small talk with strangers...

one of the more strange things that i have to deal with in life is that i live practically next door to the person who partnered with k to escalate the demise of my marriage...

the cheating was one thing. the fact that he has a wife and kids - and wife and kids who i really like - is another. and the reality that his world is still "together" while i search for a new reality works like a steadily dripping faucet. you can try to pretend it's not there - but it reminds you in your darkest hours...

i took ian to a neighborhood restaurant last night - one that we go to regularly because they have a family dining room complete with a play area for the kids. ian will not sit still in a restaurant, so this place is good for my sanity. but last night, the neighbors were there...

somehow, we've rarely seen eachother over the past 6 months or so. maybe it's the weather. maybe, despite the community planners' attempt at encouraging neighborly interaction, we choose not to be seen. but there he was, with his family, acting very - well - family. and there was no opportunity to ignore the elephant in the corner...

i often wonder how his wife is doing. he's been a cheater, apparently, for a long time. she deserves better, their kids deserve better. i wonder how she does it, wondering every day if there is someone else, and putting on a show for the neighbors and friends that all is good. as difficult as it's been for me to let go, i suspect she's got it much worse...

so last night we exchanged small talk. hello, haven't seen you in a while, what'd you have for dinner. and that makes me perhaps most disappointed of all. because once we were friends who saw eachother all the time, drank beers on the front porch, watched the kids play together in the courtyard. and now we're strangers making small talk, pretending in our own little way that the resentment and the anger and the disappoinment don't linger over our lives every day...

running update...

tonite's run: 4 miles.

mile 1 - 7:59
mile 2 - 7:47
mile 3 - 7:41
mile 4 - 7:35

overall - 32 minutes, 4.15 miles. i'm starting to feel like a runner...

born not to run...

one of my least favorite physical activities is running. not good when you're trying to do a triathlon. so i'm out to change my own perception...

i've never been one who enjoyed running. not when i ran middle-distances in track in high school. (and oh-so-slowly, i might add. i remember breaking 8 minutes in the mile in my last track meet and thinking that was pretty good. oh-so-slow.) not when i ran cross country for one season. (not only was it horrible for my knees at the time - or was that in my imagination? - but i took my 10-year old brother on a training run one time and he out-ran me. oh-so-slow.) not when i led the crew team in pre-season training runs up the trials outside boulder. never, ever enjoyed it...

since my rowing career and it's training regimen ended in 1995, i've probably run fewer than 25 times. there was the summer of '99, when k and i would run the 2.5 mile loop around the park a couple days a week. two or three 25 minute runs through the neighborhood last year. a couple 5ks thrown in for good measure. and that's it. see, i don't like to run...

then my sister asked me a couple months ago to do a triathlon with her in august. and because i figured i need a goal in sight if i'm going to maintain some regularity at the gym, i said yes. but a triathlon means running is involved. and that means i need to get over my distaste for running...

i finally managed to drag my hesitant feet to the treadmill a few weeks ago... and only because all of the bikes were occupied. somehow i managed to run a 5k. and at a reasonable pace. and it didn't feel so horrible...

i've been on the treadmill several times since, with varying results. there was the 30 minute run that became a 15 minute run because i just wasn't feeling it. and then there was last night's run. i felt good and strong from the first step to the last. i ran at an 8:00 pace for the first 15 minutes and 7:44 for the last 15 minutes. overall 3.8 miles in 30 minutes. and it felt pretty good...

i might be able to get used to this running thing. i think i need to get outside, but i'm going to wait until it's comfortably warm-enough (don't think for a second that i'm going to make myself run in the cold - two things i don't like would not lend to a happy chris). and once the triathlon is over maybe i'll turn my attention to running-only events. maybe i'll turn to trail running, because the scenery is so much more inspiring...

and maybe - just maybe - the guy who hated running can redefine himself...

the big three-oh...

happy 30th birthday to both my sister who reads this site and her twin sister who doesn't read this site. i hope you have a great day girls, and i'm sorry i missed the party this weekend. damn ski traffic!

parenting 101...

i know i owe a story about my son and his behavior. but i don't have the energy to put together the clever story that i had in mind about the little boy nearing two and a half years old who is learning to test his boundaries. about a dozen two year olds spending the day together teaching one-another how to kick and to spit and to tackle and to generally not listen to authority. about a teacher who seems under-equipped to handle this two-year old self-teaching and about a mother (and ex-wife) who wants to blame everyone else for her son's new-found aggression rather than accept that our precious little boy could be anything but perfect. and about a dad who is trying to maintain realistic expectations about how children grow and learn, how they need both discipline and patience from their parents, and how to take responsibility for his son's behavior without having wildly high expectations of a two-year old trying to discover his personality. so, instead i'll just give you the quick version:

- ian has displayed some aggressiveness at school lately, including "tackling" and kicking and general boyishness.
- ian's mom can't believe that ian could either a) be aggressive or b) be the only aggressor in the class so she c) freaks out about the aggression and d) blames the teacher and the other children for it.
- i try to maintain a level head, knowing that little boys will be little boys while trying to instill in ian some lessons about proper behavior. like the it's-never-okay-to-kick-a-little-girl-in-the-head lesson. and the spitting-is-only-for-toothpaste-and-only-in-the-sink lesson.

i'm not going to let myself be one of those parents who blames others for his child's indiscretions. i'm also not going to over-react to bouts of uncharacteristic behavior from my son. i just hope his mom and his teacher and the parents of the other students have my back on this one. because i fear i could become the only one with realistic expectations.

up until now, it's been relatively easy raising a well-mannered child in a sheltered environment. but now he's learning to test his boundaries among others who are doing the same, and i have to begin relying on others to do their own little part. and that loss of control is a little discomforting. now is when i learn what kind of parent i'm going to be...

i'm not worried about others disappointing me. i worry about disappointing myself...