Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Tuesday, 10/7


Okay. That didn't last very long.

Yesterday I wrote a blog about not having anything to write about. I sent it off to be posted and then jumped into the shower, whereupon three different new ideas lodged themselves into my brain, ready to be written.

Doncha just love when that happens?

First of all, thanks for the notes several of you sent after reading yesterday's entry. All of you suggested topics I could write about, and all of you had some pretty good ideas. So if I ever think I'm running out of things to say, I may take your suggestions. I appreciate you making them.

Second of all, I knew I just should've stared at my keyboard a few more minutes. After all, that's about how much longer it took for those ideas to come to me after writing that I had nothing to write about. Sure, the shower I jumped into could've had something to do with it—there is scientific evidence, after all, that your mind wanders when you do things like shower or run—but it's just one of those things. Either your brain works or it doesn't work, and while I tend much more toward the latter, I'm glad that, at least in this case, it was the former.

As it turns out, it was something my (much) better half had said (off-handedly) that got my mind to thinking. She mentioned that there were two marathons held on the same day, one in Chicago and one in Munich. Chicago, of course, is my second favorite place in the U.S., while Munich is one of my favorite in Germany. So I started to think--if I could run one of the marathons (with the caveat that I'm not in shape for a marathon (a 10K maybe, a half-marathon, if my life depended upon it, but not a full marathon)) in which city would I run—Chicago or Munich?

Hard choice, right? But that's what got my brain to spewing out all those ideas.

I don't know in which city I'd run; after all, Chicago has all that great architecture, and Grant and Millennium Parks. But Munich has great streets, and lots of history, and it has the Englischer Garten, which is one of the best parks I've ever been in. Plus Munich has German chocolate. On the other hand, Chicago's an hour away (assuming air traffic control is working at O'Hare), while Munich's a day away. Both places are fairly flat, both have huge crowds cheering on the runners, and both have great public transportation systems to get the runners where they need to go.

See why it'd be hard to choose?

But that's the great thing. I don't need to choose, if only because I'll probably never be able to run a marathon, no matter how much I run or how hard I train. It's nothing more than a mental exercise, a choice in wishful thinking. And it gave me an idea for a blog, which then gave me two more ideas, which (since then) have led to even more. So it's nice that I don't have to choose.

And it's even nicer that I now have a bunch more stuff to write about.


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