I take these all as markers of a successful Running of the Bulls:
• Being unable to precisely recall my route home
• Blood dried black on my shin from what looks like an encounter with a chain ring, but who can be sure?
• A yard sale of my bag’s contents on the floor of the bike shed this morning, but surprisingly, nothing’s missing (although my rear blinky is gone, but that was noted last night)
• Plenty of new wine stains on my outfit, (but there’s a year to get them out and plenty of bleach on hand)
• Freaking out the squares at the Troll!
• A record number of bulls, I think, including at least one formed on the spot
• Many a conversation, most of them funny or profound, I’m sure
• No sash-in-the-spokes, even on that mysterious ride back
• Perfect weather, a roaring fire, thematically-appropriate music, revelers still reveling when I left
Of course, much more can be said, about the value of tradition and the joy of a certain kind of nonsense made all the more merry through repetition or perhaps one could wax rhapsodic about how strikingly gorgeous our fair city can be on a clear and windy evening in July when observed from across the body of water whose far side you were just swimming in an hour or so earlier, but I’m quite sure that doing so (especially given the weakened state of one’s abilities in the aftermath) would fail to capture how remarkable the thing is and the fact that it still happens, year after year, a state of affairs only slightly less remarkable than that the annual fat-checking pants still fit, albeit more tightly, now just a year short of a decade into their service.
Previous years may have featured more running and I realize this year’s edition didn’t include a lakefront and, as far as I know, no nudity, but in my book, it was lacking nothing.
Except, of course, that blinky.
• Being unable to precisely recall my route home
• Blood dried black on my shin from what looks like an encounter with a chain ring, but who can be sure?
• A yard sale of my bag’s contents on the floor of the bike shed this morning, but surprisingly, nothing’s missing (although my rear blinky is gone, but that was noted last night)
• Plenty of new wine stains on my outfit, (but there’s a year to get them out and plenty of bleach on hand)
• Freaking out the squares at the Troll!
• A record number of bulls, I think, including at least one formed on the spot
• Many a conversation, most of them funny or profound, I’m sure
• No sash-in-the-spokes, even on that mysterious ride back
• Perfect weather, a roaring fire, thematically-appropriate music, revelers still reveling when I left
Of course, much more can be said, about the value of tradition and the joy of a certain kind of nonsense made all the more merry through repetition or perhaps one could wax rhapsodic about how strikingly gorgeous our fair city can be on a clear and windy evening in July when observed from across the body of water whose far side you were just swimming in an hour or so earlier, but I’m quite sure that doing so (especially given the weakened state of one’s abilities in the aftermath) would fail to capture how remarkable the thing is and the fact that it still happens, year after year, a state of affairs only slightly less remarkable than that the annual fat-checking pants still fit, albeit more tightly, now just a year short of a decade into their service.
Previous years may have featured more running and I realize this year’s edition didn’t include a lakefront and, as far as I know, no nudity, but in my book, it was lacking nothing.
Except, of course, that blinky.
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