Gu Me

Why I chose to stay up until one o'clock in the morning the night before I was going to do my 10 miles is beyond me. As far as irresponsible things I have done, this doesn't even register on the list. But still...refreshed, I was not.

I could blame it on staying up to watch The Darjeeling Limited. I was so smitten with the movie, I stayed snuggled up with it for a good half hour after that. The characters are so regularly irregular and vulnerably feisty. If Wes Anderson's films were a hot sauce, I'd get a special belt buckle so I can take it everywhere I go, and shake a dash or two of it on everything. The soundtracks linger with me for days. If I could purchase that feeling from a Pottery Barn catalog, I'd decorate my entire house in it.

We were actually finished with the movie by 11pm, but I decided to stay up and watch SNL. I was hoping there might be an Andy Samberg hip hop song I could obsessively You Tube all week, but no such luck. As a matter of fact, I think I started to drift off sometime around midnight, when suddenly a delightfully different sound pulled me back from sleep. The band was quite peppy and catchy, but not overtly Pop-ish. I found myself interested in staying up to see their second act. This was even better with the tinny guitar sound, not unlike the tinny guitar sound in The Rolling Stones Play with Fire that was featured in Darjeeling.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a lot like an old fart in that I frequently find myself saying, They just don't make music like they used to. And, for me, used to, covers a lot of time ground. I still don't think I'm quite over the grunge period of the 90s. And I am definitely not moved like I am when I listen to Pink Floyd's The Wall. As far as new stuff goes, if it ain't Radiohead, it ain't much.

But The Ting Tings got me. The Ting Tings got me to stay up until 1am. Only crying babies have succeeded in doing that for over three years now.

Fortunately, going to sleep at 1 is nothing a couple of cups of coffee won't cure. So I made it out for my 10 miles. I was grateful to have company for the first six. Mark pushed the kids in the baby jogger. When we parted ways, he insisted I have some water and Gu. Gu is disGUsting. This one was Vanilla. Very reminiscient of a Charleston Chew, with a snot-like texture. Not my idea of refreshing. But I guess it did the trick, because I zoomed along for another 4 and felt remarkably well. When I returned home, Heath greeted me outside, smothered in mud. I'm painting, come see my painting, he said, holding out his sopping, dirt-covered hands.

But I am starting to feel the mush brain. As Stella would say, Nigh-nigh.