Podcasts about grimacing

Listen to ASCO's Journal of Clinical Oncology Art of Oncology poem, "Rain Talk” by Dr. Karl Lorenz, who is a palliative care and primary care physician and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. The poem is followed by an interview with Lorenz and host Dr. Lidia Schapira. TRANSCRIPT Narrator: Rain Talk, by Karl A. Lorenz, MD, MSHS   Rain splattering, a cacophony of glassy dollops plopping, sliding, colliding, crashing, plashing melted pearls. Drops careening, onto the ground now streaming, seeking, trickling, slowing, flowing into a rill of connections.   Water nourishing blades of grass becomes a field of forage, or the smallest sprout of a redwood fairy circle. Life springs forth from the pitter patter, as words too, joined in thoughts, converge, merge, spill, flow into action.   You lay cancerous, stoically shrouded. I stood frozen, purged of words, anxious amid the pulse, beep, thrum, dry rustle of nurses' coming and going. A stiff-coated doctor fractured the quiet— “I wish things were different.”   Her words fell stinging. Fighting soul ache, I gripped your shoulder. Grimacing, muffling sobs, as gasps, a gurgling cry, erupted into a torrent of tears clouding sight. Reaching, we grasped hand over wrist over hand.   Dr. Lidia Schapira: Hello, and welcome to JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology, which features essays and personal reflections from authors exploring their experience in the field of oncology. I am your host, Dr. Lidia Schapira, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. Today we're joined by Dr. Karl Lorenz, a palliative care and primary care physician and a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. In this episode, we will be discussing his Art of Oncology poem “Rain Talk”.  At the time of this recording, our guest has no disclosures.  Karl, welcome to our podcast, and thank you for joining us. Dr. Karl Lorenz: Thank you for inviting me. It's such a pleasure. Dr. Lidia Schapira: I'd like to start by asking you a broad question about the role of literature and poetry in your career as a physician, educator, and palliative care physician. Tell us a little bit about the history and trajectory of your participation in the arts. Dr. Karl Lorenz: Yeah, thank you. Well, arts have had varied expressions in my life. I was a musician for many years, and I'd like to mention that because there's so many similarities between the types of art and overlap, and I think, what they teach us and how they engage us. But I was an instrumental musician for a long time, and then actually I studied opera and sang choral music in Los Angeles, which was really wonderful. I became a writer, I guess at some point. I was an English major as an undergrad. And the funny thing is I was an English major because I thought, “Oh, you know, I want to be a doctor. I'm not going to get to do this again.” And of course, that turned out not to be true, but it also was a portal, I think, into the emotional and meaning based motivations that I had for entering medicine anyway, which is an interesting place to start, right? And thinking about what drives us toward medicine, but also what sustains us. And in the time after entering medical school, I've had a bit of a drought with regard to writing. I wish that I had had more mentoring when I was actually studying medicine and training, but you're just scrambling to live during those years. Afterwards however, those experiences were so powerful that I did find myself scribbling from time to time, not necessarily constructively. And over the years, I learned that maybe I could do a little bit more with that. Dr. Lidia Schapira: So tell us a little bit about the origin of this beautiful poem. Is it something that you scribbled in response to a particular event and then came back to months or years later? How does this emerge? Dr. Karl Lorenz: So I've always aspired, or at least in recent years, especially aspired, to be more of a writer. Writing is such a craft, but for me, because I haven't treated it as such, I find myself writing under circumstances that are more emotional or spontaneous. I don't say that with any pride. It's just the truth. I think those things are a font of inspiration for writers in general, but certainly it's also a craft. So for me, I was standing on the porch of our house in North Carolina in the middle of an incredible downpour. But it was atypical in that the sun was shining at the same time, and it was such a beautiful sight. I found myself taking pictures of the water dripping off of the bushes and the eaves of the house above a lake. And just the emotions sort of welled up in me, and I wanted to capture that. So I started writing, and this poem sort of spilled out, not in this form, actually, it was quite a bit different, but I was capturing the sensory experience of standing in that rainstorm protected under the porch. And that's actually where some of the onomatopoeia comes from. The words and their collision, at least in the first stanza, were very much about what I was experiencing standing under that porch in the rain. Dr. Lidia Schapira: They're very powerful, and rain is such an amazing metaphor. So before having me tell you what this said to me as a reader, why don't I go and ask you about bringing rain and water as a metaphor into what seems to me, reading this, a very intimate experience at the bedside, where you, the narrator, or where the narrator is really the loved one of the patient lying on the bed. Tell me, did I get that sort of right? Dr. Karl Lorenz: I'm sure you've had many of those experiences, Lidia. And, yeah, the rain is a good invitation for that, right? It does bring life. I think that was part of the emotion I was experiencing into the eaves just to see it coming off of those green leaves on those plants or just that particular place where this cabin sits is actually technically a rainforest, western North Carolina, up in the Appalachians. And so it's just, it's lush, it's fecund, if I could use that word. It's bursting with life all the time. And so that conjunction is really so much what the metaphor was about for me at the time. And then the sounds themselves are physically confluent. And so I think that's where language emerged as the vehicle for metaphor, because for me, those things have been so much characteristics of conversation and communication.  Dr. Lidia Schapira: To go back to rain as water, I mean, we think of water as something that just flows through our fingers. And then you contrast that with a tempo, the force, the splashing, the colliding of the rain droplets. But it's all very life affirming. And again, I want to contrast that with what you're telling us later, which is water sort of as tears emerging in response to something that clearly is very devastating for the narrator and brings forth and evokes the grief about the anticipated loss. Tell us about mixing these things together. Again, I'm just filtering through my imagination as a reader, which is something that poetry gifts us, right? It helps us just create in our own minds the scene. But I wonder if you, as the poet, can tell us what you intended. Dr. Karl Lorenz: I think those tears are a sign of pain, but aren't they also life giving? I mean, it's when we acknowledge loss that it becomes real, and then we can do something about it. And I guess as a palliative care doctor, that's always the place that I want to take patients to, not because I want them to lose. They're not going to lose because of me. It's actually when we acknowledge loss that we win in a sense, because then we can respond in a way that is life giving out of that loss, which we can't avoid most of the time. Sometimes we can, and we make wrong judgments about that. But many times I see it work the other way, that we don't come to terms with loss. Then we miss those opportunities to express love, to experience forgiveness, to build or renew, invigorate relationships, to make memories, to leave legacy, etc. And so those tears really are life giving in the sense that they are a place of acknowledgement where that kind of life begins. Dr. Lidia Schapira: I wonder also a little bit about your perspective here as a narrator. I see you more as the doctor who is at the bedside empathically saying, “I wish things were different.” And yet here the narrator is not the doctor. So it's not seen through the eyes or the lens of the palliative care clinician or the oncologist or critical care doctor, that it is from the person at the side of, or the loved one of the patient who is on the bed stoically shrouded, as you say. Tell us a little bit more about your choice of that perspective for your narrator here.  Dr. Karl Lorenz: Oh, that's interesting. I don't know that I've thought about that myself. I guess I've had losses in my own life. And that's a really interesting point that you make. I guess maybe in writing the poem, I saw myself as kind of standing in the corner of the room with somebody that I love. No, that's interesting. I don't think it was conscious, actually, until you asked that question that I saw myself in the room as a narrator. I suppose it comes because of the fact that this is a poem that's rooted in personal experience. Yeah, I have been in the doctor's role many times. I've also been in the family role. And so I have seen it both ways. Dr. Lidia Schapira: And I would say that to me as a reader, it also was an active empathic imagination, because one of the things that empathy involves is sort of really taking the perspective, imagining we are in somebody else's shoes. So here I thought it was very beautiful when you talk about soul ache, fighting soul ache, I gripped your shoulder, and then it is the grasp hand over wrist over hand. So there's the visual of the bodies coming together in an embrace. Was that based on a scene you imagined, or again, did it just kind of pour out of you almost like the rain poured onto the porch on that day? Dr. Karl Lorenz: I'm a very touching person in the sense of I hug, I grasp, I hold. Touch has always been a tool that we use in medicine. I think it's one that we should be both cautious about, but also not overly cautious about. I think it's just a human expression and it's important, right? And so I have been touched physically in ways that are so profound and meaningful, and I think sometimes I have given touch in a way that is also in that regard. And so it's really just a human experience. Touch. Yeah. I guess this poem is about these different ways that we make those profound connections. It's a different form of communication.  Dr. Lidia Schapira: It's an incredibly sensory poem. At least it was for me, because between the touch at the end and the last stanza and the sound, you really are engaging the reader in incredibly profound ways. There's a lot of vitality for me in this poem. It's just beautiful. And again, the sound of the rain that I think of as water, an element that flows, but producing such a crashing, loud noise. And then this encounter in what may be an ICU or a hospital ward. I mean, it clearly is a medicalized setting, right. With so much drama, it is really very beautiful. Tell me a little bit about how you plan to use this poem in your art as a clinician, as a teacher of young clinicians, or perhaps as a colleague. I find this very beautiful piece, and I wonder what your intended use is.  Dr. Karl Lorenz: Oh, boy, that's a great question. The funny thing is, I think I have used art and poetry and film in medical teaching in the past. Now so much of what I do is more cerebral, health services research. Of course, I still do clinical teaching. We find ourselves so busy and distracted. I would love to use this in teaching. I haven't actually thought about using my own poetry or writings in teaching, but yeah, this is probably a good one to try that with. I love Akira Kurosawa. I've used Kurosawa films about perspective and actually culture and its role in medicine. And I definitely have toyed with a lot of these modalities, but using my own art or poetry in this case, that's sort of scary. I guess I could do it.  Dr. Lidia Schapira: I think you can. And I have a final question, which I feel compelled to ask as a host for this particular podcast, and that is that once you had this poem and decided to share it with the world and publish it, why did you choose an oncology readership for your poem? Can you talk a little bit more about why this is perhaps important to put in an oncology journal that has built its reputation on delivering sort of the best science in the field? I certainly have been outspoken about the importance of having this sort of little space for the soul of our colleagues and our readers and our investigators. But I wonder if it was intentional that you said, “This is something either I'm gifting this to you guys,” or “This is something that you need. You need to remember all of the tears and the love and the soul searching that accompanies being that patient in the bed.” Dr. Karl Lorenz: Well, I love JCO and the oncology community and how my colleagues are working to refine the science and the excellence of clinical care. Yes, there is a science of the soul and a science of communication and a science of caring, and I think our patients want us to practice in an elevated way across all these dimensions of what they need. And I think that's maybe the reminder or the embrace. We can't do one without the other. And I do mean that we shouldn't do the art without the science or the science without the art. And so I love that marriage about medicine, and I love that marriage about the practice of oncology. What better place for it to be? A poem that captures that in the spirit of one of the hardest moments in our encounter with patients should go in a place where it's understood. Dr. Lidia Schapira: Well, thank you, Karl. Is there any final message that you want to convey? Or is there something that I haven't asked you that you'd like to talk about before we close? Dr. Karl Lorenz: Maybe I just express gratitude. So often we write and we just don't know that we have an audience. I feel that way. And so to know that it connected with you or with other readers is just such a pleasure, because I think we write, and maybe it's healing for us in a way, but it's also healing for us to know that it's healing for others. So, thank you. Dr. Lidia Schapira: What a lovely way to end this idea of community, and I think that's one of the intentions that we have through this podcast, also of connecting people to others and helping us all reflect together and feel accompanied by colleagues. So, thank you for sending this to JCO.   And to our listeners, until next time, thank you for listening to JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology don't forget to give us a rating or review, and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can find all of the ASCO shows at asco.org/podcasts.   The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individuals' individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement.   Like, share and subscribe so you never miss an episode and leave a rating or review.     Guest Bio: Dr. Karl Lorenz MD, MSHS is a palliative care and primary care physician and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University.

This week, Nathan and Gita are joined by games and culture video essayist Jacob Geller ahead of his 24-hour stream to raise money for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund. We discuss video game criticism in the age of drive-by culture wars on social media and conclude that – despite how bleak things might seem – there's still a hunger for truly substantial, meaningful criticism, one that is not decreasing. We also learn about the ins and outs of creating heady essays on YouTube, specifically: Why do they keep getting longer? How do you write for a specific audience without becoming somebody who pre-reacts to every bad faith YouTube comment? Then we move on to this week's big news: Ubisoft is delaying the new Assassin's Creed following weaker-than-expected sales of its Star Wars game. Amid all that, as well as an ongoing campaign against Assassin's Creed for featuring a Black samurai, Ubisoft also decided to issue a statement about how its goal is “not to push any specific agenda.” Grimacing emoji. Lastly, Christmas comes early for Nathan and Nathan alone, because the mailbag is chock full of questions about Goku and karaoke.    Credits - Hosts: Nathan Grayson, Gita Jackson, and special guest Jacob Geller - Subscribe to Aftermath!   About The Show Aftermath Hours is the flagship podcast of Aftermath, a worker-owned, subscription-based website covering video games, the internet, and everything that comes after from journalists who previously worked at Kotaku, Vice, and The Washington Post. Each week, games journalism veterans Luke Plunkett, Nathan Grayson, Chris Person, Riley MacLeod, and Gita Jackson – though not always all at once, because that's too many people for a podcast – break down video game news, Remember Some Games, and learn about Chris' frankly incredible number of special interests. Sometimes we even bring on guests from both inside and outside the video game industry! I don't know what else to tell you; it's a great time. Simply by reading this description, you're already wasting time that you could be spending listening to the show. Head to aftermath.site for more info.

Hosted by Rob Leonard and Tim Leonard, "From the Pressbox" airs every Monday from 9am - 10am on WHPC Garden City, New York.  Streaming at www.nccradio.org  This week Rob and Tim remember Willie Mays, talk about what Reggie Jackson said in Birmingham about racism in Birmingham when he was in the minors, Mets still Grimacing but still not at .500.  Gerrit Cole returns to the Yankees.

Nathan Baker navigates a barren slate of streaming options on Thursday, along with some thoughts on how we are failing to evaluate catchers. SUBSCRIBE, Rate and Review on iTunes! Follow us on Twitter: @EthosFantasyBB Join our Fantasy Sports Discord Server: https://discord.gg/jSwGWSHqaV

Dan, Ross, Jared, and Matt are here to breakdown Markstrom being traded to the Devils, the Euros, along with purple McDonald's character and baseball --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fourthwallpop/message

Have the Mets turned this season around? Is it too soon for Gerrit Cole's return? Audio Files featuring Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Jayson Tatum, Julius Randle and the Knicks drafting Patrick Ewing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just don't think about how it might actually taste! Dave had some truly epic bad jokes to kick off the first helping of the week. All we'll say is, you'll have the Wizard of Oz stuck in your head for the day.

This week is another boner episode where we talk about whatever geeky things have us super excited right now. Also, we make juvenile dick jokes. Because we are fourteen. If you’d like to know why we chose the title “Grimacing Boners,” you will just have to listen to find out!

On this delightful episode, we're joined by Earwolf audio engineer and musician Jordan Duffy (ig: @jordankduffy) for a chat about negative comments that stick with you, friendship meet cutes, creative collaboration, dining chairs, New Jersey, the sheer existential terror of going to the doctor as a child, and more! Follow us on Twitter at @leightonnight and on Instagram at @leighton_night. You can find Brian on Twitter/Instagram at @bwecht, and Leighton at @graylish (Twitter)/@buttchamps (Instagram).

On this delightful episode, we're joined by Earwolf audio engineer and musician Jordan Duffy (ig: @jordankduffy) for a chat about negative comments that stick with you, friendship meet cutes, creative collaboration, dining chairs, New Jersey, the sheer existential terror of going to the doctor as a child, and more! Follow us on Twitter at @leightonnight and on Instagram at @leighton_night. You can find Brian on Twitter/Instagram at @bwecht, and Leighton at @graylish (Twitter)/@buttchamps (Instagram).

Help send the ATP Podcast to the US Open: https://linktr.ee/ashtennispodcast The Ash Tennis Podcast is here. Featuring Ash Williams and Sports Journalist David Zita discussing the finer points of the game.  Tennis SFX courtesy of SoundEffectsFactory Attribution: Used respectively under a Creative Commons 0 LicenseSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since early 2021, I've been haunted by a tweet I read: “If you're not grimacing every time you look at old work, then you aren't growing.” I decided that I needed to put the icky feeling to use. So I'm using it as inspiration for an exploratory journey into creative growth and self-compassion. Because I don't want to live in a world where people grimace every time they look at their "old work". That sounds like hell. So in this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I want to explore how we might enjoy, rather than belittle, the bravery that gave rise to "old work". We will think about the difference between casting and using judgement to develop, mature and grow as people and in our creativity. And open up space for healthy foundational growth that doesn't follow a one-dimensional linear path. Episode contentsCreative Growth WITHOUT Grimace | 1:38Grimace-Growth is Imbalanced | 7:5What Does Creative Growth Look Like? | 12:46There Are Different Grimaces | 16:21Using vs Casting Judgement | 20:55Judgement as Shame ("I should be better") | 23:36Judgement of Project ("this could be improved") | 25:22Judgement of Opportunities and Desires | 29:35Using Feelings of Inferiority | 42:52Superiority Complex is an Inferiority Complex | 44:43Victim Mindset | 47:06Demands For The External World To Change | 48:24Willing Others To Fail | 49:06Replace The Disowning Grimace | 53:54Make Peace With Past Efforts (Equal But Not The Same) | 55:00Handing Over: A Bridge From Somewhere to Elsewhere | 56:11 Creative Growth WITHOUT Grimace | 1:38 When I internalise this grimace, it's not just about my relationship with my old work. It's about how I hold myself and other people. It's about how I relate to EVERYTHING. So, for example, if I was doing the best I could and still grimace when I look back at it, what am I doing with other people who are doing the best they can where they are? What sort of world does this approach create in the long run? Grimace-Growth is Imbalanced | 7:5 It's tough to grow from a healthy foundation when we feel the grimace looking at us. It evokes shame, embarrassment, and humiliation. It can leave us in a spirit of urgency and desperation. What Does Creative Growth Look Like? | 12:46 In The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han writes about the rate of acceleration in the world and what is happening to a culture that erodes "intervals, betweens, and interruptions", replacing them with restlessness, hyperactivity and mental exhaustion. Positivisation pedals the idea that action makes us free, yet we see it doing the opposite. In the name of "growth" and "progress", we are becoming automatic performance machines rather than subjective beings with the power "not to do". Growth isn't endless. It hits limits all the time. We reach a point where we won't get taller, our capacity for physical strength peaks, and our hair gets thin. How do you know you're moving in the right direction? What does it mean to keep growing as people? Is this a trap that separates us from ourselves? There Are Different Grimaces | 16:21 Not all grimaces are the same. The same facial expression can communicate different aspects of personal and creative growth. The "Last Big Push" Grimace: a facial contortion that shows you put every ounce of energy into striving towards the end (e.g. getting down the home stretch and over the finish line). The "Something's Wrong" Grimace: reacting to a disturbance in the anticipated flow (e.g. a wrong note, weird flash, bad smell, or strange taste). The "I Couldn't Do That" Grimace: a reaction to seeing someone do something scary or out of reach and imagining yourself doing it yourself (e.g. the idea of public speaking). The "Embarrassed For You" Grimace: cringing at something someone else has done - perhaps a relatable failure ("I know the feeling, and I'm glad it's you, not me") or a judgement ("what were you thinking!?")

"Where is that pearl?" Mira worriedly wound a strand of her long, lavender locks around her finger. She swam up to a glistening sea anemone and peered around it carefully. Nothing! “Hey girl!” Mira whipped around to see the freckle-filled face of her best friend grinning back at her. “Lena! You scared my tail off!” Mira huffed, smoothing her turquoise scales. Lena laughed and said, “What are you looking for so intently? I don't think you would have noticed a flotilla of swordfish!” Mira grabbed Lena's arm. “You've got to help me—I've lost the Pearl of Protection!” “Wait—you've lost the very pearl that protects all of Merlantis from enemy invaders...and now it's out there just waiting for the Ligores to find it?” Lena's face grew pale. “Keep your voice down!” Mira shuddered. The Ligores were the fiercest kind of tiger sharks known to mer-kind. Their jaws had been known to slice a mer-tail in half, their manes barbed with stinging tentacles that would render the victim immobile for up to a day. “Sorry—I'll help you search.” Lena swam quickly over to the coral reef, her fuchsia tail blending with the bright colors of the reef. Hours later, Mira and Lena hovered at the edge of Skelton, the ship graveyard of the deep. “If the Ligores stole the pearl, they would hide it here.” Mira tried to keep the fear from seeping through her whispered words. Lena nodded solemnly, and they swam forward together. Deep in the hull of the third ship they searched, Mira noticed a board sticking up from the floor at an odd angle. She motioned Lena over, and they tugged until the board came free, revealing a pouch that looked as though it had been crafted from Ligore skins. Grimacing, Mira pulled on the strings that she hoped were not entrails. Inside lay the glistening Pearl of Protection. “Once it was lost, but now it is found.” Lena breathed with a victorious smile. Mira enclosed the smooth pearl in her palm. “Oh Lena, I'm so thankful we found it! Let's get this beauty back to Merlantis where it belongs...then we can celebrate!” • Savannah Coleman • In Luke 15, Jesus told three parables about something lost: a sheep, a coin, and a son. In the first two instances, the people who lost things searched until they found them. But in the parable of the lost son, the father was eagerly waiting to welcome his straying son home with open arms. God the Father rejoices when the lost are found (verses 6-7, 9-10, 22-24, 32)! How might this truth give you hope? • Just as Mira and Lena searched for the pearl until it was found, and the people in Jesus's parables searched for what was lost, God never stops seeking those who are lost. He desires that all people come to Him (2 Peter 3:9). He is the God who provides a home for the lost, safety for those in danger, and rest for the weary. He sent His Son, Jesus, to rescue us from bondage and set us free by dying on the cross and rising from the dead (Ezekiel 34:27; Luke 4:17-21). If you haven't put your trust in Jesus, are you ready to come to the One who provided a way for you to be found? (Romans 10:9-13) If you have questions about this, who are trusted Christians in your life you can talk to? (You can also find more information on our "Know Jesus" page.) • Jesus also told a parable about how the kingdom of heaven is like an extremely valuable pearl. He said, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:44-46). As God seeks us with deep love, He also longs for us to seek Him. Why is knowing God more precious than anything else? “For the Son of Man [Jesus] came to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10 (NIV)

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With guest Lyle Richardson aka SpectorsHockey ➡️Coaching Changes ➡️Trade Rumors ➡️Price? ➡️Lehkonen? ➡️Goaltender Needs

Ari Melber on 'The Beat' had Peter Navarro on board to discuss the coup attempt and it underscores how elements of the Republican party just wanted to make 'noise' about a big lie that never was as a predicate to pull off a coup attempt. Watch Peter grimace as he confronts the truth. #AriMelber #PeterNavarro #Insurrection

Over the past few years I've attempted two very different challenges. One is the Ironman triathlon which I've already written about. The physical test of the Ironman race itself is punishing, but the commitment to training before the event makes the triathlon an immersive, life changing event. Most days of training require an hour or two of exercise to get the legs and lungs prepared for long distance swimming, biking, and running. As an amateur (and I'm very much that) my commitment to racing is minimal compared to serious athletes, yet finding time to pursue an hour or two of exercise requires that fitness be elevated to a high priority in the day. With a full time job and family, time is precious, so I'm sometimes lucky to have an hour to sneak away for exercise.Even with the clock looming over every choice, I enjoy charging out the door to run, or driving to the pool to get a half hour swim completed. A sense of accomplishment comes with ticking off blocks of exercise. Plus there is the kicker of feeding my vanity, as fitness feels good. Even when doing long bike rides or runs, the physically exhausted aftermath also feels “good” as it acts like a purge or cleansing. Exhaustion allows my love of food to come out of hiding, too. Burning tons of calories justifies (in my rationalizing mind) overeating and shoveling food at my face: eggs, toast, watermelon, Cinnamon Toast Crunch - these are a few of my favorite things.The bait of the Ironman race was the challenge that it presented, and having watched videos in the 1980s where athletes were nearly dying to cross the finish line made it enticing. Strange, isn't it, that suffering is attractive? For a good laugh, watch this Clif bar ad about what it's like at the start of a triathlon, when everyone is thrashing about in the water. Those images of extreme exhaustion appealed to me, just like military ads from the Navy and Marine Corps appealed to me as a teenager, as the hook for both the Ironman and the Marine Corps is the challenge and the honor that comes with the association of the name and logo. So it was this badge of honor that I was really after in pursuing the Ironman, though it took me some time to realize it.At the beginning of this year, a different type of challenge came to my attention through a friend. He didn't recruit me or try to lure me since he wasn't going to do the challenge, he only mentioned Exodus 90 as a point of interest, where a group of men commit to a spiritual exercise of self-denial. No TV, no social media, no video games, no porn (including no masturbation), no snacks, no alcohol, no unnecessary phone usage, and no unnecessary purchases.The self-denial part was intense by itself, especially for a food monster like me. But there was a few other key facets of this program that made it quite different from other diet and detox programs.Daily hour of prayerFasting on Wednesday and FridaysExercise on at least three days a weekWeekly meetings with the groupAnd cold showers.All of that for 90 days.That's a lot of self-denial and discipline, but these fasting elements weren't the real “hook” of this challenge for me. The hook, I thought at the time, was the mandatory cold showers. Having listened to the book What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength by Scott Carney made this whole idea intriguing. Aside from having an insanely long title, the book's ideas around cold therapy seemed a hot topic among modern seekers. This kind of self-inflicted discomfort was right up my alley! As the world tries to remove all discomfort, there seem to be quite a few of us hunting for it. Endurance tests of exercise and discipline always sound fun. Or so I thought.From quitting drinking I had already learned that the self-denial of “freedoms” is actually the most freeing thing I ever did. The funny thing about our world today is that everything is permitted and we are free to do whatever we like, but in turn we actually link our bodies, spirits, and minds to these freedoms, and end up getting stuck. And I'm not just talking about drinking. Just watch people with their phones for the most obvious example of modern addiction. Our addiction to pleasure is really an addiction to “self”, which I am terribly guilty of much of the time.Like everyone, I get lost in my phone too, and coming off a poisonous 2020 election year on social media, I was happy to set aside all memes and polarizing articles for a 90 day break. I had quit social media before the election season, and yet it still infected my ears and eyes. A technology detox was a second reason I thought Exodus 90 would do me some good.I remember taking a cold shower on the first day, when the outside temperature was -10 degrees Fahrenheit. As you might imagine, that first shower was not enjoyable. Not at all. But as soon as I was done, I was awakened and fully alive. Grimacing in cold water for a minute invigorated me. In fact, a bit of advice here for anyone: if you are having a bad day, or you don't like your current mood, there are two things that can instantly change your state of mind. 1.) Take an ice cold shower, or 2.) Do burpees to exhaustion. Neither of those two things can be done without your mood changing, and both take 2 minutes or less.The ice cold shower requires an act of will to step into the water. Someone told me to say before stepping in: “Remember, Jesus died for my sins.” This actually works pretty well, since I considered hanging on a cross and being mocked my everyone to be far worse than enduring a minute or two of cold. Disclaimer: I did a Navy shower, where you get into the cold water and get nice and wet, then turn off the water. Then you soap for about 30 seconds, then turn on the water and rinse off. I was assured that this was an acceptable “cold shower” method, although I'm not sure on whose authority the worthiness of a cold shower can be verified.What I didn't think would be terribly difficult turned out to be the hardest part. By far, the daily hour of prayer proved almost impossible for me. The three parts of Exodus 90 are “prayer, asceticism, and fraternity.” When joining the program, I was focused on the ascetic practices and hoping to meet some new friends. The daily holy hour did not seem like that big of a deal. I figured I could knock that out each morning easily and not really think about it, like going for a run.But the daily “holy hour” was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life. Truly, it was more difficult than learning to swim. I could not pray for a half hour. I could not sit still and pray whether I was kneeling or standing or laying down. I finally understood Pascal's saying, “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” I thought of those moments in the Garden when Jesus scolded the apostles for not being able to stay awake for one hour. I suppose that made me feel a bit better, since they were all saints and even they failed.I could not focus or clear my mind to pray, or not for long without feeling my phone beckoning me or a book or some distraction calling out to me from the corner of my mind. The daily minimum was 20 minutes and the Exodus 90 book said that the time should be in contemplative prayer, a term that I had to look up since I didn't even know what contemplative really meant. Oh, I could read for hours, but to sit in a chair and pray for 20 minutes felt like eons of time.After a week of trying and failing at the daily holy hour, I just spent the time reading the Gospels and considered that to be “holy,” but a group member reminded me that I was not exactly following the guidance of the program, since contemplative does not mean reading.And I knew I was cheating at it because I could not do meditative prayer. This reminded me of a time when I had a relaxation CD in my car, many years before, and I was always irritated by the slowness of the narrator, since I wanted to just hurry up and relax already. I shouted at the speaker one day, “Can you just hurry up and relax?!” Obviously, I didn't understand that the verb “relax” required no action, no hurrying.This struggle continued. I would do some daily readings and then try to pray in silence, and I had a few days where I was able to maintain silence for a while, but then distractions would flit into my thoughts and I would try to ignore them, only to chase them in the end. I spent time reading the Catechism, as the Exodus 90 program helped guide me to relevant paragraphs, suspiciously aware of the problem I was experiencing:The habitual difficulty in prayer is distraction. It can affect words and their meaning in vocal prayer; it can concern, more profoundly, him to whom we are praying, in vocal prayer (liturgical or personal), meditation, and contemplative prayer. To set about hunting down distractions would be to fall into their trap, when all that is necessary is to turn back to our heart: for a distraction reveals to us what we are attached to, and this humble awareness before the Lord should awaken our preferential love for him and lead us resolutely to offer him our heart to be purified. Therein lies the battle, the choice of which master to serve. (CCC 2729)That was it, as if plucked from my brain into that book. I would make excuses for why I couldn't concentrate, blaming the light from outside, or the dog needing to go for a walk, or that I couldn't get comfortable. My mind would drift off even if all was well, and I would take a sour grapes approach, thinking that perhaps silent prayer wasn't really necessary anyway. Again the Catechism nailed down my excuses showing that I was lacking originality, as usual. (aside: The idea of my uniqueness that I was sold as a child, has turned out to be disappointingly and utterly false.)We must also face the fact that certain attitudes deriving from the mentality of "this present world" can penetrate our lives if we are not vigilant….Christian prayer is neither an escape from reality nor a divorce from life. (CCC 2727)I was still clinging on to some doubt about the need for prayer. I was doing this Exodus 90 to strengthen my faith, yet in reading the daily Exodus verses I was having a hard time with some of the stories. In the weekly meeting with my fraternity, I would feel like an outsider because certain political feelings were being made known that bothered me. Some of them seemed like Facebook in the flesh, with their opinions on their shirtsleeves, but fortunately the group leader reiterated the point that this program was not about politics or memes or any of that garbage and toxic waste. I was letting politics bother me rather than focus on the principles. I thought of quitting the group, just as I had done with AA. But I stuck to it. Each Monday, I tried to re-double my effort at prayer, and began to have small segments of time where I had glimmers or hope, where peace and nearness to God enveloped me.I wasn't there yet, but I was getting closer. I was still light years away, but at least a few rays of light struck me. An understanding hit me, as I realized that I could be easily swayed yet, as distractions still stole my attention, and once again the Catechism book pointed to me why this was happening:The most common yet most hidden temptation is our lack of faith. It expresses itself less by declared incredulity than by our actual preferences. When we begin to pray, a thousand labors or cares thought to be urgent vie for priority; once again, it is the moment of truth for the heart: what is its real love? (CCC 2732)As the saying goes, “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” What was my treasure then? Was it the group of men? Was it the words I was reading? Was it my home? My family? My self? My stomach?All of those are the wrong treasure.The treasure must be God, and nothing above it. This is literally the problem of the question put forth in these writings: “Why Did Peter Sink?” He sinks because of lack of faith. When Peter looks away from Jesus, he sinks because he fears losing his life, his self. In essence, Peter becomes the treasure, not God. Fear is the result of looking away from God. When God remains the treasure, you cannot feel fear or greed or lust. When you have a radical trust in God, you have succeeded. The moment you forget that trust, you are adrift again.That is the miracle, I realized, somewhere along the way. When I quit drinking, some old person with 30 years of sobriety said to me, “Don't quit until the miracle happens,” where in this case “quit” meant to go back to drinking. I recall thinking, “What miracle?” Well, the miracle is that at some point you no longer want to drink. You are just happy without it, and you have a Higher Power that gives more than drinking ever could. The miracle is, once you have trust in God, you don't want your vice.With faith in Jesus, the miracle goes further, however, way beyond drinking or sex or whatever your cross to bear in this world is. The miracle is that you stop struggling and forget about yourself. You no longer even want to sin. You are content to be content because you have all faith in Jesus, and all you want to do is give thanks to the incarnate God for showing the way.It always comes down to the self. For me, maybe for everyone. One way or another, the self wants to be the treasure. The instant that the self exceeds God, Peter sinks. This is unavoidable. This is predictable. It happens every time.Around the third week of Exodus 90 I started reading the Word on Fire Bible and St. Augustine's Confessions. That is when I really I started to make some headway, as those two books, plus prayer, began to jackhammer at my doubt and elevate my faith. The commentaries in the WOF Bible opened door after door to understanding the Gospels. How little I understood in the Gospels. Second, the experience of Augustine was so eerily similar that I could not fathom he was writing almost 1,600 years ago. Then someone said I should read The Imitation of Christ and I realized that I'd found the handbook to the spiritual life.I didn't master contemplative, silent prayer, not by a long shot. But I began to have days where I could maintain 20 minutes, or have a fairly legitimate holy hour without thinking about Cinnamon Toast Crunch. When I struggled to concentrate I would pray the Rosary, which takes about 20 minutes and use a website called the Rosary Center to reflect on a scene from Jesus' life for each Hail Mary. This proved a valuable tool, as I could do each prayer and picture the image of something for each bead. This method changed the meaning of the Rosary from rote recitation to something dynamic. I would enter into the world of Jesus and experience these moments. As a kid, my impression of the Rosary was of a bunch of droning gray-hairs in the pews on Sunday before mass. Now I was finally understanding why it was seen as a transcendent experience by those with faith. Then I read the Rosary book from Word on Fire and found this even more expansive on why so many people around the world pray with these beads every day.To get an idea of what I mean, rather than just doing 10 Hail Mary's for each decade of the rosary, I would read a verse before saying the Hail Mary for that particular bead. Then the combination of the prayer plus the image becomes powerful, and slows down, and has meaning. I was no longer rattling through the beads like a machine. Each bead then has a story, and something to contemplate.“The First Sorrowful Mystery – The Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane”. For each bead, contemplate the following:Jesus and His Apostles go to Gethsemane to pray. Mt. 26:36With Peter, James and John, He enters the olive grove. Mt. 26:37“My soul is sorrowful unto death.” Mt. 26:38“Father, if it be Thy will, let this cup pass from Me.” Mt. 26:39“Yet, not My will, but Thine be done.” Mt. 26:39“Could you not watch one hour with Me?” Mt. 26:40“Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation.” Mt. 26:41Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss. Mt. 26:48“Having seized Jesus, they led Him away to the high priest's house.” Lk. 22:54His disciples abandon Him. Mt. 26:56I've heard that men don't do the Rosary as much as women. Once I slogged through some education on it, and took my time, I understood why it is so popular. And it is so old-school, so retro, that it can't help but be cool again. There is nothing so counter-cultural as the Rosary in 2021. It is now the equivalent of the Sex Pistols in 1977 or Dr. Dre's Chronic album in 1992. Holiness and faith is reviled by a majority of society today, so this is clearly the time that Christian faith will be coming back into style, or very soon. In reality, faith is maybe the only thing that never actually comes into style or goes out of style, which is why it will never die, too.While I was making progress in prayer, I was still struggling with it. Don't let me fool you, I still find it very difficult on many days. Many days I hardly lift a finger in prayer. I'd make a terrible Pharisee because I fall into distraction and sin so easily. But I think there's a lesson there itself, as the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector says something important about being “good” and thinking I'm owed something by God for my good behavior, as if my perceived approval of my actions and self-denial make me better than others. The danger in being righteous in religion is the exact same trap of self-worship that the non-religious fall into. In fact, that is what drives more people away from church and faith than anything else. The Pharisee's righteousness is so obviously a kind of self-approval and self-worship. Jesus says the genuine prayer of a prostitute or tax collection is more justified than the “good” person, so long as the prayer is humble and true. Bishop Barron points out about this parable that “the entire point of religion is to make us humble before God and to open us to the path of love. Everything else is more or less a footnote. Liturgy, prayer, the precepts of the Church, the Commandments, sacraments…all of it is finally meant to conform us to the way of love…When they have instead turned us away from that path, they have been undermined.” (Word On Fire Bible, p 409 commentary on Luke 18:9-14)I also found that the ascetic practices of Exodus 90 became increasingly difficult to maintain, as the flesh didn't enjoy being subdued for so long, as 90 days is a long time! Fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays proved more difficult than anticipated, and I would crash the next day and overeat. Having no snacks or coffee throughout the day caused an inner tantrum inside me, as the food monster wanted his daily excess of sugar. Some of the ascetic practices were easy, as I had already cut out drinking and TV, and porn never seized me like it did other people I know. Seems everyone has a vice that works for them, really does the trick. Some self-denial is easy, and some is torture, depending on your hunger.For me is was the food. The food! That was the hard part. I could not purge snacking from my life. I needed someone standing by to slap the snacks out of my hand, since auto-pilot will take me straight to the pantry if I'm bored or stressed for any reason.I found the Exodus readings hard to enjoy and wondered how many ways a tabernacle could be described, and how long such details could go on. As Easter neared I began to fall off the wagon, failing at various practices, finding 90 days starting to to feel more like a full year. I felt like a fraud as I checked in every day with my accountability partner, but then he struggled too.I made it to the end, relieved to be taking warm showers again. Oddly, the cold showers were the easy part.In a way, I failed miserably at Exodus 90. But then, as I progressed through this program I realized that this was more challenging than training for the Ironman. The difficulty of Exodus is higher than going for daily runs, swims, and bike rides. I enjoy running, swimming, and biking. I don't enjoy denying myself things that I enjoy, which is kind of the whole point. Curiously, I learned more about myself in Exodus 90 than the Ironman, as it highlighted where I was weak both in body and spirit. The Ironman training is about willing the self to do, to achieve. Even though I am a mediocre triathlete, I received the same “Finisher” shirt as everyone else for the Ironman. There is not a finish line in faith and prayer. Exodus 90 is about removing the self from all things, while Ironman is about elevating the self. Removing the self, or denying wants and desires, tested me more than anything I've ever done, more than the Ironman. In fact, it was so difficult, that I am not sure I want to attempt another “90 day spiritual exercise” because it was the hardest thing I've ever attempted. But it was also perhaps the most rewarding thing. After all, my light did grow brighter in those 90 days and I gained understanding of where I am lacking, or rather where I still need to let go of my addiction to self. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.whydidpetersink.com

The paint cracks on my baby blue wall. Chips fall upon me as I frown. "Babe hows the room coming along?" I here my wife call to me. "Going great, just need to grab some paint" I holler back across the fixer upper. "Well you better hurry... the Johnsons are coming over and I don't want to look a fool." Grimacing, I began my trek to the garage. About halfway down the stairs I slip upon some stair butter and tumble down the 3 flights. Lying in a crumpled heap with bone sticking out my wife comes upon me. "Oh Harold stop playing." I try to respond but my vertebrae has jammed through my throat and I can barely breath through. "Oh you're so useless with that weak spine and ugly face. Why did I marry such a heap of broken bones? Well I guess if I put you in the foyer I can say your some type of art piece. You know maybe the Johnsons will like a single lady moving in." And with that I became the best damn art piece you ever did see. Come check out the Sci-Fi power couple from the past with Bob Buel, TR, and Fancy Octopus as they read "Settle" by Anne Macleod and "Backtrack" by Burt Filer. 99 Questions: https://pod.link/1504738284 Check out our website buriedgems.podbean.com Any suggestions or comments? Feel free to email us at buriedgemspodcast@gmail.com    

On this Monday pod we look at some of the more bizarre stories of this weekend's actions as well as praising some big winners.  We talk about the contrasting fortunes of Tottenham's men and women's teams as Jose Mourinho's men sit top of the Premier League.  Then we look at one of the strangest transfer stories at Grimsby Town as Bilel Mohsni only played 21 minutes for the club after being dubbed League Two's Virgil Van Dijk.  And we bask in the glory of the 2020 Golden Boy, Erling Haaland.  Across the pond we witnessed one of the most bizarre penalty shoot-outs in the history of football in the MLS play-off between Orlando City and New York City  All this and our punks and Tories of the week

Broke & Cap'n discuss a variety of topics including A horrible monster called Grimace. Grimacing in the shadows. Gramp's Tik Tok Basement with another classic edition (sorry about the audio its really low) Work stories being an I.T. tech and Electrician and some horror stories involving that. 6ix9ne on being an industry plant and other conspiracies revolving around him. Intro song talk and who made the infamous "Everybody Beats Their Meat." Official Website for the Podcast: www.brokeknocklife.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brokeknocklife/support

In this episode, your host Lynne clarifies which season of Ghost Adventures we are actually in. She thinks it's season 24. Right? Lynne talks about the latest new episode Franklin Castle and also goes back to reminisce about a classic Ghost Adventures episode. There is so much GAC greatness to talk about! Come join the fun!

A threat lurks in Stonesend, while our heroes attempt to gather information and formulate a plan Sunshine is forced to face the Grimacing truth about her past. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/trial6/support

Deverin: Hi, this is Deverin, writer and creator of Cyberscape Neo. This is a science-fantasy isekai series that ties together the philosophy of transhumanism and the drama of contrasting perspectives. We bring you into the world of a distant future where a particular company, whose public-facing industry is to make world-famous VR MMORPGs, was on the verge of migrating an AI into a human-like body for the first time. After a… failure, and some… internal struggles, this led to one of the founders forming a new company, which alongside creating the latest gaming masterpiece, Cyberscape Neo, also continued pursuing a questionable, yet ambitious initiative. I'll... let Roland and Myra take it from here. [Scene Details: Roland's mood and tone is similar to that of EP1, Scene 1, as if monologuing, albeit having the knowledge to help recap EP1-6 to preface EP7. Myra is accompanying in this scene to add clarification as a looming voice in the background, unheard by Roland, and timed as . The “room” is a standard stage, as if Roland is presenting what will soon show up on a theater projector screen.] Roland: (friendly but forlorn) Hello and welcome to the Cyberscape… my new... (looks down for a moment, exposing the inaccuracy of the term with his solemn tone) “home”… (looking back up and continuing) My name... is Roland. Many others, as well as myself, are what are called “Synthetic Users.” Myra: (10%. Grimacing and voicing through her gritted teeth.) My father's... “Syns”. (pronounced “Sins”, spoken with heavy disdain) Roland: (explaining the nature of Syns in a reminiscing tone) Whether we suffered from a terminal illness or barely survived a near-fatal accident, we have all been offered the… (turns his eyes away again, but shakes it off faster) opportunity... to live out a seemingly eternal life, so long as it's within the Cyberscape. Myra: (10%. Purely sardonic. Curving into a cruel smile on “oh wait…”) An opportunity of a lifeti-- oh wait… Heh. Roland: (catching the audience up on recent events, sighing) Because of our status as Synthetic Users, the players in these games don't understand who or what we are, usually assuming that we're just non-player characters acting oddly. We tend to like it better this way, since we're under NDA and can't explain our circumstances, anyways. (narrowing his eyes and speaking in a serious tone) Problem is… it seems to be someone's objective to set the players against us - to kill us. You'd think that wouldn't be a problem -- that we'd just respawn. Sadly, as of the latest patch, that's... no longer the case… [Stage curtain draws open and Roland steps aside with it, followed by Myra's glitch effect.] Myra: (Rehearsed and Cheery) See for yourself! https://www.titaniumtemplar.com/

Oof! That's the noise you'll make when Andi and Ryan go up against the "Grimacing Face" emoji! Which of these clammy clenchers most conveys pure anxiety, and which is yet another member of the Grimace family? Which of them has too few teeth.........and which have too many? Stay tuned for Mystic Moji hell, Funky Grimace's Nobody, our "Choose Your Own Emoji" program, an explanation of dental phantoms, introducing Anxiety 2, a call to action for Ray Romano, and more! Please get us in touch with Ray's agent.Follow along here: https://emojipedia.org/grimacing-face/iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/emojidrome/id1361236704?mt=2Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/I2rmhl3k6hkfysbqo4ikzbs5es4Follow us on Twitter: @emojidrome, @captaintrash (Andi), and @sewerpeak (Ryan).Find us on Patreon: patreon.com/emojidrome

What is Gurning, you ask?  Gurning is a  competition based on what some people call Grimacing - or “pulling a face”. The goal is to try and make your face look as ugly or ridiculous as possible. Come along with us on this episode we travel back in time and across the ocean to England to meet some modern-day competitors of this medieval sport.    

The 2018 Boston Marathon The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast– Boston 2018  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/Boston2018.mp3] Link   We are near the ‘one-mile-to-go' marker.  Eric says something about one more hill.  The crowds are thicker and more enthusiastic than they should be, but this is Boston.  The spectators take it as seriously as the runners.  A multi-colored sea of umbrellas lines the road and the encouragement is loud enough to rise above the storm.  Because it is the Boston Marathon, and this is our race.  I am slowed but not walking.  Eric has those ultra-marathon legs and is pulling me.  If he wasn't there I might, I just might, take a walk break.  But I don't.  And we grind on.  … This race has ground me down but has not beaten me.  The rain continues to come in sheets and stand-you-up blasts of cold wind.  It is a din of squishing footfalls and the wet-plastic scrunching of ponchos, trash bags and rain coats.  All cadenced by the constant buffet and roar of wind-driven rain smashing into humans.  That one more hill Eric is talking about is not really a hill.  But I know what he means.  It's Eric's 10th Boston and he has decided to run it in with me even though my pace has deteriorated in these last 2 miles as my legs lose the battle to this Boston course.  I will not stop.  It's my 20th Boston so I remember when they added this underpass to avoid a road crossing many years ago.  I remember the old days of looking ahead and wishing with all my heart to see the runners disappearing to the right onto Hereford Street.  Now we looked ahead to see the moving tide of storm shattered humans jog left and dip under and out the other side.  We don't walk or slow our grimly purposed grind through the storm.  We rise out of the underpass.  Shifting to avoid the walkers or stumblers, or just having to jostle through yet another weaving, wet, exhausted, human-trash-bag blasted into our personal space by the gusty rain.  There is not much antipathy left for these wayward castaways.  An elbow, a shoulder, a tired shove and we all keep moving. It's like being inside a washing machine filled with ponchos and rain gear with a cold firehose turned on you at the same time.  We all just want to finish.   Ironically I feel a tail wind slap me on the back as we grind up Hereford.  The only tail wind on the course.  Maybe a bit insulting. Too little, too late. Eric says his family is in the crowd somewhere up by the turn onto Bolyston and I grudgingly grind a wide tangent as he searches the crowd.  Nothing against his family but I don't think I'd stop here to see God if he were behind the barrier.  The pull of that finish line is too strong, and I'm exhausted from 3-plus hours of pummeling rain and wind and cold.  Typically, in a rainy race people will strip out of their protective clothing in the first few miles as they warm up.  Not today.  They never warmed up.  But now, as they approach the finish line and the anticipated succor of hotel rooms and hot showers they begin to shed their rain carapaces en masse.  For the last 10 miles I have been looking out the 6-inch circle of my found poncho's hood.  Now as I pull it back and look down Bolyston it is an apocalyptic scene.  Usually in high wind situations the discarded rain ponchos and trash bags will blow across the course like dangerous plastic tumbleweeds to tangle the runners' legs or lodge in the fencing.  Not today.  The cold rain is so heavy that it plasters the detritus to the pavement like so many giant spit balls.  Through this apocalyptic landscape we grind out the last ¼ mile of this storied course.  There is not much of a sprint in my stride as we push through the timing mats.  I pull up the found poncho so the timers can see my number.  I'm still clutching my bottle in one cold-cramped claw.  I never finished my drink. I'm not sure I could let go of it if I wanted to.  My hands ceased to function as hands more than an hour ago.  Grimacing we finish.  Around us runners throw their arms up in celebration.  The look on their faces is a combination of triumph, relief and disbelief.  They have survived the worst weather that Boston has ever offered up.  They got it done on a day that was at once horrible and at the same time the most epic journey in a marathon most will ever experience. And not just any marathon.  The Boston Marathon.  They lived to tell the tales, and this one will be talked about for decades. … I was wrong.  I thought I had seen everything and raced in every type of weather.  I have never seen anything like this.  The closest I have come was the last leg of the Hood to Coast Relay in 2016.  I had the same 30 mph head wind with the same driving rain.  But the difference that day in Oregon was that the rain was a few degrees warmer and I wasn't going 26.2 miles on one of the hardest marathon courses. I have experience.  I ran my Boston PR in '98 in a cold drizzle.  I rather enjoyed the Nor'easter of '07. I had a fine day in the rain of 2015.  Friday , as the race was approaching, when we knew what the weather was shaping up to be I wrote a blog post to calm people down.  In that post I said not to worry too much, it's never as bad on the course as the hype makes it out to be.  I said that the cooler temps were good for racing if you could stay out of the wind.  I mollified the nervous by noting that in the mid-pack there are thousands of people to draft with.  I cautioned against wearing too much rain gear as it would catch the wind and slow you down.  Instead, I recommended, wear a few layers to trap the heat. I was wrong.  I have never seen anything like this. … Most races would have canceled or delayed in the face of this type of weather.  Not Boston.  This type of weather at Chicago would have resulted in a humanitarian crises on the scale of an ill-timed tsunami rising out of Lake Michigan.  This weather at New York would have driven the runners and spectators into emergency shelters. Not the Boston Marathon.  This old dame of a foot race has been continuously pitting the best runners in the world against each other for  122 years.  This race is part of our cultural fabric.  It's special.  We don't stop for weather.  It's too important to us to stop for anything.  I remember emailing Dave McGillivray from a business trip in the days before the 2007 race as the Nor'easter bore down on New England.  I asked him if the reports were true, that they were considering canceling the race?  He responded matter of factly that he didn't know about anybody else but he was going to be there.  It's not bravado or false courage.  It's a mindset that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.  The organization, the athletes, the cities and towns and the spectators are all in it together.  Together, on Monday, we all screwed up our grit and ran our race despite what wrath nature decided to unpack for us. The athletes who run Boston are not the type to give up.  They have earned the right to be there.  Either by qualifying or working to raise thousands of dollars.  This is not the one-and-done bucket list crowd.  This is a cohort of seasoned endurance athletes who have trained hard and long over many years to get here.  If they skipped runs for bad weather they would never have made it to the start in Hopkinton.  … For the first time ever I decided to skip the Athlete's village in Hopkinton.  From past experience I knew it was going to be a mess.  Based on the reports I have from other runners it was like a medieval battlefield scene.  The athletic fields turned into ankle deep mud under the marching of 30,000 runners.  Athletes struggled to find shelter under the tents.  Some crawled under vehicles in the parking lot in an attempt to get out of the elements.  It was already raining and blowing hard as the day broke in Hopkinton.  The temperatures struggled to find 40 degrees.  There was no good place to be.  It was a mess.  There was no way to stay dry.  Waiting around to be called to the corrals runners started to accumulate a core temperature loss that would haunt them throughout the race.  The organization did the best they could but it was miserable and chaotic.  I avoided it.  My youngest daughter offered to drop me off in Hopkinton and I took the spectator bus downtown (instead of the athlete bus to the Village).  Seeing what the conditions would be, I took Eric's offer of safe harbor at Betty's place.  It's a long story, a Boston story, and it goes like this…  A long time ago, a family from St. Louis owned a home in Hopkinton.  They started a tradition of hosting the visiting Missouri runners in that home.  Eventually that family from St. Louis sold the home to Betty's Family.  They continued the tradition and this is where Eric, one of my running buddies, who is from St. Louis, has been sheltering before his Boston Marathons.  This year, Betty has sold the house and moved into a senior center, right next to the start.  She arranged to have the center's hall open to the Missouri runners.  I joined a dozen or so gathered there in the warmth, replete with food and drink and good nature to wait for the start.  We didn't know how lucky we were to have this safe harbor.  Around 10:30 Eric, another runner and I made our goodbyes and started walking to the corrals.  We walked out into the storm.  We were ostensibly in wave 3 corral 3 but were soon to find out that much of the rigorous Boston starting procedure had been blown out the window.  I made them stop at the big porta-potty farm on Main Street.  I took my dry race shoes, socks and hat out of their bag and wiggled into them in the cramped plastic box.  Ready to race.  I tossed the sweat pants, old shoes and ski hat to the volunteer who was stuffing soggy cast offs frantically into a rattling plastic bag. I have raced and run in all kinds of weather.  I generally know what to do and how to dress.  Monday I dressed for racing in a 35-40 degree rainy day.  I had trained in much colder weather.  I wasn't expecting this day to be too cold, especially once we started racing and warmed up.  The only real risk was at the end of the race.  If we were forced to walk or slow down we might get chilled.  I dressed based on my experience from 19 previous Boston Marathons and 60+ marathons over the last 25 years.  And I was wrong. I wore a new pair of high-cut race shorts that I bought at the expo.  I have a rule of thumb, especially after a winter training campaign, 35 and above is shorts weather.  We were close to but above that line.  I slipped on a thin pair of calf sleeves in deference to possible wind chill and rain.  Calf sleeves are good compromise between shorts and tights if the weather is on the line and add additional protection against cramping on cold days.  For the top I added a layer to what I would usually wear.  I had a thin tech tee shirt that I had made into a tank by cutting off the sleeves as my base layer.  On top of that I wore a high-quality long sleeve tech tee I got from Asics for the 2014 NYC race and on top of that my Squannacook singlet with the bib number.  People forget that the bib number is waterproof and wind proof and helps keep your core warm.  Three layers plus the oversized bib should keep the core warm.  I wore a pair of tech gloves that were designed for this in-between type weather.  You wouldn't want to wear these when the temps got below freezing but they usually work well in the in-between temps.  I topped it off with a simple Boston race hat from 2017.  That's the same scheme I've used in countless 35-40 degree rainy runs. I was wrong. Mentally I was prepared.  I've been doing this too long to worry about things I can't change.  I was happy to not have another hot year.  I had had a decent training cycle and my fitness was good.  I had avoided injury except for a minor niggle in my high left hamstring.  I was ready to race.  I slept well.  I was ready to respect Boston. I was wrong.  This was a different thing.  This was different than anything I had ever raced in.  … 65 seconds.  That's how long Eric said it took me to poop at mile 9.  I knew those porta-potties were there in the parking lot across from the reservoir.  I have used them in previous years.  I told Eric I wanted to stop.  We had come to the conclusion that today wasn't the best racing weather by that point.  We had been holding race pace fairly consistently up to that point down out of Hopkinton and into the flats of Ashland and Natick.  I didn't feel horrible, but I didn't feel great either.  I was worried about spending too much and getting caught at the end.  My effort level was good, but a little high.  My heart rate was good.  But I weirdly felt like I was burning energy faster than normal.  I could feel the energy I was expending fighting the storm.  Our ability to draft had been minimalized.  With the gusting wind and driving rain runners were having trouble staying in their lanes.  Even if you could get on someone's shoulder that just meant you were in the wettest part of the road.  The runners you were trying to draft stuck to the dry crown of the road and in order to get into their shadow you had to run in the water filled wheel paths.  Even a veteran like me, who knows the course, couldn't make good tangent decisions as runners weaved and wobbled in the storm.  My watch says I ran an extra ¼ mile.  People were running in all kinds of rain gear in an attempt to stay the effect of the tempest.  Shoes wrapped in bags tied at the ankles, runners clutching space blanket fragments, trash bags, ponchos and even shower caps that they had stolen from their hotels.  All bets were off. I wanted to slow down and drop off of race pace to conserve energy I knew a forced break was a good psychological way of doing this.  Anyone who has raced with me knows that I will keep repeating things like “we have to back it off” but for some reason struggle to put this sentiment into execution.  A potty break would be a good reset. Once we had the race monkey off our backs Eric and I settled into a reasonable pace and looked up ahead to anticipate the girls and the hills.  I wasn't feeling great but it wasn't critical.  I didn't really know if I needed to be drinking more or how nutrition should work in this weather.  I told Eric it was now a fun run and he said “Anything under four hours is good”. We ran on through Natick and Framingham.  Eric turned to me and asked, was that the ½?  I said I think it was.  They hadn't put up the arch that has been there in recent years due to the wind and we almost missed it.  Eric kept marveling at the spectators.  He kept repeating ‘these people are the real story'.  He was amazed that they were still out in force lining the course and cheering.  The spectators at Boston take it as seriously as the runners.  If I could turn my head in the final miles I would see the incongruent, multi-colored sea of umbrellas lining the. route  The spectators at Boston are not spectators, they are partners, or rather part owners, with the athletes.  Coming down the hill out of Hopkinton there were a couple of kids in bathing suits frolicking in a front yard.  One guy was wearing a mask and snorkel.  There are countless stories of spectators tying shoes and helping runners with food and nutrition when the athletes hands were too cold to work anymore.  One out of town runner, in a fit of hypothermia went to the crowd looking for a spare rain poncho and got the nice LL Bean rain coat freely off a mans back so he could finish the race.  In some ways it reminded me of 2013 when the people of Boston came together to help each other overcome adversity.  It's been five years but our spirit is still Boston Strong.  We ran on through to Wellesley staying on a good pace but trying to recover enough for the hills.  Other years you can hear the girls at Wellesley College screaming from a mile away.  This year the hard rain damped the sound until we were almost on top pf them.  They were out there.  They were hanging over their fence imploring the shivering runners with kisses and high-fives.  Eric and I ran through smiling as always.  Even though my energy was low I drifted over and slapped as many wet hands as I could.  … Coming into mile 15 some combination of our slower pace and the increasing ferocity of the storm started to get the better of me.  I could feel my core temperature dropping.  I was working but I couldn't keep up.  How did this happen?  How could someone with my experience get it wrong?  Why was this different from any other cold rain run?  It was, in a sense, the perfect storm.  The perfect combination of physics, fluid dynamics and temperature conspired to create a near perfect heat sink for the runners.  The wind, on its own, was just a strong wind.  The rain on its own was just a hard rain.  The temperature on its own was just another spring day.  But the combination pulled heat out of your body faster than you could make more. The volume of rain driven by the winds penetrated through my hat and washed the heat from my head.  The same cold rain drove through the three layers of my shirts and washed the heat from my core.  My gloves filled with cold water and my hands went numb.  When I made a fist water would pour out like squeezing a wet sponge.  The rain and wind was constant but would also come in big waves.  We'd be running along and a surge in the storm would knock us sideways or backwards like being surprised by a maniac with a water cannon.  I would stumble and lean into it and mutter “Holy shit storm!” or “Holy Cow Bells!” Really just to recognize and put words on the abuse.  The wind was directly in our faces.  The rain was directly in our faces.  The whole time.  We never got out of it.  There would be lulls but then it would return with one of those smack-you-in-the-face hose downs.  My shoulder and back muscles were sore from leaning into it.  I was having difficulty drinking from my bottle because I couldn't squeeze my hand hard enough.  I resorted to holding it between two hands and pushing together between them.  People reported not having the hand strength to take their nutrition or even pull their shorts up after a potty stop.  I was starting to go hypothermic and my mind searched for a plan.  Eric knew I was struggling.  I started scanning the road for discarded gear I could use.  The entire length of the course was strewn with gear.  I saw expensive gloves and hats and coats of all descriptions.  We passed by an expensive fuel belt at one point that someone had given up on.  Eric knew I was suffering and I told him I was going to grab a discarded poncho if I could find one.  As if on cue a crumpled orange poncho came into view on the sidewalk to our left and I stopped to retrieve it.  Eric helped me wriggle into it.  It was rather tight, and that was a good thing.  It was probably a woman's.  It clung tightly to my torso and had a small hood that captured my head and hat without much luffing in the wind.  It's at this point that Eric says I was a new man.  I may not have been a new man but the poncho trapped enough heat to reverse the hypothermia and we got back to work.  By now we were running down into Newton Lower Falls and looking up, over the highway at the Hills.  Eric said, “We're not walking the hills.” I said, “OK” and we were all business.  We slowed down but we kept moving through the first hill.  I focused not on running but on falling. Falling forward and catching myself with my feet.  Hips forward.  Lift and place the foot.  Not running just falling. The hood of the poncho was narrow.  I had an enforced tunnel vision, but it was somehow comforting, like a blinders on a race horse.  I could see Eric's blue shoes appear now and then on my right, or on my left.  I settled into my own, little, six-inch oval of reality and worked through the hills.  Other runners would cross my field of vision and I'd bump through them.  I was in the groove.  I don't know why but people's pacing was all over the place during the race.  It might have been the wind or the hypothermia addled brains but they were weaving all over the road.  I had to slam on my brakes for random stoppages the entire race.  Eventually I just ran through them as best I could.  I didn't have the energy to stop.  This kind of behavior is unusual at Boston in the seeded corrals, but the whole day was unusual. I think the relative chaos of the start may have had something to do with it. When we got to the corrals they had ceased worrying about protocol and were just waving runners through.  If you wanted to bandit Boston this year or cheat, Monday would have been the day to do it.  But you also might have died in the process, so there's that.  We got through the chutes and over the start mats without any formal starting ceremony.  The flood gates were open, so to speak.  Because of this I think the pacing was a bit strange at the start and we passed a lot of people.  I was racing and Eric was doing his best to hold me back.  We chewed through the downhill section of the course with gusto.  Given the conditions we were probably too fast, but not suicidal.  Both of us have run Boston enough times to be smart every once in a while.  We were holding a qualifying pace fairly well and trying to draft where we could.  Eric had to pull off and have someone tie his shoe but I stayed in my lane and he caught up.  We rolled through the storm this way until I realized this was not a day to race and we had to conserve our energy if we wanted to finish.  We metered our efforts and this budgeting process culminated in the voluntary pit stop at mile 9. … In Newton between the hills we'd focus on pulling back and recovering enough for the next one.  Eric had a friend volunteering at mile 19 who we stopped to say ‘hi' to.  We were slow but we were moving forward.  We reached a point of stasis.  Every now and then Eric would pull out his video camera and try to capture the moment.  I was thinking sarcastically to myself how wonderful it would be to have video of my tired, wet self hunched inside the poncho like a soggy Quasimodo. I had brought a bottle of a new electrolyte drink called F2C with me.  It was ok but because of the cold I wasn't drinking much.  I knew my hands couldn't get to the Endurolytes in my shorts pocket.  I had enough sense to worry about keeping the cramps away.  I managed to choke down a few of the Cliff Gels they had on the course just to get some calories, and hopefully some electrolytes.  Eric and I continued to drive through the hills.  I miss-counted and thought we'd missed HeartBreak in the Bedlam.  With the thinner crowds I could see the contours of the course and knew we had one more big one before the ride down into Boston.  We successfully navigated through the rain up Heartbreak and Eric made a joke about there being no inspirational chalk drawings on the road this year.  Eric was happy.  He had wrecked himself on the hills in previous races and my slow, steady progress had helped him meter himself.  With those ultra-marathon trained legs he was now ready to celebrate and took off down the hill.  I tried my best to stay with him but the hamstring pull in my left leg constrained my leg extension and it hurt a bit.  I was happy to jog it in but he still had juice.  I told him to run his race, I'd be ok, secretly wishing he'd go so I could take some walk breaks without a witness, but he refused.  He said “We started this together and we're going to finish together.”  OK Buddy, but I'm not running any faster.  I watched his tall yellow frame pull ahead a few meters though the last 10K, but he would always pull up and wait for me to grind on through. And so we ground out against the storm and into the rain and wind blasts through the final miles.  In my mind I never once thought, “This is terrible!” or “This bad weather is ruining my race!”  All I was thinking is how great it was to get to be a part of something so epic that we would be talking about for years to come.  The glory points we notched for running this one, for surviving it and for doing decently well considering – that far outweighed any whining about the weather. This type of thing brings out the best in people.  It brought out the grit in me and the other finishers.  It brought out the challenges for those 2700 or so people who were forced to seek medical treatment.  That's about 10% of those who started.  It brought out the best in Desi Linden who gutted out a 2:39 to be the first American winner 33 years.  In fact it brought out the best in the next 5 female finishers, all of whom were relative unkowns.  The top 7 women were 6 Americans and one 41 year old Canadian who came in 3rd.  No East Africans to be seen.  The day brought out the best in Yuki Kawauchi from Japan who ground past Kenyan champ Geoffrey Kirui in the final miles.  It was an epic day for epic athletes and I am glad to have been a part of it.  I am grateful that this sport continues to surprise me and teach me and humble me.  I am full of gratitude to be part of this race that pushes us so hard to be better athletes, to earn the right to join our heroes on this course.  I am humbled to have friends in this community, like Eric, who can be my wing men (and wing-ladies) when the storms come. I am thankful for that day in 1997 when a high school buddy said, “Hey, why don't we run the marathon?”  Those 524 miles of Boston over the last 20 years hold a lot of memories.  This race has changed me for the better and I'm thankful for the opportunity.

The 2018 Boston Marathon The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast– Boston 2018  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/Boston2018.mp3] Link   We are near the ‘one-mile-to-go’ marker.  Eric says something about one more hill.  The crowds are thicker and more enthusiastic than they should be, but this is Boston.  The spectators take it as seriously as the runners.  A multi-colored sea of umbrellas lines the road and the encouragement is loud enough to rise above the storm.  Because it is the Boston Marathon, and this is our race.  I am slowed but not walking.  Eric has those ultra-marathon legs and is pulling me.  If he wasn’t there I might, I just might, take a walk break.  But I don’t.  And we grind on.  … This race has ground me down but has not beaten me.  The rain continues to come in sheets and stand-you-up blasts of cold wind.  It is a din of squishing footfalls and the wet-plastic scrunching of ponchos, trash bags and rain coats.  All cadenced by the constant buffet and roar of wind-driven rain smashing into humans.  That one more hill Eric is talking about is not really a hill.  But I know what he means.  It’s Eric’s 10th Boston and he has decided to run it in with me even though my pace has deteriorated in these last 2 miles as my legs lose the battle to this Boston course.  I will not stop.  It’s my 20th Boston so I remember when they added this underpass to avoid a road crossing many years ago.  I remember the old days of looking ahead and wishing with all my heart to see the runners disappearing to the right onto Hereford Street.  Now we looked ahead to see the moving tide of storm shattered humans jog left and dip under and out the other side.  We don’t walk or slow our grimly purposed grind through the storm.  We rise out of the underpass.  Shifting to avoid the walkers or stumblers, or just having to jostle through yet another weaving, wet, exhausted, human-trash-bag blasted into our personal space by the gusty rain.  There is not much antipathy left for these wayward castaways.  An elbow, a shoulder, a tired shove and we all keep moving. It’s like being inside a washing machine filled with ponchos and rain gear with a cold firehose turned on you at the same time.  We all just want to finish.   Ironically I feel a tail wind slap me on the back as we grind up Hereford.  The only tail wind on the course.  Maybe a bit insulting. Too little, too late. Eric says his family is in the crowd somewhere up by the turn onto Bolyston and I grudgingly grind a wide tangent as he searches the crowd.  Nothing against his family but I don’t think I’d stop here to see God if he were behind the barrier.  The pull of that finish line is too strong, and I’m exhausted from 3-plus hours of pummeling rain and wind and cold.  Typically, in a rainy race people will strip out of their protective clothing in the first few miles as they warm up.  Not today.  They never warmed up.  But now, as they approach the finish line and the anticipated succor of hotel rooms and hot showers they begin to shed their rain carapaces en masse.  For the last 10 miles I have been looking out the 6-inch circle of my found poncho’s hood.  Now as I pull it back and look down Bolyston it is an apocalyptic scene.  Usually in high wind situations the discarded rain ponchos and trash bags will blow across the course like dangerous plastic tumbleweeds to tangle the runners’ legs or lodge in the fencing.  Not today.  The cold rain is so heavy that it plasters the detritus to the pavement like so many giant spit balls.  Through this apocalyptic landscape we grind out the last ¼ mile of this storied course.  There is not much of a sprint in my stride as we push through the timing mats.  I pull up the found poncho so the timers can see my number.  I’m still clutching my bottle in one cold-cramped claw.  I never finished my drink. I’m not sure I could let go of it if I wanted to.  My hands ceased to function as hands more than an hour ago.  Grimacing we finish.  Around us runners throw their arms up in celebration.  The look on their faces is a combination of triumph, relief and disbelief.  They have survived the worst weather that Boston has ever offered up.  They got it done on a day that was at once horrible and at the same time the most epic journey in a marathon most will ever experience. And not just any marathon.  The Boston Marathon.  They lived to tell the tales, and this one will be talked about for decades. … I was wrong.  I thought I had seen everything and raced in every type of weather.  I have never seen anything like this.  The closest I have come was the last leg of the Hood to Coast Relay in 2016.  I had the same 30 mph head wind with the same driving rain.  But the difference that day in Oregon was that the rain was a few degrees warmer and I wasn’t going 26.2 miles on one of the hardest marathon courses. I have experience.  I ran my Boston PR in ’98 in a cold drizzle.  I rather enjoyed the Nor’easter of ’07. I had a fine day in the rain of 2015.  Friday , as the race was approaching, when we knew what the weather was shaping up to be I wrote a blog post to calm people down.  In that post I said not to worry too much, it’s never as bad on the course as the hype makes it out to be.  I said that the cooler temps were good for racing if you could stay out of the wind.  I mollified the nervous by noting that in the mid-pack there are thousands of people to draft with.  I cautioned against wearing too much rain gear as it would catch the wind and slow you down.  Instead, I recommended, wear a few layers to trap the heat. I was wrong.  I have never seen anything like this. … Most races would have canceled or delayed in the face of this type of weather.  Not Boston.  This type of weather at Chicago would have resulted in a humanitarian crises on the scale of an ill-timed tsunami rising out of Lake Michigan.  This weather at New York would have driven the runners and spectators into emergency shelters. Not the Boston Marathon.  This old dame of a foot race has been continuously pitting the best runners in the world against each other for  122 years.  This race is part of our cultural fabric.  It’s special.  We don’t stop for weather.  It’s too important to us to stop for anything.  I remember emailing Dave McGillivray from a business trip in the days before the 2007 race as the Nor’easter bore down on New England.  I asked him if the reports were true, that they were considering canceling the race?  He responded matter of factly that he didn’t know about anybody else but he was going to be there.  It’s not bravado or false courage.  It’s a mindset that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.  The organization, the athletes, the cities and towns and the spectators are all in it together.  Together, on Monday, we all screwed up our grit and ran our race despite what wrath nature decided to unpack for us. The athletes who run Boston are not the type to give up.  They have earned the right to be there.  Either by qualifying or working to raise thousands of dollars.  This is not the one-and-done bucket list crowd.  This is a cohort of seasoned endurance athletes who have trained hard and long over many years to get here.  If they skipped runs for bad weather they would never have made it to the start in Hopkinton.  … For the first time ever I decided to skip the Athlete’s village in Hopkinton.  From past experience I knew it was going to be a mess.  Based on the reports I have from other runners it was like a medieval battlefield scene.  The athletic fields turned into ankle deep mud under the marching of 30,000 runners.  Athletes struggled to find shelter under the tents.  Some crawled under vehicles in the parking lot in an attempt to get out of the elements.  It was already raining and blowing hard as the day broke in Hopkinton.  The temperatures struggled to find 40 degrees.  There was no good place to be.  It was a mess.  There was no way to stay dry.  Waiting around to be called to the corrals runners started to accumulate a core temperature loss that would haunt them throughout the race.  The organization did the best they could but it was miserable and chaotic.  I avoided it.  My youngest daughter offered to drop me off in Hopkinton and I took the spectator bus downtown (instead of the athlete bus to the Village).  Seeing what the conditions would be, I took Eric’s offer of safe harbor at Betty’s place.  It’s a long story, a Boston story, and it goes like this…  A long time ago, a family from St. Louis owned a home in Hopkinton.  They started a tradition of hosting the visiting Missouri runners in that home.  Eventually that family from St. Louis sold the home to Betty’s Family.  They continued the tradition and this is where Eric, one of my running buddies, who is from St. Louis, has been sheltering before his Boston Marathons.  This year, Betty has sold the house and moved into a senior center, right next to the start.  She arranged to have the center’s hall open to the Missouri runners.  I joined a dozen or so gathered there in the warmth, replete with food and drink and good nature to wait for the start.  We didn’t know how lucky we were to have this safe harbor.  Around 10:30 Eric, another runner and I made our goodbyes and started walking to the corrals.  We walked out into the storm.  We were ostensibly in wave 3 corral 3 but were soon to find out that much of the rigorous Boston starting procedure had been blown out the window.  I made them stop at the big porta-potty farm on Main Street.  I took my dry race shoes, socks and hat out of their bag and wiggled into them in the cramped plastic box.  Ready to race.  I tossed the sweat pants, old shoes and ski hat to the volunteer who was stuffing soggy cast offs frantically into a rattling plastic bag. I have raced and run in all kinds of weather.  I generally know what to do and how to dress.  Monday I dressed for racing in a 35-40 degree rainy day.  I had trained in much colder weather.  I wasn’t expecting this day to be too cold, especially once we started racing and warmed up.  The only real risk was at the end of the race.  If we were forced to walk or slow down we might get chilled.  I dressed based on my experience from 19 previous Boston Marathons and 60+ marathons over the last 25 years.  And I was wrong. I wore a new pair of high-cut race shorts that I bought at the expo.  I have a rule of thumb, especially after a winter training campaign, 35 and above is shorts weather.  We were close to but above that line.  I slipped on a thin pair of calf sleeves in deference to possible wind chill and rain.  Calf sleeves are good compromise between shorts and tights if the weather is on the line and add additional protection against cramping on cold days.  For the top I added a layer to what I would usually wear.  I had a thin tech tee shirt that I had made into a tank by cutting off the sleeves as my base layer.  On top of that I wore a high-quality long sleeve tech tee I got from Asics for the 2014 NYC race and on top of that my Squannacook singlet with the bib number.  People forget that the bib number is waterproof and wind proof and helps keep your core warm.  Three layers plus the oversized bib should keep the core warm.  I wore a pair of tech gloves that were designed for this in-between type weather.  You wouldn’t want to wear these when the temps got below freezing but they usually work well in the in-between temps.  I topped it off with a simple Boston race hat from 2017.  That’s the same scheme I’ve used in countless 35-40 degree rainy runs. I was wrong. Mentally I was prepared.  I’ve been doing this too long to worry about things I can’t change.  I was happy to not have another hot year.  I had had a decent training cycle and my fitness was good.  I had avoided injury except for a minor niggle in my high left hamstring.  I was ready to race.  I slept well.  I was ready to respect Boston. I was wrong.  This was a different thing.  This was different than anything I had ever raced in.  … 65 seconds.  That’s how long Eric said it took me to poop at mile 9.  I knew those porta-potties were there in the parking lot across from the reservoir.  I have used them in previous years.  I told Eric I wanted to stop.  We had come to the conclusion that today wasn’t the best racing weather by that point.  We had been holding race pace fairly consistently up to that point down out of Hopkinton and into the flats of Ashland and Natick.  I didn’t feel horrible, but I didn’t feel great either.  I was worried about spending too much and getting caught at the end.  My effort level was good, but a little high.  My heart rate was good.  But I weirdly felt like I was burning energy faster than normal.  I could feel the energy I was expending fighting the storm.  Our ability to draft had been minimalized.  With the gusting wind and driving rain runners were having trouble staying in their lanes.  Even if you could get on someone’s shoulder that just meant you were in the wettest part of the road.  The runners you were trying to draft stuck to the dry crown of the road and in order to get into their shadow you had to run in the water filled wheel paths.  Even a veteran like me, who knows the course, couldn’t make good tangent decisions as runners weaved and wobbled in the storm.  My watch says I ran an extra ¼ mile.  People were running in all kinds of rain gear in an attempt to stay the effect of the tempest.  Shoes wrapped in bags tied at the ankles, runners clutching space blanket fragments, trash bags, ponchos and even shower caps that they had stolen from their hotels.  All bets were off. I wanted to slow down and drop off of race pace to conserve energy I knew a forced break was a good psychological way of doing this.  Anyone who has raced with me knows that I will keep repeating things like “we have to back it off” but for some reason struggle to put this sentiment into execution.  A potty break would be a good reset. Once we had the race monkey off our backs Eric and I settled into a reasonable pace and looked up ahead to anticipate the girls and the hills.  I wasn’t feeling great but it wasn’t critical.  I didn’t really know if I needed to be drinking more or how nutrition should work in this weather.  I told Eric it was now a fun run and he said “Anything under four hours is good”. We ran on through Natick and Framingham.  Eric turned to me and asked, was that the ½?  I said I think it was.  They hadn’t put up the arch that has been there in recent years due to the wind and we almost missed it.  Eric kept marveling at the spectators.  He kept repeating ‘these people are the real story’.  He was amazed that they were still out in force lining the course and cheering.  The spectators at Boston take it as seriously as the runners.  If I could turn my head in the final miles I would see the incongruent, multi-colored sea of umbrellas lining the. route  The spectators at Boston are not spectators, they are partners, or rather part owners, with the athletes.  Coming down the hill out of Hopkinton there were a couple of kids in bathing suits frolicking in a front yard.  One guy was wearing a mask and snorkel.  There are countless stories of spectators tying shoes and helping runners with food and nutrition when the athletes hands were too cold to work anymore.  One out of town runner, in a fit of hypothermia went to the crowd looking for a spare rain poncho and got the nice LL Bean rain coat freely off a mans back so he could finish the race.  In some ways it reminded me of 2013 when the people of Boston came together to help each other overcome adversity.  It’s been five years but our spirit is still Boston Strong.  We ran on through to Wellesley staying on a good pace but trying to recover enough for the hills.  Other years you can hear the girls at Wellesley College screaming from a mile away.  This year the hard rain damped the sound until we were almost on top pf them.  They were out there.  They were hanging over their fence imploring the shivering runners with kisses and high-fives.  Eric and I ran through smiling as always.  Even though my energy was low I drifted over and slapped as many wet hands as I could.  … Coming into mile 15 some combination of our slower pace and the increasing ferocity of the storm started to get the better of me.  I could feel my core temperature dropping.  I was working but I couldn’t keep up.  How did this happen?  How could someone with my experience get it wrong?  Why was this different from any other cold rain run?  It was, in a sense, the perfect storm.  The perfect combination of physics, fluid dynamics and temperature conspired to create a near perfect heat sink for the runners.  The wind, on its own, was just a strong wind.  The rain on its own was just a hard rain.  The temperature on its own was just another spring day.  But the combination pulled heat out of your body faster than you could make more. The volume of rain driven by the winds penetrated through my hat and washed the heat from my head.  The same cold rain drove through the three layers of my shirts and washed the heat from my core.  My gloves filled with cold water and my hands went numb.  When I made a fist water would pour out like squeezing a wet sponge.  The rain and wind was constant but would also come in big waves.  We’d be running along and a surge in the storm would knock us sideways or backwards like being surprised by a maniac with a water cannon.  I would stumble and lean into it and mutter “Holy shit storm!” or “Holy Cow Bells!” Really just to recognize and put words on the abuse.  The wind was directly in our faces.  The rain was directly in our faces.  The whole time.  We never got out of it.  There would be lulls but then it would return with one of those smack-you-in-the-face hose downs.  My shoulder and back muscles were sore from leaning into it.  I was having difficulty drinking from my bottle because I couldn’t squeeze my hand hard enough.  I resorted to holding it between two hands and pushing together between them.  People reported not having the hand strength to take their nutrition or even pull their shorts up after a potty stop.  I was starting to go hypothermic and my mind searched for a plan.  Eric knew I was struggling.  I started scanning the road for discarded gear I could use.  The entire length of the course was strewn with gear.  I saw expensive gloves and hats and coats of all descriptions.  We passed by an expensive fuel belt at one point that someone had given up on.  Eric knew I was suffering and I told him I was going to grab a discarded poncho if I could find one.  As if on cue a crumpled orange poncho came into view on the sidewalk to our left and I stopped to retrieve it.  Eric helped me wriggle into it.  It was rather tight, and that was a good thing.  It was probably a woman’s.  It clung tightly to my torso and had a small hood that captured my head and hat without much luffing in the wind.  It's at this point that Eric says I was a new man.  I may not have been a new man but the poncho trapped enough heat to reverse the hypothermia and we got back to work.  By now we were running down into Newton Lower Falls and looking up, over the highway at the Hills.  Eric said, “We’re not walking the hills.” I said, “OK” and we were all business.  We slowed down but we kept moving through the first hill.  I focused not on running but on falling. Falling forward and catching myself with my feet.  Hips forward.  Lift and place the foot.  Not running just falling. The hood of the poncho was narrow.  I had an enforced tunnel vision, but it was somehow comforting, like a blinders on a race horse.  I could see Eric’s blue shoes appear now and then on my right, or on my left.  I settled into my own, little, six-inch oval of reality and worked through the hills.  Other runners would cross my field of vision and I’d bump through them.  I was in the groove.  I don’t know why but people’s pacing was all over the place during the race.  It might have been the wind or the hypothermia addled brains but they were weaving all over the road.  I had to slam on my brakes for random stoppages the entire race.  Eventually I just ran through them as best I could.  I didn’t have the energy to stop.  This kind of behavior is unusual at Boston in the seeded corrals, but the whole day was unusual. I think the relative chaos of the start may have had something to do with it. When we got to the corrals they had ceased worrying about protocol and were just waving runners through.  If you wanted to bandit Boston this year or cheat, Monday would have been the day to do it.  But you also might have died in the process, so there’s that.  We got through the chutes and over the start mats without any formal starting ceremony.  The flood gates were open, so to speak.  Because of this I think the pacing was a bit strange at the start and we passed a lot of people.  I was racing and Eric was doing his best to hold me back.  We chewed through the downhill section of the course with gusto.  Given the conditions we were probably too fast, but not suicidal.  Both of us have run Boston enough times to be smart every once in a while.  We were holding a qualifying pace fairly well and trying to draft where we could.  Eric had to pull off and have someone tie his shoe but I stayed in my lane and he caught up.  We rolled through the storm this way until I realized this was not a day to race and we had to conserve our energy if we wanted to finish.  We metered our efforts and this budgeting process culminated in the voluntary pit stop at mile 9. … In Newton between the hills we’d focus on pulling back and recovering enough for the next one.  Eric had a friend volunteering at mile 19 who we stopped to say ‘hi’ to.  We were slow but we were moving forward.  We reached a point of stasis.  Every now and then Eric would pull out his video camera and try to capture the moment.  I was thinking sarcastically to myself how wonderful it would be to have video of my tired, wet self hunched inside the poncho like a soggy Quasimodo. I had brought a bottle of a new electrolyte drink called F2C with me.  It was ok but because of the cold I wasn’t drinking much.  I knew my hands couldn’t get to the Endurolytes in my shorts pocket.  I had enough sense to worry about keeping the cramps away.  I managed to choke down a few of the Cliff Gels they had on the course just to get some calories, and hopefully some electrolytes.  Eric and I continued to drive through the hills.  I miss-counted and thought we’d missed HeartBreak in the Bedlam.  With the thinner crowds I could see the contours of the course and knew we had one more big one before the ride down into Boston.  We successfully navigated through the rain up Heartbreak and Eric made a joke about there being no inspirational chalk drawings on the road this year.  Eric was happy.  He had wrecked himself on the hills in previous races and my slow, steady progress had helped him meter himself.  With those ultra-marathon trained legs he was now ready to celebrate and took off down the hill.  I tried my best to stay with him but the hamstring pull in my left leg constrained my leg extension and it hurt a bit.  I was happy to jog it in but he still had juice.  I told him to run his race, I’d be ok, secretly wishing he’d go so I could take some walk breaks without a witness, but he refused.  He said “We started this together and we’re going to finish together.”  OK Buddy, but I’m not running any faster.  I watched his tall yellow frame pull ahead a few meters though the last 10K, but he would always pull up and wait for me to grind on through. And so we ground out against the storm and into the rain and wind blasts through the final miles.  In my mind I never once thought, “This is terrible!” or “This bad weather is ruining my race!”  All I was thinking is how great it was to get to be a part of something so epic that we would be talking about for years to come.  The glory points we notched for running this one, for surviving it and for doing decently well considering – that far outweighed any whining about the weather. This type of thing brings out the best in people.  It brought out the grit in me and the other finishers.  It brought out the challenges for those 2700 or so people who were forced to seek medical treatment.  That’s about 10% of those who started.  It brought out the best in Desi Linden who gutted out a 2:39 to be the first American winner 33 years.  In fact it brought out the best in the next 5 female finishers, all of whom were relative unkowns.  The top 7 women were 6 Americans and one 41 year old Canadian who came in 3rd.  No East Africans to be seen.  The day brought out the best in Yuki Kawauchi from Japan who ground past Kenyan champ Geoffrey Kirui in the final miles.  It was an epic day for epic athletes and I am glad to have been a part of it.  I am grateful that this sport continues to surprise me and teach me and humble me.  I am full of gratitude to be part of this race that pushes us so hard to be better athletes, to earn the right to join our heroes on this course.  I am humbled to have friends in this community, like Eric, who can be my wing men (and wing-ladies) when the storms come. I am thankful for that day in 1997 when a high school buddy said, “Hey, why don’t we run the marathon?”  Those 524 miles of Boston over the last 20 years hold a lot of memories.  This race has changed me for the better and I’m thankful for the opportunity.

Graveyard Girls on Paper Phoenix Wings  by Andrea Tang     The flyboy crash-landed into Magdalisa’s life on a Wednesday, just before mid-afternoon prayers. More specifically, he crash-landed into the spindly stone watchtower over Dalaga Cemetery, and really, that amounted to the same thing. Magdalisa, for her part, probably wouldn’t have noticed if the flyboy’s spectacular nose-dive hadn’t so thoroughly disturbed the ghosts.     Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip Episode 51 for March 3, 2018. This is your host, Keffy, and I’m super excited to be sharing this story with you. Our story today is "Graveyard Girls on Paper Phoenix Wings" by Andrea Tang. Andrea Tang is a DC-based speculative fiction writer and international affairs wonk who earns her keep scribbling stuff about power politicking that slides on a scale from very real to very fictional, depending on who's asking. When not hunched over a notebook misusing her imagination, she's known to enjoy theater, music, and martial arts. Catch her on Twitter @atangwrites, or drop by for a hello and a virtual cup of tea at http://andreatangwrites.com.   Graveyard Girls on Paper Phoenix Wings  by Andrea Tang       The flyboy crash-landed into Magdalisa’s life on a Wednesday, just before mid-afternoon prayers. More specifically, he crash-landed into the spindly stone watchtower over Dalaga Cemetery, and really, that amounted to the same thing. Magdalisa, for her part, probably wouldn’t have noticed if the flyboy’s spectacular nose-dive hadn’t so thoroughly disturbed the ghosts. Tita Shulin, naturally, was the ghost tasked with telling Magdalisa, who’d been dozing off over a half-swept catacomb beneath the graveyard proper. The blast of icy air across Magdalisa’s ears put an abrupt end to the nap. Yelping, the girl scrambled awake. “Tita Shulin! I’m sorry, I’m on my way to prayers, I promise—” “Sod the prayers,” said Magdalisa’s tita. Those three words, more than anything, alerted Magdalisa to the fact that something serious indeed had happened. Sleep-fog fled her mind. Twisting her hands together, Magdalisa leaned forward, until she was practically nose-to-nose with Tita Shulin. “Tita,” said Magdalisa, more quietly now, but a good deal more urgently. Her words bounced off the catacomb walls. Tita, tita, tita. “What’s the matter?” Tita Shulin’s mouth pursed. Ghosts were funny creatures. Tita Shulin didn’t glow, or go dramatically translucent, or otherwise give much indication that she was dead. She looked nearly the same as she had in life: square-shouldered and square-jawed, with golden-brown skin, her hair—dyed stubbornly black well into her seventies—close-cropped in a fashion that had supposedly scandalized the family when Tita Shulin was still a young woman, and not yet a tita at all. Tita Shulin, as a ghost, turned the air around her cold, and when particularly exasperated with Magdalisa, sometimes floated a few inches off the ground and telekinetically bandied objects about. Still, given that Tita Shulin, when living, had been a veteran of the Corrazon Witches’ Corps, death had done little to change her. Now, invisible forces tugged Magdalisa upright from the catacomb surface, and smoothed down her collar with perfunctory sensibility. “A sky-sailor has crashed his paper phoenix into the tower.” “What?” shrieked Magdalisa, scurrying after Tita Shulin. The ghost floated up the grimy stone stairway with alarming speed. “Is he all right?” “No. Come on, kid, pick up those human legs of yours. You may live with ghosts, but that doesn’t mean you have to move like the dead.” Magdalisa, legs burning protest by the time she panted her way to the top of Dalaga’s watchtower, caught sight of the wings before anything else. Painted sleekly red and black, even their collapsed length spanned the tower’s highest turret, brightly-colored paper still fluttering weakly against the wind. Fierce, hand-painted phoenix eyes stared blankly at Magdalisa from the smoking wreckage, devoid of life. Magdalisa swallowed an odd lump at the sight. Then she heard the faint, low-pitched keening beneath. Magdalisa hurried forward and crouched low. Grimacing as her knees hit a sticky little puddle of blood, she pried up one of the singed, broken wings. When Magdalisa caught sight of the sky-sailor—or what remained of him—her entire body flinched. “He’s dead.” Murmurs of dismay greeted this answer. When Magdalisa turned, she found herself facing the entire lineup of Dalaga ghosts, their faces wide-eyed and curious. Tita Shulin, standing at the front like the self-proclaimed matriarch she was, snorted at Magdalisa’s proclamation. “Please. We’re dead, kid. Flyboy’s just on the brink of it, that’s all. You of all people should know the difference, hmm? He’s probably a goner, either way.” One inky, ghostly eyebrow lifted. “Unless, of course...” Magdalisa recoiled without quite meaning to. “I can’t. High Priest Stefan won’t like it.” One of the other ghosts, a stout scowling woman called Nia, clicked her tongue irritably at the High Priest’s name. “Sod old Stefan. Petty little man.” Her sister, Luchia, gasped and shoved at Nia. “Quiet, foolish girl! He’s the High Priest!” Nia’s mouth set mulishly. “High Priest or not, I don’t see him around right now, do you?” “Ah,” said Tita Shulin, tapping her chin. “What an interesting point Nia’s raised.” “I could get in trouble,” said Magdalisa, but staring at the broken red wings, and listening to their sky-sailor’s terrible, broken animal sounds beneath, she could already feel the magic bubbling mutinously in her veins. Tita Shulin shrugged. “No one here’s gonna tell. Right, girls?” Fervent, nervous agreement chorused between the other ghosts. Magdalisa swallowed, and turned back to the phoenix’s smoking wreckage. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She didn’t know if she was apologizing to herself, or the three-quarters-dead flyboy, or the sun god Dal above, whose High Priest’s commandments she was almost certainly violating with the spark of unnatural, death-kissed power between her hands. Now, kneeling in the drying puddle of the flyboy’s blood, she lay her hands against his limp, broken-angled body. The flyboy had stopped keening, and lay unresponsive, his light brown skin now waxy and grey-tinged. His flank, terribly cold, barely rose and fell under her touch, but what little air he had left was enough. Magdalisa had more to give. A sigh shuddered through her. She let the power go. At first, nothing happened. Then a second sigh tore through the body beneath hers, violent in its exhalation. The flyboy bucked against her palms, muscles tightening under his skin. His eyes, flying open, rolled back in his skull, as his mouth widened in a soundless cry. Bones snapped back into place. New blood rushed to his previously pallid cheeks. Shudders wracked him over and over, as his body knit itself arduously back together. Still, Magdalisa’s hands held steady, her fingers twining through the fleeting threads of the flyboy’s soul, feeding its life back into his convulsing body. A final bone snapped into place. He whimpered once, then went slack in Magdalisa’s arms. She pressed her ear to his chest, and blew out a sigh of satisfaction at the drumming heart inside. When she leaned back on to her heels, the flyboy was blinking dark, slightly unfocused eyes at her. “I’m alive,” he croaked. “Yes,” agreed Magdalisa, a bit crossly, “no thanks to your sky-sailing skills. Welcome to Dalaga.” His smile at the name ‘Dalaga’ was weak, but strangely giddy. “Sanctuary,” he rasped. “What?” “Sanctuary,” he repeated, more sluggishly now. “Dalaga. I claim...” He trailed off, eyes drifting shut. Nia patted Magdalisa fondly on the shoulder. “Let him rest. Dying and coming back in the same day is hard work. You know how it is.” “I do,” said Magdalisa, frowning as she tried to arrange the flyboy’s arms more comfortably, “but I—” She hissed, as her fingers brushed cold metal at his fingers. “What?” Luchia asked, anxiously poking her head over her sister’s. “What’s the matter?” Arranged across the flyboy’s fingers were a series of gold and silver rings carved with interlocked triangles. That meant one thing. Magdalisa’s heart thudded with alarm inside her chest. “He’s a Wanderer.” “Lots of sky-sailors are,” said Tita Shulin, taking a seat beside Magdalisa. The blood-stained ground seemed to bother ghosts a good deal less than living humans. “I expect they have more need of paper phoenixes than most.” Her eyes fixed on Magdalisa’s. “Are you really going to judge him for it?” Magdalisa had the good grace to feel a stab of guilt. “They’re heretics,” she said defensively. “Ah,” said her tita, “and so are all residents of Dalaga, technically speaking. Even if he’s not a woman, a Wanderer flyboy ought to fit in just fine.”   “Remember what brought you to Dalaga.” Every so often, between chores, Magdalisa considers the epithet carved across the entrance to the cemetery. Dalaga’s name in full is Dalaga Cemetery for Misguided Ladies, the sun god Dal’s final refuge for women who strayed from the holy path of righteousness in life. The ghosts of Dalaga have been prostitutes and adulterers, god-deniers and conspirators, each new addition finding more creatively myriad ways to spend lives of merrymaking sin, before succumbing to death. The High Priest declares that the beautiful towers and ancient catacombs of Dalaga Cemetery are a tribute to Dal’s grace, a refuge for sinful females to repent in their afterlife and bask in the god’s glorious forgiveness for all eternity. Magdalisa’s not sure the High Priest has this bit quite right—in her experience, Dalaga’s ghosts aren’t especially interested in penance or forgiveness. Mostly, they seem interested in bad jokes, the latest Witches’ Corps gossip, complaining about the dust on their graves, and generally busybodying their way through Magdalisa’s life. But then, Magdalisa’s just a graveyard keeper, who earns her living cleaning the catacombs and weeding the gardens. What does she know, anyway? “I know what brought me to Dalaga. A job, that’s all. Nothing more, nothing less.”   Magdalisa had been tending the latest, strangest newcomer to Dalaga, when a blast of winter-worthy cold announced the ghosts’ presence in the tower’s spare room. “You have a visitor,” announced Tita Shulin. “It’s the High Priest,” blurted out Luchia, bobbing over the elder ghost’s shoulder, eyes very wide, as she wrung her hands. “He’s here for one of his dratted surprise inspections. Oh, Magdalisa, Magdalisa, what shall we do?” “Quiet, girl,” snapped Tita Shulin. “You’re not helping.” “What a curse it is to be a woman,” moaned Luchia, ignoring her. “What a curse, to spend a woman’s life at the whims of men, only to spend death at Dalaga and discover yourself at the whims of the High Priest, of all possible men. The High Priest!” Magdalisa sighed. Sometimes, there really was no help for Luchia. In life, she’d been a minor priestess of Dal, the third daughter of an impoverished man using his offspring to vie for respectability, which Luchia had promptly dashed when she’d run off with a young man from one of Corrazon’s neighboring cities. The rebellious lovers had lived a happy enough life together, before illness took Luchia, and sent her home to be buried at Dalaga Cemetery for Misguided Ladies. Now, Luchia began to wail. “A curse to be a woman, and no respite from it, even here! I don’t know why you would ever choose such a life, Magdalisa!” “I didn’t,” said Magdalisa, a little dryly. “I’m afraid it rather chose me.” “Magdalisa,” said Tita Shulin. Her voice was a knife, cleaving straight through Luchia’s histrionics. “How’s the flyboy?” Magdalisa glanced down at the guest bed’s occupant. For the past several days, the young Wanderer had lain unconscious more often than not, and when he woke, he barely kept his eyes open long enough to string two words together. She didn’t even know his name. Still, his color improved daily, he swallowed the congee she spooned into his mouth, and his once-thready pulse seemed to grow stronger each time Magdalisa checked it. “Alive,” said Magdalisa. Often, the barest truth was also best. Tita Shulin clicked her tongue. “It shall have to do.” “He’s coming!” hissed Nia from around the corner. “Magdalisa, you’d best have a story ready!” Helplessly, Magdalisa looked to her tita, who looked back with the same, unperturbed calm she’d carried everywhere in life. “Eh,” said Tita Shulin. “Let him come. This is Dalaga Cemetery, and you are still its keeper, for the moment. That position leaves you some sway over the goings-on of this refuge, and don’t you let old Stefan tell you otherwise.” It was good advice to go out on. The High Priest of Corrazon burst into the spare room in the same instant the ghosts vanished. “Graveyard keeper,” he barked. His beady blue eyes swept toward the bed where the flyboy slept. “Explain yourself.” Magdalisa folded her hands primly over her apron, and bowed her head to the High Priest. “I have been performing my holy duties as the keeper of Dalaga Cemetery, Your Grace.” “Holy duties!” “Indeed, Your Grace.” “Do you know what the city watch told me this afternoon?” asked the High Priest, in the low, dangerous voice of someone who does not actually expect you to answer the question. “One of those wretched sky-sailors on their ridiculous paper birds was shot down by a sentry on suspicion of espionage. But when runners were sent to find the body, none was recovered. Instead, we hear word of a paper wreckage on the very watchtower of Dalaga Cemetery, and...” He trailed off meaningfully. Magdalisa, even with her head bent, could practically feel those beady eyes boring into her skull. “You, sheltering an unexpected guest.” “Yes, Your Grace.” Magdalisa kept her voice even. “It’s as I said. Being a cemetery, Dalaga is a sacred space, holy to our sun god Dal. You have reminded me yourself, Your Grace, on many occasions.” “I don’t see why—” “As Dalaga’s graveyard keeper, is it not then my holy duty to take in the wounded who arrive seeking care and refuge?” “Yes, yes,” snapped the High Priest, flapping an irritable hand, “but if you are harboring a spy, an enemy to the city and the god himself—” “I’m not a spy,” said a new voice. Magdalisa’s head jerked up, deference forgotten, as she and the High Priest rounded as one on the bed in the corner. The flyboy was awake, and sitting upright, black curls mussed, thick-lashed eyes narrowed at the High Priest. He looked a little wan, beneath the usual dusky complexion common to the Wandering folk, but the expression behind those pitch-dark eyes gave every impression of alertness. And anger. “I’m not a spy,” he repeated. “I was delivering routine messages to the sky-sailors’ charities within the city.” “Then why, pray tell, did the sentry shoot you down?” demanded the High Priest. The sky-sailor’s lip curled. “Corrazon’s city sentries have never been overly fond of sky-sailors.” The High Priest’s face grew mottled. “Keep in mind, boy, your position.” Mouth pursed, his gaze raked the young man up and down. “The sentries are protectors and servants of Dal. And no one believes the words of Wanderers. Be careful where you choose to fling your accusations.” “I’m not accusing anyone of anything,” said the sky-sailor in even tones. He smiled unpleasantly. “I’m sure it was a mistake.” “Then you will not mind being tried for espionage at the city courts.” “On what grounds?” “You are a Wanderer,” began the High Priest, eyeing the rings at the flyboy’s fingers with a grimace, “and a sky-sailor, besides. It is well within the authority of the High Priest of Corrazon to detain individuals of suspicious background—” “Not in a sanctuary,” interrupted Magdalisa. A memory clicked into place at the back of her mind. Both men’s gazes whipped toward her, one cold, one bemused. “What are you talking about?” demanded the High Priest. “Sanctuary,” repeated Magdalisa. “Cemeteries are sacred to our sun god. In a refuge holy to Dal, no blood can be spilt, and no hands lain on another against their will. As such, so long as we stand on Dalaga’s grounds, Your Grace, I’m afraid you’ll be quite unable to detain...” “Rigo,” the flyboy supplied, looking rather amused now. “I’m called Rigo.” “Rigo,” agreed Magdalisa, head bowed to the now crimson-faced High Priest. “There you have it. I’m terribly sorry, Your Grace. I’m but a humble graveyard keeper, who answers only to Dal’s will, which commands us all.” At the invocation of the sun god’s name, the expression on High Priest Stefan’s face shifted just a little, as he glanced skyward, toward Dal’s domain. But it was enough. His mouth worked. “Stay here then, heretic,” he snarled at last. “And may you rot within these walls, by the eternal mercy of the god whose name you disgrace.” With that particularly dramatic proclamation, the High Priest slammed out of the room. Slowly, Magdalisa lifted her eyes to Rigo, the flyboy. “Well,” she said awkwardly. “It seems you may have returned to the land of the living just in time for me to trap you in a cemetery for eternity. I’m dreadfully sorry.” Rigo blinked at her. “You just saved me.” “I don’t know about that,” said Magdalisa. “When you first smashed yourself to bits against the watchtower turret, certainly, I’ll take credit for that save. I’m not sure this one counts, though. Caging you in a graveyard might not be much better than letting you stand city trial.” “Anything is better than standing city trial for a Wanderer,” said Rigo, very wryly. He blinked slowly and shook his head, his grin full of uncertain wonder. “You don’t even know me. Why help me?” “Ah, well.” Magdalisa rolled her shoulders. “You can blame my tita for that one.”   “Remember what brought you to Dalaga.” Tita Shulin—in her life before Dalaga—proudly serves the city government as a member of the Corrazon Witches’ Corps. She’s Magdalisa’s very favorite tita. Magdalisa, at this point, isn’t yet called Magdalisa; that part won’t happen until later, but the name she bears right now isn’t important. The child who will one day become Magdalisa laughs when Tita Shulin makes Mama’s cookware dance around the family kitchen, and exclaims over the silky uniform pinafore that Tita Shulin carefully airs out on the balcony every Sunday. “Hey, tita!” Magdalisa calls, dangling heels thumping together between the balcony bars. “Tita, when I’m big, I’m going to join the Witches’ Corps too, and wear pinafores just like yours!” Tita Shulin laughs, and nudges her sister, Magdalisa’s mama, crowing, “This kid’s going to be a handful.” “I know what brought me to Dalaga. My tita’s pinafore, that’s all. Nothing more, nothing less.”   “Wanderers aren’t technically heretics.” Magdalisa squinted up at the figure silhouetted against the afternoon sun. “Excuse me?” Rigo, the flyboy, dimpled down at her. He still walked gingerly, and bore a particular pallor that suggested his body hadn’t quite caught up with Magdalisa’s magic, but he left the guest bed from time to time to wander the cemetery grounds, picking up books from the tower library and offering Magdalisa assistance with minor chores around Dalaga. Now, he’d caught her in the garden, tending one of the jade plants. Apparently, he was in a mood to debate theology. Magdalisa patted at the dirt. “Anyone who refuses to recognize Dal the sun god is a heretic by definition.” “But there’s the thing,” mused Rigo in that habitually cheery, soft-spoken tone of his. “We do recognize Dal. We think he’s a rather fine fellow, in fact. Who wouldn’t?” Squatting beside Magdalisa, he caressed the little jade plant’s leaves, brow furrowed in thought. “The sun brings us all life. Where your High Priest and his ilk seem to take exception is that we also recognize Meera the earth mother, and Hiseo the god of sea and stars, and Shara the holy queen of the eastern skies.” Magdalisa said, carefully, “The traditional scriptures of Dal do not recognize other gods.” “True,” granted Rigo, dimples still out in full force. “Still, the sun god doesn’t strike me as a petty deity. I can’t imagine he begrudges those less fortunate, homeless gods a place in somebody else’s pantheon. We Wanderers can’t help but feel for the poor aimless creatures.” The corners of Magdalisa’s mouth, traitorous, twitched upward. “The High Priest and his followers would have you burned in the city square for speaking of Dal in such friendly terms.” “But does Dal not proclaim for the virtues of companionship and charity? He must feel for his fellow deities. Why, consider Shu of the western wind, for instance—such a blustery fellow, blowing this way and that, uncertain of his welcome anywhere. We cannot all be so graciously secure in our spot in the sky as the sun god.” Magdalisa glanced sidelong and the sky-sailor. “I’m not at all sure we’re still speaking of Dal.” Curiosity warred with polite wariness, and won. “How does a Wanderer come to fly paper phoenixes for the sky-sailors’ brigade, anyhow?” Rigo winked. “Well, to start, I’m quite good at flying.” “I wouldn’t have guessed, from the great bloody mess you left on the watchtower turret,” said Magdalisa dryly. “An injustice!” Rigo pulled a face at her. “It was hardly my fault the city sentries decided to have a go at me!” “They did think you were a spy.” Rigo sighed, still grinning, but his dark gaze went oddly somber. “All sky-sailors are spies in the eyes of the sentries. The city government—the sentries, the Witches’ Corps, even the High Priest, bless his soul—they all wish to protect the people of Corrazon. It’s a noble task, but one where they do not always succeed. Precious little protection exists for the poor, or for so-called misguided women”—here, he winked again at Magdalisa—“or indeed, for Wandering folk. We of the sky-sailors’ brigade merely wish to assist by filling the neglected gap. The sentries seem to find this an unwelcome interference. Can’t think why.” Magdalisa’s brow furrowed. “You think the city government dislikes the sky-sailors because they defend Corrazon’s outcasts?” “I didn’t say that at all!” cried Rigo, injured. “Perhaps the good servants of the government are merely jealous that we remember what they’ve forgotten. How frightfully embarrassing for them, poor fellows.” Helpless, startled laughter bubbled out of Magdalisa. “You know,” she admitted, “I wanted more than anything to join the Corrazon Witches’ Corps once. I thought I’d help the government protect people too, just like my tita.” Rigo’s smile was slow, genuine, and sun-bright. “You would have made an excellent addition, if my still-beating heart is any indication,” he pointed out. “Why didn’t you?” Magdalisa shrugged, eyes averted. “I grew up, and discovered that being magical is rather more trouble than it’s worth.” She touched the jade plant’s leaves. “Besides, the graveyard needed a new keeper.”   “Remember what brought you to Dalaga.” Magdalisa’s mama spends most of Magdalisa’s childhood hoping Magdalisa will grow out of Witches’ Corps ambitions. When Magdalisa doesn’t, Mama blames Tita Shulin. “This is all your influence!” An angry voice floats up from the balcony late one night, when Magdalisa is supposed to be in bed. “How am I supposed to raise a child properly by myself, when you cavort about, telling lewd stories about women you’ve bedded in the Corps and teaching witchcraft behind my back?” “You don’t have to like it,” chides Tita Shulin, sounding tired. “But your kid has a real gift for magic—” “Gift!” “The Witches’ Corps should be so lucky to recruit such a talented magic-worker into Corrazon’s service. Be proud, sister.” “I would,” says Mama, in a low, tight voice. “I know how much the child wants to be a witch. But it’s not what boys are supposed to want.” Mama’s words thud inside Magdalisa’s chest like a misplaced heartbeat. The next morning, after prayers, Magdalisa finds Tita Shulin. “Tita,” she asks, “must I be a boy?” Tita Shulin sighs. “Your Mama, and most of the family, seem to think so.” A pause. “That does not mean you are a boy, or under any particular obligation to pretend you are.” She smiles. “Eh. Boy, girl, both, neither. You’re young. You don’t have to know everything about yourself right now, hmm?” “Did you always know you were a girl?” “Sure,” says Tita Shulin. “But I didn’t know I was the sort of girl who fancies other girls until I was past twenty, and in my second year with the Witches’ Corps.” She shrugs. “Your grandpapa—my papa, and your mama’s—didn’t like that so much either.” Tita Shulin offers a wink. “But that did not stop it from being true.” “I know what brought me to Dalaga. The truth, that’s all. Nothing more, nothing less.”   “That sky-sailor’s sweet on you,” said Nia, without so much as a word of preamble, or a blast of cold to announce her presence. Magdalisa shrieked into the nightgown she’d half-pulled over her head. “Dal’s sun! Don’t you ghosts understand a human need for privacy? I was indecent!” Nia rolled her luminous eyes, clearly unimpressed. “Little one, all women who reside at Dalaga, living or dead, have been indecent at some point. We’ve practically made indecency an art form.” “Still!” “Nia has a point,” added Luchia, following her sister. “Granted, she didn’t have one true love, as I did, but rather, a great collection of them—” “Luchia!” “– but the two of us do share an understanding when it comes to men who fancy women,” continued Luchia. “And the flyboy fancies you.” “Codswallop,” said Magdalisa, fire-cheeked. “You’ve all been dead too long to know the first thing about fancying anybody.” Luchia’s eyes narrowed. “Why, it’s true. You do like him back!” “Told you,” crowed Nia. “You owe me the next three rice wine offerings on your grave.” “You said two!” “I said three, little sister.” Magdalisa stomped out of her bedroom. Living with ghosts was all very well, but a human girl could only stomach so much gossip and bickering at her expense. Struck by a chord of determination, she went to find Rigo. The source of all ghostly speculation himself was propped up in the guest bed, reading an old volume of Corrazon history. Upon seeing Magdalisa, he smiled. “You’re still awake! I was the only night owl in my family. It’s nice to know someone else who doesn’t drop like a snoring rock as soon as Dal’s sun sets.” “Do you fancy me?” demanded Magdalisa. Rigo blinked over the book cover. “I’m feeling rather attacked by this line of questioning.” “It’s all right if you don’t,” Magdalisa added quickly. “I don’t expect—” “Yes.” “– any obligations from you. What?” “Yes,” Rigo repeated. He marked his place in the book, set it aside, and said, “I fancy you.” “Is it because I stuck the life back in your body after you essentially died?” demanded Magdalisa, whose heart had begun to rattle unpleasantly beneath her bones. Rigo’s mouth twitched. “That was a very nice point in your favor, but not the only reason.” Eyes averted, she flopped down on the foot of the guest bed. “Is it because I’m the only living woman at Dalaga?” “Shara of the Sky bear me witness, I’d like to think I have higher standards for women than a mere beating heart!” Rigo raked a hand through his curls, looking genuinely nervous for the first time since she’d brought him back from the dead. Then he took a deep breath, and said softly, “I like debating theology with you. I like how clever and funny you are. I like that you treat the graveyard plants so tenderly. I like how your hair curls at the ends when it rains, and how your skin goes dark with Dal’s summer sun. I like—” Magdalisa leaned over and kissed him.   “Remember what brought you to Dalaga.” Magdalisa’s sixteen. She’s been going with Tomo, the butcher’s boy, for all of three months, when they get into a tremendous row right after Wednesday’s midday prayer service. “My papa says the magic inside you is a Wanderers’ curse against Dal,” claims Tomo, who at seventeen, at least has the self-awareness to look shame-faced. Magdalisa, though, is having none of it. “What complete codswallop,” she snaps, hands on her hips. Embarrassed indignation burns like a furnace inside her belly, heating her cheeks. “I have never spoken to a Wanderer in my entire life!” Tomo shakes his head, clearly miserable. “I know, but it won’t make a difference to Papa. He says I’m not to see you anymore, and that I’m to find a proper, beautiful woman who will give him proper grandchildren.” The furnace inside Magdalisa might as well be a full-fledged bonfire. “Well!” she exclaims. “My mama says your papa is a miserable pig, and going with you is beneath our family’s dignity, anyhow. You’re just jealous that I have sufficient magical talent to sit the Witches’ Corps exams, while you must spend all your days in your miserable papa’s butcher shop. I’m well rid of you, Tomo!” She starts to stalk off, but can’t quite resist shouting over her shoulder, “And another thing! I am a beautiful woman, so good luck finding another foolish enough to have you!” Magdalisa waits until she’s safely home, ensconced on Tita Shulin’s balcony, before she finally allows the tears to flow, ugly and unchecked. A few minutes later, Tita Shulin herself stomps out to scold Magdalisa for skipping the post-prayer luncheon, but stops short at the blotchy, sorry sight of Magdalisa’s face. “Dal’s sun above, kid. What on earth is the matter?” Magdalisa opens her mouth to say, “Nothing.” Instead, the whole mortifying story blubbers out: about how much she liked Tomo, who liked her back, but not enough, in the end. How Tomo’s papa wanted Tomo to marry a normal, pretty girl who could produce normal, pretty children, instead of some shrewish witch-girl who’d spent practically her entire childhood being mistaken for a boy. “Ah, kid,” says Tita Shulin, very quietly, when Magdalisa’s done. “That’s a rough break.” Magdalisa hiccups. “Are you mad at me?” “Nah.” The old witch’s arm slings rough and tight around the young witch’s shoulders, as Magdalisa’s tears silently soak Tita Shulin’s pinafore collar. “Everyone misses a prayer luncheon or two. You got nothing to be ashamed of, you hear? Nothing at all.” “I know what brought me to Dalaga. My own silly, broken heart, that’s all. Nothing more, nothing less.”   Rigo’s mouth, soft and full-lipped, tasted like fruit from the garden. His hands, rings cool on her skin, cradled the back of her skull like it was something precious, thumbs rubbing gentle circles just under her jawline. Magdalisa broke the kiss with some reluctance, her own fingers still curled in his hair, memories a lump in her throat. She didn’t owe the flyboy anything, not truly, but the lump needed to be spoken, for her own sake. She groaned, forehead thudding against his chest. “Rigo, listen, before we go any further. You might not—I have too much magic in me. People expected me to...” Rigo’s heart thrummed patiently against Magdalisa’s forehead. She didn’t dare look up, unable to stomach the thought of those expectant, liquid dark eyes. How to pull this off gracefully? Magdalisa leaned back, gaze fixed on the ceiling, and blurted out, “I think you’re assuming that I have all the particular physical bits people usually expect of women, and that I was born into this world knowing I was a woman, but I don’t, and I wasn’t, all right?” Oh no, she thought, mortified, that wasn’t graceful at all. Rigo blinked a few times, pupils still blown, inky brows furrowing. Almost absently, he traced a thumb over her cheekbone. “All right.” “All right?” she echoed, a little incredulous. He shrugged, looking amused. “If I had anything against unusually magical women, I probably shouldn’t have confessed my affection after your magic literally knit my soul back to my body.” “And the rest?” “Magdalisa,” said Rigo, “we’re currently necking in a cemetery dedicated to women who broke with Corrazon expectations. Your particular womanhood, however you came to it, clearly follows in the footsteps of a rich tradition.” “Oh,” said Magdalisa, flooded by a curious, insistent warmth, and reached for him. “Well,” she managed, as his mouth found her ear, “I suppose we’d best get back to that then.” No further interruptions occurred.   “Remember what brought you to Dalaga.” When the Witches’ Corps send Magdalisa a politely-worded rejection letter—she still wants them, but they don’t want her—Magdalisa’s not the one who breaks. It’s Mama. “I knew it,” Mama moans, over and over again, “I knew this encouragement of your magic would come to no good end. The Witches’ Corps was the only hope for a child like you, and now the Witches’ Corps have turned their backs on us too. What place is left for you now, hmm? What are we to do with you?” Magdalisa watches this all in silence, knowing better than to voice the words resting sharp on her tongue’s edge: The Witches’ Corps turned their backs on me, not you. Stop twisting my pain into your own, Mama. “We’ll fix this,” Mama decides at last. Her wet eyes are hard and narrow. “I know a man who can help. He’ll sort this all out, and our lives will be our own again.” Magdalisa, staring at the floor, wonders what Tita Shulin would say to Mama. The thought is a foolish indulgence. A bad heart killed Magdalisa’s tita more than a year ago. What worth can be found in a dead woman’s imaginary words? “I know what brought me to Dalaga. One unfortunate letter, that’s all. Nothing more, nothing less.   The Festival of Dal’s Sunrise would fall on a Friday. It was, Magdalisa realized, with an odd twist of her gut, the perfect day to plan an escape for Rigo. The High Priest and his most trusted men would be occupied all day at the city square with holy festivities. No one would bother to monitor arrivals and departures from Dalaga. “I agree,” said Tita Shulin, when Magdalisa told her this, one hot day in the graveyard gardens, “but I don’t see why you can’t go with him.” “Who, Rigo?” Magdalisa turned her face toward the garden wall. “Don’t be ridiculous, tita, I’m the graveyard keeper.” “Yes, and so you’ve been for years now. You’re too young to be stuck in a cemetery forever. You wanted to protect Corrazon’s living people, once. That young flyboy of yours, he shares the same dream. Why not make something of it together?” “In the sky-sailors’ brigade?” Magdalisa asked, incredulous. “What place could they have for a graveyard keeper, a forgotten little witch-girl that no one—” “Stop that this instant,” said Tita Shulin, suddenly ironlike. “I didn’t indulge that kind of talk from you when you were sixteen, and I certainly won’t indulge it now that you’re grown. You live with the dead, but you are not one of us. You were always going to have to move on, one day.” “We can argue about my career choices later,” snapped Magdalisa, stomping from the garden. “Right now, I’m going to find Rigo, and share my plan.” “He’s in love, you know.” Magdalisa blinked rapidly. “I know, tita. So am I. That’s why I have to set him free.” She found Rigo in the library, and stared at the ceiling the whole time she recited her plan. She’d considered everything: the little-known catacomb tunnels beneath the cemetery proper, the map to point the way, the back-door entrance hatch just outside the city gate. “Will the other sky-sailors find you?” she asked urgently, when she finished. “They need to be able to find you.” “Yes,” said Rigo, “and I need to find them. I’d always planned to escape, eventually, but I thought...” In the corner of her eye, hurt skittered across his features for a moment, before smoothing into habitual cheer. “I thought perhaps you’d come too. That’s all.” Magdalisa closed her eyes. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m still the graveyard keeper. I’m sorry.” She swallowed. “Please don’t fight with me about this. I—it may be your only chance, you understand?” The silence between them felt longer and heavier than any Magdalisa had ever borne. “I do,” said Rigo at last, soft-voiced. “Thank you. For everything.” Magdalisa heard his footsteps depart the library, but didn’t turn to watch. She didn’t seek him out for a final goodbye, either, when the fateful night fell. To what end? She’d given him his map to freedom. It wouldn’t do, to make salvation harder on either of them than it had to be.   “Remember what brought you to Dalaga.” Mama’s cure-all man works off the books, but he guarantees he can wrest unwanted magic from any human vessel, for the right price. What happens to Magdalisa in his secret shop, in the back alley, isn’t worth remembering. There’s darkness, and pain, and at the end of it all, Magdalisa’s magic, sure enough, bleeding out on to the floor, along with the rest of her. Magic, after all, is tied to the soul. Mama weeps over her. “I’m sorry, girl. Mama’s so, so sorry.” Magdalisa’s final, furious thought is that being sorry never fixed anything. Then darkness eats her world. “I know what brought me to Dalaga, but you have no right to it. You have no right at all.”   Luchia was the one who brought word of the ambush. “It was a trap!” she cried. The ghost burst into Magdalisa’s bedroom in a flurry of cold that sank into Magdalisa’s very bones. “A few of the High Priest’s men, they thought Rigo would take advantage of the festival day to run, so they waited for him at the gate.” “They’re going to burn him in the city square.” Nia’s voice was quieter than her sister’s. “I’m so sorry, little one.” Magdalisa sat there in the winter-deep chill of her bedroom, absorbing the ghosts’ words. “Don’t be,” she said at last. Despite the chill, she felt hot beneath the skin. “Magdalisa!” Tita Shulin appeared then, the only ghost whose face wasn’t a picture of distress. Her fingers found Magdalisa’s, and squeezed tight, just once. Then the touch was gone. “Go on then, kid,” she said. “You know what to do. You’ve always known.” Magdalisa stood. Her nails bit into her palms, as her heart thrummed with some savage feeling she couldn’t name. It shoved her to her feet, carrying her out the bedroom and up the stairs, to the watchtower’s highest turret, where the remains of Rigo’s paper phoenix still lay spattered with his bloodstains. Standing before the phoenix’s blank-eyed stare, Magdalisa glared up at Dal’s setting red sun. “I am well and truly sick of my magic being a burden,” she declared. “Witness, for once in my life, my magic is going to work for me.” Power jumped inside Magdalisa’s veins. Beneath her hands, the paper phoenix rustled and groaned, unfurling its great red wings. Its painted eyes widened, then narrowed at Magdalisa, whose magic curled plumes around them both. With painstaking care, Magdalisa curved her body along the phoenix’s spine, burying her face in the paper feathers. “Help me,” she whispered, fists full of feathers and furious magic. “Help us both.” The phoenix emitted a great, shrieking war cry. Then, Magdalisa astride its back, launched into the sky. Clinging to the bird with her knees, Magdalisa scanned the ground until she smelled smoke. “There,” she whispered. She felt the paper phoenix hesitate beneath her. She stroked its bright-painted plumage, power sparking between them. “Don’t worry. You won’t burn. Not under my watch.” The phoenix dove. The pyre wasn’t lit yet, but the torches were ready. A crowd had gathered. And someone was tying a familiar, dark-headed figure to the center. Not under my watch, thought Magdalisa, and dove again. She barely had time to register the shock on Rigo’s bloodless face, before she’d kicked aside his guard, and pulled the sky-sailor astride his own phoenix. “Miss me?” she shouted, over the crowd’s roar of surprise. “You have no idea,” he shouted back, and then his arms were wrapped tight around her ribs, as the three of them—the flyboy, the graveyard girl, and the paper phoenix—hurtled away into the star-streaked sky. “Goodness,” he said, some time later. His arms were still a vise around her bones. It occurred to Magdalisa, as they zigzagged through the air, that his reasons were probably practical, as well as affectionate. “Perhaps you’d best let me steer.” “Just don’t crash us into the watchtower again. Trouble enough saving your life the first time around.” Rigo laughed, nose buried against her neck. “Don’t worry. I can land us there nice and easy, now that everyone below is too shocked to shoot in the dark.” “No,” said Magdalisa. “We’re not going back to Dalaga.” His hands, subtly reining the phoenix around by its feathers, went briefly still. “Are you sure?” “Yes.” Magdalisa smiled against the wind, hot-eyed, but certain as the magic pulsing warm and alive beneath her bones. “I am.” “You’ll have to become a better sky-sailor. For all our sakes, really.” Without turning around, Magdalisa swatted at his thigh. “I think I’ll manage.” Rigo went quiet. When he spoke again, his tone was thoughtful. “You know, Wanderers never had permanent physical homes. I think that’s why we share a tradition of telling the stories of what brought us to the places we’ve lived. It’s a way to remember homes that mattered. Homes we carry in our hearts, even when we wander. Will you tell me what brought you to Dalaga?" Rigo’s arms around her were warm. Resting her head against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart, Magdalisa told him.   After the end of everything, Magdalisa wakes up. At first, she’s certain she’s dead. For one thing, her entire body aches. For another, Tita Shulin, a year and a half past her funeral date, is staring down into Magdalisa’s eyes. Magdalisa’s lying in a bed she doesn’t recognize. Barren stone walls surround what look to be a modest, if tidy, room. “If this is the land of Dal’s glorious afterlife,” she croaks, “the High Priest is in for a surprise.” “I’m afraid not,” her tita says, sounding amused. “We’re merely at Dalaga Cemetery. I don’t blame you for not recognizing the place. The last time you came to the cemetery was for my funeral.” Magdalisa blinks, wiggling her toes. Something strange sparks between them. “My magic,” she murmurs, heart thudding. “It’s back.” “Of course it’s back,” says Tita Shulin, nonplussed. “You silly girl. Did you really think the ghosts of Dalaga Cemetery would restore your soul to your body, and neglect something so important?” Magdalisa glances up at her tita, alarmed. “Then I—” “You are very much alive, yes, I saw to that.” “Are you—” “Still dead, rather.” Tita Shulin shrugs, as if this matters very little. “Eh. It’s not so bad, really. Being a ghost quite suits me.” Unbidden, Magdalisa’s eyes fill. “I missed you. After you died, Mama was never the same.” “Ah, kid,” sighs Tita Shulin. An old sorrow colors her features. “Your grandpapa was a hard, small-minded man, and your mama always had more trouble ignoring his harshness than I did. She wanted so much to please him, but she should not have taken that out on you. You’re her child, magical or not.” “Magic’s what killed me in the first place!” “No, it is not,” says Tita Shulin. “What tried to kill you—and failed, I might add—is a world that didn’t know how to handle magic properly. The world is often foolish in that way, and cruel. But death isn’t ready for you, yet. Your magic still has work to do. I could tell, all the way here in Dalaga, as soon as I sensed my Magdalisa’s soul struggling to stay tethered to her body.” Tita Shulin taps her heart. “I’m a witch too, remember? Magic always knows. A tita’s heart always knows. So the ghosts of Dalaga did what had to be done.” Magdalisa swallows the lump in her throat. “But if I’m not dead, what happens now?” Her tita shrugs. “Eh. The cemetery’s been needing a new graveyard keeper for a while now. The poor gardens are terribly withered. You’ve always been quite good at restoring life, and protecting it. You take after me that way. Why not make some use of those talents, for the moment?” “All right,” says Magdalisa. “All right, I will. For the moment.” She takes her tita’s hand, and follows her to the gardens, where all the other misguided, defiant women of Corrazon wait, their souls eternal, the life growing green and bright around them beneath Dal’s sun. “I know what brought me to Dalaga. Somebody loved me. Nothing more, nothing less.”   END “Graveyard Girls on Paper Phoenix Wings" is copyright Andrea Tang 2018. This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library. You can support GlitterShip by checking out our Patreon at patreon.com/keffy, subscribing to our feed, or by leaving reviews on iTunes. Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back soon with a selection of three short reprints.

This week, we’re back at the table discussing a fiction piece by Frank Scozzari, titled “In the Valley of the Dry Bones.”  Scozzari hobo’ed his way across America at age eighteen, twice trekked the John Muir Trail, backpacked through Europe, camel-backed the ruins of Giza… This week, we’re back at the table discussing a fiction piece by Frank Scozzari, titled “In the Valley of the Dry Bones.” Frank Scozzari Scozzari hobo’ed his way across America at age eighteen, twice trekked the John Muir Trail, backpacked through Europe, camel-backed the ruins of Giza, jeep-trailed the length of the Baja peninsula three times, globe-trotted from Peking to Paris to the White Nights of northern Russia, and once climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro – the highest point in Africa. A four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, his award-winning short stories have been widely anthologized. “In the Valley of the Dry Bones” creates a discussion that looks at the story’s uses of imagery, characterization, and overall language to engage us from the first page to the very last. Scozzari’s piece gives us Sergeant Dax Garner as the main character, the one remaining soldier on the battlefield after his platoon has been wiped out by the enemy. In reviewing “In the Valley of the Dry Bones,” we shared our ideas on social commentary in fiction, whether or not it is necessary for characters to have psychological depth, and finding the balance between “telling” and “showing” in writing. Scozzari employs altogether excellent writing that leaves us all anxious and exhausted (in the good way), but also impressed with his distraction-free storytelling. We close out this episode talking about how fiction tends to shape our perceptions of things that we don’t know much about from short stories to TV series like House of Cards and steamy doctor dramas. Tune in to hear our takes on favorites like Big Little Lies, Google for education, and the not-so-genius production of Hamlet. Share your thoughts about the episode with us on our Facebook event page and on Twitter with #GoogleItUp! Happy reading!     Present at the Editorial Table Kathleen Volk Miller Tim Fitts Sharee DeVose Jason Schneiderman Maureen McVeigh   Engineering Producer Joseph Zang -----------------------------    Frank Scozzari In the Valley of the Dry Bones They were killed to the last man despite the ingenious plans of Captain Branson. He had foretold their desperate scramble up the canyon, drawing it out in the sand; how they would make a valiant stand on the flats where they had killed half a dozen Taliban;how they would find refuge in the large rocks above the flats giving them time to regroup and reload; how they would make that heart-thumping scramble up the steep, exposed slope with bullets zinging over their heads, and how, when they reached the small grove of pine trees at the top of the wash there would nothing behind them but high cliffs, and though it would seem they were trapped, they would find cover in the pines and would radio for air support. Then the jets would come in from the north from behind the tall mountains, flying so low they could not be seen until the last second, and the Taliban would be annihilated by their precision-guided missiles. But they never made it to the pines, and now Sergeant Dax Garner lay alone at the highest outcropping of rocks with a bullet in his thigh, his mouth dry, his leg stiffening,and his gun barrel so hot from all the rounds he had fired that he thought it might jam if he needed to use it again. On a ledge below him, Captain Branson lay next to Corporal Donnelly, the radio not more than a yard away from his outstretched arm—the call for air-support having never been made. Below Garner could hear the Taliban were shouting back and forth in Pashto. He pulled himself higher against the granite. There was a nice V-shape between two rocks through which he could see clear down to the bottom. Something blue stirred among the white boulders. Yeah, he’s the one, Garner thought. The one who ruined us. The one with the blue turban who out-flanked us in a place where we could not be out-flanked; who assembled his men against the canyon walls where there was no place to assemble; who made us easy prey for their guns. Garner sighed. That crazy, pack-laden, desperate rush up the slope that ruined us. He turned and looked skyward, thinking of the jets that would never come. The bright, blue autumn sky was without clouds. He thought it might be the last time he saw such a sky. How was it that they had miscalculated their retreat so badly? Scattered on the slopes below were several dead Marines. Of the five of them who had made it to this high place in the canyon, four of them now lay in the awkward positions of the dead; some small and crumbled up, others sprawled out with their arms and legs at odd angles. Retreat was not an option, Captain Branson had said. The last bravado words of a gung ho leader, Garner thought. Well, his wish came true. And now look at him. Of all of the dead, he was the most oddly positioned. His legs seemed to be peddling as if dancing on a roof-top and his head was twisted in the opposite direction, and still, that outstretched arm was reaching for the radio. In addition to Captain Branson and Private Donnelly, there was Private Toby and Sweeney. Toby had been hit coming up the slope but somehow managed to reach the top,and now he lay sprawled out like a five-pointed star with his arms stretched-out over his head. As Garner looked at him he thought of something he had said just yesterday on the way up the canyon. They had passed some old ruins. There are a lot of old ruins in the mountains of Afghanistan and sometimes they would go inside them and investigate and this time when they did Toby asked the group; “Do you ever think about the ghosts of these ruins? All the people who lived here, loved here, played here over time?” No one replied but Sweeney. “The lost and the forsaken,” Sweeney said. Sweeney now lay some ten yards to the Toby’s right, crumbled-up with knees to and arms tucked to his chest. So what good was all that religious mumbo jumbo? Garner thought. Not that Garner had a problem with all Sweeney’s biblical sayings. In a faraway land, being shot at daily, religion was not a bad thing to have. But Sweeney drove it into the earth; quoting this little blue bible he toted around, preaching in a condescending way like the rest of them were nothing but mindless heathens. And when they had begun their climb up this wide valley from Kandahar, he started reciting Ezekiel: “The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones…. And I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.” The irony of it made Garner shiver now. It was, and is, a damned dry valley, and now it was to be filled with bones of a dozen Marines and a shit load of Taliban. “I will make breath enter you,” he recalled Sweeney quoting, “and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin… And as he so prophesied, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them.” Such volition! Garner thought. He should have been a preacher, not a Marine. “Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live… and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.” Garner’s mouth was drier than the driest valley, and as he continued to cerebrally recite Sweeney’s sermon he noticed Sweeney’s canteen lying in the sand next to him, and it made him realize just how damned thirsty he was. It was the wound, he thought, and the heat, and the fear, and that long scramble up the wash, that had dried his mouth out. The canteen was laying on its side with the cap still on it and Garner thought it had to have water still in it. Sweeney hadn’t the chance to drink from it. He glanced down the wash. The Taliban with the blue turban hadn’t advanced much. He was keeping his head low, carefully negotiating his way higher through the white boulders. He was the smart one all right, Garner thought. Garner began the long arduous journey down toward Sweeney’s canteen.Sweeney was a good ten feet in elevation below him and fifteen yards in distance, and Garner had to slither like a snake along a granite slab and in between two boulders, all the while dragging his rifle behind him. The gravity made it easier, he thought, leaning forward and pulling mightily with his arms. But each time he lurched forward, his leg began to ache again. Blood was oozing from the pant leg where the bullet had ripped it open. When he reached Sweeney he had to reach over him to grab the canteen. He could not help but look at Sweeney’s dead face. “Mouthing off all that biblical shit?” Garner said. “A lot of good it did you. A lot of good it did us.” He grabbed the canteen, uncapped it, and guzzled down a mouthful of water.Then he rolled over and lay on his back, looked skyward, and took another long drink from his canteen. “Where gone all yeah Christian soldiers?” He held the canteen above his mouth until the last drop trickled down his throat. Then he tossed it to the side. “Let the four winds come breathe breath into you now,” he said. It was not long before he heard the Taliban voices again, louder and more confident. One was shouting in English. “No need to die Marines!” The voice echoed up the canyon. Garner took hold of his rifle, checked the clip and, seeing he only had a few rounds left, took the spare clips from Sweeney’s utility belt and stuffed them in the pockets of his cargo pants. He wiggled his way back to ledge of the rocks and peered down. The blue turban was higher, flashing bright in the sunlight between the boulders. Garner lifted his rifle slowly over the top of the rock, aimed down-canyon, and put a bead directly on the blue turban. Then it disappeared. “No need to die Marines!” the voice yelled. “Surrender now and you will live.” “So you can trade me for a thousand of your friends?” Garner mumbled softly to himself. “No thanks.” Thirty seconds passed and Garner could see the Taliban standing higher, more boldly. “Come on Americans, there is no place for you to go. Surrender and live!” he shouted confidently. “Come on you bastard,” was Garner quiet reply. “…just a little higher.” Then the blue turban came completely out from behind the rocks, fully exposing his torso. Garner looked on surprised. He thinks we’re all dead, he thought. It had been some time since there had been any gunfire. The last follies from the bottom of the wash had gone answered. Garner looked over at Toby, who was sprawled on a down-sloping slab of granite, easily seen by those below. The other Marines who did not make it up the slope lay exposed below, and of the five who had made it to the top,all had been hit and staggered before disappearing beyond the top ledge. “We have food and water,” the Taliban shouted. “You need water, no?” Garner watched as the blue turban climbed higher. “Come on, just a little more.And bring some of your friends with you.” “Are you not warriors? You made a good fight but you lost. Realize that and you will live.” His English is very good, Garner thought. Too good. Bastard was probably educated in the States or England. “If you are thirsty?” the Taliban yelled. “We have water.” Wait for the perfect shot. Wait for the others to come out. Then you can take many. Now the Taliban leader was a good ten yards beyond the cover of the last boulder. “Come on you Bastard! Come on!” Garner kept his sight centered on the blue turban. “Not too smart now.” Then another turban showed itself, a white one, and another white one. “Come on you Bastards!” Garner could feel his trigger finger pulling downward. He had to do all he could to keep from pulling it all the way. I’d love to finish it now, he thought. I’d love to finish him like he finished us. I’d love to put a bullet through that blue-shrouded cranium so that the pain would go away. Garner glanced skyward. But what good would that do? Then what? Then the parades would begin, that’s what. And a public execution, posted on YouTube for the entire world to see. He had seen how the Taliban handled their dead enemies. There was no honor in it. Their fallen foes were slaughtered like lambs. He had seen dead Marines dragged through the streets and Afghan soldiers beheaded. It was a grisly thought, and he did not want it to happen to him now nor to his fallen comrades. But it was their fate, he thought, because of their miscalculation, and their bravado, and that feeling of invincibility engrained in them by the Marine Corps. We are done. He looked skyward again. The blue sky was silent. And worse yet, the bartering will begin. He knew he was worth more alive than dead.  One Marine was worth many imprisoned combatants. Unless of course there was an airstrike. On the flat ledge below by Captain Branson and Private Donnelly the radio lay idle and waiting just beyond the Captain’s outstretched arm. A laser-guided missile from the sky would finish it all, Garner knew. Then there would be no American bodies to be put on parade, no moral victories for the Taliban to celebrate, no high-value American soldier to be offered in a ten-fold trade for Taliban leaders who will wreak a thousand-fold in terror. Down at the bottom of the wash the Taliban leader climbed wantonly up the talus rocks with several turban-shrouded men following up behind him. “Yes, a laser guided missile would finish it all nicely,” Garner said to himself. He checked the clip on his rifle; then swung it over his shoulder. Have to remain quiet, he thought. Have to lure them in close. Have to be certain they are close enough to kill them all. Garner commenced a slow crawl to the ledge below—toward Captain Branson and the radio, sliding along the rocks. The pain in his leg increased with each long pull,but he did his best to shake it off. His newfound plan gave him strength. There is no pain in death, he thought. And there will be no Taliban victories. But as pleasing a thought it was to destroy the Taliban, the notion of committing suicide was troublesome. He, who had always applauded life and despised suicide bombers, was about to join the ranks of the martyred dead. This sat uneasily in his gut. And he thought of the sound of jets too—that glorious, thunderous roar that signaled the might of the virtuous imminently overhead. It was the modern-day equivalent of the cavalry horn; one that could even the odds in a desperate battle. He recalled a time when he had witnessed three hundred Taliban coming down on an isolated American outpost near Kamdesh. His team watched the whole spectacle from an observation post on a distant ridge. The Americans were vastly outnumbered. Every man among them was destined to die, until the Observation Post Commander called in an airstrike. From beyond the hills, streaking in low like black hornets, two jets laid a hailstorm of destruction upon the Taliban, and after the jets passed they heard that beautiful roar of the F-A18s overhead. The tide of the battle was turned that quickly. Recalling it now caused shivers to run through Garner’s body. He wanted so much to hear that beautiful sound of jets again. ‘Let them come,’ he said, ‘like Ezekiel’s four winds to breathe life back into drybones. We Christian soldiers will rise from the earth to fight again.” But he knew, this time he would not hear the jets. They would be long past, their ordinances detonated, before the roar of their engines would thunder overhead. Such a pity, Dax thought. It’s better that way. Best not to know. Best for it be sudden. He looked up at the blue sky. It’s a killer when death becomes the only way to get back home. He crawled with greater volition toward the bodies of Captain Branson and Private Donnelly, climbing over rocks and dirt, biting his lip each time the pain in his leg became too terrible. There was a moment he lost track of time. He looked forward and looked back realizing he had blacked-out, but for how long, two seconds or two minutes, he did not know. It was the wound, he thought. The pain of it, and the loss of blood, and the damned heat. This placed a new urgency on his task. He could not loose consciousness again. He had to reach the radio. He tried to swallow, but his mouth had no moisture left in it. He hurried along, favoring his wounded leg and trying to keep focused and conscious. But again he found himself motionless in the dirt, his cheek pressed against the hot sand. When he awoke this time he heard the sound of Taliban voices, much closer and louder. Damn it! Stay focused! By the third time it happened he awoke only a few yards away from Captain Branson. The radio, which was on the opposite side of Captain Branson, laid in the dirt just beyond the reach of the captain’s dead hand. Garner crawled for it, stretching for it as one would stretch for a cup of water after a long desert journey. But there was blackness again, and that dreadful sense of time-loss—waking and not knowing how many seconds or minutes had passed. His eyes opened looking up at several gun barrels. Behind the gun barrels were several bearded faces in the center of which stood the Taliban leader with the blue turban. “Well Marine?” the Taliban leader asked. “You are the only one?” Garner instinctively grasped for his rifle but it was not by his side. Then he saw it up in the arms of one of the Taliban soldiers. He glanced over to where the radio had been, but it was also gone; already up in the hands of another Taliban who looked at it inquisitively and played with its knobs. “What is your company?” the Taliban leader asked. Garner did not reply. His mind was too occupied with thought. He was wondering if he had reached the radio and called in the airstrike? For the life of him, he could not remember. He looked over to where the radio had been. He was still several yards away. If I had made the call, how did I end on the opposite side of Captain Branson?  He looked back to the radio, now in the hands of the Taliban. Then the dreaded thought hit him––he never reached the radio; the call for air support was never made. The blue turban shouted some orders in Pashto to a group of Taliban up by Toby and Sweeney. They promptly gathered the bodies. Having already secured their weapons and gone through their pockets for souvenirs and identifying papers, they dragged their bodies—the real prize, down toward the position of their leader and the other dead Marines. Others did likewise to Captain Branson, dragging him out by his legs, his head racking against the rocks, and Private Donnelly as well, picking his pockets clean,gathering up his rifle and equipment, and dragging him across the granite. They were all heaped into one pile. Destined for some gruesome cyber display, Garner thought, or some kind of televised mockery. “What is your company?” the Taliban leader asked again. Grimacing into the sun, Garner looked up at him. He has the face of a goat, he thought. When Garner did not answer, the Taliban leader reached down and snapped Garner’s dog tags from his neck. “Dax Garner?” he said, reading it. “A Sergeant?” Garner did not reply. “What’s your company?” One of the Taliban high up in the canyon began shouting something in Pashto. The Taliban leader acknowledged, shouting something back. “So you are the only one,” the Taliban leader said. He glanced over at the growing pile of dead Marines. “You will make a great prize nonetheless.” The blue turban poked at Garner’s wound with the tip of his rifle barrel. Garner felt the pain radiate up from his leg and into his abdomen. “Don’t worry, you will live,” the Taliban said. “I’ll make sure of that.” And as he said it, a crackling noise came from the radio held in the one Taliban’s hand. Garner gazed up at it, dazzlingly. The bastards have me, he thought. The bastards have us. The goddamned radio I never reached, into which I never keyed air-support coordinates. The grisly image of comrades, disfigured and mocked on international television,flashed through his head. Such a pity; such a travesty; how could have I let them have me? How could have I let them win? His mind began to wonder; the foggy unconsciousness returned. Then he began to see blackness again. Vaguely he heard the blue turban speaking; “Hey! I asked you a question. Don’t fall asleep on me now.” And, vaguely, he heard the radio cackle again. Then the radio spoke; “Inbound five sixty.” And a different voice acknowledged; “That’s a Roger.” Then the blue turban glanced skyward. In a fantastic white flash and grey roar of smoke, the entire earth lifted. In the same ten-thousandth of a second Garner heard it and saw it, it took his light away. Boulders and trees shot skyward, broken and splintered apart. What was once stone andwood was now vaporized dust. Shock waves rocked the forest on the northern mountainside as two tapered-winged birds came streaking out from the smoke clouds. Followed belated in their wake was the roar of jet engines—their afterburners thundered off the canyon walls. As the debris began their arching descent, the two jets dropped low on the distant horizon and became lost in the afternoon haze. The End

WARNING – This is a very early vintage episode of a podcast that's evolved a lot over 17+ years and 800+ episodes. If you're new to the show, please try some current episodes first. Tonight's topics include: Don't listen to this, Listener-imposed drugs test, Watching a marathon, Avoidng the word “pod”, Cannibalistic vegetables, Remembering the bread man, Grimacing in the front seat, Innapropriate product placement – an experiment, Blackberries and mungo juice, A double shot of beer, Fantastic typing, Slow-drying coke, Being frowned upon, The NYC Wingdings font conspiracy, Reading too much into the trees, Making use of a urination opportunity. Also: Joanne and Neal's unprecendented cat song collaberation. License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International – It is mandatory to reproduce this attribution for each episode: “Neal O'Carroll via IntoYourHead.ie – Many episodes findable forever on Archive dot org.”