Just 'cuz

Can't make up my mind!

I want to start running again! But I don't have sufficient clothing. One improvement via a Christmas present (thank you!!) but there are a few more things I would need... like shoes... and gloves...

I like the idea of running but am ambivalent about actually getting out there. Maybe what I need to do is carve out some time dedicated to running over the course of two weeks and make myself get out there and not skip a planned day. A little jump-start to get me through the painful endurance-building stage. A scheduled addiction acquisition.

Yeah. I'll do that. But first I have to get a day planner. And some shoes. And gloves.

It's that time again

The time for resolutions!

I love resolutions. I love the challenge of improving myself. Call me a nerd, I don't care!

Some of my resolutions this year are financial, and I won't go into detail here, obviously.

But I also want to:

Read more books (fiction and non)
Shop at the Farmer's Market more often (it's only three blocks away!)
Form a solid plan and take some actionable steps in re: my career future
Grow my hair longer!

Let it begin!

Bet

I have a bet with someone from work on the Wings/Caps game tonight.

When the Wings win, he will:
-Go around the office and tell everyone that the Wings do, in fact, rule and that his loyalties have been gravely misdirected all these years;
-Put a WINGS RULE sign on his desk for a week;
-Put a full-color WINGS RULE signs on all his car windows for a week;
-Wear a Wings jersey to the Adams Mill Grill on Thursday night when the Capitals play the Montreal Canadiens.

This guy is a long-time, hard-core Washington Capitals fan and will find all these conditions, even the first three which seem pretty minor to me, a grave injustice. He will be hurting. I will be smiling to myself... not gloating, really, just wondering at his childlike ignorance of the way the world works.

As if the Caps have a chance. Stay tuned.

Middlesex

By Jeffrey Eugenides. An excellent read. Intimate prose. A fascinating story - and set right in Motown, too.

I've been volunteering my time this week to help wrap Christmas presents for a toy giveaway. The first step was to sort the donations by gender, and then by age. This led to an interesting discussion about gender identity and socialization, especially when a guy I was working with threw a Rubik's Cube onto the "boy" pile! Rubik's Cubes are definitely "unisex." :)

In Middlesex, the main character is raised as a girl until, at age 15, her parents discover that she is genetically male. Until that point she self-identified as female, was attracted to females, and had female external genitalia. Her doctors recommend surgery to 'correct' a slightly ambiguous external genital, which would make her physically female, all the while noting in her file that her sex-chromosomes are male.

Is she male or female? Do sex-chromosomes or socialization determine gender, or is it a combination of both? Are there other variables that work in determining gender identification? If a child is born with ambiguous genitalia, should the doctor or the parents 'decide' what the child should be?

The hijras in India are an interesting example of a 'third gender' group generally marginalized but at the same time play a very important and revered role in certain religious ceremonies.

I saw a cute commercial recently. I can't remember the product beining sold, but the segment opens with a little boy tearing into his Christmas presents under a tree. Barbies, ponies, sparkly art kits, these are the sorts of things he's getting and you can see his face falling and becoming sad. He scrawls a letter: "Dear Santa, Kelly is a boy's name, too!"

I need to get me some smarts

I think I'm getting dumber.

So I have a plan.

Tonight I will devise a study plan for the winter which will involve brushing up on my philosophy, history, and law.

I am also going to try to do Sudoku every day, even though I suck at it. I'll still crossword too, but Sudoku is a real challenge for me and I think my brain could use the workout.

Can't... lose... intelligence...

Fierce Dreams

Some of my faithful readers will remember that my dreams are often innundated with large, exotic wild animals, and often bears. Sometimes I'm observing these animals, sometimes interacting with them, and sometimes they are trying to attack me.

Last night I dreamt that my dad and step-mother and I were getting ready to run a marathon. I remembered in my dream that when I ran the Marine Corps Marathon in 2004 that my shoes weren't as broken in as they should have been, which caused me some problems, and I was relieved that I had good shoes and socks for this run. My dad was putting a protein bar in his pocket for later but I was planning on buying one (?) halfway through.

So my step-mother and I posed for a pre-race picture when my dad shouted a warning. I looked through a line of trees to a field beyond and saw a huge lion bounding towards us. I dropped to the ground and laid there on my face and prayed to God while the lion stood next to me, deciding whether to attack.

Then, flash to my apartment and a huge lioness trying to get through the door. I could hear her pacing around outside in the hallway, and when she leaned on the door it opened and she could get a paw or her head inside! I was trying to lean on the door and close it, and there was this pet-door in the bottom center of the door that she was trying to squeeze through.

So I lit some paper on fire and blew the smoke towards her and she retreated a bit. Then I saw that my neighbor from across the hall had nailed some wood across his pet-door, and it seemed like he had been through this before and knew what to do.

But I was thinking, how can I nail something across this door when I have to hold the door shut so she doesn't push it open? But I managed to run and get a hammer and nails from the kitchen, and some cross-thatched Chinese screens I'm storing in my closet (in real life, actually!) and started to nail them across the pet-door.

Then I woke up, buried under the covers, on my stomach with my face underneath a pillow, ten minutes before my alarm.

I have two very cold real-life lionesses won't stay out of my lap or off my feet, which is just fine with me.

Paraphilia Memorabilia

"Prepare yourself to see some genitalia."

Truer prophecies than these, by my training instructor today, were never spoken.

Unfortunately, we were studying sex homicide, so the genitalia we viewed (photographically) weren't exactly... in tact. I will spare you further details.

It's a quiet snowy night (have you ever noticed how snow quiets the world?) and my brother has cancelled our sushi plans, understandable, so I have some much needed time to myself. Characteristically, I'm in the middle of three books. I still haven't put together my photos from the trip I took with my mom to Greece this past June. I might wrap some Christmas presents!!!! And I will certainly go to bed early, to wake early, as usual.

Rest for My Soul

So, I haven't really been running. For a while there I was doing okay, slowly building up my base mileage again. But now it's cold, and dark too early, and I don't have any proper running clothes, and I need new shoes, and running isn't giving me the pleasure it once did. So maybe my return to the streets was short lived. Maybe I'll try again once spring rolls around.

This has been a hellish, stressful, busy week. Two 13-hour shifts; being in a screaming speeding police car resulting in close proximity to a fire after three of the people I work for interrupted each other to call us pathetic for two and a half hours; a lovely dinner with a friend but I still reeked of smoke and pathos; a filthy apartment; neglected furry creatures.

I can barely take care of myself this week, and I'm just one person.

Some Girls Wander By Mistake

I wish I could compose a post as thoughtfully apologetic as Matt's as to why I haven't been writing much lately. But I can't. And I won't try.

I'm here. I've been travelling. Working, yoga, running, blah blah blah.

My life is a little weird right now. Up until my mid-twenties, things seemed to move in several-year stages. Three years of middle school, four years of high school, four years of college, two years of graduate school. And now I've just finished up my third year of full-time work, and I can feel myself getting antsy, not because I've lost my contentedness, but because the pendulum has swung back, the rhythm started over, and my life's clock says it's time for something new.

I also might be getting a little too comfortable. That frightens me. I don't
want to be too comfortable in my life. I want to be challenged and improving and a little afraid. Not afraid, excactly, but I don't want to become too accustomed to God's graces. I want to be awed by them continuously, and thankful, and most of all, I want to steward well the gifts He has given me and continues to give.

I Need a New Head

I have a cold.

BLAH.

A Gentle Start

Earlier today I was feeling just plain weak. Weak-willed, weak physically, weak spiritually. Generally just feeling like I sucked. Feeling short and scrunched up and inflexible and impure.

The driving rain and whipping wind that plagued me today didn't help my condition, but a nice, gentle, beginning level yoga class did. Immensely. I went in there feeling as though the only difference between me and a first-week beginner was that I had the Primary Series memorized. But soon enough my chest opened, my back lengthened, my hamstrings... well, not so much, but my mind settled down, and now I feel long and lithe and clean.

Yoga is like the Fountain of Youth. Seriously.

It's Raining and I Forgot My Umbrella (and other pathetic tales of woe)

It's raining and I forgot my umbrella and have to spend most of the day outside running from office to metro to other office to metro back to office.

My muscles are all scrunched up from hours and hours in the car over the weekend and I feel like I'm back to square one with my yoga practice.

I'm on "Ladies' Holiday" this week and won't be doing much yoga anyway.

My tea doesn't have enough milk.

I need a haircut (this is hard).

I wanna go home and go to bed.

Dreary, rainy day.

Road Trip

In a silly little PT Cruiser.

Ciao!

Why I Can Never Get Anything Done

Open Letters

Dear Kind Stranger,
Although, like dear Ralph Waldo, I am bent on self-reliance, and like venerable Betsy, banner-builder, I grip the reins of my independence by its needle and thread, I offer you my deepest thanks for giving me your Metro seat this afternoon. I was not feeling well -- indeed, the horn call of my personal liberté, égalité, fraternité blared not from my bosom (see next letter) -- and was thankful to avoid the stomach-rupturing stench of the slob crammed aisle .
A thousand thanks,
Di

Dear Starbuck(s),
I supped last night on magnificent cuisine (of which the Proof was in the pudding, though I had none), and was, needless to say, unprepared to gorge myself on one of your one of your average-at-best pumpkin muffins during our morning routine. The shock to my system was truly earth-shattering; indeed, having choked down the brick, I felt as though I was doing damage to under-foot with every step as I plodded, pumpkin-esquely down the sidewalk. Were it not for that the Crisco sheen aided in the application of my cosmetics, I would have retributively left you the crumbs.
Resentfully,
Di

Home Again

I did a lot of running this past week down in Georgia, but not much yoga. So boy, was I feeling my hamstrings (and lower back, and calves, and shoulders) this morning in class. I purposefully took a Level I class because I knew I was going to need to ease back into things... god, I had it when my body is weak.

Two short weeks ahead, and a road trip to which I'm very much looking forward.

Ciao for now

I'm off for a week of top-secret training in a top-secret location.

Talk to y'all next weekend.

The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts...

I used to think that Christianity was stupid;

I used to think that in order to be perceived as having good taste I needed to criticize everything I saw/ate/read;

I used to hate olives;

I used to confuse arrogance and intelligence;

I used to think that being strong meant never needing anything from anyone;

I used to think that no one in the world was truly happy in their marriage.

..................................

I'm still afraid to answer a question unless I'm sure I know the answer;

I'm still afraid to try anything creative;

I still starve myself as punishment if I feel weak;

I still can't stop interrupting people on the phone;

I still can't do a yoga headstand;

I still enjoy dining in a restaurant by myself.

City Skyscape