🇺🇸 Male Pattern Boldness

Hello Adventurers, 

I’ve got good news and bad news: The good news is that I’m flying to a different continent tomorrow…so my regular ‘world at-large’ programming returns next week (thank god…for us both). The bad news is that I’m gonna ruin your life with a prompt (being a thought exercise that randomly entered into my moron mind this week); take your birthdate, run it back 9 months (or 8-ish months if you’re a preemie), and guesstimate what compelled your parents to smush.

It seems like my parents made me when they got jiggy on Christmas or New Year’s Eve, and they doubled-down on April Fools’ Day to make my brother years later (which ‘splains a lot). You? Maybe you were made after a souvlaki dinner…or during a Super Bowl commercial…or possibly on an exotic vacation (like, quick question for you: if the ‘rents got erotic in Tenerife — but you were born in Cleveland — are you sorta Spanish by osmosis of vibes or nah?). It’s your call re: conception investigation…but run the numbers, do some research on what was happening in the world before you arrived and/or consult family photo albums to see what was in your parent’s social calendar at the time of coitus…like, if you want the dirt on your own origin story.

Anyhoo, it was my birthday the other day (hence why the above was floating ‘round in the toilet bowl of my brain…in my ever balding head), and I mention it ‘cause some bdayisms do show up in this newsletter via words and photos. But I mostly mention it ‘cause a bunch of unrelated stuff lined up to make my birthday inadvertently feel even more festive this year: my pals at ASICS Runkeeper were kind enough to write about my project as well as post about it….so thank you to Stephanie and Whitneigh for making it happen (and props to Bob from Race Roster for connecting us all). Like, I’ve actually used Runkeeper to track all my treks since 2015…so their support / this collaboration felt special. And then Nick and Willamina from Norda generously sent me 001s and 002s, and I’m honoured to wear these invincible shoes abroad in Q3 and Q4 2023. The real magic though was getting friend-bombed by the universe; Dave, Billy, Saurabh, Lacey, Binni, Pippa, and Øyvind…it was so nice to see you all! Basically, all this stuff came together in my final days here, and it feels like the most serendipitous send-off full of genuine support (bless).

That said, I’m an asshole…so I’m demanding a birthday gift from you; please go for a walk, a run, a bike ride or a hike out in the world…and just indulge in what you see and how it makes you feel. The physical act doesn’t have to be extreme…because we just learnt that slow and short is the sweet spot.

This issue of the newsletter is a grab bag of gobbledygook because I was trying to bang out marathons…while also trying to tie up lots of nauseatingly stressful ‘loose ends’ before I leave Canada for three months abroad. It’s shorter and lighter than usual…so plz take a lil mercy on this queasy barfday boy…because I’m stressin’ right now!

- Ben Pobjoy

2023 TREK TRACKER

Where in the world...record am I?

• Countries visited: 43

• Flights taken: 46

• Kilometres flown: 70,387

• Marathons completed: 149

• Kilometres trekked by foot: 7,119.4

• Total kilometres trekked since 2015: 70,211

RAPID WEEKLY RECAP

A speedy synopsis for time-crunched readers

• The Wildest Thing: I was in LaSalle, New York the other day marathoning…and a cyclist was on a path approaching an old man from behind, and the biker announced, “This is a bike path!” to which the old dude replied, “Oh fuck you, you motherfucker!” in that thick Tonawanda-sounding accent…and it was just the most quintessentially American moment between two countrymen🤣

• The Biggest Obstacle: My Q3 and Q4 travel plans are super ambitious and audacious in terms of the number of countries I intend to visit, and the visas needed, and how truly globe-spanning it is…and the plans are sorta fucked-up and blended…and I had to wait on some inputs so I ran the clock…and this week has been a mad dash to finalize everything (still not done)…and I’m just ‘fingers crossed’ that I execute everything properly ‘cause the figurative ship sails tomorrow😓

• The Lesson Learned: Marathoning in a heavy backpack is a bit of a backbreaker, and my pathetically slender shoulders often go achey or numb…so I’ve started to pull over when I see a playground — to hang from the monkey bars for like 30 seconds, a few times a day — and this does wonders for pain relief…so I highly recommend it if you’re an old piece of shit like me🧐

FIELD NOTES: NIAGARA FALLS, AMERICA

I’m blue eyed — and wide-eyed — for blue collar cities

I had 1,000 things to do this week — one of which was to simply call my telco — so I did the most non-sensible thing possible; marathon into America to go chat to a salesperson at Verizon…in person. On paper, the decision was stupid — and it was sorta dumb in reality too — but it let me strike America off my list of ‘countries marathoned’ as it concerns this project, and America wasn’t originally on my hit list (‘cause I’ve marathoned NYC, LA, D.C., Seattle, Miami, and Chicago in years past…and probably some other U.S. places I’m forgetting…and I just didn’t have much appetite for another bite of greasy, big-portioned America ‘cause I was hungrier for other countries not yet savoured).

That said, I have an affinity for Western New York ‘cause I went to Buffalo a million times in my teens to watch hardcore punk shows, I made so many friends there back then, and I just always dug the area’s no bullshit / old-school / no frills manufactory demeanour as well as its working class aesthetic.

Basically, I dedicated a single day to riding public transit — being a train proceeded by a bus — to get to Niagara Falls, Canada then crossed into America by foot courtesy of the Rainbow Bridge — to get to Niagara Falls, America. And then I just ripped a marathon to get to a Verizon store in western New York / get back to Ontario, and took public transit home to Toronto. It was a long and uneventful day, and I knew it would be.

My wife is so desensitized to my stupidity that she accepted my plan sans eye roll but I returned home so tired and cross-eyed that I couldn’t really explain what I saw — which even after a good night’s sleep is still hard to do — because the area is all feeling and no attractions. I think many would find it ugly — and maybe it is — but I just like how it has always felt; the place and the people. It’s like the worn-in jean jacket you can’t part with, even when no longer fashionable.

Western New York? It’s like Mellencamp Americana; factories, strip malls, outlet malls, VFW halls, and neighbourhoods frozen in the late ‘70s with the aluminum siding houses and potted plastic plants on the stoop and the jalopies on the lawn and the Sabres and Bills flags limply dangling from flagpoles mounted above the well-loved front porch that could use some TLC. And the lawn signs — as well as the stickers on the cars or on the businesses — they all signal that the area is pro-union while pro-cop, and sorta socially conservative ‘cause of all the Catholic churches everywhere…but still hearty in that ‘union brotherhood code of conduct’ sorta way where someone’ll pass you on the sidewalk and say, “Howya doin’ Brother?” sounding like Hulk Hogan or Randy ‘Macho Man’ Savage…like, whichever of ‘em wrestlers said that (or spoke like that).

And there’s the pizzerias and the submarine sandwich shops and the chicken wing places — and they’re all named after someone ala John’s or Freddy’s or Mike’s — and they’re all indie businesses…but of the dated and original kind, not the new and gentrifying ones. And the paved paths are rough — and it’s not an overly tough place per se — just weathered; like a former glory, a ‘past its prime’, and a ‘seen better days’…but it’s still there; enduring like that son of gun journeyman boxer who’ll eat the shots but never take a knee or touch the canvas. Like, just too stubborn to give in or having too much pride to die…but why and for what? Us outsiders can’t tell…or maybe ever know.

I don’t know why anyone would cross a border to go to western New York — maybe to buy some duty-free cigs or liquor…or to go to Verizon (which couldn’t answer my question in person…LOL) — but I’m glad I marathoned it; the place has taken it on the chin and is still kinda standing, and I’ll take that kind of inspo these days — and do my best to internalize it — as I too, trudge on (weathered and worse for wear, albeit from a different kind of labour; my own which is a bipedal labour of love).

BEST LOCAL THING-Y

I couldn’t be fucked to do a birthday / birthday party this year — because I was too stressed out by all the crap I had to get done — but my wife said I was going to do a birthday party, to — in her words — “Make my relations happy” so I agreed…because everyone’s the boss, and I just work the occasional shift here at Life Inc.

Obvs, I was happy to see my family — as well as grateful — ‘cause they’ve been so supportive this year…but them permitting me to hide from my stress / decompress / lie quietly somewhere in the fetal posish while vegetating would’ve been an equally great group gift too. Just sayin’

But yeah, I drank soda and ate a Marg Simpson pizza at General Assembly — which has a really good vegan pizza option — as does North of Brooklyn (‘cause both pizzerias use NUMU…which solved the problem of vegan cheese never really melting well, and traditionally smelling — and tasting — like an acrid dumpster in a heatwave). And I’m not insane…none of this is a convincing substitute for real cheese.

All that matters is that Toronto is having a moment as a really good pizza city, and whether you’re a Bitondo’s old-schooler or into the newish Pizzeria Badiali there’s something here for everyone so crush a slice or devour a full wheel all to yourself, bb.

Anyhoo, thanks to my sugar momma Christine for making it happen / footing the bill as well as Mum and Rob, and Ell and Karen for coming out!

POBJOY'S GLOBAL PRICE INDEX

This is an on-going documentation of how much things cost in different places around the world. Here are some of the things I bought when I went to ‘Murica the other day (all prices converted to USD):

• A one-way train / bus ticket from Toronto to Niagara Falls on public transit: $15.68

• The ‘loose change cash toll’ to cross the Rainbow Bridge by foot into America: $1

• Two clif bars and a 500 millilitre Pepsi Max from a gas station in America: $7.50

MARATHON MUSINGS

Turning 42 in the year of the 42

When I was younger, I put a lot of stock into the notion of free will. Y’know…things like having agency, freedom, autonomy, and a say in the outcome of all matters felt empowering…or at least appeased the ego (which craves authorship in the story of one’s life). Basically, free will suggests that you have — or retain — some degree of control within the chaos — and accidents — of existence.

However, as I get older…I’m less sure. I don’t (yet) wholeheartedly subscribe to the notion of determinism (and I don’t know if I ever will)…so maybe I am a compatibilist. All I know — based on my life experiences — is that it feels like there are sooo many forces and structures beyond my control — that sorta plot my life in a certain direction (as well as shortlist the options and/or or the range of choices that are made available to me at certain junctures).

Do you remember the Plinko game from the Price is Right gameshow? Personally, it’s how I’m starting to think life operates (whether we choose to admit it or not); like my Dad pumped one out / Mum plopped me outta the vagine into the world as a human being…that soon began free falling through life akin to the Plinko game piece, I ‘ping’ off of the pre-existing game prongs — being forces and structures out there — that somehow pre-date me (which knew / know I’d be showing up), and I sorta arrive at outcomes that something generally pointed me towards (and like regularly, at like different intervals — or chapters — in life).

And I’m not saying it is God or magic or a higher power* or luck. TBH, I think it’s more fluke and chaos than anything else…but (I think?) I just recognize that I’m merely a humble player in the game of life, and there’s a lot more at play / involved in the game design of it all (which I’m increasingly acknowledging — and making peace with — as I go to war with life). Plus, I’m an idiot that lacks the intelligence, wherewithal, and patience to get myself to where I think I need to be in life. #Facts

And just because I went to America this week, I’m not saying that life is that iconic scene in American Beauty where the plastic bag is blowing about all willy-nilly. Like, being at peace with something is different than completely surrendering all existential conservatorship to chance or determinism or incompatibilism. I do have a say…I just question the degree of influence I actually possess.

However, I just turned 42 years old…in a year where each day I give much consideration to how I’m gonna try and trek 42.195 kilometres by foot ala marathon. And there’s a numerology to that but I’m not cuckoo either (yes, I am a crazy person…but I am also securely fastened to reality). But it is sorta fucking weird — and strange — to consider how many things had to line up (over the course of my lifetime) to see me / have me doing ‘42 at 42’, day in and day out in 2023.

Maybe it means something, and maybe it doesn’t.

All I know is that I am happy to be here — very much alive and vibrant at 42 — doing this, the Marathon Earth Challenge.

And that feels like the ultimate outcome for now (potentially preordained, and definitely not predestined); to have absolutely no fucking clue how I got here, but to be glad that I did.

*When I was a little boy, I always slept through the night…and was that way as a baby too. But one night I woke up and — I can’t explain why — I went to visit my baby brother in his bedroom. Elliot was completely silent in his crib…having a grand mal seizure. So I ran into my parents bedroom, woke them up, and they raced him to the hospital. Had I not found Ell, he’d have died…and this is the only thing in my life that has ever made me think there could be a higher power. It really weirded out my parents and they rewarded me by taking me to Red Lobster to get Popcorn Shrimp (which was my fave meal at the time).

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