Day 15,
October 2

Another night run. It served as a bridge between the two mental journeys that defined my day. I'll probably write about the first of those in my journal section soon (maybe I should change that section name to "blog", since it doesn't really feel like a true journal to me, as I've discussed before). So for now, I'll just say that when I got back from my run, I tried learning Natsu nan desu. I suppose this mixes two of the constant themes of my life: being obsessed with whatever season just ended, and getting very concerned about becoming a "real" guitarist for a week at a time, before descending back into not regularly playing guitar. I guess all the Happy End songs on the album with the faces feel like songs someone like me learns how to play in some fruitless attempt to understand the true meaning of the guitar. They're all simple chord progression built out of 7 chords, but there are interesting aspects of the production that lead one to explore arrangement for a single guitar when you're just a guy in a room with no friends. I got the basic idea of the song down yesterday without that much effort. Let's see if I can take the next step that I never actually take and turn those chords I can play into something reproduces, as best I can, the feel of the song on the album.

As for my run itself, it was just another run for the sake of running. Maybe I'm falling into patterns and getting less interesting with my runs. It was more or less a repeat of Day 5. Rather than running all the way home though, I met Xiaoxi at Liu Haisu, which is an art museum with a little park outside of it that is often filled with dogs. The actual parks around here don't let dogs in. Liu Haisu is one of the rare places dogs can run free.

Xiaohei, the dog that Xiaoxi stole from her roommate, always wears t-shirts when we go out, since he is short and his belly gets covered in dirt if he goes out naked. He is a dog who both wishes he were human yet hates humanity for having neutered him. He jumps on any dog he sees and tries to ride them, despite his shortness and lack of testicles. If he sees two humans hugging, he gets angry and jumps on top of them, trying to ride them too. He bullies the weak and feable. He refuses to play with other dogs, except to ride them. Yet everyone loves him. I suppose his most endearing quality is that whenever he poops he feels the need to wipe his butt, but being trapped in a dog's body, his only recourse is to drag his butt against the sidewalk, sometimes leaving a trail of poop behind him.

I've been a slump of inspiration running-wise lately. Other things have been more interesting to me. I'll keep running everyday, but I'm afraid these logs will probably be less interesting for awhile. We're about halfway done. Maybe I'll get more excited later on.

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