Author: tiphane

Why I Run

Published by

I just turned around the first corner of a 5K run along San Francisco’s Embarcadero, when I enumerate the reasons why I may not be breathing normally: is it the humid air in the morning, some kind of chemical poison, or just my fertile imagination? I choose the latter, given that I woke up early to arrive here on time, and I could still be in one of those anxiety dreams in which you never reach your destination for some absurd reason. In a sense, it is like a dream for someone like me to participate in organized runs, some of which have serious athletes leading the pack. I sign up on a web site, and they give me a bib number, a timing chip, and a t-shirt that I won’t wear at this race because I’m too cool and unique in my clothing style. Then on the day of the race, I have to get up and show up, but for a moment I am just as good looking as the top athlete at …

On Developing a Thicker Skin

Published by

“You need to develop a thick skin” is the remark that came, after I told of having been thrown in a writer’s block because of a nasty personal remark at a writers’ workshop, one that had nothing to do with my writing. I understand the metaphor, but for some of us the solution may just be to avoid contact with the infection. Let me open up a new metaphor for it. I have had the unpleasant experience of a few skin infections, triggered in different ways under various circumstances, but the one thing a doctor doesn’t tell you is that you should thicken your skin. Some doctors are nice and caring enough to give you advice on prevention, and yes, you will freak out when a bee comes flying straight into your bike helmet and sting you, because the thick skin can be pierced anyway, but the other elements of an infection aren’t there anyway. The simpler prevention of keeping bacteria away, and keeping it from dwelling and developing on you, actually works. You learn …

It’s a War Out There

Published by

Think: the ghost in Amadeus, Salieri trying to haunt Mozart With the image of the father Demanding excellence.   Some believe it is good To require To judge To reprimand To beat And what did you get, at the end? Resentment.   So, you ask, is Laissez Faire Any better? Is the writer without angst Not a writer? Is the army without the dehumanizing good at winning wars?   And yet Whose war was it When the voice said In a celebratory tone To go ahead With the rope The wobbly chair Whose war was to be won?   Yours, an odd war In which the other, The different, Isn’t deserving of a life.  

We Will Get an A Anyway

Published by

Life was hell, if you missed the last bus. Life was hell in our suburb anyway. We lived in the better part of the newly formed city, I was reminded every time I criticized it. But the walk home, across the bridge and through the not-so-better part of the newly formed city, where people drank their beer on the porch without bothering to pour it into a glass, was long and arduous. You wanted to avoid being seen by passing motorists, half of whom felt delighted by the sight of your thighs. Some day I should carry a pair of jeans to school, change into them there, but not change out of them on the way home. She would say something if she saw me, but they were always downstairs watching TV when I came in, so I could quickly go to my room and change. Sometimes I could even stay in my room and they wouldn’t bother checking how my day had been. Generally you came downstairs, sat on the couch and let your …