January 26, 2018
Stray thoughts from a 10 hour, 43 minute drive to Jackson, MS:
- My hands are at 10 and 2, and as I check my rearview mirror every 13 seconds like Mr. Marion instructed us at Valley High during a half-term Highway Safety course, I catch sight of my new haircut… and specifically how it makes my head look even more ginormous than usual. I want to believe it’s an optical illusion, like when you take two rainbows of the same size and line them up. The one of top looks to be a different size. But the reality is, I just look pudgier than normal and this haircut only heightens my non-, non- non-, non-jowls of a certain age.
- The barber/stylist who cut this hair in the aforementioned style was just coming off a multi-day sick leave for the flu. I wonder if that’s where I caught the germs that have left me feeling sneezy and grumpy and five other rejected miner dwarf names – stuffy, achy, fevery, restless, Kevin. What? A dwarf could be named Kevin. Don’t be like that.
- The temperature control on my car needs a half-degree increment, what I would call the Goldilocks button. One degree higher and it’s too hot; if I turn it down a degree it’s too cold. Ergo, a half degree step would be just right.
- Somewhere in the Florida panhandle I passed from Eastern Time Zone into Central Time Zone. If I were to live in a border town to ANY time zone change, it would be my idea of a living hell. I already loathe the twice yearly daylight savings time adjustments. Imagine how crazed I’d be if I just crossed an imaginary line on a daily basis and gained or lost an hour willy nilly? The *only* benefit would be to start a 10K in the hour ahead time zone and finish in the hour behind so I would in fact have one killer negative split. HA! HA! Runner jokes! They’re niche as niche can be.
- Ed Sheeran is my new Adele, an artist I used to like hearing on the radio but after the bazillionith time ages ago any musical note of any song by that artist causes an involuntary and also entirely voluntary scramble to “seek” another frequency on the dial.
Stray thoughts as I arrived in Jackson, MS.
- I remember this place. I knew I had run the Mississippi Blues Marathon a few years back but as I crested the hill to pull into downtown, skirting the fairgrounds that form part of the marathon route, it all came rushing back. I was dressed as a Blues Brother in a mock suit t-shirt. I should dig up photos and post them next week as a flashback/throwback thing.
- The people here are super friendly and chatty, wanting to know where I’m from and if this is my first trip to Mississippi. I wish I felt better as I would have liked to take their advice and eat and see my way through this place. There’s a new Civil Rights Museum that just opened that I bet is pretty stellar. And in these times of trouble, the more we learn about our history the more likely we are not to repeat the mistakes of the past and build upon positive goals and outcomes… like the notion that all men and women are created equal and have the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I wish we all could remember that and embrace that.
- I actually think I stayed in this exact same hotel years ago. The road looks familiar, albeit with a bit more chains and such having come and gone. Had I not just rummaged through my file folders of past races and tossed them into the trash I probably could’ve looked it up and confirmed it. Isn’t that always the way – as soon as you throw something out you’re destined to want it within moments thereafter.
- I feel like the last time I ran here they gave me a harmonica. Not that I need a harmonica. I can’t even really whistle let alone play a magical musical thing so a harmonica is WAY beyond me.
