Super scary...

....or, just one of those meddling kids.

Decided to be "sporty Velma" after discovering that no retailer in Boston sells red mini-skirts after Labor Day.  And that no retailer anywhere sells rust orange knee highs, ever.  And that I look really busty in a tight turtleneck.  And that red Chucks are cheaper than red Mary Janes.

As my mother would say .... these are all pieces one could wear again.

The party was chock full of interesting guests (none who realized who I was dressed as -- although several guessed "autumn?"-- and them having to ask started many a conversation) and, as a bonus, featured the host's homemade Altbier, three pints of which went down So. Smoothly.

Yum.

If I'm allowed in my life to have one good Halloween, I'd say this one is allowed to count as that.

Help oh help oh help...

because

Halloween

is not

my favorite

High Holiday.

And,

I have

2

costume-themed

drink-fests

to attend Saturday night

(and I want to

be in the spirit and

meet cool people

who might say to me

"how cool and creative!")

but I have

yet

to make up my mind.

Of the following,

someone please tell me
which are the

coolest and the

sexiest and the

most weather appropriate and the

cheapest and the

easiest to track down on the

busiest costume-purchasing night

ever.

Velma

I already have the glasses, no?

Joan Benoit Samuelson
complete with American Flag drape
I already have the tennies.

And the marathon-trained legs.

But not the Olympic Gold Medal.

Martin Luther
complete with 95 theses
It's his 493rd anniversary on Sunday, after all.

And I could think of nothing warmer.

Or sexier.

Seriously.

Help?

1:52 am Theme Song

O beautiful, for hazy skies,
For heavy, muggy air.
For furnace hums and cricket cries
I do not really care!

Insomnia!  Insomnia!
Awake you're keeping me.
And crown thy hood with my bad mood
Tomorrow, sure will be!

O beautiful, for cereal,
For wireless outdoors.
For patio arboreal,
So tempting in its lore.

Insomnia! Insomnia!
Forgive my mimicry.
Take me to bed to rest, instead
Oh please, oh please, oh please!

I'm a wimp.

Last night after work I had a rehearsal. 

Then I ran 5.38 miles.

Then Balint and I and another friend went to the Cactus Club on Boylston to share 2 pitchers of the house margaritas (their website is http://www.bestmargaritas.com/) and eat fajitas and quesadillas until our stomachs stretched and our minds eased from pre-dinner stress levels. 

Then I rode the bus home and checked in on OKC because, hey, I was scheduling a coffee date (yes, indeed!) and my potential date and I had not yet (probably wisely) moved beyond e-mail exchanges on the site.

While performing this innocent task of communicating with said potential date which coffee shop to meet at tonight after work, I get "hey! it's been forever! how are ya!" IMs from:

1) So Busy He's Wildly Sporadic Man   Yeah, the one who fell asleep both times we made out and then disappeared, but now shows up every couple months to tell me he misses our times together.

And:

2) Stand-Up Comedian  Yeah, the one who, 29 months after our second date, still wants me to get over him being a George W. Bush Republican and give him another chance since we're both still single and not finding anyone so, hey, why not?

So re-read the first paragraph and note the detail about having split a couple pitchers of margaritas with my friends, and don't be surprised that, despite multiple previous efforts to pointedly ignore these re-inquiries, last night I decided to not be rude.

(Yes, squigkato, fool me for the twenty-seven-hundreth time....)

And yes, last night, both men asked me out again. 

And yes, I didn't agree to go out with either of them.

But.

Since I had replied less as a means of interest and more in the interest of not being rude (and maybe helped by the tequila), I found it impossible to be blunt.  Instead, as he (respectively) mooned over our previous "cuddling" and noted fondly his memory of my legs, I deflected  the compliments with a tone of disinterest.  Kind of hoping each would get the hint and go to off to bed so I wouldn't have to be any more obvious about saying no.

And each eventually did.

But.

Why am I such a wimp?

Weekend observations

1) Don't buy cheap cat litter in bulk.

2) Whoever (yeah you, Joshua) said Brett Favre will either take you to the mountaintop or to the pit of despair and nowhere in between should be hailed as a great sage, especially if he grew up as a cheesehead.

3) A flat tire on a bike is markedly less expensive to fix than a flat tire on the car, so it might be considered irresponsible to have driven the car with the leaky tires around town a half-dozen times while the bike with the already flat tire remained parked, upside-down, on the living room rug.

4) It's official:  chocolate chip cookie dough tastes better raw than cooked.

4b) It admittedly might be considered irresponsible to buy a 32-ounce bag of chocolate chips the night before baking the cookies, rather than the night of, when the baker has a documented ability to eat at least half a bag of chocolate chips in a single setting.

4c) Fifteen spoonfuls of raw chocolate chip cookie dough a half bag of chocolate chips do not constitute adequate nutrition either before or after an 11-mile run.

5) Saturday morning's 11-mile run was lots and lots of fun!

Long Run #14: The short & the slightly longer

The short story:

I was quite tired Saturday morning.  I had an afternoon-long choral rehearsal beginning at 1:30.  I wanted to leave for my 15-mile run by 8:30 a.m..  But I did not get up until 9:30 and I did not leave home until 11:01. 

Which means I ran 11 miles instead of 15 not because I felt shitty, but because I did not want to be late for rehearsal.

The slightly longer story:

The morning was breezy, cool and cloudless and all the trees lining Castle Island and Day Boulevard had yellow leaves.  I didn't carry water or fuel.  I wore shorts and a long-sleeved tee.  Legs felt loose.  Shoulders felt loose.  Running on the Boston Harborwalk created a most agreeable sandwich of Dorchester Bay on one side and the JFK Presidential Library on the other.  The tradeoff was returning through the industrial greyness of Mass Ave as it crossed 93 and hit Andrew Square.  But the tradeoff's tradeoff was that after coming through the grey, I found myself at a Dunkin' Donuts not 2 blocks from my house with a Turbo Ice in my hand.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I also had an epiphany that eludes me more often than it should. 

Some mornings, when I don't feel like running, I need to not think about being tired and instead be thankful that I can run (and can run as long as I want), even if it is rushed, because it is a privilege to have a healthy, capable body and mind.  In particular I should also remember that on the one afternoon I have the privilege of singing music such as this with musicians such as this, short-changing the 14th of 17 weekend runs isn't a sin.

Too complicated?

Dear readers, you have long heard tales about men on OKC or Match.com who need to either tell me about or show me photos of their penises. 

I often wonder (and should I ask in the future?) if they are clueless as to how blasé I (and I would assume most women on most dating sites) consider such attention.  If you are a woman and have allowed any iota of flirtation into your online profile, men approaching you with what's in their pants is a fact of the matter.

About a year ago I attempted to hit the attention head on with cheekiness, making this the last line of my OKC profile.

"You should message me if ... You have yet to convince yourself that the coolest thing ever would be to tell me ad nauseum about your genitalia, and you don't think I'm trying to impress you by using big words to talk about something so basic."

When men read this and respond in a way that makes me think they get the joke, I'm reminded of why I bothered to write it.

Then I get responses like today, which make me wonder if I'm just confusing the issue.

"My man bits are sesquipedalian.  (And even the OKC spell checker is choking on that!)

"I think that was the way you wanted to be messaged -- or at least that what I got from your rather odd "Message me" requirements. I had to reread it a few times to be sure.....

"Not to judge, but how long have you had this fetish for guys talking about their private parts with long words?"

Cookies!

Sometimes you feel like a nut  .... sometimes you don't.

Sometimes you feel like blogging ....sometimes you don't.

Like today, I don't.

Dude, I'm just tired. It's the end of the third quarter, and I've been aerobically stapling and stuffing envelopes for 9 hours.

I've been sitting here the last 85 minutes trying to summon some small mojo to go out in the dark and run ... and the minutes keep ticking by and I haven't gone out and the hour does not get any earlier.

Then, there are the 2 baskets of dirty laundry waiting in my bedroom. And my bike with flat tire, sitting upside down on my living room rug.

And then I'm thinking about the continued aerobic staple-and-stuff routine tomorrow, ending with a 3-hour choir rehearsal followed by another one just like it on Saturday with that Long Run #14 sandwiched somewhere in there too.

And, how much more of a schmuck could I be?  I didn't mail my grandma's birthday card until the day after her birthday.

Oy.  It's kinda been like this all week.

This morning I was reading my friend Fran's blog (as you should too) to discover she was kinda in the same mood:

"I'm not having enough fun lately. Is anybody having a lot of fun? I mean laughing their asses off? Or feeling exhilarated? Or surprised? Or delighted? Or dancing the night away? Is anybody meeting the fun quotient in their lives?

Maybe mine is just abnormally impossible to meet or something. I don't know. Maybe my fun standards are too high. But lately I sort of feel like a whiny adult wishing I was a kid again and could just have some old fashioned fun!

This is what most of my days and nights are spent doing: sleeping, working, thinking, worrying, talking to other adults about life and problems, playing music (because I should), trying to pay bills, watching some stupid tv, and getting into bed thinking about stuff I should have done. Where is the fun in that? Is being a responsible adult really this sucky?"

Amen, sister.

But I was pleased to see that one of her best friends (and one of my past acquaintances) Lauren was having none of Fran's (self-said) whining, coming onto the comments section to say:

"Here's my Top Ten list of FUN grown-up things that don't involve drinking or spending too much money:

1) Bake some cookies from scratch. Eat a couple right off the pan, while they're still gooey. Then pack up the rest in baggies, tie them with ribbons, and surprise your friends and co-workers with little gifts. They will smile. You will smile. FUN!"

Woah.  No need to go on to number 2, Lauren.
 
The marathon is exactly 30 days from today and I probably can't skip the run. 
 
But maybe the laundry and the flat tire and the fear of my next 48 hours can go suck themselves and instead I'll just buy some chocolate chips on the way home.

Birthday Shout-Out: Martha (Again!)

I can say with 97% certainty that for 37 out of 37 years, my grandma has gotten a birthday card to me on time. 

With 96% certainty, I'd guess that on no fewer than 36 of those 37 years, it arrived several days early.

My grandma's 91st birthday is today, and my card for her is still stuffed into the outside pocket of my backpack. 

Obviously I did not inherit promptness from my grandma.

 

With the grandkids at the 90-year celebration
 -- October 2009

Luckily I did get her good skin, fabulous hair, fast typing skills and a cool family .... of which she very well may be the coolest since she kind of started it all.

XOXO

Worth the time (2 tales)

On Sunday I picked up a boy friend of mine from his girlfriend's apartment so we could go to a bar to watch football and drink beer.

While driving westward on Storrow into the 5 o'clock sun, I noticed I could almost not see the road through the mess of dried water droplets and streaky handprints on the inside of the front window.

"Hey. Remember that entry I wrote about the ridiculous long kiss?" I asked him, laughing.

He looked where I was gesturing, and replied:

"You mean we're seeing the remnants of your make-out session on the windshield?"

(We were. I had wiped the steam off before driving home so I could see out. In that pattern it thusly dried, seemingly for eternity.)

Last night after the gym, I stopped at the Tam on Tremont to meet Joshua.

So the definition of an acceptable Monday night is this: hanging at a dive bar with a best friend, drinking Narrangansett tall-boys, and watching Texas donut-hole the Yankees. Then, after getting up-to-date on the newest details about his upcoming wedding, heading to the back of the bar .... for to kick his butt in Ms. Pac-Man. 

(OK. It was only a little kicking. I won. But it was close.)

I didn't grow up with brothers. I didn't have close guy friends in high school. And I was too nervous to relax enough to have them, either, in college.

Even if my focus now is (or should be? must be?) finding men to date, I've been reminded that it isn't a waste of time to spend it with men who I'm not.

Long Run #13: (Good) Luck

No whammys!  No whammys!

I’m crossing my fingers. Knocking on wood. Winking at God.

Week 13 out of 18, and damned if I don’t feel good.

Saturday night I ran 21 miles and ... my legs still move onward and upward at my command.  Knees don’t ache. Right illobitial band doesn’t twinge. Calves aren’t cramping. Proper hydration and sugar-consumption rate seems to have been discovered. Asics still springy. Mental game of singing one hymn on repeat for 3 hours adequately passes time.

All of which rocks.

And all of which means I better shut up the bragging before any (inevitable) curses (as have so often in the past) hereto befall.

TGIF

So, I
just spent
the whole
75-minute
slow-flow
yoga class
cursing the
(perfectly sweet,
cheerful and
zen-like)
teacher for
taking poses
too slowly
and wishing
for a
jumbo glass
of chardonnay.

(Or two.)

Which perfectly
sums up
the kind
of (frustrating,
mind-numbing,
nothing-done-
right) day
I had.

Off to
the bar ...
.... ya think?

Writes too well?

I took a work break late this afternoon to walk about the Back Bay with Claudia. 

(It's October, by the way, and you must visit the Public Garden if you haven't.  Go now or go later.  C paused frequently to take iPhone photos of mums and forsythia and the ridiculous green of the grass.)

She and I get out like this every couple weeks, in most weather.  I wish we did it more often.  We get coffee if we feel like it.  We stride manfully if we feel like it.  We stop if Claudia sees a "cute doggie!"  We stop and gesticulate wildly if one of us has an emotion to Express. Right. Now.  Whatever the prevailing mood.  I rarely return to work without knowing I've undergone a catharsis.

Today was no exception.  We hadn't spoken in 10 days and when 2 talkers get together ... well, yes:  wild gesticulation from both parties.

For my part, I had to certainly share the night of kissing, the Week 11 long run triumph, and a (what I thought was a well-articulated) e-mail I'd written to someone over a shared confusion.... and my puzzlement at why that someone hadn't yet acknowledged it, well after polite-response-period had passed.

Claudia is a sage and a writer I trust.  So back at the office, knowing she had context of situation in head, I forwarded her the e-mail for an opinion.  Which was:

"Hmmm ... such a lovely email to not respond to. Articulate. Honest. Makes ya wonder don't it? Sometimes it's hard to get together the wherewithal to respond to something that says so much, and so well, right away, and then you put it off a day and it seems not do-able ... your writing seems a bit effortless, which is wonderful, but perhaps a tad hard to 'match'"

Damn.  She's right.  Unintentional intimidation. 

Maybe I should have said:

"Hey there.  I'm confused about some stuff from the other day.   I'm sure talking about it could clear it up.   When can we meet?"

This might not have elicited a response either. Although it might have given more impression of an open door for someone to walk back through.

As right as Claudia is (and I say this without facetiousness), it seems odd that thinking hard and writing well might be the wrong approach to a resolution.

Witchy woman

Here is what I look like on my bike:

Some of my neighbors in Southie think I look like this:

Last night

Ms Gulch's distinct tune

was being sung

by the occupants of a car at the corner of
West 3rd and Dorchester

as I cruised by.

Way to stay classy, Southie!
(as always)

Sweet talk me, baby!

It's official. I have the following description stamped on my forehead:

Are you a man who has just gotten out of a long-term relationship and doesn't want really want to get into anything serious right now? Or, might you be a man who has just met a great woman (doesn't have to be me) and you don't know where it's going so you're still exploring your options? Or, did you just get ditched by this great woman and you've had a beer and you're feeling lonely and need to do something, anything, to imagine someone else's legs besides her's wrapped around you?

Talk to me! Talk to me!

I expect nothing. Want nothing. Need nothing.

Last night, despite spotty wireless that kept throwing me off of OKC, I kept chatting with a certain Cantabrigian because we were talking about him being a poet and a teacher and once having lived in Southie and I was thinking he was over 30 and had good stubble and seemed serious and had written me first.

Karin:  You do emphasize your writing over your teaching in your profile, though...
Cambridge Poet:  yeah.  I teach to facilitate my writing
K:  And....
CP:  and to be able to do it
K:  Ah. Indeed.
CP  because there is no money in poetry
K:  I hear you.  I got to Boston when I came for an MFA.
CP:  cool.  Do you still write?
K:  I do now.
CP:  goood.   you can't let that fade. as tough as it is

Of course I can't.

CP:   there are systems that make it so that art making is not viable
CP:  and writing is my top passion
CP:  and it is like the 10th thing I can do
CP:  because I like not being homeless and I like food  :-)
K:  I actually specialize in self-deprecation.
CP:  hahaha
K:  And try to be funny about it.
CP:  we kind of have to I think, to be writers
K:  Indeed.  Overly self-conscious can be tedious.
CP:  yeah we need to blow off steam
CP:  pressure release
CP:  and mostly by laughing at our existential angst

Of course!  (I think I know what existential angst is but am not sure if I'm laughing at it.  Nonetheless.  He's a writer!  He's talking to me about writing!)

K:  I think people can identify with someone who can laugh at herself, also.
CP:  ha.  I think so
K:  I started my blog, BTW, to chronicle my attempts at online dating. ;-)
CP:  the world is serious
K:  Online dating is not.
CP:  going well?
K:  the dating or the blog?
CP:  not had much luck
CP:  but I have been here less than a week
CP:  well the form and the content are inseparable no?
K:  Indeed.  Although my dating life has enough ups and downs that I had to branch into other areas of my life .... running, singing, just living in the city, etc. Southie.
K:  I get a constant stream of amusement from OKC, though.
CP:  fair enough
CP:  there are a lot of people (here) that take themselves seriously
CP:  I met one really great person
CP:  but it is totally a casual thing
CP:  not sure where it is going

Of course you did.  And of course you don't.

CP:  It just kinda happened
CP:  she isn't close to here
CP:  and I assume we will meet up again
CP:  not pursuing the dating thing right now

Of course you're not.  Let's talk about it some more.

K:  How's that going?
CP:  It is fine
CP:  I am not necessarily looking for anything
CP:  just looking to live right now, see who I meet
CP:  most of my friends moved away
CP:  need more fun things to do

Of course you do.

K:  So what's your motivation, then?
CP:  To maybe meet some people and have more fun in my life
CP:  I have been like shoulder to the wheel for 15 years
CP:  and the past 3 months I have been single for the first time in over a decade
CP:  so not rushing into anything

Of course you aren't.

K:  Ah.  Well congrats, though, on scoring the casual thing so soon.
K:  I know some guys who would be most jealous...
CP:  yeah.  and believe me
CP:  she was the hottest woman I have ever been with
K:  Well congrats, then.
CP:  thanks
K:  Hopefully she could say the same.
CP:  I am not sure
CP:  but I liked her as a person and would pursue
CP:  but she is being cool about it
CP:  so I am not gonna like try and force a relationship

Of course.  Because she probably realizes you are just wanting some more fun in your life.

K:  So how come you felt like chatting with me tonight?
CP:  I just was bored
CP:  and wanted to see kind of what other people are using this for
CP:  to some degree my writer mind is at play
CP:  like yours
K:  Ah.  Well I'm glad I was that intriguing.

Actually, my writer mind was hoping to not be talking to a man who (again) saw me as a cure for his boredom when hot dream woman (who of course he liked as person) wasn't around and, resultingly, inserted his ego into an hour of my life I will never get back.

Long Run #12: Not really a long run

It was a cloudless, cool day along the Arborway, the Jamaicaway, the Riverway and the long, rolling hills of Franklin Park.

Chalk up a fourth B.A.A. half marathon (aptly the 10th anniversary of the event on 10-10-10) .... and note it as 20 seconds faster than last year.

One of the more satisfying things about reaching this point in the marathon training:  13.1 miles no longer sounds like a long run.

(It still feels like one.  Especially when I want to run fast and don't feel like I can, legs weary from mileage-building.  Double especially when I forget how the tension, adrenaline and effort of road-racing for 2 hours saps even plentiful energy stores. Despite a mid-afternoon nap, I'm twice as exhausted tonight as I was last week after nearly 3 hours of the pressure-free same.)

One of the more satisfying (and most often forgotten) benefits of Southie is its proximity to Boston Harbor.  It's on the drive home and in October, the beach is empty.

 Sugar Bowl looking toward Castle Island

Which makes possible a third satisfying thing:  enlisting the waves to leech the ache out of some wicked sore running feet.

Aaaahhhh.

Anatomy of a kiss

I can't help it.  I really like kissing.  I really like powerful kissing, kissing with intent.

Friday night I (nigh, almost unbelievably) saw C-2 for the first time since June. It was his birthday. I was out with other friends and knowing that, checked in with him at just after midnight to see if he was out. Lo, he was not, but came out for a Guinness with me at Foley's anyway. The bar closed and we headed to the warmth of my car to finish our conversation. When at 3:30 he needed to head home, I suggested he kiss me goodnight before leaving the car.

He closed the door and obliged.  A powerful kiss, leaning over the gearshift, with intent. At first breakaway he pulled away an inch, mumbling,

"I forgot how well you and I kiss together."

Before I could mumble my assent, he grabbed my neck and leaned in again and I grabbed the back of his head to get him as close as possible as soon as possible.

An hour later, as a street sweeper and various late-night drinkers passed by on Kingston Street, we were still kissing like high schoolers at Inspiration Point, having fogged all 6 car windows and the glass of the sunroof.

I had not forgotten how well C-2 and I kiss together. I could not help myself, and wanted it to go on as long as stamina and wakefulness allowed.

This morning I woke up with bruised lips and have been thinking most of today about the depth and intensity of the kissing.  I have kissed some good kissers in my life, yet this was dangerously good.  Also, how for someone with aspirations for a serious boyfriend who doesn't believe or think C-2 will ever fulfill every or even any of the other requirements to be one (and is what one of my boy friends calls "a distraction") and know for that reason alone, plus our history of plan-making impossibility due to his work, plus the simple fact that a good kisser with good rapport does not necessarily a good relationship make, I shouldn't ever let myself again into a car with C-2 or ask him to kiss me goodnight again.

Might be a unrealistic resolution.

All that

If I can still LOL!
to OKC IM requests like

"who says cynicism isn't hot?
also piano is hot, too."

I'm probably not all that cynical,
and life probably ain't all that bad.

How dare I ....

.... let National Unmarried & Single Americans Week (Sept 19-25) pass by without a mention in this space.

(I have no excuse either.  Friend A sent me the link to a Wall Street Journal article while it was still going on two weeks ago. Mea culpa! I'm just now reading that there are 88 unmarried men 18 and older for every 100 unmarried women in the United States.)

Indeed, also, did anyone here know before tonight of a group called "Unmarried America: an information service for the new unmarried majority" that offers unsolicited legal counsel, among other advice, for singles?

Or that, according to celebratelove.com, "there is no shame in being single?"   This same site also informs me of SingleWomenRule.com: a lifestyle blog for unmarried women (catchphrase: "revel in life's magic and feel truly fulfilled...") that also hosts the "Annual Blog Crawl for National Unmarried and Single Americans Week."

Where was I during all of this besides running, working, not sleeping and going on dates?

(Not mocking. Not endorsing. Just noting, I promise.)

(Yes, I'm working on my cynicism.)

My favorite coverage of NU&SAW comes via the cheekiest blog on the radar, New York Magazine's Daily Intel.  Its September 21 entry is the only bit of hoopla that didn't make me feel I have to be either self-satisfied or forcibly empowered:

Hey Singletons!

Did anyone tell you this is our week? Thanks to the noble efforts of the Buckeye Singles Council of Ohio back in the eighties, this entire week the country comes together to celebrate us! Us and our meaningless sexcapades! Us and our boundless freedom! Us and our disavowal of the prescribed path! Although in years past all that untethered energy may have led us down the winding, John Mayer–strewn road from LiLo to Jennifer Aniston, this year it's going to be totally different, we can tell.

Bottom's up!

xoxo, Intel

That's more like it.

How about some Kool & the Gang, on me, while we're at it.

xoxo, Karin

Missing: mojo (Found: something else)

Wow.  My blogging mojo is nowhere to be found this week.

I'd like to suggest that, just like the onset of allergies, the feeling is attributable to the true onset of fall .... which since Sunday has meant fog, rain, rinse, repeat and looks like this out my workplace window:

Might just be lazy.  Or tired and cranky. 

Or I might just be using excess brain cells, instead, to beat the everloving Guinness out of C-2 in Facebook Scrabble for like the first time ever.

Yeah.  I've given up thinking I'll ever see him in person again, even as he's been unusually loyal in annihilating my word-making ego these past months.  It bodes well that the losses currently sting more than the not seeing him in person .... which I'd call personal progress.

Below I give you our recent games and names for them, so that you might note the progression from bad to worse to bad to better ..... to Oh. My. God. How. Good. Does. It. Feel. To. Finally. Win.:

Yes, I Enjoy Losing (named by Karin)
C-2:  356   K:  273

Again? (K)
C-2:  379   K:  285

Another Chance to Lose! (named by C-2)
(and was it ever)
C-2:  445   K:  308

American League! (C-2)
(after he thought I didn't know what league the Sox played in)
C-2:  414    K:  284
(a vicious pummeling due to his jealousy of my Sox dugout seats that night)

In Lieu of Guinness  (K)
(closer!)
C-2:  381   K:  302

Life's a Bitch and Then ... (K)
(closer still!)
C-2:  370  K:  303

Still in Lieu of Guinness (K)
K:  373    C-2:   370
(That's right.  Won by building a double word score off his last play and gaining the 2 remaining points from his leftover tiles. The equivalent of a Hail Mary pass after the other team throws a turnover.)

Which is why I named our current game:

F***ing Sweet.

Which I'm currently winning.

So there.  Again.)

Long Run #11: Reunion

On Saturday, my 15-year college class reunion went on without me.

My (somewhat surprising) sadness at not being in Minnesota for the occasion was tempered by the satisfaction of being in better physical shape than in 1995.

(It helped that I was kicking ass on a 19-mile run, too.)

Yeah, you heard that right.  My route may have slapped me around last week, but on Saturday I did the ass-kicking.  Sub-3 hours. Almost sub-9s. Proper fueling. Energy to spare.

(We're tied now, baby.)

No marathon training season would be complete without the requisite Spectacular Wipeout Leading to Possible Injury (i.e. reunion with the road).  Saturday fulfilled this need.  At mile 5, as I came upon Mt. Lebanon Cemetery, my right ankle went out from under and I rolled into the middle of Baker Street.

While I was able to dust off and keep on trucking, my left shin got the brunt of the asphalt slide.  Left shoulder also feels like a 20-pound weight is sitting on it.  My right ankle, though, is the most seriously unhappy ... a sprain, perhaps ... enough to be swollen to twice its size and require a new addiction to ibuprofen.  Although it is not pain, per se. Not enough for me to yet reconsider the BAA Half-Marathon on tap for next Sunday.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger, eh?

No place like home

You might recall back in April that I decided to give up buying coffee in public this year.

Um ....right. My dozen or more Starbucks Black Eyes in August alone officially make this ploy for self-control, while not quite an epic FAIL, a noble idea perhaps ungrounded (ha!) in reality.

I'll give this though: I definitely do not buy coffee out as much as I did before April. The grinder in my kitchen is currently stocked with 365 Everyday Value beans from Whole Foods and 5 out of 7 mornings I brew a pot and drink from it.

This, though, was not one of those mornings. Short sleep night. Awoken (much later than planned) to condo construction (in the backhoe-scraping-on-concrete phase) through the patio window and hot, humid wind blowing through the front.  Not wanting or willing to bike to and from work through an approaching tropical storm, subjected myself to the equal joys (a.k.a. slow torture) of the #9. 

This kind of morning calls for Dunkin' Donuts Turbo Ice with an extra shot.  On my way to the bus stop I hit up the nearest location at the corner of Dot and Broadway. And as I stood in line, glazed and dazed, the woman behind the cash register saw me and yelled out (because in Southie you must yell):

"Where have you been? We never see you in here anymore!"

Ah, beautiful.  Even if I once again broke my fiscal pledge, being missed by my neighborhood coffee counter more than makes up for the guilt.