Dearest Rachel –
I hope that you’ll forgive me if this morning, my letter turns out to be considerably more fragmented than the last couple I’ve sent you. After committing more than four thousand words to… not paper, exactly… text, I suppose? it shouldn’t come as any surprise that anything I might say now is unlikely to be anywhere near as organized as yesterday. If nothing else, those words were recording the events of the day, while these are little more than a collection of random thoughts.
Even my dreams last night, such as they were, felt like little more than a random slideshow of images from yesterday. And while most of them appeared to be images of the things I saw and did, sun looked to be part of my imagination. I couldn’t tell you which ones, or why I knew this to be the case – it was almost as if some of them appeared to have been created by artificial intelligence, except this was rather my own natural intelligence (or at least, imagination).
I will say that I woke up sore in a way that I don’t normally do after having exerted myself the day before (by working out, or otherwise engaging in manual labor). I’m not sure if it was all the walking around, or even the extended periods of standing – yes, I had brought the chair with me, but I’d only been able to use it when I first set up at the first mile checkpoint, and even then, it was only useful for waiting for the race to start; once the cyclists and runners started to go by, there was no sitting down to wait for those I was looking for to pass – but there is a rather gnawing ache in my lower legs. If Erin is dealing with anything remotely akin to this, I really wish I could get back into practice with my massage therapy skills for her sake. Unfortunately, I can’t really do myself much good on that front; it’s kind of like tickling oneself, to be honest. You can’t feel all the good you might otherwise do for someone else.
Of course – even as I’m not entirely sure how it could be connected – there might be a certain element of the fact that I actually made a point of fasting yesterday (well, apart from that cup of coffee, and lots of ice water once I got home) like I’ve started to make a practice of on Sundays when I’m not going out with the family. It seems reasonable to expect that exertion without replenishment might have its own set of adverse effects. I’ve been told that the reverse can scatter one’s thoughts – consider the various dream sequences from the Peanuts comics that were attributed to eating pizza too late at night – so wouldn’t a lack of fuel cause the brain to go a little crazy in its own way? Then again, that might make sense when it doesn’t know when and where its next meal will be; mine knows full well that we have a reasonably-stocked pantry and refrigerator to rely upon this morning, and in any event, going without for so long was its idea in the first place.
I will admit to a certain mild disappointment, too, that it didn’t bring the effects I had hoped for. I had rather hoped to break through the next milestone, or at least, achieve a second coup strike. Sure, that’s a fair amount of ground to make up – I woke up yesterday morning back at my license weight, meaning that I’d surrendered five pounds between two meals eaten since Saturday’s workout – and I did make it back more than halfway, but considering my expectations, I’m not as pleased with the result as I’d like to be.
There’s also the fact that I’ve been lying in the bedroom all night, which as you know isn’t connected to the central heating system. While the drop in temperature that comes with fall was a welcome thing for the runners yesterday (imagine if the weather from the week before had been in effect, and they were running in eighty-degree-plus temperatures, with the sun beating down on them! There would have likely been a lot more dropping like the individual I saw in Chinatown), it’s less than comfortable in here. Oh, between my thick terry-cloth robe and the covers on the bed, most of me is cozy enough, but the exposed bits are still a bit chilly. And while I’ve tried to figure out how to start the wall-mounted heater, I’m not entirely sure I want it running full blast non-stop just yet – and I know from last winter that that’s what I’m likely to get out of it. Perhaps I should schedule a checkup for it soon, just to be safe.
And who knows? Maybe I’ll just feel better after a nice, hot shower; it’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed one first thing in the morning. These day, I just don’t do that much anymore; washing up is for after I’ve undergone some strenuous routine, and need to clean myself up afterwards. That’s not going to be a thing today; if I undergo anything strenuous, it will mostly just have to do with exercising my mind on one computer or another, as opposed to physically working out. It may well be that the shower will work out the kinks in my legs, but I’m certainly not about to abuse them any further today, that’s for sure.
I just have to wait until Logan is done with his shower, though, and maybe even is out of the house. Got to let the hot water replenish, after all.
Anyway, that’s been my morning here, honey. Keep an eye on me over the rest of the day, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 