being shy just kind of
sucks all around. I wish one of my friends enjoyed running. I could join one of
those running groups on meetup.com, but the thought of just turning up and
jumping in with a pack of perfect strangers is overwhelmingly imposing.
But, back to Andy Roddick, whom I
did not specifically mention but the thought process ricocheted from the cute
guy to Mardy Fish to his friend Andy Roddick and you all need to just stay with
the tour group, people. I miss him at press conferences. He
retired literally the year I started ardently following
(obsessing over) ATP tennis. I missed his entire career. Years and
years of snotty remarks. Sigh. Rafa had better stick around for a long, long
time. I cannot fathom what I’d do without him. But Djoker can retire any day,
now. No, really. Run along, twerp.
Also, doesn’t the universe owe
David Ferrer a Slam by this point? He’s right up there with the Big Four. I would
pin him above Murray any day. I mean, naturally, don’t deprive Rafa of another
title – but perhaps one of those that the fates would have allotted to Djoker
could instead fall his way?
How did I get here? No idea. Story
of my life. In any event, I love tennis. Less than a month until the
French Open! Woot!
