NOLA Montage / March Meeting 2017

Eating by the Mississippi. What a big ass river. Apparently the longest in the world after the Nile! 

French style homes? (Near hotel.)

The French Quarter. Sufficiently smelly to remind oneself of home. 

Weirdos throwing plastic beaded necklaces on the unsuspecting and/or participating crowds. 

The Preservation Hall. It's listed highly on TripAdvisor for Jazz performances in NOLA. Lines are 50 minutes long, and I can't say I was really bothered by the performance. There's gotta be something wrong if a supposedly good jazz band plays "Saints Go Marching In"! That said, the rendition of Louis Armstrong's "It's a wonderful world" was awesome. Some part of me still somehow remembered all the lyrics and I really enjoyed the romantic tone of the saxophone in the cosy atmosphere of the hall. 

Now this was fantastic. (At the 21st Amendment, on Ibervile street in the French quarter) I haven't heard the blues in a long long time since Saloni got me listening to Bollywood music again. Well this was just good. The guy played some Robert Cray, a version of Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry", and many other awesome songs. I've always loved my blues/jazz with the guitar, primarily, so this band with a guitar lead was just great for me. Especially when you have a good blues player who loves to tease you with solos. I feel like the blues, and especially good jazz are like Quantum Mechanics in action: there's a final destination, a final train you know you have to get on to, but you can do that via multiple paths and they all interfere, hopefully constructively to make harmony. And it's all about the tease. You almost reach the final destination, and you pull out. Play some more solo on your favorite scale, maybe go into an associated lydian mode just for additional tease, and then when you finally return to the basic riff, it's like an eruption of joy. And this guy was just amazing. Fuck me what I just wrote sounds like a porno. 

Python on Tree in Swamp. 

The tour of the swamp is such a nice experience here. Many of these houses got destroyed in the Katrina storm. Also, lots of Confederate flags, lol. Paraj and I could definitely sense a bit of coldness? from the tour guides as well. I guess this is as old-fashioned as the country can get! I think I get along with Trump supporters better. I had a great time joking with some on the flight back about how the North American Dog should be set as the most privileged birth in the Hindu cycle of re-birth/reincarnation. They just fucking melted and started telling me all their dog stories. 

The swamps are definitely beautiful/cool. 

More Swamps.

Hoods. It was fun going around town seeing these neighborhoods. 

Some of my friends also stayed longer and went to the plantations. I think this is an opportunity missed to see a really important/sad part of US history. The guys who went were totally shell-shocked by the violence and cruelty of the plantation owners. 

11K!

Today I ran 11K, or 6.8 miles in about 1 hour and 6 minutes. I feel really proud of myself! And this time, it did tire me out. But I want to go at it again already and do better.

The path was still a little muddy and soggy from the rains of yesterday and the day before so there were tricky portions to negotiate and maybe I could get speed improvements if I just ran straighter on a drier path. There was also a transition where segments of the running path are connected by a paved road and I got lost and had to go through a number of dead ends to get back on the running path. So again, room for improvement.

There are also a number of physiological changes that happen over the course of the run. At the 1 mile mark, my legs started to get fully into the activity; before that they were just not really "solidly with me"? At the 3 mile mark, I experienced a bit of back pain which almost made me consider stopping. But I was like, fuck that shit, it'll go away. All the pain goes numb in some time, this much running has taught me, and this one did too. At the 6 mile mark, I realized I was running too slowly, so I picked up pace. It wasn't a problem. But by the end of it, I really was tired. Over the course of the run, I saw the lake change to a river, and then to a woody marsh. It was nice. I Ubered back and the drive felt long; it was very satisfying to see how far I'd come! I even boasted about it to the Uber driver lol.

How to get better? I'm realizing that this is now starting to eat up my time in a big way. At the beginning, it was 10 minutes lol! But I do want to run at least a half marathon at some point. And I want to maintain that kind of fitness level for the rest of my life.

PS: Point to note: do not run after drinking. As intuitive as that sounds, alcohol does not make you run longer. I tried this yesterday and that was a massive fail with me slipping on the wetter mud and calling it quits.

PPS: Milind Soman and his mother are just really cool. After I saw his 75 year old mother running a half marathon in a sari and that too barefoot, I know anything can be achieved!

Running Longer and Faster!

Today I ran almost 4 miles non-stop, and I did that in about 38 minutes. Admittedly this is slow pace, but it's still a lot of positive change for me. And running now really feels like walking. It's just as easy.  I was also not tired or hurting at all by the end of it! When I reached home, I was like, this is just not enough, so I ran once around my apartment complex and that too at a much faster pace.

It just feels good. Although I think today might be a blip because I didn't get to run for almost a week and half because of back to back conferences. Or perhaps it was because I listened to the song Ambarsariya on loop!

Lake Carnegie

Snowed in and a little too mush,

dank for a run,

I sat by your steps instead,

listening to your sweet heart whisper

in a way I hadn't done,

and I realized I'd fallen in love with you.

Many minds have met,
haven't they?

on your snowy cheeks,
and many curious investigations of life,
borne fruit,
and others wilted and died,
trees have rustled in gentle winds
on your shore, and many suns set.

So timelessly drawn are you,
I realized I've fallen in love with you. 

But it's many hearts, not just mine, 

isn't it?
On the bench I sit it reads,
"installed 1942."
"for Daddy, who would have loved,
to have sat here".
Yes, many hearts strewn on your banks,
burning woody fires,
lit like rooms with glowing yellow filaments

and it's all by you. 

You'll be here forever, won't you?

I realized I've fallen in love with you. 

A new hero.

Ronnie O' Sullivan. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/30/follow-the-white-ball.

I relate to him. The stress, depression, the constant self-doubt. It's funny how I zone in on these kinds of people; it's like I'm naturally in tune with them. Every time I feel like I've found a person I really admire, it turns out that they are a depressed smoker. It's not even a joke. I like people who are intelligent and emotional/passionate at the same time, and maybe for this you need to be oddly pathetic and self-deriding. When I got obsessed with Faiz, it was easy to verify that he was a depressed smoker, then it was Van Gogh, in another age it was Stephen Fry, and now after watching many games of snooker: Ronnie O'Sullivan. Goes without saying I'm not a genius like Ronnie, but that doesn't change one thing that I've discovered for myself and one thing which is really helpful. Running beats smoking. When Ronnie says, "When I run, I don't ever feel like smoking but the last six weeks I haven't been able to... I was feeling sorry for myself and decided to start smoking again.", I totally understand.

I feel so much better running. I'm grossly out of shape so progress is easy. It's too soon to say how long I'll keep this up. It's only been 2 weeks since I started. I'm doing about 2 miles every day. Hopefully I'll keep increasing both speed and endurance and get myself to be like Ronnie.

Update: Today when I started to run, it became really cold and for 5-6 minutes it was snowing. By the end of it, my legs and head and hands were basically feeling frozen. It was awesome, and it makes you feel like you're like a yogi powering through your sense of cold lol. But, maybe it's not smart and I should've been dressed better and shorts and t-shirt.
Also, I need to understand how to fix pain. I don't stop because I'm out of breath. I stop because my left ankle feels sprained because of my flat foot. That's probably not good. I have to find a way to fix this.

Update 2: I bought new (FLAMING RED) shoes for better arch support and it did help, but not much. Also, I need to stop being obsessed with running the whole distance in one stretch. I could probably make faster progress if I just stopped a few times, and ran a lot more.

Update 3: I'm getting addicted to running. Every moment I don't have anything useful to do, I want to spend running.

Update 4: Today I felt amazing about my run. I ran about 2.3 miles but I wasn't even tired at the end of it. I really felt that I could have just kept on running and running forever, most certainly a 5K. I don't know why but it felt like I was past a phase transition today; it's like a point beyond which if you convince yourself mentally, and physically, that you just have to keep going on, you really can keep on running.
Why I stopped at 2.3 miles is of course because I try to set a length at which to turn around on the tow-path, and that kind of (but not really) sets how much I can run from my home and back. I just didn't realize that somehow I'd be so happy running today so I turned around near my usual point of turning around. And my shins/feet didn't hurt either: this time I ran with a combination of the red shoes that work like magic on my left foot, and the aqua blue shoes that work like magic on the right foot. :D It looks a bit silly. I mean, if I was a pro soccer player, it'd be cool, but I'm not. An old woman was walking calmly in the opposite direction to my run and she shot me the most hilarious smile ever like, "these young fashion-obsessed kids". Ma'am, it's a matter of practicality for me!