Well, we are into day 4 of packing up here before leaving Southeast AK. Oh, that's right, I haven't mentioned that we're leaving next week to move across country. So during this week, I'm trying to head off a cardiac event Saturday, pack out from our house, tie off any loose ends at work, say goodbye to friends and get on the ferry. I've also decided to hire a dwarf to come through the house at various times (0200, 0800, 1337, etc) blowing an air horn or a vivuzela depending on if our neighbors are home (I like to think I am a good neighbor-despite the whole "hairy zucchini" incident). It's strange, but I have noticed I'm getting gray hair for the first time.
The workouts continue, I was able to run Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. I was going to play golf at Sea Mountain Golf Course on Friday (www.seamountaingolf.com), but the vagaries of union labor make me think I will be packing up the house on Friday afternoon. Should be sweet.
I truly appreciate the interest you have shown as blog readers, supporters of the 6017 Memorial fund drive or seekers of free internet entertainment in this last month and a half or so while I prepare for the run. During this period, I have mentioned a character...Actually, if you are not in your thirties, it is a mythical beast-if you are in your thirties and usually a man, though if you are a woman, possession of what I am about to describe is tragically funny-but I digress. If you are in your thirties and USUALLY a man, you become aware of the force of nature you possess RIGHT IN YOUR BODILY PERSON.
Of course, I am speaking of the wild nostril hair.
I have mentioned the Golden Nostril Hair about 6 times in this blog (OK, it has been mentioned in 6 drafts of this blog (quit laughing, I DO TOO draft and re-write this blog before publishing it)). Well, it so happens that gold is the color of my special talent-a yellowish hue that glints in the sun depending on the angle of my head and my relationship with the sun (which in SE AK is sometimes spotty at best).
It seems to be a milepost of aging, but I swear that I did not have the concerns surrounding unchecked nose hair growth 10 years ago. Now, I am forced (by my wife, who usually starts the self-consciousness by not saying anything except staring at it, much like your dog stares at you at the foot of your bed or when you get out of the shower...what? that doesn't happen to you? Must be just me-I am, after all, a specimen) to undergo eye-watering bouts of clipping and pulling individual nostril hairs which are migrating south out of my nose much like a Canadian retiree migrates from Quebec to S. FLA in November. And much like our Canadian retiree, these hairs go all akimbo and refuse to cooperate when they arrive in South Florida. At any one time I have at least one rhino like horn hair poking its way out, fighting for some kind of freedom ideal (what does a wild nostril hair hope for? To ride a horse? Surf? Play bunco?).
Because of my inability to undergo the extreme pain involved with plucking said hairs I engage in a type of doomed COIN strategy by tucking them back into the nostril. This works for about an hour and then the necessity of breathing allows the little rapscallion to go free again. Eventually, I must bite the bullet (one time literally) and use tweezers or until it broke, an electric nose hair trimmer to clip the offenders.
SIDEBAR: I know, having an electric nose hair trimmer is probably one of the reasons why the world despises the USA. Americans! So decadent, so lazy, so weak they have to invent an electric nose hair trimmer-ridiculous...you know you are jealous-especially everyone in the Middle East with your luxuriant facial hair growth. SIDEBAR OVER.
So after much gnashing of teeth and mental anguish, eventually, the Golden Nostril Hair is clipped. Everything is fine for a week or 10 days, and then the incontrovertible rule espoused by Cosmo Kramer about shaving is proven. Once you clip or trim a hair, it grows back thicker. I am then thrown back into battle against a stronger, more cunning foe. These are the problems we have.
I will try to give you a summary of how the run goes on Saturday, perhaps with video. If you are interested in donating to the 6017 Memorial, please go to www.6017memorial.org.
Marty Martenson, good luck getting these minutes back.
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