Monday, November 05, 2007

I don't know if I can even run for 26.2 seconds.

The differences between myself and the folks who run the New York City marathon are legion, but I think the following example best exemplifies Difference #1:

Saturday night, I was at a party. Gorgeous apartment, excellent people, Orangina. Life was good. A few of us were talking about the marathon, which was to take place Sunday morning. I geeked out, of course: Marathon Day is my favorite day of the year, the day when New York energy is at its best and the leaves are peaking and the air is crisp and everyone, even the yahoos who just ran nearly 30 miles, is in a good mood. So during my not-so-extemporaneous rhapsodizing about how I get out of bed and make it to mile seven's sidelines by 9 a.m. every marathon morning to cheer people's names I can't pronounce, I realized something.

That on Saturday morning, despite all the good intentions I had to get. stuff. done. early., I hit the snooze button on my alarm clock for two hours and 15 minutes.

And that in the same span of time, in two hours and 15 minutes on Sunday, certain people will have finished running an entire marathon.

And thus, by virtue of the transitive property, I cannot get out of bed in the time it takes someone to run a fucking marathon.

"Don't hate yourself," one of my coworkers said today when I shared.

"No, I'm not going to have an existential dilemma about the whole thing," I said, "but that doesn't mean I still don't feel like a huge loser."

I did go home after completing my annual cheer duty to do two and a half miles on the treadmill. I won't tell you how much of it I walked, but damn those yahoos, they inspire you to get you off your ass — no matter how long it takes you to roll out of bed.

Labels: , ,

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't feel bad Marla Garla - Katie Holmes ran the marathon and she's still, well, Katie Holmes.

12:07 PM  
Blogger Marla said...

This is very, very true. Thank you for the perspective.

I do have a theory that Ms. Holmes did not, in fact, run the marathon, though. I cite the following reasons:

1. Unless you are completely boobless, no woman can run two feet without wearing some kind of bra. Lisa said that even the elite runners, who are flat as boards, still wear running bras. Katie wore a whole lotta nothing, and hence, all those nipply photos, where one boob is pointing eastward, I believe.

2. Photographers follow the woman everywhere, but in not one photo is she running, training, or even wearing any shoes other than heels. It's said she set up a gym with treadmills in their Berlin hotel room, but can you really adequately train for a marathon just running on treadmills? Maybe you can, but should you? Running outside is so hugely different from running on a treadmill that it's too bizarre that she'd finish up the race looking that good after not having run outside.

3. In those photos of her at the finish line, she doesn't appear to be sweating. I have a theory that she started the race, and after two miles, when everyone else was getting in their zones and nobody had recognized her yet, she gave her shoes with the tracking chip to someone else who ran the race for her and then gave her her shoes back so she could cross the finish line.

4. Tom Cruise does not like sweaty girls.

I apparently have no faith in the human condition. It wasn't until Suri was actually born and photographed that I believed Katie actually gave birth to her (I still don't believe Tom is the dad, though). I know she ran the marathon; people who were there from work did see her. But still. Everything that surrounds her is just weird.

Which leads me back to your initial point: We're dealing with, well, Katie Holmes.

1:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

did you spend the entire day and night watching the marathon? i mean, it took katie like 7 hours to finish. no offense, but don't you have anything/anyone better to do?

2:57 PM  
Blogger Marla said...

Well, I certainly didn't have to spend my day waiting to see with my own eyes that Katie Holmes crossed the finish line to come to any of my shallow conclusions. That's what the paparazzi are for. I spent roughly an hour and a half watching the marathon in Brooklyn as they ran past my street. My Katie Holmes theories are based on seeing exactly three photographs of her at the finish line while I was at work on Monday. I'm just that judgmental.

Oh! And there was one more photo that fueled my theory: A few hours after the marathon, she got all gussied up and went with Tom to his "Lions for Lambs" premiere at MoMA. She was wearing heels.

I don't care if you have magic feet: Nobody wears heels after running a marathon. I've decided Xenu ran the marathon for Katie Holmes.

8:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

katie holmes did not run that marathon. bra-less. no fucking way.

10:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow. I'm surprised SOMEONE didn't get censured for cursing. CLEARLY there is a class system on this blog.

10:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh the gumpy anonymous person is back. Hooray!

12:30 PM  
Blogger Mollie said...

I'm as surprised as anybody, but -- as someone who sees a LOT of pictures of baby Cruise -- don't you think Suri looks a lot like her (ostensible) daddy? Though I suppose that doesn't have to mean he fathered her in the usual way...

1:25 PM  
Blogger Marla said...

I think that Suri looks like Tom in that Katie kind of looks like Tom in the very-basic-feature department, not in the specific-shape-of-the-feature department. The three of them sort of look exactly the same, down to the fashionably bowlish haircut. But I think Suri has Katie's eyes, the shape of her face, her mouth. She has Tom's coloring, but Katie and Tom have almost the same coloring. I think that if they found a sperm donor who kinda-sorta looks like Tom, they couldn't lose because Tom looks enough like Katie that the genes would be a cesspool of Cruisedom.

This is all to say that I can rationalize any of my wackjob theories about the Holmes-Cruise pairing.

Oddly, I DO think Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have had sex. I think he's a gay man who just happens to have sex with women when he needs to.

Does any of this make any sense?

4:30 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home