Better Now

Wow, sorry for the alarm. I'm back on my feet. I left work a few hours early, took a nice long nap, and proceeded to have the strongest run that I can remember, in recent history.

I know myself as a runner well enough to know where my trouble spots are. I know that right around McKinley St I start to fatigue. I know that right after Military Rd, heading home, I start to get really bored and have to play a few mental games to get through it. I know how fast I need to start my run in order to have a positive split (i.e., running the second half faster than the first).

Today, none of that mattered. I started out at a clip that felt alarmingly fast. I never hit the wall. I never got bored. I probably shaved four minutes off my time, which is amazing at my pace and distance. I didn't want to stop. I wasn't breathing hard. I felt like a machine.

Self-Sabotage

Well, I never should have taken that second round of sedatives last night just before midnight, but I was desperate to get to sleep. It's mid-morning now and I'm clearly still under the influence. I could barely keep my feet under me this morning when I woke up.

I hate to say it, but I'm not sure I'll be able to manage my run this afternoon. Yesterday was my scheduled day off, and I don't want to take two in a row, but I would rather rest than have a bad run. I don't know. I'm trying to avoid making a decision until I get home from work and see how my body feels. Taking unscheduled days off is a Very Bad Habit to get into.

I hate this.

Suffocation

I fucking hate anxiety.

I'm suffocating and sedatives aren't working and I've been choking on my own breath for hours and that's just tonight. My alarm is going to go off way to soon to put up with this shit.

Go away and leave me alone. I fucking hate you.

ANXIETY

It's A Joy To Be-Fore I Sleep

The following is the result of a joint post composed by Matt and I after one and a half bottles of wine and scouring our memories for conversations over the past several years.

Reasons Matt and Diana Can Never Date

-Diana is too clean.
-Diana does not do well with "flaky" people. To her, this means people who do not always arrive EXACTLY when (or before) they say they will, or people who do not always do things EXACTLY as she expects them to be done. (N.B.: Diana's "expectations" are based (fairly) on what the person says they will do.)
-Diana has cats. Matt has a bird.
-Diana likes red wine. Matt only likes white wine.
-Diana notices everything Matt may happen to do accidentally. Matt thrives on people overlooking the little things.
-Diana can't sing. (N.B.: Not true!)
-Diana refuses to serenade Matt on her bazooki (N.B.: bouzouki).
-Diana thinks that Vespas are cooler than Segways.
-Diana makes more money than Matt does.
-Diana won't let Matt touch her. When Matt tries, she says, "HEY now! No funny stuff!"
-Diana is technologically inept.
-Diana is afraid of Matt's messy apartment.
-Diana is a fan of the "tough love" school of losing weight. Matt needs babying.
-Diana does not buy into Matt's many reasonable excuses.
-Diana likes the car/apartment far too warm for Matt's tastes.
-Diana gets up way too early and does not enjoy the night life.
-Diana is too argumentative.
-Diana doesn't like chick flicks.
-Matt has seen Diana naked in a professional context. (N.B.: Matt would still likely give Diana a chance because he is a compassionate individual. But to Diana, Matt is like a doctor. Matt has seen her, clinically, in all her glory. Romance is a difficult and fleeting thing to achieve, and the clinical aspect of the photography has made that tricky.)
-There is a lot of competition for Diana.

Let's hear it for collarbones!

Right, so, it's time to get all this under control again. I would like to bring my BMI down 1.5 points, and while I won't go so far as to post the current number (I'm not as brave as Matt when it comes to making personal stats public) I will let y'all know when it gets where it should be.

The weather is cold but generally mild and has made for the following schedule to be maintained pretty consistently:

Monday - 3.3 mile run
Tuesday - yoga
Wednesday - off
Thursday - 3.3 mile run
Friday - yoga
Saturday - 4 mile run
Sunday - yoga

I'm off ice cream indefinitely and trying to avoid the other winter culprits like hot chocolate and (my beloved) chai latte.

I have a host of special events on the calendar this year, including an upcoming trip to Manhattan and four weddings (two of which I'm standing in), so that should be enough motivation to keep the scale moving steadily down!

Nothing Further

Naked yoga. In my bathroom.

That's all I'm saying.

I can't seem to stop breaking glass today!

I woke up a klutz. My first act of the day was to break a glass in the kitchen. A few minutes later, I knocked my fruit bowl off the counter and spent a good minute cleaning up layers of shallot and garlic peel from the depths of the corners. Then I got on a bit of a cleaning kick and promptly shattered one of the glass lightbulb shields in my bathroom.

Later I managed to run AND go grocery shopping sans calamity, but the rest of the evening was spent inside never far from a precautionary box of band-aids.

I Feel Too Fat to go to Yoga

Or more precisely, I feel too fat to put on my fitted yoga clothes and stare at my self contorting in a mirror for an hour and a half.

I had the most delectable lunch: a panini with grilled chicken, avocado, and roasted red peppers. For dessert, a raspberry and strawberry crepe with one perfect scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Hence, fatness. I have fifteen minutes to decide what to do. Fourteen.

EDITED TO ADD: I went to yoga and I feel amazing. An inch taller. More lithe. Glad I swallowed my shallow body-consciousness and made a healthy choice. Here's to not being neurotic!

A Question for Myself

If a person prays to God for stronger faith, does God just give them faith? Or does He present them with situations that require faith and trust?

I don't pray for a specific path to present itself, I only pray that the path He has laid be illuminated and that, through grace, I am given the courage to walk down it.

One foot in front of the other...

Back in 2004 when I was distance running, I became co-dependent with my watch. I relied on it to track my pace, to ensure that I was running a positive split, and to schedule walk breaks (hey, don't judge me. When everything over 6 miles is a personal distance record and you're attemping 14 or 16 for the first time, you may need to walk a little. Or maybe that's just me.)

Since then, I've never, ever run without my watch. Until today, when I got home from work, suited up, and realized that the batteries were dead.

Can you guys believe that I almost bagged my run? Over a dead watch? How lame. After a stern self-lecture I abated my panic attack, laced up my shoes, and proceeded to run my strongest 3.3-miler since I got back out there a few months ago after my hamstring hiatus.

I powered up hills and let it fly on the plateaus. I sprinted through intersections to make the green light and lept over branches and curbs to avoid moms with strollers. I sweated, I burned, and I didn't miss my watch one bit.

Silver Lining

So I'm back to an annoying pre-0630h start time at work. But there is a bright side. Now that I take the 6:01 bus instead of the 6:36 bus, I can avoid the creepy Salvadoran guy half the time! Sometimes he is on my afternoon bus depending on which one I take, but at least I can avoid him in the morning.

Also, the 6:01 bus is right on time, and the 6:36 bus was very inconsistent and so I would end up having to go out early and wait up to ten minutes. And let me tell you, at that hour, every minute feels like an hour...

Temporary Hiatus

Yeah, I know I've been neglectful of IaJtbH lately... seems to be going around... I'll be back soon!

LOL!

Very funny.

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.