Neck Vagina

Warming Up

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Yesterday I went for a haircut and elected to go quite short again. Also I shaved this week, so I have less hair on my head area than I have had for some time. Hair covers a multitude of sins. Short hair on my head exposes the slight thinning on top and getting rid of my beard not only lets people count my chins but when looking in the mirror I noticed I had the beginnings of the kind of neck vagina that President Trump has.

Mine is definitely not of Trump proportions yet. Trump’s neck vagina is so pronounced that it is possible to have sex with it. Mine is only just starting to stretch its way from my lower neck to my chin, but it’s on the way. To think, in the lifetime of this blog, I worried about getting a few grey hairs and now am facing loose skin forming into caricatures of genitalia.

Today the neck vagina was not so pronounced. Maybe there was something about the angle I was sitting at

As disappointing as it is to have physical evidence that I am no longer 25, I am not the kind of person who will attempt to cover up or hide the signs of ageing. I don’t want to be one of those guys in their sixties with a shade of brown hair that doesn’t exist in nature (or is it just that hair is never quite that uniform in colour?) and I will learn to love my neck vagina, should it grow into something as magnificent as Trump’s. Perhaps incorporate it in my love making. Am I flexible enough to have sex with my own neck vagina? It’s an extra stretch from sucking your own cock, but it’s worth a shot. Or maybe I can find a neck vagina support group where men with neck vaginas question what having both sets of genitals means for them and how they can get equal status in a world that believes the definition for man and woman are not fluid and that any deviation from their perceived norm makes you something that you feel you are not. We could learn to live with our jowl genitalia and then afterwards go to the pub, get drunk and maybe fuck each other in the neck.

I don’t know. I’m just spitballing. Trying to come to terms with this affliction that few people ever talk about and that other people mock.

I just checked myself in the mirror and couldn’t see the neck vagina at all. Is it wrong to feel disappointed that I might not got one?

Into town tonight to see Paul F Tompkins and a team of amazing performers in The Thrilling Adventure Hour. I had no idea of what to expect with this and hadn’t ever encountered it before and so to begin with I was confused (whilst the rest of the audience was in raptures) but I tuned into it and had a lot of fun. I know better than anyone what it’s like to create projects full of in-jokes and weirdness that must be incomprehensible to people starting at episode 138 or 99f.

Weirdly on the train there at about 5.40pm I had been thinking about what to do in the event of an incident (maybe not weirdly, as I often spend my time thinking about how I would react in a disaster) and looked around the carriage to see if there was anything I could protect myself with. I could only see a fire extinguisher under a seat, but that might work both as something to shoot in someone’s face or clock them in the head with. I don’t know why I feel like I am an action hero in my mind. My only use if such circumstances would be to get my body in the way if someone more worthy of living was in the vicinity.

A couple hours of later on a train that would have passed through Hitchin people were presented with this as a reality. I’d say it was unthinkable, but I’d just been thinking about it.

It was strange travelling back home tonight after the news had broken and passengers were aware of the basics of what had happened. Trains that travelled on that line were cancelled and without knowing details we were inevitably left to wonder if something else might happen. Yet there was no palpable fear, just an unspoken acknowledgement that that could have happened to any of us and a weird acceptance that we just had to carry on. Not out of any sense of bravery or even united spirit, just because what was the alternative? How else would we get home? The only real difference to a more regular hold up was that no one was really complaining about having to wait 20 minutes or take a bus. Whatever the reason for this random act of horrific violence, we knew we were lucky.

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Four years ago, less than nine months after losing my testicle, I ran the Knebworth Half Marathon. Having contemplated my own mortality I had got super fit and got round the hilly course in under two hours.

Today, I was back at Knebworth to take on the more modest challenge of the 10K, but having done considerably less training. It’s only a couple of months since I tried to jog up a hill with Phoebe and almost expired from the exertion. I’ve done a few 5ks since then and in training gone up to 6km, but I wasn’t sure how well I’d do with 10. I was hopeful I might get round in under an hour, but that would basically mean maintaining my current 5k pace for twice as long.

There was no pressure though. I was running alone (if you discounted the hundreds of other people) and wasn’t being sponsored. I just wanted to get a longer run in and this was a good way to do that without just giving up. I find it hard to do the longer runs alone or to keep up a decent pace. I’d been lucky with that half Marathon to have my friend and personal trainer taking me out on long Sunday runs and setting a decent pace for me.

Was I being hubristic to step forward when the announcer asked for the people who were aiming for a sub-hour run? Probably. But I don’t think they police it. I wasn’t going to get into trouble if I lagged behind the pace.

Just like four years ago I set off too fast, unable to resist the lure of the opening downhill section. Because I was so fit and so fired up last time I don’t think I had noticed that the next kilometre is on a pretty steep hill. I noticed this time and as my Runna app told me my pace was already too slow to hit the hour mark, I even wondered if I’d have the energy to get round.

The good bit about a hilly run is that, unless you’re pretty unlucky, there are some downhill bits too and once I’d recovered from that first (and most challenging) hill, I got into a nice flow and was back on pace, at least for now. I thought of the exhilaration of doing that half marathon so soon after my cancer. I had been so full of energy for the first part of that run and when I’d seen my family had scooped Ernie up into my arms and run with him for a little bit. I didn’t have those levels of energy and thought about how much more difficult it would be to lift him four years on. That half-Marathon had been miraculous and was such an important goal for me that year. This 10K was just a Sunday run, though if I could go sub 60 minutes then that would feel like a victory.

I got halfway in around about the same time it had taken me to run the Hitchin 5k (which was not very hilly). Would I really be able to do the second half at the same speed?

It turned out I could. I found myself sprinting the last 50 metres and getting over the line in 59 minutes (or one second less according to one of my timers- will have to wait for the official results before I know the accurate time). Very pleased with that.

I am as pleased as you are bored to have to read this. Not all of this blog is for you.

I thought I might be fucked for the rest of the day and was stiff when I got out of the car at home and slightly pulled a muscle in my leg and hobbled through the door.

I had a hot bath which made me a bit light-headed (my mum will now tell me that a bath is the most dangerous part of exercise) and so had a lie-down and a little snooze. I might still be able to run a sub 59 minute 10K at 58, but maybe it would take a day or two to recover.

As it happened once I got up I was full of energy for the rest of the day and did a couple of dog walks and got the kids to bed and stayed up signing books for kickstarter donors.

Who would have thought exercise could do you good?

It’s worth nothing that four years ago I ran 22km in 1hr55, but let’s not detract from my achievement.

I may be an old man with a neck vagina (though maybe the run helped counteract that as it’s gone for now) but I can still run for 10km at under 6 mins a km.

Though a bath may kill me.