Home Improvement a grain at a time

I should probably resign from being a male by saying this.

But I hate home improvement projects.

I mean I really hate them. Our day is already packed full of the kids. I mean I literally have a hard

time taking 15 minutes for myself every day I'm home. So throw anything at all on top of just trying toget through the day and household chores such as laundry, the kitchen and feedings, and I'm whipped

by 8 p.m.

But throw a big, frickin', huge pile of sand on top of that, and we're screwed.

And I'm sore.

We had a monster pile delivered to our house today so we could essentially create a big, mongo sandbox in the backyard. It's now our job to shovel that sand into a wheelbarrow and barrow it to the backyard, where we dump the load and start over, etc., etc., etc., until the pile is gone.

I realize this is the kind of thing that a man should love. It's a chance to show how strong and powerful you are by shoveling tons (literally) into a wheelbarrow. I even had my shirt off while working. But it, like most home improvement projects, is simply mindless, hot, numbing work, the kind usually reserved for prisoners or friends you've plied with light beer.

I'm obviously not lazy - anyone who considers running and climbing mountains a fun pastime can't be lazy - but I do resent being put to work like this. I'm really trying to get over it, but this is my flaw as a male. Throw in the fact that I'm hooked on BSG, I got a new cell phone (no, it's not the iPhone, dammit) and I just got the kids' movie done for the year and there's too much temptation to sit on the couch and play. Maybe I should tell Kate I need to go run 10 miles and hide out in the park with my new phone.

I love summer, but the problem with summer is Kate's at home, with the kids, because she's a teacher, and though there aren't many moments of boredom, when the girls are napping, she gets a tad bored and probably finds lots of projects that we suddenly need to do right then. She's already painted the deck and bought a bunch of frames to redo our "family picture wall," as she calls it. She's also talking about painting the house next summer.

If you need me, I'll be under the bed in the basement.

Seriously, I'm more comfortable with our other, more important home improvement project, and that's project potty. Times two. The girls have been out of diapers for a week, and surprisingly, they're doing great. Already they're telling us when they need to go. Diapers have their advantages - after we got our cell phones, Allie told me she needed to potty, and we were by the food court, and everyone, including me, was hungry, and the bathrooms looked a half-mile away.

But I haven't changed a shitty diaper in at least a week. I honestly forgot how nice it is to not have feces on your hands. It's really is kinda nice. It took Jayden at least three years before we started to even think about potty training, but the girls, because they're girls, I guess, are kicking ass.

Maybe we should throw a party. I'll try anything to get out of shoveling sand Saturday.

The final countdown

I approached this year's goal of going under 22 minutes in a 5K for the first time ever with a strange sensation in my gut.

I actually thought I could do it.

The goal of going under 22 minutes was actually a goal for three years, sort of one of those life lists, like running a mile under 6 minutes. But it seemed like some faraway obstacle, something that only elite runners and athletes achieve. I didn't put myself in those categories. I was merely above average.

I first started running races as seriously as I could take them in 2005. That meant I went for a time and tried to get a lot of sleep before the event (which, as you loyal readers know, isn't really up to me) and even kept my weight to below what I weighed my senior year in high school. That first year, I was thrilled to run the July 4 5K in 23:15. I ran it the next year in 22:34, and that seemed like a ceiling. The twins hadn't been born yet. I predictably bombed out of the 2007 July 4 5K a month after the girls were born. I simply had no energy.

But later that year, on an impossibly fast course (most of it was downhill), I ran 22:01, just two seconds from the golden standard. In fact, they had me at 21:53, until I discovered that they got the times out of order and I went up the race director to correct the mistake. If I was going to reach that goal, I was going to do it honestly.

So I didn't get under 22 minutes, but that told me someday I might.

When people ask me if I'd rather run a half marathon or a 5K, they're always puzzled by my answer. It's always a half marathon. 13.1 over 3.1. Yep. Because though 13.1 is a bear, 3.1 is a bitch.

5Ks are by far the most intense thing I've ever done. Yes, I've climbed many mountains, some of them dangerous. But those are marathons, not sprints. And in fact though I'm faster than the average climber by quite a bit, many of the elite climbers who I climbed with could easily leave me in the dust because speed was never a priority.

Speed, suddenly, was a priority when I started running, and I had to adjust. I'm still adjusting. Half marathons, even at the 8-minute-per-mile pace I set for them, are a lot more like climbing a mountain. They're a long adventure, something you breathe hard, controlled breaths over for hours before you reach your goal. Plus the pressure's off. If you have to tie your shoe, take a gel or get a drink, you can without blowing your race.

5Ks are fast, insane little races where one slip can ruin your time. They don't have to be this way, of course, but try telling that to the little competitive demon inside me. I typically gasp my way through a 5K. The idea is to find the edge and stay there. Maybe even push it a bit. They're hard and uncomfortable and can get the best of anyone: One of my best friends, a 50-year-old woman who has run at least 35 marathons and probably, I'm not kidding, hundreds of 5Ks, threw up at this year's race.

But last fall, I experienced a breakthrough. I was running times that I didn't ever think were possible three years ago. My goal was to break 48 minutes in a 10K, and without a whole lot of effort, I broke 47 instead. I ran nearly 8-minute miles for the first time last fall in a half marathon, destroying my best time by nearly four minutes. I began running 5Ks smoothly even when I was regularly busting the 22:30 mark.

So why couldn't I break 22 minutes? I couldn't find an excuse. July 4 would be my first 5K of the

year, and I knew this was the year to do it.

And then the kids got sick.

We went to Kid Rock Friday night. The tickets were free, and I wasn't going to turn down a fun night

with my wife only because of a race. When we got home, the cries started around 11 p.m. Allie was

hot, then Andie was hot, then Jayden was warm, then hot, then one needed to be held. This went on

until 2 a.m. By the time I finally slipped into sleep, it was 2:30 a.m., and the alarm clock was set to

go off three hours later. I woke up a half before that.

Bye, bye, confidence.

I went to the race early, ate my meal and started to warm up, but deep down, I knew it probably wasn't going to happen. I don't have the athletic ability to make up for being tired even before the race starts. Even as my friends reassured me that the sleep the night before the race doesn't matter as much as the sleep leading up to it, I felt empty inside. I was tired and I knew it.

However, I may not have pure athletic ability, but I do have a talent for one thing, and it's gotten me on many peaks on bad days: sucking it up. I can suck it up with the best of them. Right before the gun went off, I decided I really wasn't that tired and would just try my best. Screw the excuses.

The thing is, you don't even know how you're going to feel until you start running a 5K. I felt a little sick, pretty tired and winded. But I also felt OK. When I crossed the first mile in 6:40, I still felt OK.

I suppose I have two demons inside me. The first is the competitive one who pushes me beyond

what I think is possible. The second I'll call couch potato demon. That's the one who loves to play

poker, drink and watch hours of "Battlestar Galactica." They were at war by the second mile as I

approached the hill.

"Just walk," couch potato whispered. "No one would blame you. You got less than three hours of sleep. You could at least slow down."

In the past year, I've researched different ways to beat the mental game of running fast much more than the physical side. I wouldn't think someone who has climbed nearly as many mountains as I have would be weak. I've had to battle heights, cold, dehydration, storms, sleep deprivation and altitude sickness, but the intensity of 5Ks appears to be my biggest weakness. I've worked on blocking out all thought. It's worked. But I still have a lot of work to do.

Just get to the top of the hill, I told myself as I huffed and puffed my way up it, trying to maintain enough speed so I'd have a chance at under 22 minutes and feeling like I was failing miserably.

When I made the turn and started downhill, I thought I'd blown it, and then a friend slipped beside me.

This guy had run 21:57 in last year's July 4 5K, and I knew he was on pace to do it again.

Don't lose him, I said to myself.

I stuck right by him and almost passed him a couple times. I also wanted the race to end in the worst way. I was panting like a dog, my legs were dead and I was tense. Then I looked at my GPS.

6:45, 21:05, 2.97.

That was my pace, my time and my mileage. I had a chance. My friend took off. So did I.

By the end, I was dying, but I sprinted as the last 10 seconds ticked away. And then I crossed the line.

21:59.

I pumped my fist in the air as I gasped for air.

Some of my running friends came over to say congratulations. They were the elite group who finished well ahead of me.

And now, finally, I could stand with them.

Stats: 21:59, 94/1,300 (estimated), 7:05 pace, 15th/89 in my age group.

A shot of confidence

I'd never really wished I had more than two arms until the twins were born. Then, for a while, that's all I wanted.

Sure, there would be drawbacks. That'd be kind of awkward in airplane seats. I'd have to get a tailor. And I don't know what I'd do with the third arm while I was running. Maybe it could hold a water bottle or something.

The last few days we've gotten the next best thing.

Mom was in town.

You don't really appreciate your mother until you go to college. But you don't really really really (I'd add more but you get the idea) appreciate your mother until she becomes Grandma.

Man. Someone to help with the dishes, do laundry and pick up the house is huge. Imagine if you invited someone over to your house and the only person's job was to pull things off your counters and your shelfs and dig around in a toy box and leave stuff on the floor. We have three of those. Except we have to feed them too and get them juice 50 times a day. Each. I wouldn't do that for an adult pulling stuff off my bookshelf.

Housekeeping is maybe the hardest part of having kids for me. At the end of the day, I'm so exhausted, all I want to do is watch a show (currently addicted to Battlestar Galactica, do not spoil my fun or I will send a cylon all over your ass and not the good looking ones either), read or maybe even play poker. I don't want to pick up, wash out juice cups or clean the kitchen.

Mom did a lot of that. Makes me wonder if I should sell a little dope in order to pay for a housekeeper.

Anyway, Mom also helped pick up the kids and love them, and that's also something we don't have enough hands for all the time.

But the most important thing Mom did was something she said to me right before she left.

She said, "You two are doing a great job."

I have always doubted my ability as a parent. I think I do OK, but I tend to focus on what I'm not doing. It's what I do. I don't play with them enough or love them enough. I don't talk to them enough. I'm not patient enough.

Mom told me that not only would she be pulling her hair out half the time, that she thought we were doing great.

I know. Mom's say those things. But I could tell she meant it.

I need those boosts. Maybe one day I'll believe them.

The performer, the legend, the pariah

I always thought Michael Jackson would have been better off dying young.

I said it to anyone who would give me five minutes. Had Jackson died after "Thriller," or even after "Bad," he'd be a legend, a God, almost, the way people think of John Lennon or Jim Morrison or Jimi Hendrix. Jackson was a perfect example of an artist who's legacy would have benefited from an early death. Let's look at it another way: What if Morrison was still alive today? The guy would be a freak, a joke, a blithering idiot, probably. Hell, Hendrix might be the same way, as much as it pains me to say that.

But now? Well, it seems cruel that Jackson dies now, when he was planning a comeback that might

have made people think about his music again rather than his plastic surgery or skin color or kids or, of course, the sexual abuse charges that were proven unfounded but unfortunately seemed to fit.

I was pleased to see most of the coverage I saw last night focused on exactly that, his killer music, his

groundbreaking videos, his incredible dancing, his aura. It's always funny about death: Jackson was

vilified in the media in the last few years, many times rightly so, and his music or his legacy never

seemed to come up, but now all people can do is say nice things about him. Why do we do that

when they're no longer around to hear those things?

I said he'd be better off dead because I got tired of defending Jackson the artist and trying to get

others to separate his amazing music from the freak show that he'd become. For one night, the night of his death, it was easy to do. People talked about "Beat It" and "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" and "Rock With You" and "Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough."

Sad thing is, his death comes too late for the adulation to last.

Is there any hope?

I was asking Kate who's side she was on. 

"You have to pick a side," I said.

OK, I'll admit it. I was trying to get her fired up, and lately, nothing got her quite as fired up as "Jon and Kate Plus 8." Nothing insignificant anyway. I have this thing about arguing. I kinda like it. It's a sport to me. But I try to choose things like "Jon and Kate" to argue about with Kate because that way, if it ever gets too heated, we can pause and remind ourselves that we're arguing about something completely stupid, like whether "The Notebook" is a good movie (Kate's view) or a crap-fest (my view).

Kate just looked at me and said, "I think it's kinda sad."

I don't really get into celebrity gossip. I am a serious journalist, people, and so I don't really care about who Megan Fox is dating, lucky bastard that he is. But I found myself scouring the Web searching for any news on Jon or Kate as soon as the news broke about his affair. This was, after all, kind of personal.

Kate and I started watching the show for reasons other than, "OMGtheyhave8kidshowdotheydoitIwannasee!" We watched it for therapy.

It was more than a reminder that things could be worse, though, at that time, we were both carrying around a baby at all hours, so that was part of it. It was a way to deal with our situation as well. Some of things Kate said really resounded with us. When she talked about the two snapping at each other, she said the situation they faced was so stressful that sometimes it was your partner's job to be a sounding board. Kate eventually took that way too far, of course, one reason it's hard for me to blame Jon for straying if in fact he did, but that stuck with us and made us understand each other's bad moments.

The show was a blueprint, in a way, on how to survive multiples. And I know that sounds harsh, but I'm sorry, those first couple of years of raising twins or triplets or a litter can really damage your relationship if you let it. As stupid as it sounds now, "Jon and Kate" was part of the solution to prevent that.

Now? Well, now I have to admit it makes me wonder, though it seems to me that the two are splitting up for celebrity and entertainment reasons. It strikes me that their kids don't seem to be listed as a reason any longer. They're stars now, and stars break up. Kate's pretty wrapped up in the  spotlight and Jon would rather shun it so he can focus on 23-year-olds.

I hope they remember to be parents. I wish they would just stop the show. I'm no longer watching it. I don't want to see snippy comments, evil looks and frightened children. 

That's the thing here. Now what's left is a bunch of scared and worried kids who won't get to see their parents together any longer. 

Kate's right. It's kinda sad.

Crap

When I think of today's garage sale - our first as a married couple, so you know you've arrived - two pop culture icons come to mind.

The first is George Carlin for his brilliant monologue on "Stuff." It's a darkly accurate take on how our lives are ruled by accumulating

stuff. And the second, of course, is from last year's Pixar classic "WALL-E." OK, so we know I'm a Pixarfan, and that's not just because I'm surrounded by it (mostly "Cars"). There are messages in those cute little cartoons, and Wall-E's was another dark comment on all our crap. In fact, the crap DID overtake our lives, as Carlin seemed to suggest it would.

Today I got a taste of what that life would be like, as most of our weekend was consumed with our crap. We dropped the kids off Friday at Kate's parents, had dinner at Red Lobster (well, come on, days without the kids are as rare as a drink of cold water in a desert) and then attacked the crap.

In fairness to us, crap is unavoidable as a parent. In fact, you're not really a parent unless you've got truckloads of toys, bottles, tiny toys, trucks and garbage bags full of clothes. And as the kids got older, the crap flowed downhill, as it always does, to the basement.

Now when we were looking for a new house a couple years ago - we needed a larger place, and that was BEFORE we knew Kate was going to have TWO sisters for Jayden, not just one - I secretly wanted a finished basement. I wanted a place for myself. And before the girls were born, that's exactly what I had, a room and a place where I could go late at night and chill. That changed after they were born. I had to stay upstairs even late at night to listen for their cries while playing online poker, and every smidge of space downstairs was swallowed by old kid crap.

So I was grinning from ear to ear, even if it took hours to gather up all our crap to sell at the garage sale. We literally had a shitload of it - it took up all our garage - and not all of it was kid crap, I'm sorry to say. There was a foot spa. An old Game Boy. An old Walkman. Videotapes. Old movies. A couple VCRs. An old fan. A printer for our digital camera. All crap we thought we really needed but didn't use very much.

There really is nothing like a garage sale, and yet they all seem to be alike.

We got up at 6 a.m. - yes, the one day we didn't have kids, we still had to get up with the sunrise - and sure enough, people showed up at our house around 6:45 a.m., or an hour before we were scheduled to start.

I felt a bit violated watching all these people go through all our old crap and even a little more insulted when they turned up their nose at it or, as so many did, just drove by our house. I couldn't believe others didn't want our crap, even as I was trying to get rid of it.

Yet I was quick to bargain with anyone because I also wanted to feel good about the fact that

our crap was going to a good home, kind of the thing people tell themselves when they're

giving up a dog or cat.

I had several of these conversations:

"How much is this?"

"Um...how about $2?"

"What about $1.75?"

"Um, OK."

A quarter?

By the end, after our sale ended, we still had some crap left. And so I marked a table and an old, small bookshelf FREE. Those were snapped up. Then Kate marked another box full of crap FREE and a woman came by to claim that. People love free crap, even if that's exactly what it is.

As I was shopping at Target the day before our sale, I kept thinking about Wall-E as he scooped up all the crap people left behind. Then I saw a snow cone maker for only $29.99. The kids would like that, I thought, and I could have a low calorie dessert at night. I was close to buying it.

And then it hit me. This is exactly the kind of crap that people buy all the time. It's exactly the kind of thing that we'd probably sell at our next garage sale after using it only a couple times.

And for now, after this weekend's efforts, the basement is reasonably clear of crap.

It felt good. I'd like to keep it that way for as long as possible.

I left the snow-cone maker on the shelf.

Why the Dungeons and Dragons get up?

You know I love metal, I mean really love it. It's by far my favorite form of music.

It's badass music. It helps me through races. It pumps me up when I need it. It's helped me work out a lot of frustration with the kids. I KNOW I run faster and lift harder when I listen to it.

But, man, what's with those videos?

I mean, really guys? Why MUST so many of you wear those Medieval outfits and pretend you're in the winter holding off the Vikings or whatever? I mean, come on. I get that your music is all tough and all that but to me, those outfits don't exactly say "tough" to me. "Gay" really is the word that comes to mind.

Sure, I can appreciate a good sword fight like the next guy. "Kill Bill?" Loved it.

But I can't help but think about Dungeons and Dragons and those strange Renaissance festivals where people eat turkey legs and dress up like maidens or queens and kings or whores and there's always a guy named puke or snot who acts like he wants all his teeth knocked out by an angry punch.

If you are one of those people, hey, I don't mean to offend you. They're kinda cool. But I also can't help but giggle when I see that.

And I'm not supposed to giggle when I'm hearing a metal song, no?