{"id":1920,"date":"2014-03-02T21:01:19","date_gmt":"2014-03-02T20:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=1920"},"modified":"2014-03-03T09:26:45","modified_gmt":"2014-03-03T08:26:45","slug":"my-arch-nemesis-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=1920","title":{"rendered":"The Return of My Arch Nemesis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>Running on a Sunday morning in Prague means running along streets, sidewalks, and paths littered with the remnants of the night before. There are empty KFC buckets, broken beer bottles, blood, scorched scarves, and many more pairs of pantyhose than seem reasonable. It\u2019s returning to the scene of a crime I had nothing to do with.<\/p>\n

Running on a Sunday morning also means quiet and solitude. It\u2019s like having Prague all to myself so I can run and sweat and implore the heavens and cry and sing Led Zeppelin without any fear of embarrassment.<\/p>\n

Today is no different. Mostly.<\/p>\n

I am halfway through my route. I have crossed V\u00fdto\u0148 Bridge and am heading along the river towards Palack\u00e9ho <\/i>Bridge, which I will cross and head the 1.5 miles home. All alone, I am screeching my version of Gallows Pole,<\/i> but hush when I notice a form in the mist up ahead and the little dog next to him. I recognize the scowl, the hunched shoulders, the hair.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can\u2019t be,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n

But it is. It\u2019s him.<\/p>\n

Oh, I have lots of nemeses: my cat, pants, complex carbohydrates. But I only have one arch nemesis and he is standing ten feet away watching his dog poop. He is about 50 years old and has never worn anything but a severe, unhappy mug, the very same Cro-Magnon curmudgeon look he is wearing now. Oddly, he sports a punk rocker hairstyle. The sides are shaved in a purposefully crude manner and the top of his head is covered with curly blue hair.<\/p>\n

Unlike other arch nemeses, my arch nemesis doesn\u2019t have any real superpowers. He doesn\u2019t have telekinesis like Magneto. He also has the normal amount of arms, he can\u2019t fly, and he doesn\u2019t have the ability to send fire from his fingertips. And he sure doesn\u2019t look super intelligent like Lex Luthor.<\/p>\n

My arch nemesis has never done anything bad to me. In fact, he doesn\u2019t really do<\/i> anything at all. My arch nemesis has two powers and they always work in tandem: the ability to be wherever I am and the ability to look more miserable than anyone else ever has. Ever. He spreads this misery like it\u2019s the flu.<\/p>\n

For one year I was never without my arch nemesis. He was wherever I was, like my angry shadow. He was on the same trams, buses, streets, and restaurants. No matter where I was, I could look around and see him doing what he was always doing \u2013 nothing. Just sitting and staring ahead angrily.<\/p>\n

At this moment, he is working both of those abilities. He is the only other person on the river and he looks completely miserable. I hate him. And yet, we have never spoken one word to each other. In fact, my arch nemesis would be stunned to find out that he has an arch nemesis.<\/p>\n

I cross Palack\u00e9ho <\/i>Bridge, thinking happy thoughts to ward off his misery. I am almost done my run, then there\u2019s coffee and a nice breakfast. <\/i>On the other side of the river I head towards home. I watch V\u00fdto\u0148 Bridge as I jog, the form shuffling across it, the little dog in tow. No.<\/p>\n

I pick up speed \u2013 2 miles an hour to 3. I\u2019m blazing now.<\/p>\n

Of course, we meet again as he reaches the bottom of the steps and I pass. Perhaps overtaken with what awaits me at home, I smile and say, \u201cdobr\u00e9 r\u00e1no!\u201d Good morning.<\/i><\/p>\n

He smiles back and winks. \u201cDobr\u00e9 r\u00e1no!\u201d he reciprocates.<\/p>\n

Oh well, he\u2019s not so bad.<\/p>\n

Do you have an arch nemesis? Extra points if they are unaware of this.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running on a Sunday morning in Prague means running along streets, sidewalks, and paths littered with the remnants of the night before. There are empty KFC buckets, broken beer bottles, blood, scorched scarves, and many more pairs of pantyhose than seem reasonable. It\u2019s returning to the scene of a crime I had nothing to do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-uY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1920"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1925,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920\/revisions\/1925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}