YOU CAN’T STEAL SHIT
Calling Someone a Motherfucker Is a Sign of Respect
Studies show people who swear have incredibly hard workout routines
Motherfucker #1
My most recent swim buddy writes me notes like, “I swam a 2400, you motherfucker.” She calls me a motherfucker because swimming is exhausting and I’m her accountability buddy.
She’d never call me a motherfucker if she were floating around the pool like a lazy dead fish. She’s in that pool trying not to drown really fast.
She used to run ultra-marathons but she had an accident. That’s not my story to tell. You can ask her or maybe she’ll write about it one day. That’s the thing about writers who are friends. You can’t steal their shit. That’s a different kind of motherfucker altogether.
Motherfucker #2
I have another friend who also runs ultra-marathons. Right now she’s in India, running. I only met her once, for a week, when we were in a writing workshop together one summer a quarter of a century ago.
At the time she was doing massive amounts of yoga. She’d order a coffee in warrior pose. She was from Brooklyn and everybody wanted a piece of her. Some people have that je ne sais quoi quality that makes people follow them around like they’ve got free weed.
I had to share Brooklyn with everybody else, but she ended up inviting me to her wedding. I should have gone, but I couldn’t figure out how to get to India at the time.
I skipped her wedding but she let me stay at her condo on the Upper East Side when I was looking at NYU for grad school. I must have looked pretty honest because we barely knew each other and she still left her keys for me with the doorman.
On the other hand, maybe she didn’t have anything worth stealing. Her apartment was spotless. She had a fridge filled with bottled water and a coffee table covered in New Yorkers and Paris Reviews.
She had nothing else on any surfaces and though it was tempting, I didn’t sleuth in her cabinets or drawers. I was very afraid of nannycams which had recently become popular.
It was a lot of pressure, staying there. I didn’t know anyone else with a clear glass coffee table with brass legs. Now I know a million people who decorate their condos in midcentury modern but I was living in Iowa at the time and no one did.
Iowa people are thrifty and have comfy but rickety antique wood furniture that belonged to their great-grandparents who don’t need it anymore. If you looked under their tables and chairs, you’d see decades of wood glue.
Thanks to Facebook, me and Brooklyn still know each other. I can “like” her running posts. She’s always running. I don’t know where she finds time to post anything.
I think she’s running with someone else though because some of the pictures are taken from behind.
Motherfucker #3
I bought a Peloton during the pandemic and one of the Peloton instructors told me she also ran ultra-marathons — well, she told us she ran them. She didn’t IM me or anything.
That was three people I knew who ran ultra-marathons. That is, three people I knew of who ran ultra marathons. The only person who could pick me out in a crowd was my most recent swimming buddy who calls me a motherfucker.
My Facebook friend and my Peloton instructor would look right past me on the street. I don’t take it personally, but I’d like to think if we swam together, they’d recognize me in the locker room. You know the expression ‘game recognizes game?’ Well, motherfucker recognizes motherfucker, too.
Which brings me back to my swimming friend. To her, I am Motherfucker. It’s a sign of respect. If she acted like swimming was easy, it would be a slap in the face, motherfucker.
Thanks to T. Kent Jones for being such a wonderful motherfucking editor.
