The laws have changed.
Las Vegas. It was a little under a year since we had all seen each other after graduation. I would have liked to think that in the meantime I had matured (not really), or at least embarked on some noticeable and profound post-collegiate path (not really). Discouragingly, however, all my friends could fixate on were my newly acquired jeans.
Corduroys had been a sort of uniform for me throughout college. Little did I know how intimately people associated this fabric with my identity. It was like they had crystalized their earliest impressions of me and any deviation from this core nucleus of perceptions was promptly condemned. Denim was thus an affront on their conception of my authentic self.
Not that I am any less guilty of committing the same crimes.
One of my dearest friends started college as an Adbuster-reading Midwestern whose wardrobe consisted of clothes he probably found in his grandfathers attic. The first time I saw him return from a shopping trip to the Gap, a little piece of me died.
Do we reluctantly accept change in others?
As you have heard me bemoan countless time on the blog, the past year has been one of loss. Lacking any direction, I decided to rebuild my life from the ground up.
Take a poll of my friends and ask them what they think of my dietary and exercise habits; I am sure their responses would not be flattering.
If you were to go back in time a few years, catch past-Logan by means of some ether-drenched Blur t-shirt and dissect his stomach, the contents spilling out of his digestional system would probably have a uniformly beige color. Nowadays I am eating healthier. While in Chicago, I cooked myself strictly vegetarian meals, and my plates have become infinitely more colorful with the addition of fruits and vegetables to my diet.
I have even started to run again. When I was younger, I was a sprinter (it may surprise some to know that I once earned a silver medal in the Utah Summer Games) but I was never a long-distance runner because I did not have the endurance for longer races. Catching pneumonia certainly did not help my lung capacity. As such, I was sick with apprehension when I laced up my running shoes this summer. My performance was embarrassing at first, but now I am proudly running a couple of miles every day -- unexceptional for most, but an accomplishment in my mind.
Last month while I was in New York, Jeremy, Dave and I began our day by running along the Long Island beach. Dave and Jeremy are ultimate frisbee players and running is a large part of their athletic lives (or at least one of those nuclei of identity that I associate with them). It would have been easy for them both to cynically trash my awkward attempts at getting into shape; comments which would have been damaging to my fragile exercise esteem. But instead, they were nothing but supportive. As we were jogging, Dave turned to me and said, "I am running along the beach with Logan. This is awesome." They allowed me to change. And it meant the world to me.
In June 2007, Ian Lindsay and I are going to run the Salt Lake City half-marathon. It is an ambitious goal, something I could have never dreamed of doing at any other point in my life.
I think that is reason alone to do it.
Corduroys had been a sort of uniform for me throughout college. Little did I know how intimately people associated this fabric with my identity. It was like they had crystalized their earliest impressions of me and any deviation from this core nucleus of perceptions was promptly condemned. Denim was thus an affront on their conception of my authentic self.
Not that I am any less guilty of committing the same crimes.
One of my dearest friends started college as an Adbuster-reading Midwestern whose wardrobe consisted of clothes he probably found in his grandfathers attic. The first time I saw him return from a shopping trip to the Gap, a little piece of me died.
Do we reluctantly accept change in others?
As you have heard me bemoan countless time on the blog, the past year has been one of loss. Lacking any direction, I decided to rebuild my life from the ground up.
Take a poll of my friends and ask them what they think of my dietary and exercise habits; I am sure their responses would not be flattering.
If you were to go back in time a few years, catch past-Logan by means of some ether-drenched Blur t-shirt and dissect his stomach, the contents spilling out of his digestional system would probably have a uniformly beige color. Nowadays I am eating healthier. While in Chicago, I cooked myself strictly vegetarian meals, and my plates have become infinitely more colorful with the addition of fruits and vegetables to my diet.
I have even started to run again. When I was younger, I was a sprinter (it may surprise some to know that I once earned a silver medal in the Utah Summer Games) but I was never a long-distance runner because I did not have the endurance for longer races. Catching pneumonia certainly did not help my lung capacity. As such, I was sick with apprehension when I laced up my running shoes this summer. My performance was embarrassing at first, but now I am proudly running a couple of miles every day -- unexceptional for most, but an accomplishment in my mind.
Last month while I was in New York, Jeremy, Dave and I began our day by running along the Long Island beach. Dave and Jeremy are ultimate frisbee players and running is a large part of their athletic lives (or at least one of those nuclei of identity that I associate with them). It would have been easy for them both to cynically trash my awkward attempts at getting into shape; comments which would have been damaging to my fragile exercise esteem. But instead, they were nothing but supportive. As we were jogging, Dave turned to me and said, "I am running along the beach with Logan. This is awesome." They allowed me to change. And it meant the world to me.
In June 2007, Ian Lindsay and I are going to run the Salt Lake City half-marathon. It is an ambitious goal, something I could have never dreamed of doing at any other point in my life.
I think that is reason alone to do it.
posted by d l wright at 8/29/2006 10:46:00 PM
7 Comments:
Worst thing, I don't think it ever goes away.
I know some people who still think I play video games all the time. Even though I haven't touch anything besides my DS in more than a year, and my DS in a few weeks. (Not to mention my virtual lack of gaming since 9th grade, but anyway...)
My friends in Colorado still think of me as being the age I was when they moved away from here. (That would be 16... they had quite a hard time believing I could be getting married.)
In my experience, family is the worst about this kind of stuff. Funny to think that the people who "knokw you best" have the hardest time accepting when you make major life changes.
So it goes...
Mad props. And I found those clothes in the garbage, btw.
Although, Mark, in their defence, you did go to E3 last year. ;)
And thanks Goldsmith. Speaking of which, you -- and anyone else who is interested -- are more than welcome to join us on the marathon. It should a blast, and by blast I mean a wonderful exercise in masochism.
Excuse me? I went to E3 in 2004... that's two years ago... Bitch! Next time, why don't you drink a vanilla coke and eat those french toast sticks from Burger King while you check your facts.
Oh please Mark. A year is such a relative term.
That's it Logan... you and me... at the flagpole... at 3 PM.
Mark, I am going to knock you out like Ben after half a bottle of O'douls.
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