Running in the rain, and a pathetic advance

I will try not to be corny when talking about the rain.  You know, all that stuff about the many words Eskimos have for snow, and all that.  Here on the Oregon coast, we do need many words for rain, as there are many, many different kinds.  I have run in all of them.  Today, since there is no name for it, it was doing that medium-hard drizzle thing that seems hopefully drizzle-like when you step out in it, but quicky soaks you, your shoes, your fancy dog if she is unlucky enough to be with you (I have learned to leave her home - she really does not like it, so she was not out there with me today).  It has since morphed out of "drizzle" and into a perfectly honest, very hard RAIN, with a little more wind thrown in.  There should also be consideration given to temperature.  There is a vast difference between 50s (totally comfortable) and 40s (with rain, very cold).

This morning I made the strategic error of being in front of two episodes of Homeland while it was actually very lightly drizzling, which is not very wet at all.  Then, it started pouring.  I decided to wait out the pour and hope for a less wet interlude, during which I killed another 40 minutes watching Modern Family (yes, people, some days are like this).  After realizing I was not to be gifted with a little dry break, I got dressed, ate some chicken salad for fortitude, and headed out.

As is unfailingly, always the case, it sounds worse on the roof and windows than it actually feels.  If you live in a place like this, like to run, and hate treadmills, you too will be dressing in appropriate gear and heading out the door.  I have to say, now more than ever, it makes me happy to do this.  There is something incredibly cleansing in it.  I wear a liner beanie I got years ago and never used until now, underneath my trusty Portland Marathon ball cap, and wait for the sensation of a prickly, sweaty head.  Every time I go, manage it, get through it (today I crossed a line, people, and talked to myself out loud), I am better than I was before I went, physically, mentally, emotionally.

As every wet winter begins here, without fail, I am heard repeatedly to say, "Why the fuck do we continue to live here?  Isn't it time to get out?  Live somewhere normal? With sun, and snow?"  Ask anyone in this house, it is a chorus on repeat.  I try to watch my mouth.  It doesn't always work.  The chorus is exacerbated by strong winds, which I have extra bad feelings about.  But maybe this challenge of getting myself out in it, when it is neither pleasant nor easy, is one reason we are still here.  It is helping me be stronger, and requires a certain determination that frankly, you just can't exerience in a place with pleasant weather.

Now, to the pathetic advance.  The whole time I have been bald, I have been pretty self-conscious, unless I am in my house. I pretty much wear a hat everywhere.  At the pool, I got into this ridiculous routine of transitioning from my hat to the swim cap in private, and then wrapping my head in a towel in the shower and doing the transition in reverse.  Ridiculous.  I don't really mind how I look without hair, it's the concept, and the potential for having to visit the issue with others that keeps my head covered.  Anyway, yesterday I just wanted to feel my head in the air.  I was so sick of having it covered that I sucked it up and did my locker room stuff, fully exposed.  Know I am not a modest person.  I have never felt the need to cover up in the locker room, ever, until now, with my head.  So there I was.  One woman witnessed me, we chatted about the usual stuff (water pressure in the showers, hot water, etc.), and that was it.  My big psychological advance, there you have it.  I probably won't need to uncover myself while running, as by the time the weather is good enough I should have some hair.  I tell you though, fresh air on a bald head feels really, really good.