Run, Run, As Fast As You Can

I have this recurring theme in my dreams where I am running really slowly. I'm trying to run faster but the harder I try, the slower I move. This has been a feature in my dreams for about a year now.

All of my childhood forays into sports ended disastrously. It was never my idea, of course, to play soccer or join a little league baseball team or sign up for track & field. I caught a baseball with my eye socket on the first day of practice. I chased butterflies across the soccer field. But sports are compulsory for sons, apparently. Like, you have this kid and then you feel obligated to provide them with the Comprehensive American Childhood Experience. Because TV will rot their brains and free-range Finch children end up on a John Walsh special. So you have these little people whom you don't really know all that well (and they're changing all the time) and so you just kind of stick them in any old age/gender-appropriate activity. My sister did figure skating and ballet. I did karate and baseball. My folks eventually caught on and put me in ballet too.

I mention all of this because during my first track & field competition, I was coming in last and deliberately fell down before the finish line to get the sympathy "you fell down but you finished the race anyway GOOD FOR YOU!" effect. And now I run all the time. So Dr. Freud, put that up your nose and snort it.