Pottruck, Partners

Ran my 4mi at the gym, then did a leg lifting circuit.

The next few days get busy. Giving PLClub with Alan, Aaron, and Benjamin, then I'm up to the Catskills for JeRM's bachelor. Sunday was my off day for this week, but I think I'll probably end up taking another. Will try to do the 9mi Saturday run, and save the 16mi long run for Monday.

NatePod3 (#1 was killed by an update a few months ago, #2 was the warranty replacement that got washed with my jeans last Saturday) is currently filled with a mix I made Xtie for her birthday and pretty much everything Wilco has every recorded. This song I'd forgotten about popped on right at the start of my run:

For your sparkling cocky smile
I have walked a million miles
Begging you to come wed me in the Spring
Why do you my dear delay
What makes you laugh and turn away?
You're a hesitating beauty Nora Lee

Well I know that you are itching to get married, Nora Lee
And I know I am twitching for the same thing, Nora Lee
By the star and clouds above
We can spend our lives in love
You're a hesitating beauty Nora Lee

We can build a house and home
Where the flowers come to bloom
Around our yard I'll nail a fence so high
That the boys with peeping eyes
Cannot see that angel face
Of my hesitating beauty, Nora Lee.

We can ramble hand in hand
Across the grasses of our land
I'll kiss you for each leaf on every tree
We can our kids to play
Where the dry winds blow today
If you'll quit your hesitating, Nora Lee

The lyrics are by Guthrie and, as always, are sparkly, sharp and folksy at the same time; Wilco provides a perfect twangy musical complement; Billy Bragg's anarchist scratchy voice rounds it out. I love it (though, I think a duet with Natalie Merchant could have made it even more perfect). Anyways, I've been thinking a lot about partnerships, have reading about them on the blogs of my friends (and their friends, and their friends friends: "Let the fish have their bicycles, cuz this girl needs a man and that just is what it is."), and contemplating my sister's split with her boyfriend G over the weekend. All this thinking is taking place in a context where, for the first time in almost 8 years I have the mental and temporal space to sort out who my adult self is, and the things that are important to me (I started doing the same thing last August, and discovered a lot, but also jumped into a thing right away and let my identity get pulled and pushed into a thing that it was not.) I don't have any ready conclusions, but I guess it has made me sad to see people--even people with otherwise rich and fulfilling lives, and who are connected to a strong network of family friends--seeking, and finding, for a time at least, self-validation in a single romantic relationships. Every partnership exibits a tension between wanting to take the other away from everyone else and have them all to yourself, and wanting to have a rich and full life. It just seems like the former always wins out, and that makes me sad, and a little pessimistic. I certainly don't ever want to "own" someone, or to build a tall fence so I can trap an angel face behind it. Maybe a commune really is the modern family. Who's in?