Running in Boston, Drinking Birth Control Pee

Yoga shaped hole

In Boston watching a parade of drunks following Irish day. Taxes are high in Taxachusetts because they have to clean up this mess. I’ll be back in New Hampshire soon, thank God.

South of Boston, Tim, Ely and I are on an 8 mile run. 

Tim asks “How do I relax at night without wasting my life on TikTok? Chris I know you’ll probably say reading.”

“Yoga.”

Such a loaded word America. 

There’s a yoga-shaped hole in the Western psyche.

The body is the door to the primordial limbic system.

I told Tim, “I was insecure about stretching out every night until I heard Goggins say that he stretches out for 2 hours every night. That gave me permission. It’s scary to do something that you think other people aren’t doing.” 

“I like that… it gave you permission.”

“I recommend the Goggins to see a whole nother genre of shit eating.”

“I need a 2:55 marathon to qualify for Boston.” Tim said.

“Switch your water. There’s hormones in the water.”

“What”

“A lot of people are on birth control and they pee it out and it can’t be filtered out of the water. Along with a bunch of other drugs.”

Ely chimes in: “Yeah a lot of girls are hitting puberty at like 11.”

“What? I’m drinking pee?” Tim is surprised.

“Pee with drugs in it,” I remind him.

“Is that why my pubes are so short?”

“All of my water is reverse osmosis or spring water.”

“I don’t like drinking out of plastic.”

“All my water comes out of plastic. I buy 4 gallon jugs.”

“That’s so wasteful.”

“I’m not trying to save any polar bears. Tim, don’t drink birth control pee because you're scared of plastic.”

3 miles in and we’re not even half way done. I take my shirt off. Tim follows suit. “Wow this feels great I haven’t felt the wind on my chest in so long.” 

“Try laying naked in the sun.”

“I bet.” 

After the run we are back at the house. We all flop on the couch. 

Zack got back from the gym at the same time we finished our workout.

Ely is looking frail and expresses an interest in the gym.

Zack says “First you go to the gym to get big, then you go so you don’t kill yourself.”

Ely says “I’ve actually been feeling very good mentally.”

I say “Well, Ely, you're the only one.”

I tasted Zack’s tap water. It’s poison. Tastes like pool water. Actually worse, I can taste the birth control. There’s a brand-name filter in the fridge which indicates they believe they are filtering their water. They are, technically, but no amount of Walmart filters removes the synthetic toxins and poison embedded in city water after 150 years of industrial pollution.  

We’re sprawled out on the couch together. Zack’s girlfriend is over and on the couch with us. 

“Tim, I'm looking into buying a gun.”

“Why?” 

“Home defense, concealed carry, going to the range.”

“An apartment isn’t a good place for a gun.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Studies show guns make people less safe because of accidents.”

“People don’t know how to use them. They don’t take a class.”

“Education is always good.”

We switch to talking about running with Misha. Tim says he learned the importance of stretching out from training to qualify for the Boston marathon.

Misha said “ugh, I need to stretch more. I was doing yoga last year but I stopped.”

I say “I do yoga every day.”

Misha gets excited.

“You do? Are you yoga certified?”

Everyone laughs. 

“Yes, I have my yoga license.”

“Haha, are you an instructor?”

“No but my mom is a certified instructor.”

“Have you ever met a yogi?”

“Actually yes, once, at a yoga fest,”

“What’s a yogi?” Tim asks.

“What’s a yogafest?” Misha adds.

“A yogi is a guy who did a lot of yoga. [A yogi knows how to direct prana, life force.] He was wearing a robe. The yogafest was hundreds of people camping out, doing yoga, lots of music, fires and dancing. It got shut down by the State.”

“Oh my gosh that sounds awesome.”

“Do you guys want to do some yoga?”

“Right now?”

We have barely enough space for three people to stand and do yoga. We did an abbreviated kriya. Zack said “I do be feeling benefits.”

“Do you guys know what yoga means?”

The men ignore me. 

“What does it mean?” Misha saved me. 

“Yoga means union.”

They’re listening now.

“In America people hear yoga and they think of middle aged women in yoga pants doing stretches.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“The word yoga is broad, like the word athletics. There are many lineages and disciplines.”

Tim says “is there yoga that can make you sweat?”

“I mostly do kundalini which focuses on the spine, chanting and breathing.”

Ely says “I like the breathing, it really opens up some space.”

Silence.

“Sure, yeah.”

“C’mon Chris.”

I fall asleep on the couch and Ely is on an air mattress next to me.

In the morning we awake to sex noises. Zack is inside Mishi. 

“Ely what position are they in?”

 . . .

“It’s hard to tell.”

We poke around the kitchen scavenging for food. There’s a tub of fake butter. Seed oils. “I can’t believe it’s not butter,” I fucking can. There’s fake yogurt with food coloring and sugar in plastic tubes. There’s factory eggs. There’s something called “go go squeeze” which is sugar wrapped in plastic. 

There’s blueberry cheerios and pasteurized, homogenized, fat-free “milk.”

This is a run-of-the-mill American kitchen. 

I said to Ely “This reminds me of the mess I grew up in. Makes me wonder, how are people not more fucked up?”

“They’re pretty fucked up,” Ely reminded me. 

We walked to the store to get breakfast food. Sausages, cheddar cheese and wisely selected chicken eggs. No duck eggs available.

When the robot checkout machine printed the receipt, Ely pinched the edge with his fingernails and discarded it. 

“Receipts make you gay” I said loud enough for other shoppers to be informed. Ely grinned in agreement.

I loved watching Ely care for his endocrine system. 

Aside from the sex noises, it was the highlight of the morning.

synthetic estrogen BPA is found in high levels on cash register receipts

https://www.healthcmi.com/Nursing-News-and-Information/276-estrogen-exposure-found-in-store-receipts

ChatGayPT can explain further.

“High levels of exposure to BPA have been linked to potential health problems such as obesity, diabetes, and reproductive issues. As a precautionary measure, some organizations have recommended reducing exposure to BPA by avoiding the handling of thermal receipt paper”

We’re on the couch together after cooking and eating. Tim is reading a.i. responses aloud. He’s reading almost as fast as ChatGayPT can write. Fast.

Tim has always said he can’t read books because he’s too slow of a reader. The night before I showed him a text conversation and it took him three times as long as Ely to read it. 

When Tim finishes reading the ai response, I said “Tim you’re one of the fastest readers I’ve ever heard.”

His mouth hung open.

“Your mind is blown.”

“I’m broken.”

“When you read the words in your head it slows you way down. I used to do that painfully slow. I started reading out loud, which looks like a crazy person.”

Tim asked the AI: why are some people slow readers.

Among the six reasons provided was subvocalization. 

Poor reading habits: Some people may have developed poor reading habits, such as subvocalization (saying words in their head as they read) 

I still subvocalize. I don’t know how you wouldn’t, I just got a lot better at it. Reading out loud is fun. The question is can you accept looking and feeling silly for the first hour of practicing it. Read into a mic and listen to the recording. That can change you. 

Afterword

If a girl has a horse, run for your life.