the pieces of my life

…Senior, Senior ’86!

Yes, I’m that old. Yes, my 25th high school reunion is this Saturday. Bite me, people. I’m 43. Get over it. Anyhoo, I’m not going to Miami Beach this lovely weekend in November, where the drinking is hot and so is the weather. I had planned on it, but life got complicated, and instead, I’m here in Massachusetts, most likely working the elementary school rummage sale. You may envy me now.

I know that lots of people had unusual high school experiences, but I truly feel that my high school was different. I’ve discussed it before. I’ll do it again. Because it’s my blog. So I can. If you don’t like, you can bite me. (Are you sensing a theme? It’s possible I’m a little cranky tonight.)

I went to a school known as Beach High. Yep. Beach High. Short for Miami Beach Senior High. But Beach High is a more fitting name. Even our mascot was odd. Hi Tide Harry. Did you get that? Hi Tide Harry. No, not “high.” “Hi.” Wonder why the scores at our school were never very good? But at least I had Hi Tide Pride. And open lunches. Where we could go wherever we wanted, which generally meant going to the corner sandwich shop for a colada of cafe Cubano, which pretty much meant we spent all of 5th and 6th period literally jumping out of our seats (and until I just read that Wikipedia description, I never realized a colada of coffee is meant to be shared! We simply called a colada of coffee “lunch.”). And driver’s ed where the teacher yelled at us for not going fast enough on the highway. A school where being Jewish meant you didn’t take gym (because there were a rash of us kids who were “allergic to grass,” [let’s not comment on the other lunch time activities] which conveniently meant I could still play badminton. Yes, badminton! Again, bite me, people!). One of our assistant principals–the disciplinarian of our school–was arrested for solicitation on Collins Avenue, back when Collins Avenue was not the Collins Avenue we know today. Your high school might have had snow days; my high school had “riot days.” Our school has been featured in Porky’s (the old building) and blown up in Band of the Hand (the school I went to; it’s been remodeled since). Where at the pep rallies the cheerleaders recited a cheer–complete with motions–that went:

Go bananas, go go bananas
Go bananas, go go bananas
You lean to the left,
and you lean to the right,
you peel your banana,
and UNNGGHHH take a BITE!

How is that an acceptable high school cheer? The parking lot was filled with Mercedes and even a Porsche. We dissected cats. We had teachers who said things like, “Too bad, so sad. Got a dime? Call someone who cares.” Our school graduated Baba Wawa, Mickey Rourke, Andy Garcia, Ellen Barkin, all alums. Ah, Beach High.

Yes, I’m going to miss out drinking and partying with the kids I drank and partied with 25 years ago. Not that I remember all that many of them. But a few I do. And I’ll miss them. But then I’m pretty sure that the other luminaries from my class aren’t going either. What you ask? Which luminaries, other than myself, are there?

Oh, we had quite a class. And in the illustrious class of 1986, we had some shining stars. Like Nevin Shapiro. The man who singlehandedly brought down the Miami Hurricanes. Oh, I’m sorry? Not enough for you? How about Brett Ratner. The man who singlehandedly brought down the Academy Awards this year. Let’s just say, not much has changed since high school. The Class of ’86. A classy bunch.

Oh yes. I’ve got Hi Tide Pride. I’ll just be displaying it up here in the almost-frozen North. If you’re at the reunion, have some Boone’s a mojito for me.

I have a distinct memory from—I don’t know what year, but we were living in the South Florida house, so it was definitely pre-1979—and Rod Stewart’s hit at the time, “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” came on the radio. I started to sing it within earshot of my mother. I’m 9 or 10 years old. My mom listened, horrified.

“What a horrible message that song is giving!” she said.

“What?” I asked, uncertain of what she meant.

“He’s saying, ‘If you want my money and you think I’m sexy.’ What kind of message is that, that a woman will sleep with him if he’s rich?”

“No, mom!” I said exasperated. “He’s singing, ‘If you want my body and you think I’m sexy!”

“Oh!” my mom said, clearly not sure where to go with this. “Well, I guess that’s okay.”

My mother was never one to censor what I listened to/read. I remember during the Colorado years—so about ages 11 to 13—I checked Judy Blume’s Wifey out from the Boulder Public Library.

“This is not a children’s book!” the librarian said to me and my mother sternly.

“I do not censor what my daughter reads,” my mother told her back, just as sternly.

The librarian was correct. But then so was my mother.

Flash forward thirty years or so. On one hand, I try not to censor my children’s pop culture consumption, as evidenced by the F bomb my daughter dropped in the car today with two friends and their mother. I thank Cee Lo Green for that one.

On the other hand, I do try to warn them of road bumps. For instance, my not-yet-eight-year-old son saw a sign at the library of good books for boys. But this list was in the teen section.

“I think I’d like the book Spanking Shakespeare,” he tells me. “I saw it on the library list.”

I read the Amazon reviews. I make note of comments such as “obsession with masturbation, sex, drug-use and alcohol.” I tell my almost-third-grader, “You know how you hate it when people kiss on TV?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Well, they do a lot of kissing in this book.”

“Ewwww!” Book effectively dismissed. At least for now.

But then there are times when things sneak up on you. The boy, the girl, and myself are all hooked on the upbeat song “Pump Up the Kicks” by Foster the People. I downloaded it onto everyone’s iPods and play it all the time in the kitchen. Who doesn’t dance to this song?

The other day, as I heard Pie singing the words, I started paying more attention. And I realized this chirpy little song is actually a horribly morose story about a kid shooting kids at his school, a la Columbine. Granted, this isn’t something I’d shelter them from, but I would think twice about singing it at the top of our lungs while we do our kitchen dance or at least I’d have thought of a good explanation for the lyrics that wouldn’t terrify them.

To censor or not to censor, that is the question. I prefer to err on the side of “not,” but then the world seems much scarier than it was when I was a child. School shootings, 9/11, cyberbullying, AIDS, all those things that simply didn’t exist when I was a kid.

How do you protect your kids yet still enjoy a great dance beat?

I know that the Grad Nite of my youth is nothing like the Grad Nite of today (although I will give you that “now is the time! Now is the time! Now is the best time of your life!”), but I still can’t help but feel sad that this rite of passage will no longer be. Disney World has announced it’s canceling Grad Nite after this year.

What’s Grad Nite? Only the coolest night of senior year of high school. When the seniors showed up at Beach High at 5 p.m. to load a bus and drive the four hours to Orlando (okay, Lake Buena Vista, but we’re splitting hairs here). The park is closed from 11 p.m. till 5 a.m…. except for high school seniors. Thousands upon thousands of high school seniors. Taking total control of the park. It was mayhem. It was madness. It was magical. It was Mickey.

Busses drove seniors up from as far south as the Keys, busses came down from Georgia and Alabama. For one night, the seniors ruled the Magic Kingdom. We all got frisked going in, to make sure we were drug, alcohol, and weapon free, not that it stopped that certain herbal smell in It’s a Small World. (And when you think of how far those drugs had traveled, it kind of proved the point of the ride, didn’t it? So all it all, it was not just fun, but educational.)

Bands played; my year had Animotion (“You’re my obsession. My obsession. Who do you want me to be, to make you be with me?”), Ready For The World, Rene & Angela, Nu Shooz, Starpoint, Klymaxx, Miami Sound Machine, Sly Fox. No, I didn’t remember that. But there are lists out there to look these kinds of things up. The bands and dance floors were placed strategically around the park.

The tickets were about $35—I think about $18 to get into Disney World and another $15 or $20 for the school bus ride up there. We were required to dress up. And I mean dress up. Sundresses without a jacket were not allowed. Casual skirts were not allowed. We could wear party dresses or dressy pants suits. And shoes. Real shoes. No sneakers. No sandals unless they were dressy. The boys were required to wear ties (although they could choose regular or bow). Have you ever tried to ride Space Mountain in a dress? I have. It’s not easy.

I’d say that night was full of memories for me, but the truth is, I barely remember it. Hey, it was senior year of high school. I hung out with a boy named Tiger (whatever happened to Tiger?) and I remember having my picture taken multiple times, but for the life of me I don’t know where those pictures are. Probably with my high school journals. Which I still can’t find. My father did recently give me my college diploma, which he had been storing, only twenty-two years after the fact, so that gives me hope that things of mine are still rattling around my parents place. Am I getting distracted here? Promise there’s no herbal smell in the house. That scent is pure rank hockey clothing and a bit of spilled red wine. The point is, while I may not have specific memories of that night, I do have generic memories of fabulous night. In other words, Grad Nite was a lot like the rest of my childhood. One fuzzy memory filled with lots of emotion.

But now Disney is shutting the proverbial doors in order to keep their nonproverbial doors open—spring is too busy of a time to take the financial hit of Grad Nite. Mickey is worried about his bottom line. And the best high school tradition ever comes to an end.

“Forever hold your banner high.” Or at least, hold your banner high till the real paying guests come.

Other than mocking my husband for being a Republican, I like to avoid politics here. You don’t talk politics or religion, right?

But, of course, Egypt is on my mind, as it is on everyone’s mind, I suppose. In 1996, I took a trip to Egypt, and it’s stayed with me all these years. It comes up in my writing, and it almost changed my entire career path. In September 1996, I went to a kibbutz in Israel for a four to six week trip. I ended up staying on the kibbutz for six and a half months, and then traveling through Eastern Europe for a month and a half. While I was on the kibbutz, I traveled to both Egypt and Jordan. When I returned to Seattle in April 2007, I began taking classes as a non-matriculated student at the University of Washington’s Jackson Institute of Middle Eastern Studies. In the fall, I applied for their master’s program. That March, I received my acceptance letter. The very same week I got a job offer from that “little Internet bookstore” (as my friend put it, when she told me of the job openings). I already had two worthless degrees–a BFA in film and an MFA in creative writing–so I figured I’d work for a year and then go back for another worthless degree (in those pre-9/11 days, Middle Eastern degrees weren’t as desirable as they may be now). Of course, that “little Internet bookstore” took off and I couldn’t walk away from the Internet bubble.

I’m looking over my journals from that trip to Egypt. I was traveling with a group, and it’s clear that I really hated traveling with groups. I tended to go off a lot, either on my own or with my friend Amber. At one point I wrote “we go to get our train tickets–2nd class full. Must get 1st although of course others complain because of $$. I don’t care–they can take a 3rd class train & I’ll go w/out them.” Note, I wasn’t just being a privileged American, just prioritizing my finances, as I wrote elsewhere: “It seems ludicrous to spend all the money and effort to get here and then not see anything. Don’t buy the pot (15E£ each) or the cigarettes or the junk and see the sights!”

We entered Egypt at the Taba crossing from Eliat. We ended up having to spend an extra night in Eliat so I could get my visa to cross to Egypt. All of my travel companions were South African, so they didn’t need them. We took a taxi to Dahab where we spent a couple of nights, playing backgammon in the outdoor restaurants, drinking way too much Coke (I made a note in my journals that drugs were easy to come by, but not alcohol. It was [probably still is] illegal for Egyptians to get alcohol, but there are special shops where foreigners could purchase it. We were approached by an Egyptian who wanted us to buy alcohol for him, for his sister’s wedding. I felt bad that he wasn’t able to buy it on his own–what a contrast, the grown-ups asking the kids to buy alcohol for them–but I was too frightened of breaking the law in Egypt to do it for him).

Playing backgammon with Amber at the Green Valley Cafe in Dahab

From Dahab we took a taxi to Cairo, which I remember was a harrowing experience. The note in my journal reads, “Arab drivers make Israeli drivers look like wimps.” Note, Israeli drivers are terrifying. We had to stop at three different checkpoints, where soldiers came and inspected us in the car. It was nothing like the police escort our bus had on the way back to Israel, but it was a little creepy. Although when we had to stop and wait for a herd of goats to pass, I thought it was charming.

The Nile at sunset, in Cairo

I did all the standard things–saw King Tut, took a felucca down the Nile from Aswan to Luxor, visited the Valley of the Kings and the Temple at Karnak. I skipped the Aswan Dam–I’m terrified of heights and when I saw it, I refused to go.

The view from our hotel window in Aswan

The felucca had no toilet, so when we needed to pee, the boat pulled over. Amber and I brush our teeth in a field of buffalo.

Amber and I tried to do as much as we could, learning how to take the Egyptian city buses, finding the souk, of course visiting the Egyptian Museum.

Me, in a souk in Cairo

The rest of the folks I was traveling with were more interested in finding the sheesha pipes and shopping. I ended up going some places completely alone. I have a very clear memory of going into the Egyptian Museum of Modern Art. Not many people were there. When I walked in, the man at the counter said to me, “Ah, American.”

“Yes,” I told him.

“What do you think of your Bill Clinton?” he asked me.

“He’s all right,” I said, not interested in getting into a political conversation.

He looked me straight in the eyes and then asked, with a little smile, “And what do you think of Hosni Mubarak?”

I paused, really not sure what to say. So finally, I looked at him, trying to fake confidence, and said, “What do you think of Hosni Mubarak?”

He laughed at me and said, “Smart girl!” and let me go on into the museum.

Egypt was marvelous. I still dream of the food I ate there–the fatir and koushari and the ful–and the things I’ve seen. I am very happy for Egypt and I look forward to returning there some day, with my kids.

I’m having a sad moment. One of those, My children are getting too big too fast moments. Because today we… today we…

I can barely get it out.

Today we… we gave away the train table.

My kids could not care less about this major milestone in our lives. The boy lived at that train table for a few years. Pie had mild interest, but never really took to it in the same way. And at this point, it was merely taking up space. So we gave it to a two-year-old boy down the street.

Today is snowy. My kids are in school. And I’m wistful for a train table. Sigh.

Let it be known that at 9:18 p.m., I am the last remaining person in this household standing. New Orleans keeps scoring, and everyone around here keeps snoring. The two little ones went down with a fight about 15 minutes ago. The big one went down without a peep, although he squawked when I tried to wake him to rejoin me watching the game. For the record, so far the Betty White commercial is winning hands down.

We had a fairly impromptu Super Bowl party, which ended early as little people had to get to bed. I whipped up some jambalaya in honor of the Saints, made some homemade turtles, which I should say, taste as good if not better than any I’ve had in New Orleans, and got the annual football cake from Wilson Farms.

Ah, 78-yard touchdown. And Adam’s asleep. Sucks to be Adam.

But forget Adam and football. Let’s talk about the Who. What was that? Oh my, who let those old men who can’t sing on stage? Does Pete Townsend really think he still looks rocking with those windmills? And what was on Roger Daltry’s head?

Me: Keith Moon was their drummer who died right?
Adam: No. Keith Moon played for the Rolling Stones.
Me: Are you sure? I’m pretty sure Keith Moon was with the Who.
Adam: No. Definitely not. Definitely the Stones.
Me: Hey, Dan, who was the drummer for the Who who died?
Dan: Keith Moon.

In 1981, I begged my parents to let me see the Rolling Stones on their Tattoo You tour. My parents refused. The were playing at Folsom Field during my Colorado years and I wanted to go so badly but, no, my parents said absolutely not.

It wasn’t long after this that I did get to go to a concert. My friend Karin and I really wanted to see the Go-Go’s at Red Rocks, which my father told me I could go to only if I found an adult to take me. “What’s an adult?” I asked him. “Someone over twenty-one,” he told me. That summer I worked as a Water Safety Assistant at the Boulder Rec. I was friendly with one of the lifeguards. I was 14. She was 23. My father had to let me go. The lifeguard introduced me to Seven and Sevens, which the guys in the row behind us had smuggled in.

In October of 1982, the Who were playing at Folsom Field–it was their Farewell Tour. (Everyone please note the last lines of this article: “One has to applaud their decision to call it quits now. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be missed.” Um, yeah. I missed them tonight.) Jethro Tull and John Cougar (and I mean John Cougar–this was a few years before he became Mellencamp) opened. For the life of me, I can’t remember two things: one, with whom I went to the concert and two, why the hell my parents let me go to this concert. What were they thinking? I’m positive there were no adults with us–I remember sitting in the row in front of the delinquent of my ninth grade class. I loved the concert–whatever happened to my Who concert T-shirt? I’m almost positive it was a baseball shirt, because baseball shirts were so cool and they went perfectly with my braided hair barrettes.

Oh, look who came back just in time to see the game being over? Yea, Saints (Me, to Doodles today, “Who are you going to root for? The Saints or the Colts?” Doodles: “What’s a Saint?” Me: “Uh… someone who’s dead who in some religions is considered is really important. Everyone will be rooting for the Saints tonight.” Doodles: “Okay, then I’ll root for the Colts”). It’s been a long time since I’ve been to New Orleans–that last two trips I was pregnant with a Brown Brown, although I didn’t know it on the first one (I was better behaved on the second one)–but I’m happy they won. If it can’t be my Dolphins, the Saints are a good second best.

And once again, I’m the last one awake (that man can sleep anywhere, anytime. I’m jealous). Time to fix that problem. Good night.

I recognize that this is a very introspective (read: masturbatory) blog–the outside world doesn’t generally intervene here unless it relates to something amusing/maddening/strange a family member did.

And in a sense this is also a self-indulgent post. Because it’s all about how it relates to me. But for a few moments, we shall turn to the world outside of Adam, Doodles, and Pie.

Once upon a time I was a graduate student. I studied creative writing at the University of Washington. It was a magical two years when the only thing I had to do was write. And read. And write some more. My whole life revolved around writing. I read slush for the Seattle Review. I helped bring authors to come read at the university. I dated poets and fiction writers and English lit Ph.Ders. And I wrote, if not well, at least prolifically.

Every year, Seattle has the most marvelous of festivals, Bumbershoot. Bumbershoot is this amazing amalgamation of music, art, film, literature, food, and general fun. Bumbershoot, to me, is the epitome of Seattle. In my day, that meant putting on your Carharts, flannel shirt, and Tevas and heading out for a day of hearing “the coolest band” and mocking that “total sell-out” on the next stage. Of course, no one ever agreed which was which.

My second year in Seattle, two of us grad students, me and a poet, Laura, were offered jobs at Bumbershoot. And what a job it was. “Literary Escort.” Yes, it sounds like something out of a Woody Allen story. And, frankly, I thought it sounded kind of hot. I’d read the line-up of authors coming. “What, I get to sleep with Exene Cervenka?” No, I was told. I got to drive her around. Well, okay. That would be a close second.

So I took the job. It was just for the weekend. I was one of a team of escorts. We picked up literary greats at the airport, brought them to their hotels. Took them from their hotels to their readings at Bumbershoot. Take them back. Drive them to the airport again. We could attend the parties. We had backstage passes. We got walkie talkies to use. We got paid. Pretty f’ing sweet.

On my list? Exene Cervenka. Tobias Wolff. Patti Smith. Jim Carroll. A few others you probably haven’t heard of.

They were quite nice. I got into a car accident with Tobias Wolff. Actually, a bus sideswiped my van, but it suitably freaked me out, and Tobias had to calm me down, assuring me it was in no way my fault; I was stopped at a traffic light. Patti Smith was way more domestic than I would have guessed. Exene Cervenka was as cool as you’d think she’d be.

And Jim Carroll? Jim Carroll can only be described as a trip. From the moment I picked him up at the airport, he was high maintenance.

“Hello, Mr. Carroll, I’m Jenny. I’ll be driving you around this weekend.”

“Call me, Jim,” he told me. And so I did.

In the car, he immediately became chatty. And I ate it up. The original name dropper. “Yeah, did you know that last time I was in Seattle, I got a call from Eddie Vedder, wanted to hang out. Asked me to sing. Oh, is Patti here yet? You need to get me in touch with Patti….”

We got to his hotel. “Um, I think I forgot my i.d. Can you come in with me just to make sure I get checked in okay?”

Uh… okay. So I go in with him. And help him solve all his problems. “There’s no room service? Well, what’s the restaurant down here. Will they deliver to my room? Can someone get the food to me? What do they serve? I don’t know if I’ll eat that…”

I finally left, promising to call him a half hour before I was to pick him up. “Hi Jim, it’s Jenny. I’m leaving now to come get you….” Then I’d call him from the hotel, which in these days before the abundance of cell phones, meant my parking the van on a crowded Seattle downtown street, getting out, going into the lobby and using the hotel phone. “Hi Jim, it’s Jenny. I’m downstairs ready for you…. Hi Jim, it’s Jenny, I’m still downstairs waiting for….”

I took him to the parties. I took him to his reading. I lent him my Cartoon Network watch to wear onstage because he forgot his. Forget the rest of the other writers. My whole weekend was “Hi Jim, it’s Jenny. I’m waiting for you….”

His flight back to New York was at 9 a.m. “I’m always nervous about making my flights,” he told me. “I’d like to get there at least two hours early.” Note, this is years before 9/11.

“Um, okay.”

“And could you call me with a wake-up call? I don’t trust the hotel. Call me at 5:30.” 5:30. Of course now, 5:30 in the morning is par for the course. But in those days, 5:30 was an hour in which I might be falling asleep.

“Of course,” I told him.

So I called him. “Hi Jim,” I said, trying to hide the groggy from my voice. “It’s Jenny. It’s time for you to get up.”

“Could you call back in a half hour, make sure I’m still up?”

Half and hour later. “Hi Jim, it’s Jenny. I’m heading out now to get you.”

The ride to the airport was magical. I asked him all sorts of questions, growing bolder as we spoke. I asked and asked. I asked about the “people who died,” about who he dated, about heroin, about his fear of AIDS, about, about, about. All the way to SeaTac we chatted.

We pulled up to the airport. Before he got out, I nervously pulled out my copy of Basketball Diaries. “Would you sign my book?”

He gave me the most charming smile. “Of course!” he said, and he took the book. He signed it. I saw him drawing a tiny picture of the space needle before he handed it back to me. He gave me a great big hug and headed back to New York.

I give you this, my final one: “Hi Jim, this is Jenny.”

I still have the book. I’ll keep it forever. I look at it now. It’s Jim. So Jim. Jim inscribed it as only Jim would. He wrote, “For Laura, with love and all my thanks for your help. Jim Carroll. Seattle ’95.”

Rest in peace, Jim Carroll.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bOjc70f4p8]

I started to include this in my previous post, but I decided that Bruce deserves a post of his own. I’m sitting here rocking out to one of the idols of my youth as my five-year-younger husband shakes his head because he just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it! How can you not get Bruce? What is to become of this younger generation?

Bruce may not be the stud of my teen years anymore, but he is seriously rocking the Super Bowl out. Give an old guy credit–he’s not doing any lip-syncing tonight. My only complaint about tonight’s performance is it was way too short.

In 1984, I lied to my parents (just that once, I swear! I would never lie to my parents! Really. That D in chemistry must be a mistake! And of course I didn’t miss curfew. Smell? What smell? I don’t smell anything sweet!). I told them I was spending the night at Eva’s house. Eva told her mom she was spending the night at mine. Instead, we camped out at Vibrations record store at 163rd Street, getting there at about 8 p.m. and tickets for the “Born in the USA” tour were going on sale at in the morning. In those days there were no sophisticated numbering systems–it was first come first serve, so those waiting would write out numbers on scraps of paper and give them to people, so we didn’t have to stay in the same spot all night. I was number 79; Eva was 78.

The night was a party scene. Lots of drunk people (and in all seriousness, not us). People dozing on and off. Lots of runs for Burger King. Most of us had our Walkmans and we were trading tapes (yes, tapes). One of the guys in line took a shine to me, and at some point, traded my number 79 for his number 7. I remember his buddies yelling at him, but who was I to argue? I got two tickets, fairly far up in the Orange Bowl; Eva got two pretty far back. I’m pretty sure when my parents asked how I’d gotten the tickets (because I’d obviously done it in person as I didn’t have a credit card to use on the phone and it was on the news how fast the concert sold out), I ‘fessed up pretty quickly. I believe the consequence of my indiscretion was I had to take my sister to the concert. Eva had to take hers, too. We sat up front. They got the crappy seats. (Sorry, Tweeds, for just ditching you at the concert.)

I had a poster of Bruce over my bed. “Born to Run” was an anthem, something we blasted while driving up Collins Ave or Biscayne Boulevard. One of my high school boyfriends was always befuddled that I couldn’t remember the battles of the American Revolution for A.P. American History, but I could sing “Blinded by the Light” forward and backward (still can!).

Of course, I had other phases. I was waaay into Pink Floyd for a while. Rush. The Who (I saw them on their first final tour!). Genesis. The Clash. Toward the end of high school, I definitely segued into New Wave, with Depeche Mode and Yaz topping the list.

Quick digression: Anyone else see that ad for Race to Witch Mountain. I said to Adam, “I’m horrified that they’ve remade Witch Mountain?” and he said, “What? What’s Witch Mountain?” Aaaaaggggggg!!!

Okay, back to the music. Actually, I only have one more thing to say: Bruce. Bruce! Buh-rrrruuuuuucccccceee!

Because tramps like us, baby, we were born to run.