Running 8 miles now. Amazing!

If someone had told me in high school, or even in my 20s, that I would someday run eight miles and enjoy it, I couldn't have imagined it. I mean, I'm out there jogging along Lake Washington Blvd, just doo-do-doo, having a good time. I'm totally enjoying myself, looking around at the water, the ducks, and other water fowl I can’t identify; at joggers and walkers, all looking at me back; and at the pelotons gliding by, garish in their sausage clothes and gossipy chatter. How fucking weird! I've always hated running, as you know. But here I am. I don't need to be any more fit than this, ever. I could stop training now and still go out there and run five or six or seven or eight miles whenever I want. That's mystifying.

It's cold now and I wear gloves and long-sleeved, -legged things, and also my thin lycra biking cap that looks like a swimming cap. I think people look at me more because I look like a swimmer out of water. But the little cap is the perfect thing to keep my head warm but not too hot, and it doesn't get scratchy. I don't care what I look like, anyhow. After years of going to the gym in worn-out shorts and T-shirts, and years now of having other people's asses in my face and my ass in other people's faces during yoga classes, I really can't care less about whether I look good while exercising. That might seem natural, but it's surprising how much it still matters to a lot of people out there.

Lake Washington is where the marathon runners are, svelte and fast, with water bottles strapped to the smalls of their backs. You never see people wearing water bottles around Green Lake; that's more the venue of sprinters or the half-assed (har har). Even the obviously-out-of-shape and short-distance runners carry bottles along the Lake Washington trail, however. Maybe it's a kind of Madrona/Leschi/Mt. Baker provincialism.

When I wasn't looking, one of my orchids put up a fertility array.

And, guess who finally has a yoga mat? On the way to my five-mile run on Tuesday, after a long day of work for the empire, I just decided it was time to do it. I hate buying things that I think will become clutter in the house, so, in the case of the yoga mat, I've been repurposing my Korean floor pillows for stretching and inpromptu yoga-ing. But it's hard on the pillows and insufficient otherwise. Yoga mats are cheap, I'm just frugal with material possessions. Here's a little exercise that makes me look like a control freak. Right now, I think I have too many:

• Clothes I'm not wearing, especially, long-sleeved cotton shirts
• Hair-manipulation tools
• Shoes
• Forks, spoons, and knives
• Re-sealable containers
• Drinking glasses
• Books people have given me that I will never read
• Office supplies
• Paper on and around my desk
• Cords connecting computing-related equipment to the wall
• Extra computer crap, such as floppies and random cords, screws, and connectors
• I'm not even going to bring up the "hardware closet"

I believe in simplicity, spareness. I only use one type of pen, for example, the Hi-Tec-C, except for freelance work, which is not worth the ink. In that instance, I use whatever decent fine-tip rollerball pen I can pinch from somewhere.

I hate clutter. Last month I finally bought speakers and a subwoofer for my computer after long avoiding it because a) I have an audio system in my house and I hate redundancy; b) small speakers always have a giant subwoofer, and systems without subwoofers have big and ugly speakers displayed prominently on the desk; and c) more damn cords! In any case, I was able to hide the subwoofer (and my smartcard reader) behind the file cabinet, and I requisitioned some of Andrew's Dual Lock to hang the speakers off the back of the desk, out of site. Now the computer-related equipment is as unobtrusive as before, even if the optimal position for hearing movie trailers is under the desk, much to Mr. Denyes's amusement.

Finally, if I didn't love being in bed so much, I'd probably have a yo that I folded up every morning and put into a closet.

Speaking of…

Last week I was treated a visit to a traditional Japanese house that a young couple has built on Bainbridge Island. When Joan (yes, that Joan) first saw the house, she knew I had to see it, too. So she rigged a visit. The truly incredible thing is not its lines or minimalism, which appeals to my aesthetic sense, of course (see above), but that it was constructed with unfinished Port Orford cedar. When you walk in, the entire house is perfumy with cedar, and the fragrance accompanies you across the bamboo floors to the traditional tatami-clad tearoom and mizuya, the traditional japanese bath, the expansive western-style kitchen, etc. Anyway, the woman of the house is a tea freak, too, and we drank genmaicha with matcha, which packs about as much a punch as any green tea can. She also had glass teapots and decanters, and I have wanted one of each for a while, but they're just not that common. So, guess what? I bought a glass teapot and decanter from her along with some matcha'd genmaicha. Now I'm drinking the stuff several times a day, just so I can watch the chartreuse-colored tea brew inside the glass.

Visiting her house reminded me how much I like tea culture. I've stopped going to temae because I'm too busy, and the times recently that I did go I couldn't quiet my mind enough to enjoy it. I miss it though.

Tom writes lately, even though he is busy doing important things: "I better scoot. Gotta clean up Hanford."