Yeah. I'm a Maniac.

Today I got this shirt in the mail. It is a singlet, for running.

It arrived in the middle of the day ~ I was about to drive my daughter to the airport, and I checked the mail on the way to the car. I was not expecting the shirt to arrive so soon. I had her open the package while I was driving. It's my Marathon Maniac shirt. Cool.

Not everyone can have one of these shirts. You have to be a Maniac. And for that, you have to qualify.

As I mentioned in the post about the Wyoming "Run With(out) the Horses" marathon, I had been meaning to join Marathon Maniacs for some time. I've seen these shirts at marathons, and I have met some of the maniacs. I was told by two of them that I should join, because I certainly qualified for it.

To be certified "insane," you have to do more than just run a marathon. There are different levels of craziness, with different criteria. When I first looked into this, last year, I was shocked to see that I qualified, not just on the basic level (which they call "bronze"), but on the silver level.

So this month, when I finally got around to having myself committed, I was horrified to learn that it was even worse than that. I had leaped right over the "gold" level, and was now insane at the iridium level. I didn't even know what iridium was! I had to look it up. It was running 10 marathons in 2007, that did it. I only needed nine, to reach the fourth level of the craziness hierarchy.

I will never be as far gone as some of these guys. The really crazy ones are certified at the tenth level ~ the "titanium" level, by running 52 marathons in one year, or some such stunt. So I remain humble, as well as keeping somewhat connected to the world of common sense. (In comparison, that is).

(Don't tell the Maniacs, but I think there should be one more criterion for insanity ~ if you run a marathon, immediately hop in the car and drive for 13 hours straight, arrive home after midnight, and go to work in the morning ~ that should figure into the diagnosis in some way!)

It's good that I joined now, before it gets even worse. I was happy to see the email from the nice young men in the white coats, telling me that I was in.

I got my daughter to the airport, and dropped her off, and proceeded hastily to the college, to teach for the rest of the day. A pretty easy day, but I was tired, and frustrated because I have been knocking my head against various academic brick walls, without any of the walls budging one bit.

I got home, and took some aspirin for the headache caused by the brick wall impact, and ate a very unhealthy "meal" of two pieces of fried BBQ chicken. I was really tired and defeated, and I didn't feel like doing anything. I turned on the TV, but it was just a bunch of Republican speeches. I tried NPR ~ same thing. I don't want to hear that tonight, so I turned it off. I opened my Sciral Consistency, and it said I have to do one load of laundry, or I will get a red square tomorrow. Just one load. I can do that, if it's just one. I'm tired, but I can do one load.

And then, my email buzzed. It was a brick wall. It budged. It's not knocked down yet, mind you ~ I still have some more head-banging to do ~ but it budged.

I looked up, and saw my Maniac shirt hanging up on the other side of the room. I decided to blog about it, because I needed to turn my thoughts to some kind of accomplishment. Writing a blog post forces my brain to stop and ponder the meaning of the yellow shirt. I got it because I ran 24 marathons. Every one of them made some part of my body feel a little like my head feels now (on account of the brick wall).

The news about the brick wall moving a tiny bit made me hungry for more, so that is why I am writing about the shirt. The good thing is that the human brain is very stupid in some places ~ it doesn't know the difference between running 24 marathons and making a brick wall move a tiny bit and crossing "do one load of laundry" off a to-do list. They are all wins, and they all need to be celebrated. The brain will celebrate it, if you tell your brain "It's done! Party time!"

Now I feel like I can do a few more things on my to-do list, and I think it's because I took some time to appreciate the wins. There are always wins ~ you just have to focus on them. It doesn't matter, to your brain, how big it is ~ it's still a win.

(Disclaimer ~ I also had some coffee. That probably helped some too.)