On This Day: Your History

[Alex]

7th June 2012.

For reasons that will never publically be exposed, I ended up running around the US wearing a tee-shirt featuring garden gnomes.

[ER]

June 7, 1990 On this day my best friend Gina and I decided to make predictions about the future, and here are some highlights….

Me: People will land on the moon again by 2005 and we’ll go to Mars by 2017 and by 2025 we’ll have permanent lunar bases. Ordinary people will be living in space by 2040.

Gina: Speed limits on expressways will be done away with in ten years time. IBM will start making computers that are like Macs. Black athletes will start taking over golf and tennis. Two more people will be President in this century.

Although at the time I said my predictions were better than hers, in hindsight she was mostly right.

[ER]

June 8, 2008 We were in the midst of a seventeen-year cicada swarm that saw the ground vibrate as millions of the critters rose and took to the air. It was also the day I met my friend Edie, the most forward human being I’ve ever known, a mouthy holy terror of spoiled, self-described “Jewish Princessness,” but also utterly loyal to her friends and generous to almost everyone behind a smokescreen of biting sarcasm. (“Retaining a little water once in a while might be a good look for you, El, so have some more salt…”) She is like some long lost relative of Joan Rivers, minus Joan’s famous tact.

[Alex]

9th June 2014.

It was announced that Rik Mayall had died. This put me in a bit of a downer as I'd still been holding out for a third season of The Young Ones. Selfish prick. I celebrated his life by watching Bottom and the Flashheart episodes of Blackadder. Still miss him.

9th June 2013.

Picked up a copy of the newest Mega Deth album. Buying them has always been something of a lottery. It used to be that every 2nd Mega Deth album sucked, but really since Symphony of Destruction it has all been downhill. Mega Collider turned out not to be worth the money I spent on it.

9th June 2012.

Headed back from Salt Lake City. I'd be returning in 14 weeks at which point I'd end up proposing to Kristi much earlier in the relationship than I'd ever thought I would. My general rule was to be with someone for a minimum of 18 months before I'd ever propose. Kristi got there in roughly a year. We'd went to a midnight showing of Prometheus which turned out to be a disappointment. Even Kristi who found Sixth Sense scary and couldn't sleep for days afterward found nothing about the movie to be frightening, other than perhaps how much Ridley Scott's filmmaking powers had diminished.

9th June 2009.

I woke up in extreme pain from my foot. It was the kind of pain that you can't ignore and the only thing you can really do is be in pain. I got the ambulance to come pick me up from the block simply because I was incapable of walking. They signed me off of work for 3 days, all of which I spent in agony with the strongest painkillers they could give me without sending me to the hospital barely touching it. Although I didn't know it at the time, this was the end of my long runs up to the lighthouse and back (about 5 miles) as running on soft surfaces was aggravating the problem.

[ER]

^ If I can ask, what caused your foot to hurt?

[Alex]

It was a combination of a muscle in the arch of my foot being trapped between two others, and plantar fascia. The RAF paid for a professional civilian podiatrist to have a look at it and he told me that I could get the pain down to a lower level, but that I'd never be able to run completely pain-free again. A year or two ago I found out that this particular podiatrist was infamous for having rather old-fashioned views and that I could with a careful plan of exercise get back to running no problem. I have the exercise plan, but the thought of starting from scratch and building myself up to running long distances just isn't very appealing to me. I believe I lack the particular hormone that gets people addicted to going to the gym or working out, because I just don't get any enjoyment out of going lol. I loved running because it was something I could just go and do myself without anyone else. Four hours of blissful peace and quiet, just me and the quiet early mornings.

The best way I can describe the pain was as the most intensive cramp I have ever had across the arch of my foot. It felt like there was a drill inside my foot, drilling its way out. It remains to this day the most physically painful experience I have ever gone through.

[ER]

It was a combination of a muscle in the arch of my foot being trapped between two others, and plantar fascia. The RAF paid for a professional civilian podiatrist to have a look at it and he told me that I could get the pain down to a lower level, but that I'd never be able to run completely pain-free again. A year or two ago I found out that this particular podiatrist was infamous for having rather old-fashioned views and that I could with a careful plan of exercise get back to running no problem. I have the exercise plan, but the thought of starting from scratch and building myself up to running long distances just isn't very appealing to me. I believe I lack the particular hormone that gets people addicted to going to the gym or working out, because I just don't get any enjoyment out of going lol. I loved running because it was something I could just go and do myself without anyone else. Four hours of blissful peace and quiet, just me and the quiet early mornings.

The best way I can describe the pain was as the most intensive cramp I have ever had across the arch of my foot. It felt like there was a drill inside my foot, drilling its way out. It remains to this day the most physically painful experience I have ever gone through.

Dang! I know for a few weeks when I was pregnant with Daisy I got late night muscle cramps in my calves and feet that were truly agonizing, so I can maybe kind of imagine a little of what you suffered. My toes would literally bend back right in front of my eyes and it was....some kind of horrible, tell you what. Hope you're never afflicted again!

[ER]

June 9, 1987 The short-lived Will Shriner Fan Club met that morning with a non-member among us, Becky, who lived at the far end of our street and who was friends with one of the founding members, Tracy. Becky did not share our eight-year-old devotion to Will Shriner, and asked, “Why do you watch this stupid guy?” As we had no sergeant at arms to expel this apostate, we were glad when she went back to her house, but were annoyed when she returned with a tiny kitten named Ollie, and said he was a teacup cat that would never get big. When we asked if we could hold him, Becky refused, and finally when we lost interest and went back to Will’s closing jokes, she burst out, “Ha-ha, fooled you silly millies, Ollie isn’t a real cat, he’s my Pet Pal.” And it was true, the little klafte had been cuddling a stuffed animal so ultra-realistic it fooled us at a six-foot distance.

[Alex]

It was a combination of a muscle in the arch of my foot being trapped between two others, and plantar fascia. The RAF paid for a professional civilian podiatrist to have a look at it and he told me that I could get the pain down to a lower level, but that I'd never be able to run completely pain-free again. A year or two ago I found out that this particular podiatrist was infamous for having rather old-fashioned views and that I could with a careful plan of exercise get back to running no problem. I have the exercise plan, but the thought of starting from scratch and building myself up to running long distances just isn't very appealing to me. I believe I lack the particular hormone that gets people addicted to going to the gym or working out, because I just don't get any enjoyment out of going lol. I loved running because it was something I could just go and do myself without anyone else. Four hours of blissful peace and quiet, just me and the quiet early mornings.

The best way I can describe the pain was as the most intensive cramp I have ever had across the arch of my foot. It felt like there was a drill inside my foot, drilling its way out. It remains to this day the most physically painful experience I have ever gone through.

Dang! I know for a few weeks when I was pregnant with Daisy I got late night muscle cramps in my calves and feet that were truly agonizing, so I can maybe kind of imagine a little of what you suffered. My toes would literally bend back right in front of my eyes and it was....some kind of horrible, tell you what. Hope you're never afflicted again!

I would imagine giving birth is more painful, but yeah it was pretty intense. Everytime I tried to get back into running, I could run for 7 to 9 minutes and then it would start up again.

[chefzombie]

9th June 2014.

It was announced that Rik Mayall had died. This put me in a bit of a downer as I'd still been holding out for a third season of The Young Ones. Selfish prick. I celebrated his life by watching Bottom and the Flashheart episodes of Blackadder. Still miss him.

9th June 2013.

Picked up a copy of the newest Mega Deth album. Buying them has always been something of a lottery. It used to be that every 2nd Mega Deth album sucked, but really since Symphony of Destruction it has all been downhill. Mega Collider turned out not to be worth the money I spent on it.

9th June 2012.

Headed back from Salt Lake City. I'd be returning in 14 weeks at which point I'd end up proposing to Kristi much earlier in the relationship than I'd ever thought I would. My general rule was to be with someone for a minimum of 18 months before I'd ever propose. Kristi got there in roughly a year. We'd went to a midnight showing of Prometheus which turned out to be a disappointment. Even Kristi who found Sixth Sense scary and couldn't sleep for days afterward found nothing about the movie to be frightening, other than perhaps how much Ridley Scott's filmmaking powers had diminished.

9th June 2009.

I woke up in extreme pain from my foot. It was the kind of pain that you can't ignore and the only thing you can really do is be in pain. I got the ambulance to come pick me up from the block simply because I was incapable of walking. They signed me off of work for 3 days, all of which I spent in agony with the strongest painkillers they could give me without sending me to the hospital barely touching it. Although I didn't know it at the time, this was the end of my long runs up to the lighthouse and back (about 5 miles) as running on soft surfaces was aggravating the problem.

june 9th, 1982. i went on my first official date with my beloved curtis. i walked out of a movie( the shining) and he still married me 9 months later, to the day. 40 years later, we still watch the shining on june 9th.

[Alex]

10th June 2011.

After receiving 100 requests per day on facebook I finally just blocked Farmville. I'd been drinking heavily the night before and had a rare hangover, but still booked my flights for a trip to Norway, sorted out travel insurance and bought some bottles of whiskey for the trip.

10th June 2010.

I took a much-needed break from World of Warcraft and asked my fellow officers not to bother me with anything for a couple of weeks. That night I got a message from Jacko asking me to call him to deal with some urgent problem. They'd decided to vote out another officer who I liked and they expected me to do their dirty work for them and demote him. I refused but did get dragged back into the game by constantly being pestered by them not having the balls to deal with whatever problems did come up. I had the nickname of the Guild Rottweiler. Their persistence in contacting me though was the beginning of the end of my enjoyment of the game, although I'd keep playing for the people I did like in the guild, and then in a few year's time when Kristi started playing. These things extended my time in game, but would not do so indefinitely. The writing was on the wall.

[ER]

June 10, 2008 Six years before Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s death I had a conversation with my cousin Allie, whose protracted battle to get clean was an unlikely story of triumph against huge odds, and came after several overdoses. She and I were watching The Talented Mister Ripley together and Allie abruptly remarked that she could tell Hoffman, who had a role on there, was an addict. I asked what made her think so, not getting that impression from him myself, and she said, “It’s like how gay people can identify other gay people with innate gaydar. If you’ve ever been an addict you can spot other addicts.” When I heard of the circumstances of Hoffman’s passing in 2014, I had cause to remember her words in 2008.

[ER]

June 11, 1995 Brian was on vacation in England with his mom and Clare, and he sent me a package of oddities, knowing I’d appreciate them. He included a vial of water from the Thames and similar vials containing soil he gathered near Parliament, (“Who knows, maybe Churchill once peed on the spot…”), Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and on the grounds of the Tower of London, though he deflated my impressions of that sanguine place by noting: “The Beefeaters don’t talk to you, they recite the same lines over and over and look dead-bored out of their eyes.” All my life I’d wanted to go to England, a place so elevated into legend in my imagination that no reality could ever have matched it, and I would finally get there in 1998, though I could never have envisioned the circumstances of that trip.

[ER]

June 12, 1992 I was staying with my grandparents that week and decided I’d hack a trail into the thick jungle-ish foliage of their woods. As a result I ended up the worst, most unimaginably tormenting case of poison ivy of my life, sheer un-abating misery that nothing helped, and all I could do was wear mittens on my hands to keep my self-guiding fingers from clawing at my flesh. While lying on the lowest landing on the stairway, knowing torments akin to damnation, I listened to my grandpa, who had no idea I could hear him, rant at the utility company for cutting down trees on the edge of his property instead of trimming them. “Yeah, how about I come to North Carolina and deck you?!” Later that night Bill Clinton came on TV and spoke after the release of the Gennifer Flowers phone tapes. I liked Clinton and didn’t want his campaign derailed, and felt like high-fiving him after he was done, though in truth I don’t think I could have raised my hand that high without surrendering to the ruinous desire to scratch my epidermis to a bloodstained mass.

[ER]

June 13, 2022 I’d been in Ireland for a few days following my grandmother’s death, and back in the USA it was the wedding anniversary of a girl I’d known mainly through her (half-) brother, Greg, but who became a friend of mine in her own right, which is kind of a theme of mine, if you notice. (Same girl who almost stole a Darth Maul cutout with me in 1999.) Mentioning the anniversary led to this conversation with my cousin over the phone:

Dana: “Greg is who you should have married, and I could never figure out why you didn’t.”

Me: “What was wrong with me marrying Landon?”

Dana: “Landon is the one you should have had fun bedding to your heart’s content, and then moved on when it was time.”

Me: “But I knew Greg before Landon.”

Dana: “You were supposed to go back and meet Greg again in your mid-twenties. Don’t you know anything about life-scripting based on rom-coms?”

Apparently I did not.